 | CHAPTER VI.
JAKE SHAMBERLAIN. John Brent |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
JAKE SHAMBERLAIN.
If Heaven's climate approaches the perfect
charm of an American October, I accept my
place an advance, and book my lodgings for
eternity.
The climate of the best zone in America is
transcendent for its purpose. Its purpose is to
keep men at their keenest, at high edge and high
ardor all the time. Then, for enchanting luxury
of repose, when ardent summer has achieved its
harvest, and all the measure of the year is full,
comes ripe October, with its golden, slumberous
air. The atmosphere is visible sunshine. Every
leaf in the forest changes to a resplendent
blossom. The woods are rich and splendorous,
but not glaring. Nothing breaks the tranquil
wealthy sentiment of the time. It is the year's
delightful holiday.
In such a season we rode through the bare
defiles of the Wasatch Mountains, wall of Utah
on the east. We passed Echo Cañon, and the
other strait gates and rough ways through which
Sion.
We met them in throngs, hard at work at
such winning. The summer emigration of Mormons
was beginning to come in. No one would
have admitted their claim to saintship from their
appearance. If they had no better passport
than their garb, “Avaunt! Procul este profani!”
would have cried any trustworthy janitor of
Sion. Saints, if I know them, are clean, — are
not ragged, are not even patched. Their garments
renew themselves, shed rain like Macintosh,
repel dust, sweeten unsavoriness. These
sham saints needed unlimited scouring, persons
and raiment. We passed them, when we could,
to windward. Poor creatures! we shall see
more of their kindred anon.
We hastened on, for our way was long, and
autumn's hospitable days were few. Just at the
foot of those bare, bulky mounds of mountain by
which the Wasatch range tones off into the great
plains between it and the Rockys, we overtook
the Salt Lake mail party going eastward. They
were travelling eight or ten men strong, with a
four-mule waggon, and several horses and mules
driven beside for relays.
“If Jake Shamberlain is the captain of the
party,” said Brent, when we caught sight of them
upon the open, “we 'll join them.”
“Who is Jake Shamberlain?”
“A happy-go-lucky fellow, whom I have met
and recognized all over the world. He has been
a London policeman. He was pulling stroke-oar
in the captain's gig that took me ashore from a
dinner on board the Firefly, British steamer, at
the Piræus. He has been a lay brother in a Carthusian
convent. He married a pretty girl in
Boston once, went off on a mackerel trip, and
when he came back the pretty girl had bigamized.
That made Mormon and polygamist of him. He
came out two or three years ago, and, being a
thriving fellow, has got to himself lands and
beeves and wives without number. Biddulph
and I stayed several days with him when we came
through in the summer. His ranch is down the
valley, toward Provo. He owns half the United
States mail contract. They told me in the city
that he intended to run this trip himself. You
will see an odd compound of a fellow.”
“I should think so; policeman, acolyte, man-of-war's-man,
Yankee husband, Mormon! Has
he come to his finality?”
“He thinks so. He is a shrewd fellow of many
smatterings. He says there are only two logical
religions in the civilized world, — the Popish and
the Mormon. Those two are the only ones that
have any basis in authority. His convent experience
disenchanted him with Catholicism. He is
monks are a set of snuffy old reprobates. He
says that he found celibacy tended to all manner
of low vice; that monogamy disappointed him;
so he tried the New Revelation, polygamy and
all, and has become an ardent propagandist
and exhorter. Take the man as he is, and he
has plenty of brave, honest qualities.”
We had by this time ridden up to the mail
party. They were moving slowly along. The
night's camping-spot was near. It was a bit of
grassy level on the bank of a river, galloping over
the pebbles with its mountain impetus still in it,
— Green River, perhaps; Green, or White, or
Big Sandy, or Little Stony. My map of memory
is veined with so many such streams, all going in
a hurry through barren plains, and no more than
drains on a water-shed, that I confuse their undistinguishing
names. Such mere business-like
water-courses might as well be numbered, after
the fashion of the monotonous streets of a city,
too new for the consecration of history. Dear
New England's beloved brooks and rivers, slow
through the meadows and beneath the elms,
tumbling and cascading down the mountain-sides
from under the darkling hemlocks into the sparkle
of noon, and leaping into white water between
the files of Northern birches, — they have their
well-remembered titles, friendly and domestic, or
waters have spoiled me for gutters, — Colorados,
Arkansaws, Plattes, and Missouris.
“Hillo, Shamberlain!” hailed Brent, riding
up to the train.
“Howdydo? Howdydo? No swap!” responded
Jake, after the Indian fashion. “Bung
my eyes! ef you 're not the mate of all mates
I 'm glad to see. Pax vobiscrum, my filly! You
look as fresh as an Aperel shad. Praisèd be the
Lord!” continued he, relapsing into Mormon
slang, “who has sent thee again, like a brand
from the burning, to fall into paths of pleasantness
with the Saints, as they wander from the
Promised Land to the mean section where the
low-lived Gentiles ripen their souls for hell.”
Droll farrago! but just as Jake delivered it.
He had the slang and the swearing of all climes
and countries at his tongue's end.
“Hello, stranger!” said he, turning to me.
“I allowed you was the Barrownight.”
“It 's my friend, Richard Wade,” said Brent.
“Yours to command, Brother Wade,” Jake
says hospitably. “Ef you turn out prime, one
of the out and outers, like Brother John Brent,
I 'll tip 'em the wink to let you off easy at the
Judgment Day, Gentile or not. I 've booked
Brother John fur Paradise; Brother Joseph's
got a white robe fur him, blow high, blow low!”
We rode along beside Shamberlain.
“What did you mean just now?” asked my
friend. “You spoke of Wade's being the baronet.”
“I allowed you would n't leave him behind.”
“I don't understand. I have not seen him
since we left you in the summer. I 've been on
to California and back.”
“The Barrownight 's ben stoppin' round in
the Valley ever since. He seems to have a call
to stop. Prehaps his heart is tetched, and he is
goan to jine the Lord's people. I left him down
to my ranch, ten days ago, playing with a grizzly
cub, what he 's trying to make a gentleman of.
A pooty average gentleman it 'll make too.”
“Very odd!” says Brent to me. “Biddulph
meant to start for home, at once, when we
parted. He had some errand in behalf of the
lady he had run away from.”
“Probably he found he could not trust his old
wounds under her eyes again. Wants another
year's crust over his scarified heart.”
“Quite likely. Well, I wish we had known
he was in the Valley. We would have carried
him back with us. A fine fellow! Could n't be
a better!”
“Not raw, as Englishmen generally are?”
“No; well ripened by a year or so in America.”
“Individuals need that cookery, as the race
did.”
“Yes; I wish our social cuisine were a thought
more scientific.”
“All in good time. We shall separate sauces
by and by, and not compel beef, mutton, and
turkey to submit to the same gravy.”
“Meanwhile some of my countrymen are so
under-done, and some so over-done, that I have
lost my taste for them.”
“Such social dyspepsia is soon cured on the
plains. You will go back with a healthy appetite.
Did your English friend describe the lady
of his love?”
“No; it was evidently too stern a grief to talk
about. He could keep up his spirits only by
resolutely turning his back on the subject.”
“It must needs have been a weak heart or a
mighty passion.”
“The latter. A brave fellow like Biddulph does
not take to his heels from what he can overcome.”
By this time we had reached camp.
Horses first, self afterwards, is the law of the
plains travel. A camp must have, —
1. Water.
2. Fodder.
3. Fuel.
Those are the necessities. Anything else is
luxury.
The mail party were a set of jolly roughs.
Jake Shamberlain was the type man. To encounter
such fellows is good healthy education.
As useful in kind, but higher in degree, as going
to a bear conversazione or a lion and tiger concert.
Civilization mollifies the race. It is not
well to have hard knocks and rough usage for
mind or body eliminated from our training.
We joined suppers with our new friends. After
supper we sat smoking our pipes, and talking
horse, Indians, bear-fights, scalping, and other
brutal business, such as the world has not outgrown.
| CHAPTER VI.
JAKE SHAMBERLAIN. John Brent | |