Mr. Grant's warnings were verified to the foot of the letter. Great were our sufferings, and almost worse were those of the poor animals, from the want of water. Then, too, unlike the desert of Sahara, where the pebbly sand affords a solid footing, the soil here is the calcined powder of volcanic debris, so fine that every step in it is up to one's ankles; while clouds of it rose, choking the nostrils, and covering one from head to heel. Here is a passage from my journal:

'Road rocky in places, but generally deep in the finest floury sand. A strong and biting wind blew dead in our teeth, smothering us in dust, which filled every pore. William presented such a ludicrous appearance that Samson and I went into fits over it. An old felt hat, fastened on by a red cotton handkerchief, tied under his chin, partly hid his lantern-jawed visage; this, naturally of a dolorous cast, was screwed into wrinkled contortions by its efforts to resist the piercing gale. The dust, as white as flour, had settled thick upon him, the extremity of his nasal organ being the only rosy spot left; its pearly drops lodged upon a chin almost as prominent. His shoulders were shrugged to a level with his head, and his long legs dangled from the back of little "Cream" till they nearly touched the ground.'

We laughed at him, it is true, but he was so good-natured, so patient, so simple-minded, and, now and then, when he and I were alone, so sentimental and confidential about Mary, and the fortune he meant to bring her back, that I had a sort of maternal liking for him; and even a vicarious affection for Mary herself, the colour of whose eyes and hair - nay, whose weight avoirdupois - I was now accurately acquainted with. No, the honest fellow had not quite the grit of a 'Leatherstocking.'

One night, when we had halted after dark, he went down to a gully (we were not then in the desert) to look for water for our tea. Samson, armed with the hatchet, was chopping wood. I stayed to arrange the packs, and spread the blankets. Suddenly I heard a voice from the bottom of the ravine, crying out, 'Bring the guns for God's sake! Make haste! Bring the guns!' I rushed about in the dark, tumbling over the saddles, but could nowhere lay my hands on a rifle. Still the cry was for 'Guns!' My own, a muzzle-loader, was discharged, but a rifle none the less. Snatching up this, and one of my pistols, which, by the way, had fallen into the river a few hours before, I shouted for Samson, and ran headlong to the rescue. Before I got to the bottom of the hill I heard groans, which sounded like the last of poor William. I holloaed to know where he was, and was answered in a voice that discovered nothing worse than terror.

It appeared that he had met a grizzly bear drinking at the very spot where he was about to fill his can; that he had bolted, and the bear had pursued him; but that he had 'cobbled the bar with rocks,' had hit it in the eye, or nose, he was not sure which, and thus narrowly escaped with his life. I could not help laughing at his story, though an examination of the place next morning so far verified it, that his footprints and the bear's were clearly intermingled on the muddy shore of the stream. To make up for his fright, he was extremely courageous when restored by tea and a pipe. 'If we would follow the trail with him, he'd go right slick in for her anyhow. If his rifle didn't shoot plum, he'd a bowie as 'ud rise her hide, and no mistake. He'd be darn'd if he didn't make meat of that bar in the morning.'



CHAPTER XXV



WE were now steering by compass. Our course was nearly north-west. This we kept, as well as the formation of the country and the watercourses would permit. After striking the great Shoshone, or Snake River, which eventually becomes the Columbia, we had to follow its banks in a southerly direction. These are often supported by basaltic columns several hundred feet in height. Where that was the case, though close to water, we suffered most from want of it. And cold as were the nights - it was the middle of September - the sun was intensely hot. Every day, every mile, we were hoping for a change - not merely for access to the water, but that we might again pursue our westerly course. The scenery was sometimes very striking. The river hereabouts varies from one hundred to nearly three hundred yards in width; sometimes rushing through narrow gorges, sometimes descending in continuous rapids, sometimes spread out in smooth shallow reaches. It was for one of these that we were in search, for only at such points was the river passable.

It was night-time when we came to one of the great falls. We were able here to get at water; and having halted through the day, on account of the heat, kept on while our animals were refreshed. We had to ascend the banks again, and wind along the brink of the precipice. From this the view was magnificent. The moon shone brightly upon the dancing waves hundreds of feet below us, and upon the rapids which extended as far as we could see. The deep shade of the high cliffs contrasted in its impenetrable darkness with the brilliancy of the silvery foam. The vast plain which we overlooked, fading in the soft light, rose gradually into a low range of distant hills. The incessant roar of the rapids, and the desert stillness of all else around, though they lulled one's senses, yet awed one with a feeling of insignificance and impotence in the presence of such ruthless force, amid such serene and cold indifference. Unbidden, the consciousness was there, that for some of us the coming struggle with those mighty waters was fraught with life or death.

At last we came upon a broad stretch of the river which seemed to offer the possibilities we sought for. Rather late in the afternoon we decided to cross here, notwithstanding William's strong reluctance to make the venture. Part of his unwillingness was, I knew, due to apprehension, part to his love of fishing. Ever since we came down upon the Snake River we had seen quantities of salmon. He persisted in the belief that they were to be caught with the rod. The day before, all three of us had waded into the river, and flogged it patiently for a couple of hours, while heavy fish were tumbling about above and below us. We caught plenty of trout, but never pricked a salmon. Here the broad reach was alive with them, and William begged hard to stop for the afternoon and pursue the gentle sport. It was not to be.

The tactics were as usual. Samson led the way, holding the lariat to which the two spare horses were attached. In crossing streams the mules would always follow the horses. They were accordingly let loose, and left to do so. William and I brought up the rear, driving before us any mule that lagged. My journal records the sequel:

'At about equal distances from each other and the main land were two small islands. The first of these we reached without trouble. The second was also gained; but the packs were wetted, the current being exceedingly rapid. The space remaining to be forded was at least two hundred yards; and the stream so strong that I was obliged to turn my mare's head up it to prevent her being carried off her legs. While thus resting, William with difficulty, - the water being over his knees, - sidled up to me. He wanted to know if I still meant to cross. For all answer, I laughed at him. In truth I had not the smallest misgiving. Strong as was the current, the smooth rocky bottom gave a good foothold to the animals; and, judging by the great width of the river, there was no reason to suppose that its shallowness would not continue.

'We paused for a few minutes to observe Samson, who was now within forty or fifty yards of the opposite bank; and, as I concluded, past all danger. Suddenly, to the astonishment of both of us, he and his horse and the led animals disappeared under water; the next instant they were struggling and swimming for the bank. Tied together as they were, there was a deal of snorting and plunging; and Samson (with his habitual ingenuity) had fastened the lariat either to himself or his saddle; so that he was several times dragged under before they all got to the bank in safety.

'These events were watched by William with intense anxiety. With a pitiable look of terror he assured me he could not swim a yard; it was useless for him to try to cross; he would turn back, and find his way to Salt Lake City.

'"But," I remonstrated, "if you turn back, you will certainly starve; everything we possess is over there with the mules; your blanket, even your rifle, are with the packs. It is impossible to get the mules back again. Give little Cream her head, sit still in your saddle, and she'll carry you through that bit of deep water with ease."

'"I can live by fishing," he plaintively answered. He still held his long rod, and the incongruity of it added to the pathos of his despair. I reminded him of a bad river we had before crossed, and how his mule had swum it safely with him on her back. I promised to keep close to him, and help him if need were, though I was confident if he left everything to Cream there would be no danger. "Well, if he must, he must. But, if anything happened to him, would I write and tell Mary? I knew her address; leastways, if I didn't, it was in his bag on the brown mule. And tell her I done my best."

'The water was so clear one could see every crack in the rock beneath. Fortunately, I took the precaution to strip to my shirt; fastened everything, even my socks, to the saddle; then advanced cautiously ahead of William to the brink of the chasm. We were, in fact, upon the edge of a precipice. One could see to an inch where the gulf began. As my mare stepped into it I slipped off my saddle; when she rose I laid hold of her tail, and in two or three minutes should have been safe ashore.

'Looking back to see how it had fared with William, I at once perceived his danger. He had clasped his mule tightly round the neck with his arms, and round the body with his long legs. She was plunging violently to get rid of her load. Already the pair were forty or fifty yards below me. Instantly I turned and swam to his assistance. The struggles of the mule rendered it dangerous to get at him. When I did so he was partially dazed; his hold was relaxed. Dragging him away from the hoofs of the animal, I begged him to put his hands on my shoulders or hips. He was past any effort of the kind. I do not think he heard me even. He seemed hardly conscious of anything. His long wet hair plastered over the face concealed his features. Beyond stretching out his arms, like an infant imploring help, he made no effort to save himself.

'I seized him firmly by the collar, - unfortunately, with my right hand, leaving only my left to stem the torrent. But how to keep his face out of the water? At every stroke I was losing strength; we were being swept away, for him, to hopeless death. At length I touched bottom, got both hands under his head, and held it above the surface. He still breathed, still puffed the hair from his lips. There was still a hope, if I could but maintain my footing. But, alas! each instant I was losing ground - each instant I was driven back, foot by foot, towards the gulf. The water, at first only up to my chest, was now up to my shoulders, now up to my neck. My strength was gone. My arms ached till they could bear no more. They sank involuntarily. William glided from my hands. He fell like lead till his back lay stretched upon the rock. His arms were spread out, so that his body formed a cross. I paddled above it in the clear, smooth water, gazing at his familiar face, till two or three large bubbles burst upon the surface; then, hardly knowing what I was doing, floated mechanically from the trapper's grave.

. . . . . . .

'My turn was now to come. At first, the right, or western, bank being within sixty or seventy yards, being also my proper goal, I struck out for it with mere eagerness to land as soon as possible. The attempt proved unsuccessful. Very well, then, I would take it quietly - not try to cross direct, but swim on gently, keeping my head that way. By degrees I got within twenty yards of the bank, was counting joyfully on the rest which a few more strokes would bring me, when - wsh - came a current, and swept me right into the middle of the stream again.

'I began to be alarmed. I must get out of this somehow or another; better on the wrong side than not at all. So I let myself go, and made for the shore we had started from.

'Same fate. When well over to the left bank I was carried out again. What! was I too to be drowned? It began to look like it. I was getting cold, numb, exhausted. And - listen! What is that distant sound? Rapids? Yes, rapids. My flannel shirt stuck to, and impeded me; I would have it off. I got it over my head, but hadn't unbuttoned the studs - it stuck, partly over my head. I tugged to tear it off. Got a drop of water into my windpipe; was choking; tugged till I got the shirt right again. Then tried floating on my back - to cough and get my breath. Heard the rapids much louder. It was getting dark now. The sun was setting in glorious red and gold. I noticed this, noticed the salmon rolling like porpoises around me, and thought of William with his rod. Strangest of all, for I had not noticed her before, little Cream was still struggling for dear life not a hundred yards below me; sometimes sinking, sometimes reappearing, but on her way to join her master, as surely as I thought that I was.

'In my distress, the predominant thought was the loneliness of my fate, the loneliness of my body after death. There was not a living thing to see me die.

'For the first time I felt, not fear, but loss of hope. I could only beat the water with feeble and futile splashes. I was completely at its mercy. And - as we all then do - I prayed - prayed for strength, prayed that I might be spared. But my strength was gone. My legs dropped powerless in the water. I could but just keep my nose or mouth above it. My legs sank, and my feet - touched bottom.

'In an instant, as if from an electric shock, a flush of energy suffused my brain and limbs. I stood upright in an almost tranquil pool. An eddy had lodged me on a sandbank. Between it and the land was scarcely twenty yards. Through this gap the stream ran strong as ever. I did not want to rest; I did not pause to think. In I dashed; and a single spurt carried me to the shore. I fell on my knees, and with a grateful heart poured out gratitude for my deliverance.

. . . . . . .

'I was on the wrong side, the side from which we started. The river was yet to cross. I had not tasted food since our early meal. How long I had been swimming I know not, but it was dark now, starlight at least. The nights were bitterly cold, and my only clothing a wet flannel shirt. And oh! the craving for companionship, someone to talk to - even Samson. This was a stronger need than warmth, or food, or clothing; so strong that it impelled me to try again.

'The poor sandy soil grew nothing but briars and small cactuses. In the dark I kept treading on the little prickly plants, but I hurried on till I came in sight of Samson's fire. I could see his huge form as it intercepted the comfortable blaze. I pictured him making his tea, broiling some of William's trout, and spreading his things before the fire to dry. I could see the animals moving around the glow. It was my home. How I yearned for it! How should I reach it, if ever? In this frame of mind the attempt was irresistible. I started as near as I could from opposite the two islands. As on horseback, I got pretty easily to the first island. Beyond this I was taken off my feet by the stream; and only with difficulty did I once more regain the land.

My next object was to communicate with Samson. By putting both hands to my mouth and shouting with all my force I made him hear. I could see him get up and come to the water's edge; though he could not see me, his stentorian voice reached me plainly. His first words were:

'"Is that you, William? Coke is drowned."

'I corrected him, and thus replied:

'"Do you remember a bend near some willows, where you wanted to cross yesterday?"

'"Yes."

'"About two hours higher up the river?"

'"I remember."

'"Would you know the place again?"

'"Yes."

'"Are you sure?

'"Yes, yes."

'"You will see me by daylight in the morning. When I start, you will take my mare, my clothes, and some food; make for that place and wait till I come. I will cross there."

'"All right."

'"Keep me in sight as long as you can. Don't forget the food."

'It will be gathered from my words that definite instructions were deemed necessary; and the inference - at least it was mine - will follow, that if a mistake were possible Samson would avail himself of it. The night was before me. The river had yet to be crossed. But, strange as it now seems to me, I had no misgivings! My heart never failed me. My prayer had been heard. I had been saved. How, I knew not. But this I knew, my trust was complete. I record this as a curious psychological occurrence; for it supported me with unfailing energy through the severe trial which I had yet to undergo.'



CHAPTER XXVI



OUR experiences are little worth unless they teach us to reflect. Let us then pause to consider this hourly experience of human beings - this remarkable efficacy of prayer. There can hardly be a contemplative mind to which, with all its difficulties, the inquiry is not familiar.

To begin with, 'To pray is to expect a miracle.' 'Prayer in its very essence,' says a thoughtful writer, 'implies a belief in the possible intervention of a power which is above nature.' How was it in my case? What was the essence of my belief? Nothing less than this: that God would have permitted the laws of nature, ordained by His infinite wisdom to fulfil His omniscient designs and pursue their natural course in accordance with His will, had not my request persuaded Him to suspend those laws in my favour.

The very belief in His omniscience and omnipotence subverts the spirit of such a prayer. It is on the perfection of God that Malebranche bases his argument that 'Dieu n'agit pas par des volontes particulieres.' Yet every prayer affects to interfere with the divine purposes.

It may here be urged that the divine purposes are beyond our comprehension. God's purposes may, in spite of the inconceivability, admit the efficacy of prayer as a link in the chain of causation; or, as Dr. Mozely holds, it may be that 'a miracle is not an anomaly or irregularity, but part of the system of the universe.' We will not entangle ourselves in the abstruse metaphysical problem which such hypotheses involve, but turn for our answer to what we do know - to the history of this world, to the daily life of man. If the sun rises on the evil as well as on the good, if the wicked 'become old, yea, are mighty in power,' still, the lightning, the plague, the falling chimney-pot, smite the good as well as the evil. Even the dumb animal is not spared. 'If,' says Huxley, 'our ears were sharp enough to hear all the cries of pain that are uttered in the earth by man and beasts we should be deafened by one continuous scream.' 'If there are any marks at all of special design in creation,' writes John Stuart Mill, 'one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments for that purpose.' Is it credible, then, that the Almighty Being who, as we assume, hears this continuous scream - animal-prayer, as we may call it - and not only pays no heed to it, but lavishly fits out animals with instruments for tormenting and devouring one another, that such a Being should suspend the laws of gravitation and physiology, should perform a miracle equal to that of arresting the sun - for all miracles are equipollent - simply to prolong the brief and useless existence of such a thing as man, of one man out of the myriads who shriek, and - shriek in vain?

To pray is to expect a miracle. Then comes the further question: Is this not to expect what never yet has happened? The only proof of any miracle is the interpretation the witness or witnesses put upon what they have seen. (Traditional miracles - miracles that others have been told, that others have seen - we need not trouble our heads about.) What that proof has been worth hitherto has been commented upon too often to need attention here. Nor does the weakness of the evidence for miracles depend solely on the fact that it rests, in the first instance, on the senses, which may be deceived; or upon inference, which may be erroneous. It is not merely that the infallibility of human testimony discredits the miracles of the past. The impossibility that human knowledge, that science, can ever exhaust the possibilities of Nature, precludes the immediate reference to the Supernatural for all time. It is pure sophistry to argue, as do Canon Row and other defenders of miracles, that 'the laws of Nature are no more violated by the performance of a miracle than they are by the activities of a man.' If these arguments of the special pleaders had any force at all, it would simply amount to this: 'The activities of man' being a part of nature, we have no evidence of a supernatural being, which is the sole RAISON D'ETRE of miracle.

Yet thousands of men in these days who admit the force of these objections continue, in spite of them, to pray. Huxley, the foremost of 'agnostics,' speaks with the utmost respect of his friend Charles Kingsley's conviction from experience of the efficacy of prayer. And Huxley himself repeatedly assures us, in some form or other, that 'the possibilities of "may be" are to me infinite.' The puzzle is, in truth, on a par with that most insolvable of all puzzles - Free Will or Determinism. Reason and the instinct of conscience are in both cases irreconcilable. We are conscious that we are always free to choose, though not to act; but reason will have it that this is a delusion. There is no logical clue to the IMPASSE. Still, reason notwithstanding, we take our freedom (within limits) for granted, and with like inconsequence we pray.

It must, I think, be admitted that the belief, delusive or warranted, is efficacious in itself. Whether generated in the brain by the nerve centres, or whatever may be its origin, a force coincident with it is diffused throughout the nervous system, which converts the subject of it, just paralysed by despair, into a vigorous agent, or, if you will, automaton.

Now, those who admit this much argue, with no little force, that the efficacy of prayer is limited to its reaction upon ourselves. Prayer, as already observed, implies belief in supernatural intervention. Such belief is competent to beget hope, and with it courage, energy, and effort. Suppose contrition and remorse induce the sufferer to pray for Divine aid and mercy, suppose suffering is the natural penalty of his or her own misdeeds, and suppose the contrition and the prayer lead to resistance of similar temptations, and hence to greater happiness, - can it be said that the power to resist temptation or endure the penalty are due to supernatural aid? Or must we not infer that the fear of the consequences of vice or folly, together with an earnest desire and intention to amend, were adequate in themselves to account for the good results?

Reason compels us to the latter conclusion. But what then? Would this prove prayer to be delusive? Not necessarily. That the laws of Nature (as argued above) are not violated by miracle, is a mere perversion of the accepted meaning of 'miracle,' an IGNORATIO ELENCHI. But in the case of prayer that does not ask for the abrogation of Nature's laws, it ceases to be a miracle that we pray for or expect: for are not the laws of the mind also laws of Nature? And can we explain them any more than we can explain physical laws? A psychologist can formulate the mental law of association, but he can no more explain it than Newton could explain the laws of attraction and repulsion which pervade the world of matter. We do not know, we cannot know, what the conditions of our spiritual being are. The state of mind induced by prayer may, in accordance with some mental law, be essential to certain modes of spiritual energy, specially conducive to the highest of all moral or spiritual results: taken in this sense, prayer may ask, not the suspension, but the enactment, of some natural law.

Let it, however, be granted, for argument's sake, that the belief in the efficacy of prayer is delusive, and that the beneficial effects of the belief - the exalted state of mind, the enhanced power to endure suffering and resist temptation, the happiness inseparable from the assurance that God hears, and can and will befriend us - let it be granted that all this is due to sheer hallucination, is this an argument against prayer? Surely not. For, in the first place, the incontestable fact that belief does produce these effects is for us an ultimate fact as little capable of explanation as any physical law whatever; and may, therefore, for aught we know, or ever can know, be ordained by a Supreme Being. Secondly, all the beneficial effects, including happiness, are as real in themselves as if the belief were no delusion.

It may be said that a 'fool's paradise' is liable to be turned into a hell of disappointment; and that we pay the penalty of building happiness on false foundations. This is true in a great measure; but it is absolutely without truth as regards our belief in prayer, for the simple reason that if death dispel the delusion, it at the same time dispels the deluded. However great the mistake, it can never be found out. But they who make it will have been the better and the happier while they lived.

For my part, though immeasurably preferring the pantheism of Goethe, or of Renan (without his pessimism), to the anthropomorphic God of the Israelites, or of their theosophic legatees, the Christians, however inconsistent, I still believe in prayer. I should not pray that I may not die 'for want of breath'; nor for rain, while 'the wind was in the wrong quarter.' My prayers would not be like those overheard, on his visit to Heaven, by Lucian's Menippus: 'O Jupiter, let me become a king!' 'O Jupiter, let my onions and my garlic thrive!' 'O Jupiter, let my father soon depart from hence!' But when the workings of my moral nature were concerned, when I needed strength to bear the ills which could not be averted, or do what conscience said was right, then I should pray. And, if I had done my best in the same direction, I should trust in the Unknowable for help.

Then too, is not gratitude to Heaven the best of prayers? Unhappy he who has never felt it! Unhappier still, who has never had cause to feel it!

It may be deemed unwarrantable thus to draw the lines between what, for want of better terms, we call Material and Spiritual. Still, reason is but the faculty of a very finite being; and, as in the enigma of the will, utterly incapable of solving any problems beyond those whose data are furnished by the senses. Reason is essentially realistic. Science is its domain. But science demonstratively proves that things are not what they seem; their phenomenal existence is nothing else than their relation to our special intelligence. We speak and think as if the discoveries of science were absolutely true, true in themselves, not relatively so for us only. Yet, beings with senses entirely different from ours would have an entirely different science. For them, our best established axioms would be inconceivable, would have no more meaning than that 'Abracadabra is a second intention.'

Science, supported by reason, assures us that the laws of nature - the laws of realistic phenomena - are never suspended at the prayers of man. To this conclusion the educated world is now rapidly coming. If, nevertheless, men thoroughly convinced of this still choose to believe in the efficacy of prayer, reason and science are incompetent to confute them. The belief must be tried elsewhere, - it must be transferred to the tribunal of conscience, or to a metaphysical court, in which reason has no jurisdiction.

This by no means implies that reason, in its own province, is to yield to the 'feeling' which so many cite as the infallible authority for their 'convictions.'

We must not be asked to assent to contradictory propositions. We must not be asked to believe that injustice, cruelty, and implacable revenge, are not execrable because the Bible tells us they were habitually manifested by the tribal god of the Israelites. The fables of man's fall and of the redemption are fraught with the grossest violation of our moral conscience, and will, in time, be repudiated accordingly. It is idle to say, as the Church says, 'these are mysteries above our human reason.' They are fictions, fabrications which modern research has traced to their sources, and which no unperverted mind would entertain for a moment. Fanatical belief in the truth of such dogmas based upon 'feeling' have confronted all who have gone through the severe ordeal of doubt. A couple of centuries ago, those who held them would have burnt alive those who did not. Now, they have to console themselves with the comforting thought of the fire that shall never be quenched. But even Job's patience could not stand the self-sufficiency of his pious reprovers. The sceptic too may retort: 'No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.'

Conviction of this kind is but the convenient substitute for knowledge laboriously won, for the patient pursuit of truth at all costs - a plea in short, for ignorance, indolence, incapacity, and the rancorous bigotry begotten of them.

The distinction is not a purely sentimental one - not a belief founded simply on emotion. There is a physical world - the world as known to our senses, and there is a psychical world - the world of feeling, consciousness, thought, and moral life.

Granting, if it pleases you, that material phenomena may be the causes of mental phenomena, that 'la pensee est le produit du corps entier,' still the two cannot be thought of as one. Until it can be proved that 'there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity,' - which will never be, till we know how we lift our hands to our mouths, - there remains for us a world of mystery, which reason never can invade.

It is a pregnant thought of John Mill's, apropos of material and mental interdependence or identity, 'that the uniform coexistence of one fact with another does not make the one fact a part of the other, or the same with it.'

A few words of Renan's may help to support the argument. 'Ce qui revele le vrai Dieu, c'est le sentiment moral. Si l'humanite n'etait qu'intelligente, elle serait athee. Le devoir, le devouement, le sacrifice, toutes choses dont l'histoire est pleine, sont inexplicables sans Dieu.' For all these we need help. Is it foolishness to pray for it? Perhaps so. Yet, perhaps not; for 'Tout est possible, meme Dieu.'

Whether possible, or impossible, this much is absolutely certain: man must and will have a religion as long as this world lasts. Let us not fear truth. Criticism will change men's dogmas, but it will not change man's nature.



CHAPTER XXVII



MY confidence was restored, and with it my powers of endurance. Sleep was out of the question. The night was bright and frosty; and there was not heat enough in my body to dry my flannel shirt. I made shift to pull up some briar bushes; and, piling them round me as a screen, got some little shelter from the light breeze. For hours I lay watching Alpha Centauri - the double star of the Great Bear's pointers - dipping under the Polar star like the hour hand of a clock. My thoughts, strange to say, ran little on the morrow; they dwelt almost solely upon William Nelson. How far was I responsible, to what extent to blame, for leading him, against his will, to death? I re-enacted the whole event. Again he was in my hands, still breathing when I let him go, knowing, as I did so, that the deed consigned him living to his grave. In this way I passed the night.

Just as the first streaks of the longed-for dawn broke in the East, I heard distant cries which sounded like the whoops of Indians. Then they ceased, but presently began again much nearer than before. There was no mistake about them now, - they were the yappings of a pack of wolves, clearly enough, upon our track of yesterday. A few minutes more, and the light, though still dim, revealed their presence coming on at full gallop. In vain I sought for stick or stone. Even the river, though I took to it, would not save me if they meant mischief. When they saw me they slackened their pace. I did not move. They then halted, and forming a half-moon some thirty yards off, squatted on their haunches, and began at intervals to throw up their heads and howl.

My chief hope was in the coming daylight. They were less likely to attack a man then than in the dark. I had often met one or two together when hunting; these had always bolted. But I had never seen a pack before; and I knew a pack meant that they were after food. All depended on their hunger.

When I kept still they got up, advanced a yard or two, then repeated their former game. Every minute the light grew stronger; its warmer tints heralded the rising sun. Seeing, however, that my passivity encouraged them, and convinced that a single step in retreat would bring the pack upon me, I determined in a moment of inspiration to run amuck, and trust to Providence for the consequences. Flinging my arms wildly into the air, and frantically yelling with all my lungs, I dashed straight in for the lot of them. They were, as I expected, taken by surprise. They jumped to their feet and turned tail, but again stopped - this time farther off, and howled with vexation at having to wait till their prey succumbed.

The sun rose. Samson was on the move. I shouted to him, and he to me. Finding me thus reinforced the enemy slunk off, and I was not sorry to see the last of my ugly foes. I now repeated my instructions about our trysting place, waited patiently till Samson had breakfasted (which he did with the most exasperating deliberation), saw him saddle my horse and leave his camp. I then started upon my travels up the river, to meet him. After a mile or so, the high ground on both banks obliged us to make some little detour. We then lost sight of each other; nor was he to be seen when I reached the appointed spot.

Long before I did so I began to feel the effects of my labours. My naked feet were in a terrible state from the cactus thorns, which I had been unable to avoid in the dark; occasional stones, too, had bruised and made them very tender. Unable to shuffle on at more than two miles an hour at fastest, the happy thought occurred to me of tearing up my shirt and binding a half round each foot. This enabled me to get on much better; but when the September sun was high, my unprotected skin and head paid the penalty. I waited for a couple of hours, I dare say, hoping Samson would appear. But concluding at length that he had arrived long before me, through the slowness of my early progress, and had gone further up the river - thinking perhaps that I had meant some other place - I gave him up; and, full of internal 'd-n' at his incorrigible consistency, plodded on and on for - I knew not where.

Why, it may be asked, did I not try to cross where I had intended? I must confess my want of courage. True, the river here was not half, not a third, of the width of the scene of my disasters; but I was weak in body and in mind. Had anything human been on the other side to see me - to see how brave I was, (alas! poor human nature!) - I could have plucked up heart to risk it. It would have been such a comfort to have some one to see me drown! But it is difficult to play the hero with no spectators save oneself. I shall always have a fellow-feeling with the Last Man: practically, my position was about as uncomfortable as his will be.

One of the worst features of it was, what we so often suffered from before - the inaccessibility of water. The sun was broiling, and the and soil reflected its scorching rays. I was feverish from exhaustion, and there was nothing, nothing to look forward to. Mile after mile I crawled along, sometimes half disposed to turn back, and try the deep but narrow passage; then that inexhaustible fountain of last hopes - the Unknown - tempted me to go forward. I persevered; when behold! as I passed a rock, an Indian stood before me.

He was as naked as I was. Over his shoulder he carried a spear as long as a salmon rod. Though neither had foreseen the other, he was absolutely unmoved, showed no surprise, no curiosity, no concern. He stood still, and let me come up to him. My only, or rather my uppermost, feeling was gladness. Of course the thought crossed me of what he might do if he owed the white skins a grudge. If any white man had ever harmed one of his tribe, I was at his mercy; and it was certain that he would show me none. He was a tall powerful man, and in my then condition he could have done what he pleased with me. Friday was my model; the red man was Robinson Crusoe. I kneeled at his feet, and touched the ground with my forehead. He did not seem the least elated by my humility: there was not a spark of vanity in him. Indeed, except for its hideousness and brutality, his face was without expression.

I now proceeded to make a drawing, with my finger, in the sand, of a mule in the water; while I imitated by pantomime the struggles of the drowning. I then pointed to myself; and, using my arms as in swimming, shook my head and my finger to signify that I could not swim. I worked an imaginary paddle, and made him understand that I wanted him to paddle me across the river. Still he remained unmoved; till finally I used one argument which interested him more than all the rest of my story. I untied a part of the shirt round one foot and showed him three gold studs. These I took out and gave to him. I also made a drawing of a rifle in the sand, and signified that he would get the like if he went with me to my camp. Whereupon he turned in the direction I was going; and, though unbidden by a look, I did not hesitate to follow.

I thought I must have dropped before we reached his village. This was an osier-bed at the water's side, where the whole river rushed through a rocky gorge not more than fifty to sixty yards broad. There were perhaps nearly a hundred Indians here, two-thirds of whom were women and children. Their habitations were formed by interlacing the tops of the osiers. Dogs' skins spread upon the ground and numerous salmon spears were their only furniture. In a few minutes my arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity. Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the Phaeacian maidens, however, the tawny nymphs were all as brave as Princess Nausicaa herself. They stared, and pointed, and buzzed, and giggled, and even touched my skin with the tips of their fingers - to see, I suppose, if the white would come off.

But ravenous hunger turned up its nose at flirtation. The fillets of drying salmon suspended from every bough were a million times more seductive than the dark Naiads who had dressed them. Slice after slice I tore down and devoured, as though my maw were as compendious as Jack the Giant Killer's. This so astonished and delighted the young women that they kept supplying me, - with the expectation, perhaps, that sooner or later I must share the giant's fate.

While this was going on, a conference was being held; and I had the satisfaction of seeing some men pull up a lot of dead rushes, dexterously tie them into bundles, and truss these together by means of spears. They had no canoes, for the very children were amphibious, living, so it seemed, as much in the water as out of it. When the raft was completed, I was invited to embark. My original friend, who had twisted a tow-rope, took this between his teeth, and led the way. Others swam behind and beside me to push and to pull. The force of the water was terrific; but they seemed to care no more for that than fish. My weight sunk the rush bundles a good bit below the surface; and to try my nerves, my crew every now and then with a wild yell dived simultaneously, dragging the raft and me under water. But I sat tight; and with genuine friendliness they landed me safely on the desired shore.

It was quite dark before we set forth. Robinson Crusoe walked on as if he knew exactly where my camp was. Probably the whole catastrophe had by this time been bruited for miles above and below the spot. Five other stalwart young fellows kept us company, each with salmon spear in hand. The walk seemed interminable; but I had shipped a goodly cargo of latent energy.

When I got home, instead of Samson, I found the camp occupied by half a dozen Indians. They were squatted round a fire, smoking. Each one, so it seemed, had appropriated some article of our goods. Our blankets were over their shoulders. One had William's long rifle in his lap. Another was sitting upon mine. A few words were exchanged with the newcomers, who seated themselves beside their friends; but no more notice was taken of me than of the mules which were eating rushes close to us. How was I, single-handed, to regain possession? That was the burning question. A diplomatic course commanded itself as the only possible one. There were six men who expected rewards, but the wherewithal was held in seisin by other six. The fight, if there were one, should be between the two parties. I would hope to prove, that when thieves fall out honest men come by their own.

There is one adage whose truth I needed no further proof of. Its first line apostrophises the 'Gods and little fishes.' My chief need was for the garment which completes the rhyme. Indians, having no use for corduroy small clothes, I speedily donned mine. Next I quietly but quickly snatched up William's rifle, and presented it to Robinson Crusoe, patting him on the back as if with honours of knighthood. The dispossessed was not well pleased, but Sir Robinson was; and, to all appearances, he was a man of leading, if of darkness. While words were passing between the two, I sauntered round to the gentleman who sat cross-legged upon my weapon. He was as heedless of me as I, outwardly, of him. When well within reach, mindful that 'DE L'AUDACE' is no bad motto, in love and war, I suddenly placed my foot upon his chest, tightened the extensor muscle of my leg, and sent him heels over head. In an instant the rifle was mine, and both barrels cocked. After yesterday's immersion it might not have gone off, but the offended Indian, though furious, doubtless inferred from the histrionic attitude which I at once struck, that I felt confident it would. With my rifle in hand, with my suite looking to me to transfer the plunder to them, my position was now secure. I put on a shirt - the only one left to me, by the way - my shoes and stockings, and my shooting coat; and picking out William's effects, divided these, with his ammunition, his carpet-bag, and his blankets, amongst my original friends. I was beginning to gather my own things together, when Samson, leading my horse, unexpectedly rode into the midst of us. The night was far advanced. The Indians took their leave; and added to the obligation by bequeathing us a large fresh salmon, which served us for many a day to come.

As a postscript I may add that I found poor Mary's address on one of her letters, and faithfully kept my promise as soon as I reached pen and ink.



CHAPTER XXVIII



WHAT remains to be told will not take long. Hardships naturally increased as the means of bearing them diminished. I have said the salmon held out for many days. We cut it in strips, and dried it as well as we could; but the flies and maggots robbed us of a large portion of it. At length we were reduced to two small hams; nothing else except a little tea. Guessing the distance we had yet to go, and taking into account our slow rate of travelling, I calculated the number of days which, with the greatest economy, these could be made to last. Allowing only one meal a day, and that of the scantiest, I scored the hams as a cook scores a leg of roast pork, determined under no circumstances to exceed the daily ration.

No little discipline was requisite to adhere to this resolution. Samson broke down under the exposure and privation; superadded dysentery rendered him all but helpless, and even affected his mind. The whole labour of the camp then devolved on me. I never roused him in the morning till the mules were packed - with all but his blanket and the pannikin for his tea - and until I had saddled his horse for him. Not till we halted at night did we get our ration of ham. This he ate, or rather bolted, raw, like a wild beast. My share I never touched till after I lay down to sleep. And so tired have I been, that once or twice I woke in the morning with my hand at my mouth, the unswallowed morsel between my teeth. For three weeks we went on in this way, never exchanging a word. I cannot say how I might have behaved had Fred been in Samson's place. I hope I should have been at least humane. But I was labouring for my life, and was not over tender-hearted.

Certainly there was enough to try the patience of a better man. Take an instance. Unable one morning to find my own horse, I saddled his and started him off, so as not to waste time, with his spare animal and the three mules. It so happened that our line of march was rather tortuous, owing to some hills we had to round. Still, as there were high mountains in the distance which we were making for, it seemed impossible that anyone could miss his way. It was twenty minutes, perhaps, before I found my horse; this would give him about a mile or more start of me. I hurried on, but failed to overtake him. At the end of an hour I rode to the top of a hill which commanded a view of the course he should have taken. Not a moving speck was to be seen. I knew then that he had gone astray. But in which direction?

My heart sank within me. The provisions and blankets were with him. I do not think that at any point of my journey I had ever felt fear - panic that is - till now. Starvation stared me in the face. My wits refused to suggest a line of action. I was stunned. I felt then what I have often felt since, what I still feel, that it is possible to wrestle successfully with every difficulty that man has overcome, but not with that supreme difficulty - man's stupidity. It did not then occur to me to give a name to the impatience that seeks to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.

I turned back, retraced my steps till I came to the track of the mules. Luckily the ground retained the footprints, though sometimes these would be lost for a hundred yards or so. Just as I anticipated - Samson had wound round the base of the very first hill he came to; then, instead of correcting the deviation, and steering for the mountains, had simply followed his nose, and was now travelling due east, - in other words, was going back over our track of the day before. It was past noon when I overtook him, so that a precious day's labour was lost.

I said little, but that little was a sentence of death.

'After to-day,' I began, 'we will travel separately.'

At first he seemed hardly to take in my meaning. I explained it.

'As well as I can make out, before we get to the Dalles, where we ought to find the American outposts, we have only about 150 miles to go. This should not take more than eight or nine days. I can do it in a week alone, but not with you. I have come to the conclusion that with you I may not be able to do it at all. We have still those mountains' - pointing to the Blue Mountain range in the distance - 'to cross. They are covered with snow, as you see. We may find them troublesome. In any case our food will only last eight or nine days more, even at the present rate. You shall have the largest half of what is left, for you require more than I do. But I cannot, and will not, sacrifice my life for your sake. I have made up my mind to leave you.'

It must always be a terrible thing for a judge to pass the sentence of death. But then he is fulfilling a duty, merely carrying out a law which is not of his making. Moreover, he has no option - the responsibility rests with the jury; last of all, the sufferer is a criminal. Between the judge's case and mine there was no analogy. My act was a purely selfish one - justifiable I still think, though certainly not magnanimous. I was quite aware of this at the time, but a starving man is not burdened with generosity.

I dismounted, and, without unsaddling the mules, took off their packs, now reduced to a few pounds, which was all the wretched, raw-backed, and half-dead, animals could stagger under; and, putting my blanket, the remains of a ham, and a little packet of tea - some eight or ten tea-spoonfuls - on one mule, I again prepared to mount my horse and depart.

I took, as it were, a sneaking glance at Samson. He was sitting upon the ground, with his face between his knees, sobbing.

At three-and-twenty the heart of a man, or of a woman - if either has any, which, of course, may be doubtful - is apt to play the dynamite with his or her resolves. Water-drops have ever been formidable weapons of the latter, as we all know; and, not being so accustomed to them then as I have become since, the sight of the poor devil's abject woe and destitution, the thought that illness and suffering were the causes, the secret whisper that my act was a cowardly one, forced me to follow the lines of least resistance, and submit to the decrees of destiny.

One more page from my 'Ride,' and the reader will, I think, have a fair conception of its general character. For the last two hours the ascent of the Blue Mountains had been very steep. We were in a thick pine forest. There was a track - probably made by Indians. Near the summit we found a spring of beautiful water. Here we halted for the night. It was a snug spot. But, alas! there was nothing for the animals to eat except pine needles. We lighted our fire against the great up-torn roots of a fallen tree; and, though it was freezing hard, we piled on such masses of dead boughs that the huge blaze seemed to warm the surrounding atmosphere.

I must here give the words of my journal, for one exclamation in it has a sort of schoolboy ring that recalls the buoyancy of youthful spirits, the spirits indeed to which in early life we owe our enterprise and perseverance:

'As I was dozing off, a pack of hungry wolves that had scented us out set up the most infernal chorus ever heard. In vain I pulled the frozen buffalo-robe over my head, and tried to get to sleep. The demons drew nearer and nearer, howling, snarling, fighting, moaning, and making a row in the perfect stillness which reigned around, as if hell itself were loose. For some time I bore it with patience. At length, jumping up, I yelled in a voice that made the valley ring: You devils! will you be quiet? The appeal was immediately answered by silence; but hearing them tuning up for a second concert, I threw some wood on the blazing fire and once more retired to my lair. For a few minutes I lay awake to admire a brilliant Aurora Borealis shooting out its streams of electric light. Then, turning over on my side, I never moved again till dawn.'

The first objects that caught my eye were the animals. They were huddled together within a couple of yards of where we lay. It was a horrible sight. Two out of the three mules, and Samson's horse, had been attacked by the wolves. The flanks of the horse were terribly torn, and the entrails of both the mules were partially hanging out. Though all three were still standing with their backs arched, they were rapidly dying from loss of blood. My dear little ' Strawberry' - as we called him to match William's 'Cream' and my mare were both intact.

A few days after this, Samson's remaining horse gave out. I had to surrender what remained of my poor beast in order to get my companion through. The last fifty miles of the journey I performed on foot; sometimes carrying my rifle to relieve the staggering little mule of a few pounds extra weight. At long last the Dalles hove in sight. And our cry, 'The tents! the tents!' echoed the joyous 'Thalassa! Thalassa!' of the weary Greeks.



CHAPTER XXIX



'WHERE is the tent of the commanding officer?' I asked of the first soldier I came across.

He pointed to one on the hillside. 'Ags for Major Dooker,' was the Dutch-accented answer.

Bidding Samson stay where he was, I made my way as directed. A middle-aged officer in undress uniform was sitting on an empty packing-case in front of his tent, whittling a piece of its wood.

'Pray sir,' said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, 'have I the pleasure of speaking to Major Dooker?'

'Tucker, sir. And who the devil are you?'

Let me describe what the Major saw: A man wasted by starvation to skin and bone, blackened, almost, by months of exposure to scorching suns; clad in the shreds of what had once been a shirt, torn by every kind of convict labour, stained by mud and the sweat and sores of mules; the rags of a shooting coat to match; no head covering; hands festering with sores, and which for weeks had not touched water - if they could avoid it. Such an object, in short, as the genius of a Phil May could alone have depicted as the most repulsive object he could imagine.

'Who the devil are you?'

'An English gentleman, sir, travelling for pleasure.'

He smiled. 'You look more like a wild beast.'

'I am quite tame, sir, I assure you - could even eat out of your hand if I had a chance.'

'Is your name Coke?'

'Yes,' was my amazed reply.

'Then come with me - I will show you something that may surprise you.'

I followed him to a neighbouring tent. He drew aside the flap of it, and there on his blanket lay Fred Calthorpe, snoring in perfect bliss.

Our greetings were less restrained than our parting had been. We were truly glad to meet again. He had arrived just two days before me, although he had been at Salt Lake City. But he had been able there to refit, had obtained ample supplies and fresh animals. Curiously enough, his Nelson - the French-Canadian - had also been drowned in crossing the Snake River. His place, however, had been filled by another man, and Jacob had turned out a treasure. The good fellow greeted me warmly. And it was no slight compensation for bygone troubles to be assured by him that our separation had led to the final triumphal success.

Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will do, it was many days before I could accustom myself to sleep under cover of a tent even, and in preference slept, as I had done for five months, under the stars. The officers liberally furnished us with clothing. But their excessive hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I had met with. One's stomach had quite lost its discretion. And forgetting that

Famished people must be slowly nursed, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,

one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I was seriously ill.

An absurd incident occurred to me here which might have had an unpleasant ending. Every evening, after dinner in the mess tent, we played whist. One night, quite by accident, Fred and I happened to be partners. The Major and another officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high. We two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major's temper had been smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell to me; and as bad luck would have it, I dealt myself a handful of trumps, and - all four honours. As the last of these was played, the now blazing Major dashed his cards on the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had time to make friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of laughter with which he himself heard the challenge, brought the matter to a peaceful issue. The following day one of the officers brought me a graceful apology.

As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further travels such as we had gone through. San Francisco was our destination; but though as unknown to us as Charles Lamb's 'Stranger,' we 'damned' the overland route 'at a venture'; and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in a trading ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to California.

On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or eight persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred, Samson, and I, took leave of the Dalles. For some miles the great river, the Columbia, runs through the Cascade Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a channel of basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to rest our Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night. The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait dinner at the end of it.

The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like being run away with by a 'motor' down a steep hill. The bow of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if about to take a 'header.' The water, in glassy ridges and dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One clenches one's teeth, holds one's breath, one's hour is surely come. But no - a shout from the Indians, a magic stroke of the paddle in the bow, another in the stern, and the dreaded crag is far above out heads, far, far behind; and, for the moment, we are gliding on - undrowned.

At the lower end of the rapids (our Indians refusing to go further), we had to debark. A settler here was putting up a zinc house for a store. Two others, with an officer of the Mounted Rifles - the regiment we had left at the Dalles - were staying with him. They welcomed our arrival, and insisted on our drinking half a dozen of poisonous stuff they called champagne. There were no chairs or table in the 'house,' nor as yet any floor; and only the beginning of a roof. We sat on the ground, so that I was able surreptitiously to make libations with my share, to the earth.

According to my journal: 'In a short time the party began to be a noisy one. Healths were drunk, toasts proposed, compliments to our respective nationalities paid in the most flattering terms. The Anglo-Saxon race were destined to conquer the globe. The English were the greatest nation under the sun - that is to say, they had been. America, of course, would take the lead in time to come. We disputed this. The Americans were certain of it, in fact this was already an accomplished fact. The big officer - a genuine "heavy" - wanted to know where the man was that would give him the lie! Wasn't the Mounted Rifles the crack regiment of the United States army? And wasn't the United States army the finest army in the universe? Who that knew anything of history would compare the Peninsular Campaign to the war in Mexico? Talk of Waterloo - Britishers were mighty fond of swaggering about Waterloo! Let 'em look at Chepultapec. As for Wellington, he couldn't shine nohow with General Scott, nor old Zack neither!'

Then, WE wished for a war, just to let them see what our crack cavalry regiments could do. Mounted Rifles forsooth! Mounted costermongers! whose trade it was to sell 'nutmegs made of wood, and clocks that wouldn't figure.' Then some pretty forcible profanity was vented, fists were shaken, and the zinc walls were struck, till they resounded like the threatened thunder of artillery.

But Fred's merry laughter diverted the tragic end. It was agreed that there had been too much tall talk. Britishers and Americans were not such fools as to quarrel. Let everybody drink everybody else's health. A gentleman in the corner (he needed the support of both walls) thought it wasn't good to 'liquor up' too much on an empty stomach; he put it to the house that we should have supper. The motion was carried NEM. CON., and a Dutch cheese was produced with much ECLAT. Samson coupled the ideas of Dutch cheeses and Yankee hospitality. This revived the flagging spirit of emulation. On one side, it was thought that British manners were susceptible of amendment. Confusion was then respectively drunk to Yankee hospitality, English manners, and - this was an addition of Fred's - to Dutch cheeses. After which, to change the subject, a song was called for, and a gentleman who shall be nameless, for there was a little mischief in the choice, sang 'Rule Britannia.' Not being encored, the singer drank to the flag that had braved the battle and the breeze for nearly ninety years. 'Here's to Uncle Sam, and his stars and stripes.' The mounted officer rose to his legs (with difficulty) and declared 'that he could not, and would not, hear his country insulted any longer. He begged to challenge the "crowd." He regretted the necessity, but his feelings had been wounded, and he could not - no, he positively could not stand it.' A slight push from Samson proved the fact - the speaker fell, to rise no more. The rest of the company soon followed his example, and shortly afterwards there was no sound but that of the adjacent rapids.

Early next morning the settler's boat came up, and took us a mile down the river, where we found a larger one to convey us to Fort Vancouver. The crew were a Maltese sailor and a man who had been in the United States army. Each had his private opinions as to her management. Naturally, the Maltese should have been captain, but the soldier was both supercargo and part owner, and though it was blowing hard and the sails were fully large, the foreigner, who was but a poor little creature, had to obey orders.

As the river widened and grew rougher, we were wetted from stem to stern at every plunge; and when it became evident that the soldier could not handle the sails if the Maltese was kept at the helm, the heavy rifleman who was on board, declaring that he knew the river, took upon himself to steer us. In a few minutes the boat was nearly swamped. The Maltese prayed and blasphemed in language which no one understood. The oaths of the soldier were intelligible enough. The 'heavy,' now alarmed, nervously asked what had better be done. My advice was to grease the bowsprit, let go the mast, and splice the main brace. 'In another minute or two,' I added, 'you'll steer us all to the bottom.'

Fred, who thought it no time for joking, called the rifleman a 'damned fool,' and authoritatively bade him give up the tiller; saying that I had been in Her Majesty's Navy, and perhaps knew a little more about boats than he did. To this the other replied that 'he didn't want anyone to learn him; he reckon'd he'd been raised to boating as well as the next man, and he'd be derned if he was going to trust his life to anybody!' Samson, thinking no doubt of his own, took his pipe out of his mouth, and towering over the steersman, flung him like a child on one side. In an instant I was in his place.

It was a minute or two before the boat had way enough to answer the helm. By that time we were within a dozen yards of a reef. Having noticed, however, that the little craft was quick in her stays, I kept her full till the last, put the helm down, and round she spun in a moment. Before I could thank my stars, the pintle, or hook on which the rudder hangs, broke off. The tiller was knocked out of my hand, and the boat's head flew into the wind. 'Out with the sweeps,' I shouted. But the sweeps were under the gear. All was confusion and panic. The two men cursed in the names of their respective saints. The 'heavy' whined, 'I told you how it w'd be.' Samson struggled valiantly to get at an oar, while Fred, setting the example, begged all hands to be calm, and be ready to fend the stern off the rocks with a boathook. As we drifted into the surf I was wondering how many bumps she would stand before she went to pieces. Happily the water shallowed, and the men, by jumping overboard, managed to drag the boat through the breakers under the lee of the point. We afterwards drew her up on to the beach, kindled a fire, got out some provisions, and stayed till the storm was over.



CHAPTER XXX



WHAT was then called Fort Vancouver was a station of the Hudson's Bay Company. We took up our quarters here till one of the company's vessels - the 'Mary Dare,' a brig of 120 tons, was ready to sail for the Sandwich Islands. This was about the most uncomfortable trip I ever made. A sailing merchant brig of 120 tons, deeply laden, is not exactly a pleasure yacht; and 2,000 miles is a long voyage. For ten days we lay at anchor at the mouth of the Columbia, detained by westerly gales. A week after we put to sea, all our fresh provisions were consumed, and we had to live on our cargo - dried salmon. We three and the captain more than filled the little hole of a cabin. There wasn't even a hammock, and we had to sleep on the deck, or on the lockers. The fleas, the cockroaches, and the rats, romped over and under one all night. Not counting the time it took to go down the river, or the ten days we were kept at its mouth, we were just six weeks at sea before we reached Woahoo, on Christmas Day.

How beautiful the islands looked as we passed between them, with a fair wind and studding sails set alow and aloft. Their tropical charms seemed more glowing, the water bluer, the palm trees statelier, the vegetation more libertine than ever. On the south the land rises gradually from the shore to a range of lofty mountains. Immediately behind Honolulu - the capital - a valley with a road winding up it leads to the north side of the island. This valley is, or was then, richly cultivated, principally with TARO, a large root not unlike the yam. Here and there native huts were dotted about, with gardens full of flowers, and abundance of tropical fruit. Higher up, where it becomes too steep for cultivation, growth of all kind is rampant. Acacias, oranges, maples, bread-fruit, and sandal-wood trees, rear their heads above the tangled ever-greens. The high peaks, constantly in the clouds, arrest the moisture of the ocean atmosphere, and countless rills pour down the mountain sides, clothing everything in perpetual verdure. The climate is one of the least changeable in the world; the sea breeze blows day and night, and throughout the year the day temperature does not vary more than five or six degrees, the average being about eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. In 1850 the town of Honolulu was little else than a native village of grass and mat huts. Two or three merchants had good houses. In one of these Fred and Samson were domiciled; there was no such thing as a hotel. I was the guest of General Miller, the Consul-General. What changes may have taken place since the above date I have no means of knowing. So far as the natives go, the change will assuredly have been for the worse; for the aborigines, in all parts of the world, lose their primitive simplicity and soon acquire the worst vices of civilisation.

Even King Tamehameha III. was not innocent of one of them. General Miller offered to present us at court, but he had to give several days' notice in order that his Majesty might be sufficiently sober to receive us. A negro tailor from the United States fitted us out with suits of black, and on the appointed day we put ourselves under the shade of the old General's cocked hat, and marched in a body to the palace. A native band, in which a big drum had the leading part, received us with 'God save the Queen' - whether in honour of King Tamy, or of his visitors, was not divulged. We were first introduced to a number of chiefs in European uniforms - except as to their feet, which were mostly bootless. Their names sounded like those of the state officers in Mr. Gilbert's 'Mikado.' I find in my journal one entered as Tovey-tovey, another as Kanakala. We were then conducted to the presence chamber by the Foreign Minister, Mr. Wiley, a very pronounced Scotch gentleman with a star of the first magnitude on his breast. The King was dressed as an English admiral. The Queen, whose ample undulations also reminded one of the high seas, was on his right; while in perfect gradation on her right again were four princesses in short frocks and long trousers, with plaited tails tied with blue ribbon, like the Miss Kenwigs. A little side dispute arose between the stiff old General and the Foreign Minister as to whose right it was to present us. The Consul carried the day; but the Scot, not to be beaten, informed Tamehameha, in a long prefatory oration, of the object of the ceremony. Taking one of us by the hand (I thought the peppery old General would have thrust him aside), Mr. Wiley told the King that it was seldom the Sandwich Islands were 'veesited' by strangers of such 'desteenction' - that the Duke of this (referring to Fred's relations), and Lord the other, were the greatest noblemen in the world; then, with much solemnity, quoted a long speech from Shakespeare, and handed us over to his rival.

His Majesty, who did not understand a word of English, or Scotch, looked grave and held tight to the arm of the throne; for the truth is, that although he had relinquished his bottle for the hour, he had brought its contents with him. My salaam was soon made; but as I retired backwards I had the misfortune to set my heel on the toes of a black-and-tan terrier, a privileged pet of the General's. The shriek of the animal and the loss of my equilibrium nearly precipitated me into the arms of a trousered princess; but the amiable young lady only laughed. Thus ended my glimpse of the Hawaian Court. Mr. Wiley afterwards remarked to me: 'We do things in a humble way, ye'll obsairve; but royalty is royalty all over the world, and His Majesty Tamehameha is as much Keng of his ain domeenions as Victoria is Queen of Breetain.' The relativity of greatness was not to be denied.

The men - Kanakas, as they are called - are fine stalwart fellows above our average height. The only clothing they then wore was the MARO, a cloth made by themselves of the acacia bark. This they pass between the legs, and once or twice round the loins. The WYHEENES - women - formerly wore nothing but a short petticoat or kilt of the same material. By persuasion of the missionaries they have exchanged this simple garment for a chemise of printed calico, with the waist immediately under the arms so as to conceal the contour of the figure. Other clothing have they none.

Are they the more chaste? Are they the less seductive -? Hear what M. Anatole France says in his apostrophe to the sex: 'Pour faire de vous la terrible merveille que vous etes aujourd'hui, pour devenir la cause indifferente et souveraine des sacrifices et des crimes, il vous a fallu deux choses: la civilisation qui vous donna des voiles, et la religion qui vous donna des scrupules.' The translation of which is (please take note of it, my dear young ladies with 'les epaules qui ne finissent pas'):

'Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter.'

Be this as it may, these chocolate-skinned beauties, with their small and regular features, their rosy lips, their perfect teeth - of which they take great care - their luxurious silky tresses, their pretty little hands and naked feet, and their exquisite forms, would match the matchless Cleopatra.

Through the kindness of Fred's host, the principal merchant in the island, we were offered an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the ELITE of the Honolulu nymphs. Mr. S. invited us to what is called a LOOHOU feast got up by him for their entertainment. The head of one of the most picturesque valleys in Woahoo was selected for the celebration of this ancient festival. Mounted on horses with which Mr. S. had furnished us, we repaired in a party to the appointed spot. It was early in the afternoon when we reached it; none of the guests had arrived, excepting a few Kanakas, who were engaged in thatching an old shed as shelter from the sun, and strewing the ground with a thick carpet of palm-leaves. Ere long, a cavalcade of between thirty and forty amazons - they all rode astride - came racing up the valley at full speed, their merry shouts proclaiming their approach. Gaudy strips of MARO were loosely folded around their legs for skirts. Their pretty little straw hats trimmed with ribbons, or their uncovered heads with their long hair streaming in the wind, confined only by a wreath of fresh orange flowers, added to their irresistible charm. Certainly, the bravest soldiers could not have withstood their charge. No men, however, were admitted, save those who had been expressly invited; but each lady of importance was given a CARTE BLANCHE to bring as many of her own sex as she pleased, provided they were both pretty and respectable.

As they rode up, we cavaliers, with becoming gallantry, offered our assistance while they dismounted. Smitten through and through by the bright eyes of one little houri who possessed far more than her share of the first requirement, and, taking the second for granted, I courteously prepared to aid her to alight; when, to my discomfiture, instead of a gracious acknowledgment of my services, she gave me a sharp cut with her whip. As, however, she laughed merrily at my wry faces, I accepted the act as a scratch of the kitten's claws; at least, it was no sign of indifference, and giving myself the benefit of the doubt, lifted her from her saddle without further chastisement, except a coquettish smile that wounded, alas! more than it healed.

The feast was thus prepared: poultry, sucking-pigs, and puppies - the last, after being scalded and scraped, were stuffed with vegetables and spices, rolled in plantain leaves, and placed in the ground upon stones already heated. More stones were then laid over them, and fires lighted on the top of all. While the cooking was in progress, the Kanakas ground TARO roots for the paste called 'poe'; the girls danced and sang. The songs were devoid of melody, being musical recitations of imaginary love adventures, accompanied by swayings of the body and occasional choral interruptions, all becoming more and more excited as the story or song approached its natural climax. Sometimes this was varied by a solitary dancer starting from the circle, and performing the wildest bacchanalian antics, to the vocal incitement of the rest. This only ended with physical exhaustion, or collapse from feminine hysteria.

The food was excellent; the stuffed puppy was a dish for an epicure. Though knives and forks were unknown, and each helped herself from the plantain leaf, one had not the least objection to do likewise, for the most scrupulous cleanliness is one of the many merits of these fascinating creatures. Before every dip into the leaf, the dainty little fingers were plunged into bowls of fresh water provided for the purpose. Delicious fruit followed the substantial fare; a small glass of KAVA - a juice extracted from a root of the pepper tribe - was then served to all alike. Having watched the process of preparing the beverage, I am unable to speak as to its flavour. The making of it is remarkable. A number of women sit on the ground, chew the root, and spit its juice into a bowl. The liquor is kept till it ferments, after which it becomes highly intoxicating. I regret to say that its potency was soon manifested on this occasion. No sooner did the poison set their wild blood tingling, than a free fight began for the remaining gourds. Such a scratching, pulling of hair, clawing, kicking, and crying, were never seen. Only by main force did we succeed in restoring peace. It is but fair to state that, except on the celebration of one or two solemn and sacred rites such as that of the LOOHOU, these island Thyades never touch fermented liquors.



CHAPTER XXXI



IT was an easier task when all was over to set the little Amazons on their horses than to keep them there, for by the time we had perched one on her saddle, or pad rather, and adjusted her with the greatest nicety, another whom we had just left would lose her balance and fall with a scream to the ground. It was almost as difficult as packing mules on the prairie. For my part it must be confessed that I left the completion of the job to others. Curious and entertaining as the feast was, my whole attention was centred and absorbed in Arakeeta, which that artful little enchantress had the gift to know, and lashed me accordingly with her eyes more cruelly than she had done with her whip. I had got so far, you see, as to learn her name, the first instalment of an intimacy which my demolished heart was staked on perfecting. I noticed that she refused the KAVA with real or affected repugnance; and when the passage of arms, and legs, began, she slipped away, caught her animal, and with a parting laugh at me, started off for home. There was not the faintest shadow of encouragement in her saucy looks to follow her. Still, she was a year older than Juliet, who was nearly fourteen; so, who could say what those looks might veil? Besides:

Das Naturell der Frauen Ist so nah mit Kunst verwandt,

that one might easily be mistaken. Anyhow, flight provoked pursuit; I jumped on to my horse, and raced along the plain like mad. She saw me coming, and flogged the more, but being the better mounted of the two, by degrees I overhauled her. As I ranged alongside, neither slackened speed; and reaching out to catch her bridle, my knee hooked under the hollow of hers, twisted her clean off her pad, and in a moment she lay senseless on the ground. I flung myself from my horse, and laid her head upon my lap. Good God! had I broken her neck! She did not stir; her eyes were closed, but she breathed, and her heart beat quickly. I was wild with terror and remorse. I looked back for aid, but the others had not started; we were still a mile or more from Honolulu. I knew not what to do. I kissed her forehead, I called her by her name. But she lay like a child asleep. Presently her dazed eyes opened and stared with wonderment, and then she smiled. The tears, I think, were on my cheeks, and seeing them, she put her arms around my neck and - forgave me.

She had fallen on her head and had been stunned. I caught the horses while she sat still, and we walked them slowly home. When we got within sight of her hut on the outskirts of the town, she would not let me go further. There was sadness in her look when we parted. I made her understand (I had picked up two or three words) that I would return to see her. She at once shook her head with an expression of something akin to fear. I too felt sorrowful, and worse than sorrowful, jealous.

When the night fell I sought her hut. It was one of the better kind, built like others mainly with matting; no doors or windows, but with an extensive verandah which protected the inner part from rain and sun. Now and again I caught glimpses of Arakeeta's fairy form flitting in, or obscuring, the lamplight. I could see two other women and two men. Who and what were they? Was one of those dark forms an Othello, ready to smother his Desdemona? Or were either of them a Valentine between my Marguerite and me? Though there was no moon, I dared not venture within the lamp's rays, for her sake; for my own, I was reckless now - I would have thanked either of them to brain me with his hoe. But Arakeeta came not.

In the day-time I roamed about the district, about the TARO fields, in case she might be working there. Every evening before sundown, many of the women and some of the well-to-do men, and a few whites, used to ride on the plain that stretches along the shore between the fringe of palm groves and the mountain spurs. I had seen Arakeeta amongst them before the LOOHOU feast. She had given this up now, and why? Night after night I hovered about the hut. When she was in the verandah I whispered her name. She started and peered into the dark, hesitated, then fled. Again the same thing happened. She had heard me, she knew that I was there, but she came not; no, wiser than I, she came not. And though I sighed:

What is worth The rest of Heaven, the rest of earth?

the shrewd little wench doubtless told herself: 'A quiet life, without the fear of the broomstick.'

Fred was impatient to be off, I had already trespassed too long on the kind hospitality of General Miller, neither of us had heard from England for more than a year, and the opportunities of trading vessels to California seldom offered. A rare chance came - a fast-sailing brig, the 'Corsair,' was to leave in a few days for San Francisco. The captain was an Englishman, and had the repute of being a boon companion and a good caterer. We - I, passively - settled to go. Samson decided to remain. He wanted to visit Owyhee. He came on board with us, however; and, with a parting bumper of champagne, we said 'Good-bye.' That was the last I ever saw of him. The hardships had broken him down. He died not long after.

The light breeze carried us slowly away - for the first time for many long months with our faces to the east. But it was not 'merry' England that filled my juvenile fancies. I leaned upon the taffrail and watched this lovely land of the 'flowery food' fade slowly from my sight. I had eaten of the Lotus, and knew no wish but to linger on, to roam no more, to return no more, to any home that was not Arakeeta's.

This sort of feeling is not very uncommon in early life. And 'out of sight, out of mind,' is also a known experience. Long before we reached San Fr'isco I was again eager for adventure.

How magnificent is the bay! One cannot see across it. How impatient we were to land! Everything new. Bearded dirty heterogeneous crowds busy in all directions, - some running up wooden and zinc houses, some paving the streets with planks, some housing over ships beached for temporary dwellings. The sandy hills behind the infant town are being levelled and the foreshore filled up. A 'water surface' of forty feet square is worth 5,000 dollars. So that here and there the shop-fronts are ships' broadsides. Already there is a theatre. But the chief feature is the gambling saloons, open night and day. These large rooms are always filled with from 300 to 400 people of every description - from 'judges' and 'colonels' (every man is one or the other, who is nothing else) to Parisian cocottes, and escaped convicts of all nationalities. At one end of the saloon is a bar, at the other a band. Dozens of tables are ranged around. Monte, faro, rouge-et-noir, are the games. A large proportion of the players are diggers in shirt-sleeves and butcher-boots, belts round their waists for bowie knife and 'five shooters,' which have to be surrendered on admittance. They come with their bags of nuggets or 'dust,' which is duly weighed, stamped, and sealed by officials for the purpose.

1 have still several specimens of the precious metal which I captured, varying in size from a grain of wheat to a mustard seed.

The tables win enormously, and so do the ladies of pleasure; but the winnings of these go back again to the tables. Four times, while we were here, differences of opinion arose concerning points of 'honour,' and were summarily decided by revolvers. Two of the four were subsequently referred to Judge 'Lynch.'

Wishing to see the 'diggings,' Fred and I went to Sacramento - about 150 miles up the river of that name. This was but a pocket edition of San Francisco, or scarcely that. We therefore moved to Marysville, which, from its vicinity to the various branches of the Sacramento river, was the chief depot for the miners of the 'wet diggin's' in Northern California. Here we were received by a Mr. Massett - a curious specimen of the waifs and strays that turn up all over the world in odd places, and whom one would be sure to find in the moon if ever one went there. He owned a little one-roomed cabin, over the door of which was painted 'Offices of the Marysville Herald.' He was his own contributor and 'correspondent,' editor and printer, (the press was in a corner of the room). Amongst other avocations he was a concert-giver, a comic reader, a tragic actor, and an auctioneer. He had the good temper and sanguine disposition of a Mark Tapley. After the golden days of California he spent his life wandering about the globe; giving 'entertainments' in China, Japan, India, Australia. Wherever the English language is spoken, Stephen Massett had many friends and no enemies.

Fred slept on the table, I under it, and next morning we hired horses and started for the 'Forks of the Yuba.' A few hours' ride brought us to the gold-hunters. Two or three hundred men were at work upon what had formerly been the bed of the river. By unwritten law, each miner was entitled to a certain portion of the 'bar,' as it was called, in which the gold is found. And, as the precious metal has to be obtained by washing, the allotments were measured by thirty feet on the banks of the river and into the dry bed as far as this extends; thus giving each man his allowance of water. Generally three or four combined to possess a 'claim.' Each would then attend to his own department: one loosened the soil, another filled the barrow or cart, a third carried it to the river, and the fourth would wash it in the 'rocker.' The average weight of gold got by each miner while we were at the 'wet diggin's,' I.E. where water had to be used, was nearly half an ounce or seven dollars' worth a day. We saw three Englishmen who had bought a claim 30 feet by 100 feet, for 1,400 dollars. It had been bought and sold twice before for considerable sums, each party supposing it to be nearly 'played out.' In three weeks the Englishmen paid their 1,400 dollars and had cleared thirteen dollars a day apiece for their labour.

Our presence here created both curiosity and suspicion, for each gang and each individual was very shy of his neighbour. They did not believe our story of crossing the plains; they themselves, for the most part, had come round the Horn; a few across the isthmus. Then, if we didn't want to dig, what did we want? Another peculiarity about us - a great one - was, that, so far as they could see, we were unarmed. At night the majority, all except the few who had huts, slept in a zinc house or sort of low-roofed barn, against the walls of which were three tiers of bunks. There was no room for us, even if we had wished it, but we managed to hire a trestle. Mattress or covering we had none. As Fred and I lay side by side, squeezed together in a trough scarcely big enough for one, we heard two fellows by the door of the shed talking us over. They thought no doubt that we were fast asleep, they themselves were slightly fuddled. We nudged each other and pricked up our ears, for we had already canvassed the question of security, surrounded as we were by ruffians who looked quite ready to dispose of babes in the wood. They discussed our 'portable property' which was nil; one decided, while the other believed, that we must have money in our pockets. The first remarked that, whether or no, we were unarmed; the other wasn't so sure about that - it wasn't likely we'd come there to be skinned for the asking. Then arose the question of consequences, and it transpired that neither of them had the courage of his rascality. After a bit, both agreed they had better turn in. Tired as we were, we fell asleep. How long we had slumbered I know not, but all of a sudden I was seized by the beard, and was conscious of a report which in my dreams I took for a pistol-shot. I found myself on the ground amid the wrecks of the trestle. Its joints had given way under the extra weight, and Fred's first impulse had been to clutch at my throat.

On the way back to San Francisco we stayed for a couple of nights at Sacramento. It was a miserable place, with nothing but a few temporary buildings except those of the Spanish settlers. In the course of a walk round the town I noticed a crowd collected under a large elm-tree in the horse-market. On inquiry I was informed that a man had been lynched on one of its boughs the night before last. A piece of the rope was still hanging from the tree. When I got back to the 'hotel' - a place not much better than the shed at Yuba Forks - I found a newspaper with an account of the affair. Drawing a chair up to the stove, I was deep in the story, when a huge rowdy-looking fellow in digger-costume interrupted me with:

'Say, stranger, let's have a look at that paper, will ye?'

'When I've done with it,' said I, and continued reading. He lent over the back of my chair, put one hand on my shoulder, and with the other raised the paper so that he could read.

'Caint see rightly. Ah, reckon you're readen 'baout Jim, ain't yer?'

'Who's Jim?'

'Him as they sus-spended yesterday mornin'. Jim was a purticler friend o' mine, and I help'd to hang him.'

'A friendly act! What was he hanged for?'

'When did you come to Sacramenty City?'

'Day before yesterday.'

'Wal, I'll tell yer haow't was then. Yer see, Jim was a Britisher, he come from a place they call Botany Bay, which belongs to Victoria, but ain't 'xactly in the Old Country. I judge, when he first come to Californy, 'baout six months back, he warn't acquainted none with any boys hereaway, so he took to diggin' by hisself. It was up to Cigar Bar whar he dug, and I chanst to be around there too, that's haow we got to know one another. Jim hadn't been here not a fortnight 'fore one of the boys lost 300 dollars as he'd made a cache of. Somehow suspicions fell on Jim. More'n one of us thought he'd been a diggin' for bags instead of for dust; and the man as lost the money swore he'd hev a turn with him; so Jim took my advice not to go foolin' around, an' sloped.'

'Well,' said I, as my friend stopped to adjust his tobacco plug, 'he wasn't hanged for that?'

''Tain't likely! Till last week nobody know'd whar he'd gone to. When he come to Sacramenty this time, he come with a pile, an' no mistake. All day and all night he used to play at faro an' a heap o' other games. Nobody couldn't tell how he made his money hold out, nor whar he got it from; but sartin sure the crowd reckoned as haow Jim was considerable of a loafer. One day a blacksmith as lives up Broad Street, said he found out the way he done it, and ast me to come with him and show up Jim for cheatin'. Naow, whether it was as Jim suspicioned the blacksmith I cain't say, but he didn't cheat, and lost his money in consequence. This riled him bad, so wantin' to get quit of the blacksmith he began a quarrel. The blacksmith was a quick-tempered man, and after some language struck Jim in the mouth. Jim jumps up, and whippin' out his revolver, shoots the t'other man dead on the spot. I was the first to lay hold on him, but ef it hadn't 'a' been for me they'd 'a' torn him to pieces.

'"Send for Judge Parker," says some.

'"Let's try him here," says others.

'"I don't want to be tried at all," says Jim. "You all know bloody well as I shot the man. And I knows bloody well as I'll hev to swing for it. Gi' me till daylight, and I'll die like a man."

'But we wasn't going to hang him without a proper trial; and as the trial lasted two hours, it - '

'Two hours! What did you want two hours for?'

'There was some as wanted to lynch him, and some as wanted him tried by the reg'lar judges of the Crim'nal Court. One of the best speakers said lynch-law was no law at all, and no innocent man's life was safe with it. So there was a lot of speakin', you bet. By the time it was over it was just daylight, and the majority voted as he should die at onc't. So they took him to the horse-market, and stood him on a table under the big elm. I kep' by his side, and when he was getting on the table he ast me to lend him my revolver to shoot the foreman of the jury. When I wouldn't, he ast me to tie the knot so as it wouldn't slip. "It ain't no account, Jim," says I, "to talk like that. You're bound to die; and ef they didn't hang yer I'd shoot yer myself."

'"Well then," says he, "gi' me hold of the rope, and I'll show you how little I keer for death." He snatches the cord out o' my hands, pulls hisself out o' reach o' the crowd, and sat cross-legged on the bough. Half a dozen shooters was raised to fetch him down, but he tied a noose in the rope, put it round his neck, slipped it puty tight, and stood up on the bough and made 'em a speech. What he mostly said was as he hated 'em all. He cussed the man he shot, then he cussed the world, then he cussed hisself, and with a terr'ble oath he jumped off the bough, and swung back'ards and for'ards with his neck broke.'