Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Lewis Taylor (for "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters") also wrote a novel entitled "A Roaring in the Wind," which features the vicious outlaw Slade as a character. Taylor even quotes from Twain's description of a meeting Sam and Orion had with Slade while on the stage coach journey from Missouri to Nevada, which appears in "Roughing It." Could A Roaring in the Wind have been inspired by Taylor reading "Roughing It"? I always considered The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters to be Twainesque - Jaimie was quite Huckish. - B. Clay Shannon