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We retired to Randall's little room to deliberate. Not a man of the twelve of us had the first doubt as to the guilt of the prisoners. We took a ballot. The result was eleven for acquittal and one for conviction. I had cast the one vote for conviction.
We argued the matter for three hours.
"There's no doubt the men are guilty," said one. "That isn't the question. The question is, dare we declare it?"
"It amounts to announcing our own death sentence," argued another. "Those fellows would stand together, but who of the lot would stand by us? Why, we don't even know for sure who would be with us."
"This case ought never to have been tried by a jury," complained a third bitterly. "It ought to have been tried in a miners' court; and if it hadn't been for those soft heads who were strong for doing things 'regularly' instead of sensibly, we'd have had it done that way."
"Well," said an older man gravely, "I agree to that. I am going to be governed in my decision not by the merits of the case, but by the fact that I have a family back in the States. I consider my obligations to them greater than to this community."
I reasoned with them for a long time, bringing to bear all the arguments I had heard advanced at various times during our discussions in Danny Randall's back room. At last, seeing I could in no manner shake their resolution, I gave in. After all, I could not blame them. The case was to them only one of cattle stealing; they had no chance to realize that it was anything more. Without solicitation on my part they agreed to keep secret my opposition to the verdict of acquittal.
Our decision was greeted by wild yells and the discharge of pistols on the part of the rough element. The meeting broke up informally and in confusion. It would have been useless for the presiding officer to have attempted to dismiss court. The mob broke through en masse to congratulate the prisoners. Immediately the barkeepers were overwhelmed with work. Here and there I could see a small group of the honest men talking low-voiced, with many shakes of the head. Johnny, Old, and Cal, who had attended with his arm slung up, had their heads together in a corner. Danny Randall, who, it will be remembered, had not appeared publicly in any way, stood at his customary corner of the bar watching all that was going on. His gamblers were preparing to reopen the suspended games.
After conferring together a moment the three express messengers made their way slowly across the room to the bar. I could not see exactly what happened, but heard the sudden reverberations of several pistol shots. The lamps and glasses rattled with the concussion, the white smoke of the discharges eddied and rose. An immediate dead silence fell, except for the sounds made by the movements of those seeking safe places. Johnny and his two friends shoulder to shoulder backed slowly away toward the door. Johnny and Old presented each two pistols at the group around the bar, while Cal, a revolver in his well hand, swept the muzzle slowly from side to side. Nobody near the bar stirred. The express messengers backed to the door.
"Keep your heads inside," warned Johnny clearly. On the words they vanished.
Immediately pandemonium broke loose. The men along the bar immediately became very warlike; but none of those who brandished pistols tried to leave the building. From the swing and sway of the crowd, and the babel of yells, oaths, threats, and explanations I could make nothing. Danny Randall alone of all those in the room held his position unmoved. At last a clear way offered, so I went over to him.
"What's happened?" I shouted at him through the din.
Danny shrugged his shoulders.
"They killed Carhart and Malone," Danny replied curtly.
It seemed, I ascertained at last, that the three had advanced and opened fire on the two ex-prisoners without warning.
As soon as possible I made my escape and returned to our own camp. There I found the three of them seated smoking, their horses all saddled, standing near at hand.
"Are they coming our way?" asked Johnny instantly.
I told them that I had seen no indications of a mob.
"But why did you do it?" I cried. "It's an open challenge! They'll get you boys now sure!"
"That remains to be seen," said Johnny grimly. "But it was the only thing to do. If Carhart and Malone had ever been given time to report on our confab the other evening, you and Danny Randall and Dr. Rankin would have been marked men. Now no one knows of your connection with this matter."
"But they'll be after you——"
"They were after us in any case," Johnny pointed out. "Don't deceive yourself there. Now you keep out of this and let us do it."
"I reckon we can handle this bunch," said Old.
"Lord! what a lot of jellyfish!" cried Johnny disgustedly. "Danny was right enough about them. But let me state right here and once again that practical jokes on immigrants are going to be mighty unhealthy here."
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE RULE OF THE LAWLESS
No concerted attempt was made by the roughs to avenge the execution of their comrades. Whether they realized that such an attempt would be likely to solidify the decent element, or whether that sort of warfare was not their habit, the afternoon and night wore away without trouble.
"Danger's over," announced Johnny the following morning.
"What next?" I asked.
"We'll go up to town," said Johnny.
This they proceeded to do, negativing absolutely my desire to accompany them.
"You stay out of this," said Johnny. "Go and wash gold as usual."
I was immensely relieved that afternoon when they returned safe and sound. Afterward I heard that they had coolly visited every saloon and gambling place, had stopped in each to chat with the barkeepers and gamblers, had spent the morning seated outside the Bella Union, and had been in no manner molested.
"They'll be all right as long as they stick together and keep in the open," Yank assured me. "That gang will sooner assassinate than fight."
Although for the moment held in check by the resolute front presented by these three boys, the rough element showed that it considered it had won a great victory, and was now entitled to run the town. Members of the gang selected what goods they needed at any of the stores, making no pretence of payment. They swaggered boldly about the streets at all times, infested the better places such as the Bella Union, elbowed aside insolently any inoffensive citizen who might be in their way, and generally conducted themselves as though they owned the place. Robberies grew more frequent. The freighters were held up in broad daylight; rumours of returning miners being relieved of their dust drifted up from the lower country; mysterious disappearances increased in number. Hardly an attempt was made to conceal the fact that the organized gang that conducted these operations had its headquarters at Italian Bar. Strange men rode up in broad daylight, covered with red dust, to confer with Morton or one of the other resident blackguards. Mysteriously every desperado in the place began to lay fifty-dollar octagonal slugs on the gaming tables, product of some lower country atrocity.
The camp soon had a concrete illustration of the opinion the roughs held of themselves. It was reported quietly among a few of us that several of our number had been "marked" by the desperadoes. Two of these were Joe Thompson, who had acted as counsel for the prosecution in the late trial, and Tom Cleveland, who had presided, and presided well, over the court. Thompson kept one of the stores, while Cleveland was proprietor of the butcher shop. No overt threats were made, but we understood that somehow these men were to be put out of the way. Of course they were at once warned.
The human mind is certainly a queer piece of mechanism. It would seem that the most natural thing to have done, in the circumstances, would have been to dog these men's footsteps until an opportunity offered to assassinate them quietly. That is just what would have been done had the intended victims been less prominently in the public eye. The murder of court officials, however, was a very different matter from the finding of an unknown miner dead in his camp or along the trail. In the former case there could be no manner of doubt as to the perpetrators of the deed—the animus was too directly to be traced. And it is a matter for curious remark that in all early history, whether of California in the forties, or of Montana in the bloodier sixties, the desperadoes, no matter how strong they felt themselves or how arrogantly they ran the community, nevertheless must have felt a great uncertainty as to the actual power of the decent element. This is evidenced by the fact that they never worked openly. Though the identity of each of them as a robber and cut-throat was a matter of common knowledge, so that any miner could have made out a list of the members of any band, the fact was never formally admitted. And as long as it was not admitted, and as long as actual hard proof was lacking, it seemed to be part of the game that nothing could be done. Moral certainties did not count until some series of outrages resulted in mob action.
Now consider this situation, which seemed to me then as it seems to me now, most absurd in every way. Nobody else considered it so. Everybody knew that the rough element was out to "get" Thompson and Cleveland. Everybody, including both Thompson and Cleveland themselves, was pretty certain that they would not be quietly assassinated, the argument in that case being that the deed would be too apt to raise the community. Therefore it was pretty well understood that some sort of a quarrel or personal encounter would be used as an excuse. Personally I could not see that that would make much essential difference; but, as I said, the human mind is a curious piece of mechanism.
Among the occasional visitors to the camp was a man who called himself Harry Crawford. He was a man of perhaps twenty-five years, tall, rather slender, with a clear face and laughing blue eyes. Nothing in his appearance indicated the desperado; and yet we had long known him as one of the Morton gang. This man now took up his residence in camp; and we soon discovered that he was evidently the killer. The first afternoon he picked some sort of a petty quarrel with Thompson over a purchase, but cooled down instantly when unexpectedly confronted by a half dozen miners who came in at the opportune moment. A few days afterward in the slack time of the afternoon Thompson, while drinking at the bar of the Empire and conversing with a friend, was approached by a well-known sodden hanger-on of the saloons.
"What 'n hell you fellows talking about?" demanded this man impudently.
"None of your business," replied Thompson impatiently, for the man was a public nuisance, and besides was deep in Thompson's debt.
The man broke into foul oaths.
"I'll dare you to fight!" he cried in a furious passion.
Facing about, Thompson saw Crawford standing attentively among the listeners, and instantly comprehended the situation.
"You have the odds of me with a pistol," said Thompson, who notoriously had no skill with that weapon. "Why should I fight you?"
"Well, then," cried the man, "put up your fists; that'll show who is the best man!"
He snatched off his belt and laid it on the bar. Thompson did the same.
"Come on!" cried the challenger, backing away.
Thompson, thoroughly angry, reached over and slapped his antagonist. The latter promptly drew another revolver from beneath his coat, but before he could aim it Thompson jumped at his throat and disarmed him. At this moment Crawford interfered, apparently as peacemaker. Thompson was later told secretly by the barkeeper that the scheme was to lure him into a pistol fight in the street, when Crawford would be ready to shoot him as soon as the first shot was fired.
On the strength of his interference Crawford next pretended to friendship, and spent much of his time at Thompson's store. Thompson was in no way deceived. This state of affairs continued for two days. It terminated in the following manner: Crawford, sitting half on the counter, and talking with all the great charm of which he was master, led the subject to weapons.
"This revolver of mine," said he, at the same time drawing the weapon from its holster, "is one of the old navy model. You don't often see them nowadays. It has a double lock." He cocked it as though to illustrate his point, and the muzzle, as though by accident, swept toward the other man. He looked up from his affected close examination to find that Thompson had also drawn his weapon and that the barrel was pointing uncompromisingly in his direction.
For a moment the two stared each other in the eye. Then Crawford sheathed his pistol with an oath.
"What do you mean by that?" he cried.
"I mean," said Thompson firmly, "that I do not intend you shall get the advantage of me. You know my opinion of you and your gang. I shall not be shot by any of you, if I can help it."
Crawford withdrew quietly, but later in the day approached a big group of us, one of which was Thompson.
"There's a matter between you and me has got to be settled!" he cried.
"Well, I can't imagine what it is," replied Thompson. "I'm not aware that I've said or done anything to you that needs settlement."
"You needn't laugh!" replied Crawford, with a string of insulting oaths. "You're a coward; and if you're anything of a man you will step out of doors and have this out."
"I am, as you say, a coward," replied Thompson quietly, "and I see no reason for going out of doors to fight you or anybody else."
After blustering and swearing for a few moments Crawford withdrew. He made no attempt to fight, nor do I believe his outburst had any other purpose than to establish the purely personal character of the quarrel between Thompson and himself. At any rate, Thompson was next morning found murdered in his bunk, while Crawford had disappeared. I do not know whether Crawford had killed him or not; I think not.
About this time formal printed notices of some sort of election were posted on the bulletin board at Morton's place. At least they were said to have been posted, and were pointed out to all comers the day after election. Perhaps they were there all the time, as claimed, but nobody paid much attention to them. At any rate, we one day awoke to the fact that we were a full-fledged community, with regularly constituted court officers, duly qualified officials, and a sheriff. The sheriff was Morton, and the most worthy judges were other members of his gang!
This move tickled Danny Randall's sense of humour immensely.
"That's good head work," he said approvingly. "I didn't think Morton had it in him."
"It's time something was done to run that gang out of town," fumed Dr. Rankin.
"No; it is not time," denied Danny, "any more than it was time when you and Johnny and the rest of you had your celebrated jury trial."
"I'd like to know what you are driving at!" fretted the worthy doctor.
Danny Randall laughed in his gentle little fashion. I will confess that just at that time I was very decidedly wondering what Danny Randall was at. In fact, at moments I was strongly inclined to doubt his affiliations. He seemed to stand in an absolutely neutral position, inclining to neither side.
Tom Cleveland was killed in the open street by one of the Empire hangers-on. The man was promptly arrested by Morton in his capacity of sheriff, and confined in chains. Morton, as sheriff, selected those who were to serve on the jury. I had the curiosity to attend the trial, expecting to assist at an uproarious farce. All the proceedings, on the contrary, were conducted with the greatest decorum, and with minute attention to legal formalities. The assassin, however, was acquitted.
From that time the outrages increased in number and in boldness. No man known to be possessed of any quantity of gold was safe. It was dangerous to walk alone after dark, to hunt alone in the mountains, to live alone. Every man carried his treasure about with him everywhere he went. No man dared raise his voice in criticism of the ruling powers, for it was pretty generally understood that such criticism meant death.
It would be supposed, naturally, by you in our modern and civilized days, that such a condition of affairs would cast a fear and gloom over the life of the community. Not at all. Men worked and played and gambled and drank and joked and carried on the light-hearted, jolly existence of the camps just about the same as ever. Outside a few principals like Morton and his immediate satellites, there was no accurate demarkation between the desperadoes and the miners. Indeed, no one was ever quite sure of where his next neighbour's sympathies lay. We all mingled together, joked, had a good time—and were exceedingly cautious. It was a polite community. Personal quarrels were the product of the moment, and generally settled at the moment or soon after. Enmities were matters for individual adjustment.
Randall's express messengers continued to make their irregular trips with the gold dust. They were never attacked, though they were convinced, and I think justly, that on numerous occasions they had only just escaped attack. Certainly the sums of money they carried were more than sufficient temptation to the bandits. They knew their country, however, and were full of Indian-like ruses, twists, doublings and turns which they employed with great gusto. How long they would have succeeded in eluding what I considered the inevitable, I do not know; but at this time occurred the events that I shall detail in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE LAST STRAW
This is a chapter I hate to write; and therefore I shall get it over with as soon as possible.
Yank had progressed from his bunk to the bench outside, and from that to a slow hobbling about near the Morena cabin. Two of the three months demanded by Dr. Rankin had passed. Yank's leg had been taken from the splint, and, by invoking the aid of stout canes, he succeeded in shifting around. But the trail to town was as yet too rough for him. Therefore a number of us were in the habit of spending our early evenings with him. We sat around the door, and smoked innumerable pipes, and talked sixty to the minute. Morena had a guitar to the accompaniment of which he sang a number of plaintive and sweet-toned songs. Three or four of his countrymen occasionally came up from below. Then they, too, sang more plaintive songs; or played a strange game with especial cards which none of us "gringos" could ever fathom; or perhaps stepped a grave, formal sort of dance. Senora Morena, the only woman, would sometimes join in this. She was a large woman, but extraordinarily light on her feet. In fact, as she swayed and balanced opposite her partner she reminded me of nothing so much as a balloon tugging gently at its string.
"But it ees good, the dance, eh, senores?" she always ended, her broad, kind face shining with pleasure.
We Americans reciprocated with a hoe-down or so, to jigging strains blasphemously evoked by one of our number from that gentle guitar; and perhaps a song or two. Oh, Susannah! was revived; and other old favourites; and we had also the innumerable verses of a brand-new favourite, local to the country. It had to do with the exploits and death of one Lame Jesse. I can recall only two of the many verses:
"Lame Jesse was a hard old case; He never would repent. He ne'er was known to miss a meal— He never paid a cent!
"Lame Jesse, too, like all the rest, He did to Death resign; And in his bloom went up the flume In the days of Forty-nine."
When the evening chill descended, which now was quite early, we scattered to our various occupations, leaving Yank to his rest.
One Sunday in the middle of October two men trudged into town leading each a pack-horse.
I was at the time talking to Barnes at his hotel, and saw them from a distance hitching their animals outside Morton's. They stayed there for some time, then came out, unhitched their horses, led them as far as the Empire, hesitated, finally again tied the beasts, and disappeared. In this manner they gradually worked along to the Bella Union, where at last I recognized them as McNally and Buck Barry, our comrades of the Porcupine. Of course I at once rushed over to see them.
I found them surrounded by a crowd to whom they were offering drinks free-handed. Both were already pretty drunk, but they knew me as soon as I entered the door, and surged toward me hands out.
"Well! well! well!" cried McNally delightedly. "And here's himself! And who'd have thought of seeing you here! I made sure you were in the valley and out of the country long since. And you're just in time! Make a name for it? Better call it whiskey straight. Drink to us, my boy! Come, join my friends! We're all friends here! Come on, and here's to luck, the best luck ever! We've got two horse-loads of gold out there—nothing but gold—and it all came from our old diggings. You ought to have stayed. We had no trouble. Bagsby was an old fool!" All the time he was dragging me along by the arm toward the crowd at the bar. Barry maintained an air of owlish gravity.
"Where's Missouri Jones?" I inquired; but I might as well have asked the stone mountains. McNally chattered on, excited, his blue eyes dancing, bragging over and over about his two horse-loads of gold.
The crowd took his whiskey, laughed with him, and tried shrewdly to pump him as to the location of his diggings. McNally gave them no satisfaction there; but even when most hilarious retained enough sense to put them off the track.
As will be imagined, I was most uneasy about the whole proceeding, and tried quietly to draw the two men off.
"No, sir!" cried McNally, "not any! Jes' struck town, and am goin' to have a time!" in which determination he was cheered by all the bystanders. I did not know where to turn; Johnny was away on one of his trips, and Danny Randall was not to be found. Finally inspiration served me.
"Come down first and see Yank," I urged. "Poor old Yank is crippled and can't move."
That melted them at once. They untied their long-suffering animals, and we staggered off down the trail.
On the way down I tried, but in vain, to arouse them to a sense of danger.
"You've let everybody in town know you have a lot of dust," I pointed out.
McNally merely laughed recklessly.
"Good boys!" he cried; "wouldn't harm a fly!" and I could veer him to no other point of view. Barry agreed to everything, very solemn and very owlish.
We descended on Yank like a storm. I will say that McNally at any time was irresistible and irrepressible, but especially so in his cups. We laughed ourselves sick that afternoon. The Morenas were enchanted. Under instructions, and amply supplied with dust, Morena went to town and returned with various bottles. Senora Morena cooked a fine supper. In the meantime, I, as apparently the only responsible member of the party, unsaddled the animals, and brought their burdens into the cabin. Although McNally's statement as to the loads consisting exclusively of gold was somewhat of an exaggeration, nevertheless the cantinas were very heavy. Not knowing what else to do with them, I thrust them under Yank's bunk.
The evening was lively, I will confess it, and under the influence of it my caution became hazy. Finally, when I at last made my way back to my own camp, I found myself vastly surprised to discover Yank hobbling along by my side. I don't know why he came with me, and I do not think he knew either. Probably force of habit. At any rate, we left the other four to sleep where they would. I remember we had some difficulty in finding places to lie.
The sun was high when we awoke. We were not feeling very fresh, to say the least; and we took some little time to get straightened around. Then we went down to the Morena cabin.
I am not going to dwell on what we found there. All four of its inmates had been killed with buckshot, and the place ransacked from end to end. Apparently the first volley had killed our former partners and Senora Morena as they lay. Morena had staggered to his feet and halfway across the room.
The excitement caused by this frightful crime was intense. Every man quit work. A great crowd assembled. Morton as sheriff was very busy, and loud threats were uttered by his satellites as to the apprehension of the murderers. The temper of the crowd, however, was sullen. No man dared trust his neighbour, and yet every honest breast swelled with impotent indignation at this wholesale and unprovoked massacre. No clue was possible. Everybody remembered, of course, how broadcast and publicly the fact of the gold had been scattered. Nobody dared utter his suspicions, if he had any.
The victims were buried by a large concourse, that eddied and hesitated and muttered long after the graves had been filled in. Vaguely it was felt that the condition of affairs was intolerable; but no one knew how it was to be remedied. Nothing definite could be proved against any one, and yet I believe that every honest man knew to a moral certainty at least the captains and instigators of the various outrages. A leader could have raised an avenging mob—provided he could have survived the necessary ten minutes!
We scattered at last to our various occupations. I was too much upset to work, so I returned to where Yank was smoking over the fire. He had, as near as I can remember, said not one word since the discovery of the tragedy. On my approach he took his pipe from his mouth.
"Nothing done?" he inquired.
"Nothing," I replied. "What is there to be done?"
"Don't know," said he, replacing his pipe; then around the stem of it, "I was fond of those people."
"So was I," I agreed sincerely. "Have you thought what a lucky escape you yourself had?"
Yank nodded. We sat for a long time in silence. My thoughts turned slowly and sullenly in a heavy, impotent anger. A small bird chirped plaintively from the thicket near at hand. Except for the tinkle of our little stream and the muffled roar of the distant river, this was the only sound to strike across the dead black silence of the autumn night. So persistently did the bird utter its single call that at last it aroused even my downcast attention, so that I remarked on it carelessly to Yank. He came out of his brown study and raised his head.
"It's no bird, it's a human," he said, after listening a moment. "That's a signal. Go see what it is. Just wander out carelessly."
In the depths of the thicket I found a human figure crouched. It glided to me, and I made out dimly the squat form of Pete, Barnes's negro slave, from the hotel.
"Lo'dee, massa," whispered he, "done thought you nevah would come."
"What is it, Pete?" I asked in the same guarded tones.
"I done got somefin' to tell you. While I ketchin' a lil' bit of sleep 'longside that white trash Mo'ton's place, I done heah dey all plannin' to git out warrant for to arres' Massa Fairfax and Massa Pine and Massa Ma'sh for a-killin' dem men las' week; and I heah dem say dey gwine fer to gib dem trial, and if dey fight dey gwine done shoot 'em."
"That is serious news, Pete," said I. "Who were talking?" But Pete, who was already frightened half to death, grew suddenly cautious.
"I don' jest rightly know, sah," he said sullenly. "I couldn't tell. Jes' Massa Mo'ton. He say he gwine sw'ar in good big posse."
"I can believe that," said I thoughtfully. "Pete," I turned on him suddenly, "don't you know they'd skin you alive if they found out you'd been here?"
Pete was shaking violently, and at my words a strong shudder went through his frame, and his teeth struck faintly together.
"Why did you do it?"
"Massa Fairfax is quality, sah," he replied with a certain dignity. "I jest a pore nigger, but I knows quality when I sees it, and I don't aim to have no pore white truck kill none of my folks if I can help it."
"Pete," said I, fully satisfied, "you are a good fellow. Now get along back."
He disappeared before the words were fairly out of my mouth.
"Yank," I announced, returning to the fire, "I've got to go uptown. That was Pete, Barnes's nigger, to say that they've got out a legal warrant for the express messengers' arrest for that killing last week. Neat little scheme."
I found Danny Randall in his accustomed place. At a hint he sent for Dr. Rankin. To the two I unfolded the plot. Both listened in silence until I had quite finished. Then Danny leaped to his feet and hit the table with his closed fist.
"The fools!" he cried. "I gave them credit for more sense. Hit at Danny Randall's men, will they? Well, they'll find that Danny Randall can protect his own! Forgotten that little point, have they?"
The cool, impassive, mild little man had changed utterly. His teeth bared, the muscles of his cheeks tightened, two deep furrows appeared between his eyes, which sparkled and danced. From the most inoffensive looking creature possible to imagine he had become suddenly menacing and dangerous.
"What do you intend, Randall?" asked Dr. Rankin. He was leaning slightly forward, and he spoke in a gentle voice, but his hand was clenched on the table, and his figure was rigid.
"Do?" repeated Randall fiercely; "why, run that gang out of town, of course!"
"I thought you said the time was not ripe?"
"We'll ripen it!" said Danny Randall.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE VIGILANTES
Danny Randall issued his orders as a general would. First he sent warning word to Cal Marsh, still nursing his shoulder. Through one of his barkeepers he caused to be called to his presence four men. Three of them were miners, the fourth a lookout at the Empire. He met them in his little room, quite openly, which, as I have explained, was in accordance with his usual custom. He detailed the exact situation in a few words.
"Now," he ended, "we get busy. Are you in?"
Each assented, with apparent deep satisfaction.
"Now," said he briskly, "Munroe, you go to the lower trail, near the big oak at the second crossing. Wait there. If the express messengers have not passed by to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, return here. If they do come by, stop them, and tell them to proceed by the cut-off to the place they know of, and to wait there for me. Understand?"
To each of the other four men he assigned a different watching on other trails, giving them the same instructions.
"Now git!" he finished.
After informing Yank of my projected absence, I waited at the appointed place until the appointed time, then returned to the Bella Union.
"That's all right," Danny greeted my report; "they came across the Hog's Back, and are now safely in hiding. Here," he gave me a slip of paper. "During the day contrive to see these men. Make it casual and easy, as though you just happened to see them. Chat a few minutes and tell them this: 'Danny Randall calls a secret miners' meeting at the upper horse flat at nine o'clock to-night. Slip up there without being seen.' Be sure to let them understand that it is I who am issuing the call. Get them to tell you whether they will or will not come."
I took the slip of paper and read over the half dozen names it contained. They were all known to me; so I nodded my comprehension and went out.
All the rest of the day I loafed about, chatting with dozens of people, among the others with Morton himself. That individual professed great zeal for law and order, and told of the wonderful things he, as sheriff, intended to accomplish. Among the lot I contrived to include the six men whose names were on my paper, and to deliver my message. I explained as far as I knew, and got from each a definite and emphatic promise to be present.
"It's time this thing was brought to a head," said one man. "If Danny Randall is taking hold of it, I enlist."
I returned to report these facts, received an indifferent nod, and, under further instruction, went quietly to camp to await the agreed hour.
We started up the trail about eight o'clock. Yank insisted that he was going, if he had to roll all the way; but after a little we simultaneously remembered that the Morenas had owned horses. One of these I caught, and on it Yank rode to the place of rendezvous.
The night was very black. After we had entered the woods its darkness seemed at first to hang in front of my eyes like a filmy curtain, so that I fairly groped, as one would when blindfolded. In the open a faint starlight helped us, but after we had entered the pines we had fairly to proceed by instinct. I remember feeling a shock of surprise once, when we skirted the river, at seeing plainly the whiteness of the rapids, as though the water were giving off a light of its own. Straight overhead were scattered patches of stars with misty abysses of blackness between them. Only after an interval did I appreciate that these apparent abysses were in reality the tops of trees!
We felt our way slowly, the soft muzzle of the horse at my shoulder. Gradually our pupils expanded to the utmost, so that we caught ghostly intimations of gray rocks, of dust patches, or seized the loom of a tree or the opening of a forest aisle. Luckily the trail was well marked. We had only to stick to it.
At the Flat Rock we were halted by a low-voiced command. I gave the password, as instructed by Danny Randall. This experience was once repeated, a little farther on. Then, as we neared the upper horse flat, we were stopped by a man who flashed a dark lantern in our faces, scrutinized us for a moment, shut off his light, and told us to go forward.
We found a small fire behind a screen of firs, and around or near it the figures of a dozen men. They stood silent and scattered a little apart from the firelight. We could not make out their features. From time to time other men came in, singly or in couples, until probably twenty-five were gathered. Then ensued a few moments of waiting. A sudden stir proclaimed fresh arrivals, and four newcomers strode briskly to the fire. As the light fell on them I recognized Randall and the three express riders.
Danny kicked together the fire until it flared.
"Somebody put some more wood on this," he said in his natural voice. "We've got to see each other."
In a moment the flames were leaping. I looked about me with considerable interest to see who of the camp had been summoned. I must confess to a few surprises, such as the gambler from the Empire, but in general the gathering consisted of those whom I should have characterized as solid citizens—Barnes, the hotel-keeper, Himmelwright, and men of his stripe. They were all armed, and all very grave and sober. Danny ran his eye over us one by one.
"Meeting come to order," he commanded briskly. "This is a Vigilante meeting. I hope you all realize what that means. There are just thirty of us here; and Morton's gang is probably a hundred strong when it is all together. We cannot fight them; but we can give the honest, decent men of this camp a chance to fight them. I myself believe the honest men will back us, and am willing to risk it. If any of you who are here now think differently, say so."
He paused, but no one spoke up.
"If anybody doesn't want to go into this, now is the time to back out. Just keep your mouths shut, that is all."
He paused again, but again no one moved.
"That's all right," observed Danny with satisfaction. He lifted a paper. "Listen to this: 'We the undersigned agree, as we are decent men, to stand by each other to the last, to avenge the death of any one of us, and to obey the orders of our leaders. And if we fail in this may God deny us mercy.' Boys," said Danny Randall earnestly, "this is serious. If we start this now, we've got to see it through. We are not much on Bible oaths, any one of us, but we must promise. Frank Munroe, step forward!"
I obeyed. The little man stared up into my eyes, and I will freely confess that never have I experienced quite the queer sensation it gave me. Danny Randall had become not only formidable, but great. He seemed to see through into the back of my mind. I braced myself as though to resist some strong physical force.
"Do you, Frank Munroe, subscribe to this document as a man of honour, so help you God?" he demanded.
"I do," I answered solemnly, and affixed my signature below that of Danny Randall. And queerly enough, as I stepped aside, I felt somehow that I had assisted at something sacred.
One by one Danny Randall called us forward and administered his simple oath. The fire leaped, and with it the mighty shadows. Outside the circle of light the tall pines and fir-trees watched us like a multitude standing witness. The men's faces were grave. There was about the roughest of them something noble, reflected from the earnest spirit of justice.
Randall had the plans all made, and he detailed them rapidly. We were to arrest four men only, and he named them—Morton, Scar-face Charley, who had recovered, a gambler named Catlin, and Jules, the proprietor of the Empire.
"Crawford is back in town," said some one.
"Make it five then," said Danny instantly.
We had a long discussion over all this. Many other names were suggested. Danny agreed that they were those of men guilty of the worst crimes, but maintained that the first thing to do was to get hold of the real leaders, the brains and motive power of the gang. The five first designated filled that description.
"Can we really prove anything against them?" asked someone.
"No," said Danny instantly, "we cannot. Does any one here think any of them guiltless? Consult your consciences, gentlemen. I agree with you that it is a fearful thing to take a man's life. Vote carefully. Consult your consciences."
We balloted at last on each name separately, and the five leaders were condemned to death.
Next came up the vital questions of ways and means. Many were in favour of a night surprise, and an immediate hanging before the desperadoes could be organized for defence. Danny had a hard time showing them good reasons against this course, but at last he succeeded.
"This must be done deliberately and publicly," he maintained. "Otherwise it fails of its effect. We've got to show the gang that the camp is against them; and that won't be done by hanging some of them secretly."
"Suppose the camp doesn't back us up?" queried a miner.
"Remember your oath, gentlemen," was Danny's only reply to this.
It was decided at last that five committees should be appointed to arrest each of the five men, that the prisoners should be confined in a certain isolated log cabin, and that the execution should take place in broad daylight. There remained only to apportion the committees. This was done, and at about two or three o'clock we quietly dispersed. I was instructed to cooeperate with three of the miners in the arrest of Catlin.
With the members of my committee I returned to our own camp, there to await the appointed hour of seven. This had been selected for several reasons: it was daylight, the roughs would be at home, and the community, although afoot, would not yet have gone to work. While waiting we cooked ourselves some hot coffee and made some flapjacks. The chill, gray time of day had come, the period of low vitality, and we shivered with the cold and with excitement. Nobody had much to say. We waited grimly for the time to pass.
About six o'clock Yank arose, seized his long rifle and departed for the log cabin that had been designated as the jail. His lameness had prevented him from being appointed on one of the arresting committees, but he had no intention of being left out. A half hour later we followed him into town.
It was a heavenly fall morning of the sort that only mountain California can produce. The camp was beginning to awaken to its normal activity. I remember wondering vaguely how it could be so calm and unconcerned. My heart was beating violently, and I had to clench my teeth tight to keep them from chattering. This was not fear, but a high tension of excitement. As we strolled past the Bella Union with what appearance of nonchalance we could muster, Danny Randall nodded at us from the doorway. By this we knew that Catlin was to be found at his own place.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE VIGILANTES (continued)
Catlin dwelt in a detached room back of the Empire, together with one of the other professional gamblers. We lounged around the corner of the Empire building. The door of the cabin was shut. Outside we hung back, hesitating and a little uncertain. None of us was by nature or training a man of violence, and we experienced the reluctance of men about to plunge into cold water. Nobody was more than pardonably afraid, and of course we had every intention of seeing the affair through. Then suddenly in the actual face of the thing itself my excitement drained from me like a tide receding. My nerves steadied, my trembling stilled. Never had I felt more cool in my life. Drawing my revolver, I pushed open the door and entered the building.
Catlin was in the act of washing his face, and him I instantly covered with my weapon. His companion was still abed. On my entrance the latter had instinctively raised on his elbow, but immediately dropped back as he saw the figures of my companions darkening the door.
"Well, gentlemen?" demanded Catlin.
"You must come with us," I replied.
He showed no concern, but wiped carefully his face and hands.
"I will be ready in a minute," said he, throwing aside the towel, and rolling down his shirt sleeves. He advanced toward a bench on which his coat had been flung. "I'll be with you as soon as I can put on my coat."
I glanced toward that garment and saw the muzzle of a revolver peeping out from beneath it.
"I'll hand your coat to you," said I quickly. Catlin turned deadly pale, but spoke with his usual composure.
"What am I wanted for?" he inquired.
"For being a road agent, a thief, and an accessory to robberies and murders," I replied.
"I am innocent of all—as innocent as you are."
"There is no possibility of a mistake."
"What will you do with me?"
"Your sentence is death," I told him.
For a single instant his dark face lit up.
"You think so?" he flashed.
"Hurry!" urged one of my companions.
With one man on either side and another behind, revolvers drawn, we marched our prisoner in double-quick time past the rear of the stores and saloons to the agreed rendezvous. There we found Danny Randall and his committee with Morton. Within the next few moments, in rapid succession, appeared the others with Scar-face Charley, Crawford, and Jules.
The camp was already buzzing with excitement. Men poured out from the buildings into the streets like disturbed ants. Danny thrust his prisoners into the interior of the cabin, and drew us up in two lines outside. He impressed on us that we must keep the military formation, and that we were to allow no one to approach. Across the road about twenty yards away he himself laid a rope.
"That's the dead-line," he announced. "Now you keep the other side!"
In no time a mob of five hundred men had gathered. They surged restlessly to and fro. The flash of weapons was everywhere to be seen. Cries rent the air—demands, threats, oaths, and insults so numerous and so virulent that I must confess my heart failed me. At any instant I expected the mob to open fire; they could have swept us away with a single volley. To my excited imagination every man of that multitude looked a ruffian. We seemed alone against the community. I could not understand why they did not rush us and have it over with. Yet they hesitated. The fact of the matter is that the desperadoes had no cohesion, no leaders; and they knew what none of us knew—namely, that a good many of that crowd must be on our side. The roar and turmoil and heat of discussion, argument, and threat rose and fell. In one of the lulls an Irish voice yelled:
"Hang them!"
The words were greeted by a sullen assenting roar. Five hundred hands, each armed, were held aloft. This unanimity produced an instant silence.
"Hang who?" a truculent voice expressed the universal uncertainty.
"Hang the road agents!" yelled back the little Irishman defiantly.
"Bully for you, Irish; that took nerve!" muttered Johnny, at my elbow.
Fifty threats were hurled at the bold speaker, and the click of gunlocks preceded a surge in his direction. Then from the mob went up a sullen, formidable muttering of warning. No individual voice could be distinguished; but the total effect of dead resistance and determination could not be mistaken. Instantly, at the words so valiantly uttered, the spirit of cohesion had been born. The desperadoes checked in surprise. We had friends. How many or how strong no one could guess; but they were there, and in case of a battle they would fight.
On our side the line was a dead, grim silence. We stood, our weapons ready, rigidly at attention. Occasionally one or the other of us muttered a warning against those who showed symptoms of desiring to interfere.
In the meantime, three of our number had been proceeding methodically with the construction of a gallows. This was made by thrusting five small pine butts, about forty feet long, over a cross beam in the gable of the cabin and against the roof inside. Large drygoods boxes were placed beneath for the trap.
About this time Danny Randall, who had been superintending the construction, touched me on the shoulder.
"Fall back," he said quietly. "Now," he instructed several of us, after we had obeyed this command, "I want you to bring out the prisoners and hold them in plain view. In case of rescue or attempted escape, shoot them instantly. Don't hesitate."
"I should think they would be safer inside the cabin," I suggested.
"Sure," agreed Danny, "but I want them here for the moral effect."
We entered the cabin. The five prisoners were standing or sitting. Scar-face Charley was alternately blaspheming violently, upbraiding his companions, cursing his own luck, and uttering frightful threats against everybody who had anything to do with this. Crawford was watching him contemptuously and every once in a while advising him to "shut up!" Jules was alternately cursing and crying. Morton sat at one side quite calm and very alert. Catlin stared at the floor.
The moment we entered Catlin ran over to us and began to plead for his life. He, better than the rest, with the possible exception of Morton, seemed to realize the seriousness of his plight. From pleadings, which we received in silence, he changed to arguments concerning his innocence.
"It is useless," replied one of our men. "That affair is settled and cannot be changed. You are to be hanged. You cannot feel worse about it than I do; but I could not help it if I would."
Catlin stood for a moment as though overwhelmed; then he fell on his knees before us and began to plead rapidly.
"Not that!" he cried. "Anything but that! Do anything else you want to with me! Cut off my ears and cut out my tongue! Disable me in any way! You can certainly destroy my power for harm without taking my life! Gentlemen! I want to live for my wife—my poor absent wife! I want time to settle my affairs! O God! I am too wicked to die. I cannot go bloodstained and unforgiven into the presence of the Eternal! Only let me go, and I will leave the country forever!"
In the meantime Scar-face Charley and Crawford were cursing at us with an earnestness and steadiness that compelled our admiration.
"Oh, shut up, Catlin!" cried Crawford at last. "You're going to hell, and you know it; but I'll be there in time to open the gate for you."
"Don't make a fool of yourself," advised Charley; "there's no use being afraid to die."
Morton looked around at each of us in turn.
"I suppose you know you are proceeding against a regularly constituted officer of the law?" he reminded us. Receiving no reply, he beckoned me. "Can I speak to you alone a moment?" he asked.
"I will send for our leader," I replied.
"No," said he, "I want no leader. You'll do as well."
I approached him. In an anxious tone he asked:
"Is there any way of getting out of this scrape? Think well!"
"None," said I firmly. "You must die."
With revolvers drawn we marched them outside. A wild yell greeted their appearance. The cries were now mixed in sentiment. A hundred voices raised in opposition were cried down by twice as many more. "Hang 'em!" cried some. "No, no, banish them!" cried others. "Don't hang them!" and blood-curdling threats. A single shot would have brought on a pitched battle. Somehow eventually the tumult died down. Then Morton, who had been awaiting his chance, spoke up in a strong voice.
"I call on you in the name of the law to arrest and disperse these law-breakers."
"Where is Tom Cleveland?" spoke up a voice.
The appeal, which might otherwise have had its effect, was lost in the cries, accusations, and counter-accusations that arose like a babel. Morton made no further attempt. He better than any one realized, I think, the numerical superiority against him.
The preparations were at length completed. Danny Randall motioned us to lead forward the prisoners. Catlin struggled desperately, but the others walked steadily enough to take their places on the drygoods boxes.
"For God's sake, gentlemen," appealed Crawford in a loud tone of voice, "give me time to write home!"
"Ask him how much time he gave Tom Cleveland!" shouted a voice.
"If I'd only had a show," retorted Crawford, "if I'd known what you were after, you'd have had a gay time taking me."
There was some little delay in adjusting the cords.
"If you're going to hang me, get at it!" said Jules with an oath; "if not, I want you to tie a bandage on my finger; it's bleeding."
"Give me your coat, Catlin," said Crawford; "you never gave me anything yet; now's your chance."
Danny Randall broke in on this exchange.
"You are about to be executed," said he soberly. "If you have any dying requests to make, this is your last opportunity. They will be carefully heeded."
Scar-face Charley broke in with a rough laugh.
"How do I look, boys, with a halter around my neck?" he cried.
This grim effort was received in silence.
"Your time is very short," Danny reminded him.
"Well, then," said the desperado, "I want one more drink of whiskey before I die."
A species of uneasy consternation rippled over the crowd. Men glanced meaningly at each other, murmuring together. Some of the countenances expressed loathing, but more exhibited a surprised contempt. For a confused moment no one seemed to know quite what to do or what answer to make to so bestial a dying request. Danny broke the silence incisively.
"I promised them their requests would be carefully heeded," he said. "Give him the liquor."
Somebody passed up a flask. Charley raised it as high as he could, but was prevented by the rope from getting it quite to his lips.
"You ——" he yelled at the man who held the rope.
"Slack off that rope and let a man take a parting drink, can't you?"
Amid a dead silence the rope was slacked away. Charley took a long drink, then hurled the half-emptied flask far out into the crowd.
To a question Crawford shook his head.
"I hope God Almighty will strike every one of you with forked lightning and that I shall meet you all in the lowest pit of hell!" he snarled.
Morton kept a stubborn and rather dignified silence. Catlin alternately pleaded and wept. Jules answered Danny's question:
"Sure thing! Pull off my boots for me. I don't want it to get back to my old mother that I died with my boots on!"
In silence and gravely this ridiculous request was complied with. The crowd, very attentive, heaved and stirred. The desperadoes, shouldering their way here and there, were finding each other out, were gathering in little groups.
"They'll try a rescue!" whispered the man next to me.
"Men," Danny's voice rang out, clear and menacing, "do your duty!"
At the words, across the silence the click of gunlocks was heard as the Vigilantes levelled their weapons at the crowd. From my position near the condemned men I could see the shifting components of the mob freeze to immobility before the menace of those barrels. At the same instant the man who had been appointed executioner jerked the box from beneath Catlin's feet.
"There goes one to hell!" muttered Charley.
"I hope forked lightning will strike every strangling——" yelled Crawford. His speech was abruptly cut short as the box spun from under his feet.
"Kick away, old fellow!" said Scar-face Charley. "Me next! I'll be in hell with you in a minute! Every man for his principles! Hurrah for crime! Let her rip!" and without waiting for the executioner, he himself kicked the support away.
Morton died without a sign. Catlin, at the last, suddenly calmed, and met his fate bravely.
Before the lull resulting from the execution and the threat of the presented weapons could break, Danny Randall spoke up.
"Gentlemen!" he called clearly. "The roster of the Vigilantes is open. Such of you as please to join the association for the preservation of decency, law, and order in this camp can now do so."
The guard lowered their arms and moved to one side. The crowd swept forward. In the cabin the applicants were admitted a few at a time. Before noon we had four hundred men on our rolls. Some of the bolder roughs ventured a few threats, but were speedily overawed. The community had found itself, and was no longer afraid.
PART IV
THE LAW
CHAPTER XL
THE RAINS
No sooner had this radical clean-up of the body politic been consummated than the rains began. That means little to any but a Californian. To him it means everything. We were quite new to the climate and the conditions, so that the whole thing was a great surprise.
For a month past it had been threatening. The clouds gathered and piled and blackened until they seemed fairly on the point of bursting. One would not have given two cents for his chances of a dry skin were he to start on a journey across the street. Yet somehow nothing happened. Late in the afternoon, perhaps, the thunderous portents would thin. The diffused light would become stronger. Far down in the west bars of sunlight would strike. And by evening the stars shone brilliantly from a sky swept clear. After a dozen repetitions of this phenomenon we ceased to pay any attention to it. Somebody named it "high fog," which did well enough to differentiate it from a genuine rain-bringing cloud. Except for that peculiar gourd that looks exactly like a watermelon, these "high fogs" were the best imitation of a real thing I have ever seen. They came up like rain clouds, they looked precisely like rain clouds, they went through all the performances of rain clouds—except that never, never did they rain!
But the day of the Vigilante execution the sky little by little turned shimmering gray; so that the sun shining from it looked like silver; and the shadows of objects were diffused and pale. A tepid wind blew gently but steadily from the southeast. No clouds were visible at first; but imperceptibly, around the peaks, filmy veils formed seemingly out of the gray substance of the very sky itself. How these thickened and spread I did not see; but when I came out of the Bella Union, after a long and interesting evening of discussion, I found no stars; and, as I stood looking upward, a large warm drop splashed against my face.
Sometime during the night it began to rain in earnest. We were awakened by its steady drumming on the canvas of our tent.
"My Lord! but she sure is raining!" said Johnny across the roar of sound.
"Don't tech the canvas!" warned Old. "If you do, she'll leak like a spout where you teched her!"
"Thank heaven, that high fog scared us into ditching around the tent," said Cal fervently.
But our satisfaction was short-lived. We had ditched the tent, to be sure, but we had badly underestimated the volume of a California downpour.
Before many minutes had passed Johnny gave a disgusted snort.
"I'm lying in a marsh!" he cried.
He struck a light, and we all saw the water trickling in a dozen little streams beneath the edge of the tent.
"We're going to be ruined!" cried Johnny comically.
He arose, and in doing so brushed his head violently against the slanting canvas roof. Almost immediately thereafter the rays of the lantern were reflected from tiny beads of water, like a sweat, appearing as though by magic at that spot. They swelled, gathered, hesitated, then began to feel their way slowly down the dry canvas. The trickle became a stream. A large drop fell straight down. Another followed.
"Anybody need a drink?" inquired Cal.
"I'm sorry!" said Johnny contritely.
"You needn't be," I consoled him. "The whole thing is going to leak, if this keeps up."
"What's the matter with going over to the Morena cabin?" queried Yank.
We hesitated a little. The events of the day had affected us all more deeply than we liked to acknowledge; and nobody but Yank much liked the idea of again entering that bloodstained abode.
"We'd drown getting there," said Cal at last. "I move some of you fellows with two good arms rustle out and fix that ditch." He laughed. "Nothing like having a hole in you to get out of work."
We took his advice, and managed to turn the flood, though we got very wet in the process.
Then we returned to the tent, changed our clothes, crept into our blankets, and wrapped ourselves close. The spot brushed by Johnny's head dripped steadily. Otherwise our roof shed well. The rain roared straight down with steady, deadly persistency.
"She can't keep this up long, anyway; that's a comfort," muttered Johnny sleepily.
Couldn't she? All next morning that flood came down without the let-up of even a single moment. It had all the volume and violence of a black thunderstorm at its height; only the worst of the thunderstorm lasts but a few moments, while this showed no signs of ever intending to end. Our stout canvas continued to turn the worst of it, but a fine spray was driven through, to our great discomfort. We did not even attempt to build a fire, but sat around wrapped in our damp blankets.
Until about two of the afternoon the deluge continued. Our unique topic of conversation was the marvel of how it could keep it up! We could not imagine more water falling were every stream and lake in the mountains to be lifted to the heavens and poured down again.
"Where the devil does it all come from?" marvelled Old, again and again. "Don't seem like no resevoy, let alone clouds, could hold so much!"
"And where does it go to?" I supplemented.
"I reckon some of those plains people could tell you," surmised Yank shrewdly.
At two o'clock the downpour ceased as abruptly as though it had been turned off at a spigot. Inside of twenty minutes the clouds had broken, to show beyond them a dazzling blue sky. Intermittent flashes and bands of sunlight glittered on the wet trees and bushes or threw into relief the black bands of storm clouds near the horizon.
Immensely cheered, we threw aside our soggy blankets and sallied forth.
"Great Christmas!" cried Johnny, who was in the advance. "Talk about your mud!"
We did talk about it. It was the deepest, most tenacious, slipperiest, most adhesive mud any fiend ever imagined. We slid and floundered as though we had on skates; we accumulated balls of it underfoot; and we sank disconcertingly half-leg deep at every third step. Our first intention had been to go up to town; but we soon revised that, and went down to the Morena cabin instead, with the idea of looking after the two horses. The beasts, very shaggy underneath and plastered above, stood humped up nose to tail. We looked into the cabin. The roof had leaked like a sieve; and the interior was dripping in a thousand places.
"Reckon even the tent was better after all," acknowledged Yank, looking with disfavour on the muddy floor.
We returned to the tent and made shift to get a fire going. After cooking some hot food, we felt better, and set about drying our blankets. In the canon we could hear the river roaring away hollowly.
"I'll bet she's on the rampage!" said Old.
"I'll bet she's got my cradle and all of my tools!" I cried, struck with a sudden thought.
And then, about as we commenced to feel cheerful and contented again, the scattered black clouds began to close ranks. One by one the patches of blue sky narrowed and disappeared.
"Why!" cried Cal in astonishment, "I believe it's getting ready to rain again!"
"Shucks!" replied Old, "It can't. There ain't no more rain."
Nevertheless there was, and plenty of it. We spent that second night shifting as little as possible so as not to touch a new cold place in our sodden blankets, while the waters roared down in almost a solid sheet.
This lasted the incredible period of four days! Nobody then knew anything about measuring rainfall; but, judging by later experience, I should say we must have had close to seven inches. There was not much we could do, except to get wetter and wetter, although we made shift to double up at night, and to use the extra blankets thus released to make a sort of double roof. This helped some.
The morning of the fifth day broke dazzlingly clear. The sky looked burnished as a blue jewel; the sunlight glittered like shimmering metal; distant objects stood out plain-cut, without atmosphere. For the first time we felt encouraged to dare that awful mud, and so slopped over to town.
We found the place fairly drowned out. No one, in his first year, thought of building for the weather. Barnes's hotel, the Empire and the Bella Union had come through without shipping a drop, for they had been erected by men with experience in the California climate; but almost everybody else had been leaked upon a-plenty. And the deep dust of the travel-worn overland road had turned into a morass beyond belief or description.
Our first intimation of a definite seasonal change came from our old friend Danny Randall, who hailed us at once when he saw us picking our way gingerly along the edge of the street. In answer to his summons we entered the Bella Union.
"I hope you boys weren't quite drowned out," he greeted us. "You don't look particularly careworn."
We exchanged the appropriate comments; then Danny came at once to business.
"Now I'm going to pay off you three boys," he told the express messengers, "and I want to know what you want. I can give you the dust, or I can give you an order on a San Francisco firm, just as you choose."
"Express business busted?" asked Johnny.
"It's quit for the season," Danny Randall told him, "like everything else. In two weeks at most there won't be a score of men left in Italian Bar." He observed our astonished incredulity, smiled, and continued: "You boys came from the East, where it rains and gets over it. But out here it doesn't get over it. Have you been down to look at the river? No? Well, you'd better take a look. There'll be no more bar mining done there for a while. And what's a mining camp without mining? Go talk to the men of '48. They'll tell you. The season is over, boys, until next spring; and you may just as well make up your minds to hike out now as later. What are you laughing at?" he asked Johnny.
"I was just thinking of our big Vigilante organization," he chuckled.
"I suppose it's true that mighty few of the same lot will ever get back to Italian Bar," agreed Danny, "but it's a good thing for whatever community they may hit next year."
Johnny and Old elected to take their wages in dust; Cal decided on the order against the San Francisco firm. Then we wandered down to where we could overlook the bar itself.
The entire bed of the river was filled from rim to rim with a rolling brown flood. The bars, sand-spits, gravel-banks had all disappeared. Whole trees bobbed and sank and raised skeleton arms or tangled roots as they were swept along by the current or caught back by the eddies; and underneath the roar of the waters we heard the dull rumbling and crunching of boulders rolled beneath the flood. A crowd of men was watching in idle curiosity. We learned that all the cradles and most of the tools had been lost; and heard rumours of cabins or camps located too low having been swept away.
That evening we held a very serious discussion of our prospects and plans. Yank announced himself as fit to travel, and ready to do so, provided he could have a horse; the express messengers were out of a job; I had lost all my tools, and was heartily tired of gold washing, even had conditions permitted me to continue. Beside which, we were all feeling quite rich and prosperous. We had not made enormous fortunes as we had confidently anticipated when we left New York, but we were all possessed of good sums of money. Yank had the least, owing to the fact that he had been robbed of his Porcupine River product, and had been compelled for nearly three months to lie idle; but even he could count on a thousand dollars or so sent out from Hangman's Gulch. I had the most, for my digging had paid me better than had Johnny's express riding. But much of my share belonged of right to Talbot Ward.
Having once made up our minds to leave, we could not go too soon. A revulsion seized us. In two days the high winds that immediately sprang up from the west had dried the surface moisture. We said good-bye to all our friends—Danny Randall, Dr. Rankin, Barnes, and the few miners with whom we had become intimate. Danny was even then himself preparing to return to Sonoma as soon as the road should be open to wagons. Dr. Rankin intended to accompany him, ostensibly because he saw a fine professional opening at Sonoma, in reality because in his shy, hidden fashion he loved Danny.
Nobody objecting, we commandeered the two horses that had belonged to the Morenas. One of them we packed with our few effects, and turned the other over to Yank. Thus, trudging afoot, Johnny and I saw our last of Italian Bar. Thirty years later I rode up there out of sheer curiosity. Most of the old cabins had fallen in. The Bella Union was a drear and draughty wreck. The Empire was used as a stable. Barnes's place and Morton's next door had burned down. Only three of the many houses were inhabited. In two of them dwelt old men, tending small gardens and orchards. I do not doubt they too were Forty-niners; but I did not stop. The place was full of too many ghosts.
CHAPTER XLI
WE GO OUT
We made our way out of the hills without adventure worth noting. The road was muddy, and a good deal washed. In fact, we had occasionally to do considerable manoeuvring to find a way at all around the landslides from the hills above.
As we descended we came upon traces of the great exodus that was taking place from the hills. All the miners were moving out. We found discarded articles of camp equipment; we passed some people without any equipment at all. Sick men lay under bushes without covering, or staggered painfully down the muddy trails. Many were utterly without food. If it rained, as it did from frequent showers, they took it as cheerfully as they could. This army of the unsuccessful was a striking commentary on the luck of the mines.
Robbers most singularly lacked. I did not hear of a single case of violence in all the rather slow journey out. The explanation did not seem difficult, however. Those who travelled alone had nothing worth the taking; while those who possessed gold went in numbers too strong to be attacked. The road agents had gone straight to the larger cities. Nor, must I confess, did I see many examples of compassion to the unfortunate. In spite of the sentimental stories that have been told—with real enough basis in isolated fact, probably—the time was selfish. It was also, after eliminating the desperadoes and blacklegs, essentially honest. Thus one day we came upon a wagon apparently deserted by the roadside. On it was a rudely scrawled sign:
"Will some kind person stay by my wagon. I am in distress looking for my oxen. Please do not take anything, for I am poor, and the property is not mine."
Nothing had been touched, as near as I could make out. We travelled by easy stages, and by a roundabout route, both because the road was bad, and because we wanted to see the country. On our way we passed several other small camps. A great many Chinese had come in, and were engaged in scratching over the abandoned claims. In fact, one man told me that sometimes it was worth while to file on some of the abandoned claims just to sell them to these patient people! As we descended from the mountains we naturally came upon more and more worked-out claims. Some had evidently been abandoned in disgust by men with little stamina; but, sometimes, with a considerable humour. An effigy clad in regulation gambler's rig, including the white shirt, swayed and swung slowly above the merest surface diggings. Across the shirt front these words were written:
"My claim failed!"
And then below them:
"Oh, Susannah! don't you cry for me! I'm a-living dead in Californi-ee"— which was very bad as doggerel, but probably very accurate as to its author's state of mind.
One afternoon we turned off on a trail known to Old, and rode a few miles to where the Pine family had made its farm. We found the old man and his tall sons inhabiting a large two-roomed cabin situated on a flat. They had already surrounded a field with a fence made of split pickets and rails, and were working away with the tireless energy of the born axemen at enclosing still more. Their horses had been turned into ploughing; and from somewhere or other they had procured a cock and a dozen hens. Of these they were inordinately proud, and they took great pains to herd them in every night away from wildcats and other beasts. We stayed with them four days, and we had a fine time. Every man of them was keenly interested in the development of the valley and the discovery of its possibilities. We discussed apples, barley, peaches, apricots, ditches, irrigation, beans, hogs, and a hundred kindred topics, to Johnny's vast disgust. I had been raised on a New England farm; Yank had experienced agricultural vicissitudes in the new country west of the Alleghanies; and the Pines had scratched the surface of the earth in many localities. But this was a new climate and a new soil to all of us; and we had nothing to guide us. The subject was fascinating. Johnny was frankly bored with it all, but managed to have a good time hunting for the game with which the country abounded.
For a brief period Yank and I quite envied the lot of these pioneers who had a settled stake in the country.
"I wish I could go in for this sort of thing," said Yank.
"Why don't you?" urged old man Pine. "There's a flat just above us."
"How did you get hold of this land?" I inquired curiously.
"Just took it".
"Doesn't it belong to anybody?"
"It's part of one of these big Greaser ranchos," said Pine impatiently. "I made a good try to git to the bottom of it. One fellar says he owns it, and will sell; then comes another that says he owns it and won't sell. And so on. They don't nohow use this country, except a few cattle comes through once in a while. I got tired of monkeying with them and I came out here and squatted. If I owe anybody anything, they got to show me who it is. I don't believe none of them knows themselves who it really belongs to."
"I'd hate to put a lot of work into a place, and then have to move out," said I doubtfully.
"I'd like to see anybody move me out!" observed old man Pine grimly.
Farther up in the hills they were putting together the framework of a sawmill, working on it at odd times when the ranch itself did not demand attention. It was built of massive hewn timbers, raised into place with great difficulty. They had no machinery as yet, but would get that later out of their first farming profits.
"There ain't no hurry about it anyway," explained Pine, "for as yet there ain't no demand for lumber yereabouts."
"I should say not!" exploded Johnny with a derisive shriek of laughter, "unless you're going to sell it to the elks and coyotes!"
Pine turned toward him seriously.
"This is all good land yere," said he, "and they'll want lumber."
"It looks mighty good to me," said Yank.
"Well, why don't you settle?" urged Pine.
"And me with fifteen hundred good dollars?" replied Yank. "It ain't such an everlasting fortune; but it'll git me a place back home; and I've had my fun. This country is too far off. I'm going back home."
To this sentiment Johnny and I heartily agreed. It is a curious fact that not one man in ten thousand even contemplated the possibility of making California his permanent home. It was a place in which to get as rich as he could, and then to leave.
Nevertheless we left our backwoods friends reluctantly; and at the top of the hill we stopped our two horses to look back on the valley. It lay, with its brown, freshly upturned earth, its scattered broad oaks, its low wood-crowned knolls, as though asleep in the shimmering warm floods of golden sunshine. Through the still air we heard plainly the beat of an axe, and the low, drowsy clucking of hens. A peaceful and grateful feeling of settled permanence, to which the restless temporary life of mining camps had long left us strangers, filled us with the vague stirrings of envy.
The feeling soon passed. We marched cheerfully away, our hopes busy with what we would do when we reached New York. Johnny and I had accumulated very fair sums of money, in spite of our loss at the hands of the robbers, what with the takings at Hangman's Gulch, what was left from the robbery, and Italian Bar. These sums did not constitute an enormous fortune, to be sure. There was nothing spectacular in our winnings; but they totalled about five times the amount we could have made at home; and they represented a very fair little stake with which to start life. We were young.
We found Sacramento under water. A sluggish, brown flood filled the town and spread far abroad over the flat countryside. Men were living in the second stories of such buildings as possessed second stories, and on the roofs of others. They were paddling about in all sorts of improvised boats and rafts. I saw one man keeping a precarious equilibrium in a baker's trough; and another sprawled out face down on an India rubber bed paddling overside with his hands.
We viewed these things from the thwarts of a boat which we hired for ten dollars. Our horses we had left outside of town on the highlands. Everywhere we passed men and shouted to them a cheery greeting. Everybody seemed optimistic and inclined to believe that the flood would soon go down.
"Anyway, she's killed the rats," one man shouted in answer to our call.
We grinned an appreciation of what we thought merely a facetious reply. Rats had not yet penetrated to the mines, so we did not know anything about them. Next day, in San Francisco, we began to apprehend the man's remark.
Thus we rowed cheerfully about, having a good time at the other fellow's expense. Suddenly Johnny, who was steering, dropped his paddle with an exclamation. Yank and I turned to see what had so struck him. Beyond the trees that marked where the bank of the river ought to be we saw two tall smokestacks belching forth a great volume of black smoke.
"A steamer!" cried Yank.
"Yes, and a good big one!" I added.
We lay to our oars and soon drew alongside. She proved to be a side wheeler, of fully seven hundred tons, exactly like the craft we had often seen plying the Hudson.
"Now how do you suppose they got her out here?" I marvelled.
She was almost completely surrounded by craft of all descriptions; her decks were crowded. We read the name McKim on her paddle boxes.
A man with an official cap appeared at the rail.
"Bound for San Francisco?" I called to him.
"Off in two minutes," he replied.
"What's the fare?"
"Forty dollars."
"Come on, boys," said I to my comrades, at the same time seizing a dangling rope.
"Hold on!" cried Yank. "How about our two horses and our blankets, and this boat?"
I cast my eye around, and discovered a boy of fourteen or fifteen in the stern of a neat fisherman's dory a few feet away.
"Here!" I called to him. "Do you want two good horses and some blankets?"
"I ain't got any money."
"Don't need any. These are free. We're going down on this boat. You'll find the outfit under the big white oak two miles above the forks on the American. They're yours if you'll go get them."
"What do you want me to do?" he demanded suspiciously.
"Two things: return this boat to its owner—a man named Lilly who lives——"
"I know the boat," the boy interrupted.
"The other is to be sure to go up to-day after those horses. They're picketed out."
"All right," agreed the boy, whose enthusiasm kindled as his belief in the genuineness of the offer was assured.
I seized a rope, swung myself up to the flat fender, and thence to the deck.
"Come on!" I called to Yank and Johnny, who were hesitating. "It'll cost more than those horses and blankets are worth to wait."
Thereupon they followed me. The boy made fast our boat to his own. Five minutes later we were dropping down the river.
"This is what I call real luxury," said Johnny, returning from an inspection of our craft. "There's a barroom, and a gambling layout, and velvet carpets and chairs, mirrors, a minstrel show, and all the fixings. Now who'd expect to run against a layout like this on the river?"
"What I'd like to know is how they got her out here," said I. "Look at her! She's a river boat. A six-foot wave ought to swamp her!"
We thought of a half dozen solutions, and dismissed them all. The discussion, however, served its purpose in inflaming our curiosity.
"I'm going to find some one who knows," I announced at last.
This was not so easy. The captain was of course remote and haughty and inaccessible, and the other officers were too busy handling the ship and the swarming rough crowd to pay any attention to us. The crew were new hands. Finally, however, we found in the engine room a hard bitten individual with a short pipe and some leisure. To him we proffered our question.
"Sailed her," said he.
"Around the Horn?" I cried.
He looked at me a bitter instant.
"The sailing wasn't very good across the plains, at that time," said he.
Little by little we got his story. I am not a seafaring man, but it seems to me one of the most extraordinary feats of which I have ever heard. The lower decks of the McKim had been boarded up with heavy planks; some of her frailer gimcracks of superstructure had been dismantled, and then she had been sent under her own power on the long journey around the Horn. Think of it! A smooth-water river boat, light draught, top heavy, frail in construction, sent out to battle with the might of three oceans! However, she made it; and after her her sister ship, the Senator, and they made money for their owners, and I am glad of it. That certainly was a gallant enterprise!
She was on this trip jammed full of people, mostly those returning from the mines. A trip on the McKim implied a certain amount of prosperity, so we were a jolly lot. The weather was fine, and a bright moon illuminated the swollen river. We had drinkers, songsters, debaters, gamblers, jokers, and a few inclined to be quarrelsome, all of which added to the variety of the occasion. I wandered around from one group to another, thoroughly enjoying myself, both out on deck and in the cabins. It might be added that there were no sleepers!
Along toward midnight, as I was leaning on the rail forward watching the effect of the moon on the water and the shower of sparks from the twin stacks against the sky, I was suddenly startled by the cry of "man overboard," and a rush toward the stern. I followed as quickly as I was able. The paddle wheels had been instantly reversed, and a half dozen sailors were busily lowering a boat. A crowd of men, alarmed by the trembling of the vessel as her way was checked, poured out from the cabins. The fact that I was already on deck gave me an advantageous post; so that I found myself near the stern rail.
"He was leaning against the rail," one was explaining excitedly, "and it give way, and in he went. He never came up!"
Everybody was watching eagerly the moonlit expanse of the river.
"I guess he's a goner," said a man after a few moments. "He ain't in sight nowhere."
"There he is!" cried a half dozen voices all at once.
A head shot into sight a few hundred yards astern, blowing the silvered water aside. The small boat, which was now afloat, immediately headed in his direction, and a moment later he was hauled aboard amid frantic cheers. The dripping victim of the accident clambered to the deck.
It was Johnny!
He was beside himself with excitement, sputtering with rage and uttering frantic threats against something or somebody. His eyes were wild, and he fairly frothed at the mouth. I seized him by the arm. He stared at me, then became coherent, though he still spluttered. Johnny was habitually so quietly reserved as far as emotions go that his present excitement was at first utterly incomprehensible.
It seemed that he had been leaning against the rail, watching the moonlight, when suddenly it had given way beneath his weight and he had fallen into the river.
"They had no business to have so weak a rail!" he cried bitterly.
"Well, you're here, all right," I said soothingly. "There's no great harm done."
"Oh, isn't there?" he snarled.
Then we learned how the weight of the gold around his waist had carried him down like a plummet; and we sensed a little of the desperate horror with which he had torn and struggled to free himself from that dreadful burden.
"I thought I'd burst!" said he.
And then he had torn off the belt, and had shot to the surface.
"It's down there," he said more calmly, "every confounded yellow grain of it." He laughed a little. "Broke!" said he. "No New York in mine!"
The crowd murmured sympathetically.
"Gol darn it, boys, it's rotten hard luck!" cried a big miner with some heat. "Who'll chip in?"
At the words Johnny recovered himself, and his customary ease of manner returned.
"Much obliged, boys," said he, "but I've still got my health. I don't need charity. Guess I've been doing the baby act; but I was damn mad at that rotten old rail. Anyway," he laughed, "there need nobody say in the future that there's no gold in the lower Sacramento. There is; I put it there myself."
The tall miner slowly stowed away his buckskin sack, looking keenly in Johnny's face.
"Well, you'll have a drink, anyway," said he.
"Oh, hell, yes!" agreed Johnny, "I'll have a drink!"
CHAPTER XLII
SAN FRANCISCO AGAIN
We drew up to San Francisco early in the afternoon, and we were, to put it mildly, thoroughly astonished at the change in the place. To begin with, we now landed at a long wharf projecting from the foot of Sacramento Street instead of by lighter. This wharf was crowded by a miscellaneous mob, collected apparently with no other purpose than to view our arrival. Among them we saw many specialized types that had been lacking to the old city of a few months ago—sharp, keen, businesslike clerks whom one could not imagine at the rough work of the mines; loafers whom one could not imagine at any work at all; dissolute, hard-faced characters without the bold freedom of the road agents; young green-looking chaps who evidently had much to learn and who were exceedingly likely to pay their little fortunes, if not their lives, in the learning. On a hogshead at one side a street preacher was declaiming.
Johnny had by now quite recovered his spirits. I think he was helped greatly by the discovery that he still possessed his celebrated diamond.
"Not broke yet!" said he triumphantly. "You see I was a wise boy after all! Wish I had two of them!"
We disembarked, fought our way to one side, and discussed our plans.
"Hock the diamond first," said Johnny, who resolutely refused to borrow from me; "then hair-cut, shave, bath, buy some more clothes, grub, drink, and hunt up Talbot and see what he's done with the dust we sent down from Hangman's."
That program seemed good. We strolled toward shore, with full intention of putting it into immediate execution. "Immediate" proved to be a relative term; there was too much to see.
First we stopped for a moment to hear what the preacher had to say. He was a tall, lank man with fine but rather fanatical features, dressed in a long black coat, his glossy head bare. In spite of the numerous counter-attractions he had a crowd; and he was holding it.
"You're standing on a whiskey barrel!" called some one; and the crowd yelled with delight.
"True, my friend," retorted the preacher with undaunted good nature, "and I'll venture to say this is the first time a whiskey barrel has ever been appropriated to so useful a purpose. The critter in it will do no harm if it is kept underfoot. Never let it get above your feet!"
A boat runner, a squat, humorous-faced negro with flashing teeth and a ready flow of language, evidently a known and appreciated character, mounted the head of a pile at some little distance and began to hold forth in a deep voice on the advantages of some sort of an excursion on the bay. A portion of the preacher's crowd began to drift in the direction of the new attraction.
"Ho! ho! ho!" cried the preacher suddenly in tremendous volume. "Ho! All ye who want to go to heaven, now's your time! A splendid line of celestial steamers will run for a few days from San Francisco to the port of Glory, a country every way superior to California, having in it the richest gold diggings ever discovered, the very streets of the city being paved with gold. In that country are oceans of lager beer and drinks of every kind, all free; pretty women also, and pleasures of endless variety exceeding the dreams of Mohammed as far as the brightness of the meridian sun exceeds the dim twinkle of the glowworm! Program for the voyage: embarkation amid the melody of the best band in the world; that music that so attracted you this morning not to be mentioned in comparison. Appropriate entertainments for each week day, to be announced daily. Each Sunday to be celebrated, first, with a grand feast, closing with a rich profusion of beer, champagne, good old port, whiskey punch, brandy smashes, Tom and Jerry, etc. Second, a game of cards. Third, a grand ball in upper saloon. Fourth, a dog fight. Fifth, a theatrical performance in the evening. If I could truthfully publish such an ad as that I think about two sermons would convert this city."
The crowd had all turned back to him, laughing good-humouredly. The preacher stretched out his long bony arm, and held forth. His talk was against gambling, and it had, I am afraid, but little real effect. Nevertheless he was listened to; and at the end of his talk everybody contributed something to a collection.
At the land end of the wharf we ran into the most extraordinary collection of vehicles apparently in an inextricable tangle, that was further complicated by the fact that most of the horses were only half broken. They kicked and reared, their drivers lashed and swore, the wagons clashed together. There seemed no possible way out of the mess; and yet somehow the wagons seemed to get loaded and to draw out into the clear. Occasionally the drivers were inclined to abandon their craft and do battle with the loaded ends of their whips; but always a peacemaker descended upon them in the person of a large voluble individual in whom I recognized my former friend and employer, John McGlynn. Evidently John had no longer a monopoly of the teaming business; but, as evidently, what he said went with this wild bunch. |
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