University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
CHAMPAGNE.

How soundly I slept, in my sleeping hours,
after our great victory, — Courage over Space,
Hope over Time, Love over Brutality, the Heavenly
Powers over the Demon Forces!

I sprang up, after my last morning slumber,
with vitality enough for my wounded friend and
myself. I felt that I could carry double responsibility,
as Fulano had carried double weight. God
has given me the blessing of a great, vigorous
life. My body has always been a perfect machine
for my mind's work, such as that may be; and
never a better machine, with every valve, crank,
joint, and journal in good order, than on that
dawn at Luggernel Springs.

If I had not awaked alive from top to toe, from
tip to tip, from end to end, alive in muscle,
nerve, and brain, the Luggernel Champagne
Spring would have put life into me.

Champagne of Rheims and Epernay! Bah!

Avaunt, Veuve Clicquot, thou elderly Hebe!
Avaunt, with thy besugared, begassed, bedevilled,

becorked, bewired, poptious manufacture! Some
day, at a dull dinner-party, I will think of thee
and poison myself with thy poison, that I may become
deaf to the voice of the vulgar woman to
whom some fatal hostess may consign me. But
now let no thought of Champagne, even of that
which the Veuve may keep for her moment most
lacrymose of “veuvage,” interfere with my remembrance
of the Luggernel Spring.

Champagne to that! More justly a Satyr to
Hyperion; a stage-moon to Luna herself; an Old-World
peach to a peach of New Jersey; a Democratic
Platform to the Declaration of Independence;
a pinching, varnished boot to a winged
sandal of Mercury; Faustina to Charlotte Corday;
a senatorial speech to a speech of Wendell Phillips;
anything crude, base, and sham to anything
fine, fresh, and true.

Ah, poor Kissingen! Alas, unfragrant Sharon!
Alack, stale Saratoga! Ichabod! Adieu
to you all when the world knows the virtues of
Luggernel!

But never when the O-fortunatus-nimium world
has come into this new portion of its heritage, —
never when Luggernel is renowned and fashion
blooms about its brim, — never when gentlemen
of the creamiest cream in the next half-century
offer to ladies as creamy beakers bubbling full
of that hypernectareous tipple, — never will any

finer body or fairer soul of a woman be seen thereabout
than her whom I served that morning.
And, indeed, among the heroic gentlemen of the
riper time to come, I cannot dream that any will
surpass in all the virtues and courtesies of the
cavalier my friend John Brent, now dismounted
and lying there wounded and patient.

Oranges before breakfast are good. There be
who on awakening gasp for the cocktail. And
others, who, fuddled last night, are limp in their
lazy beds, till soda-water lends them its fizzle.
Eye-openers these of moderate calibre. But, with
all the vigorous vitality I have claimed, perhaps
I might still have remembered yesterday with
its Gallop of Three, its suspense, its eager dash
and its certainty, and remembered them with
new anxieties for to-day, except for my morning
draught of exhilaration from the unbottled, unmixed
sources of Luggernel. Thanks La Grenouille,
rover of the wilderness, for thy froggish
instinct and this blissful discovery!

I stooped and lapped. Long ago Gideon Barakson
recognized the thorough-going braves because
they took their water by the throatful, not
by the palmful. And when I had lapped enough,
and let the great bubbles of laughing gas burst
in my face, I took a beaker, — to be sure it was
battered tin, and had hung at the belt of a dastard,
— a beaker of that “cordial julep” to my

friend. He was awake and looking about him,
seeking for some one.

“Come to your gruel, old fellow!” said I.

He drank the airy water and sat up revived.

“It is like swallowing the first sunbeam on the
crown of a snow-peak,” he said.

Miss Clitheroe dawned upon us with this. She
came forth from her lodge, fresh and full of
cheer.

Brent stopped looking about for some one.
The One had entered upon the scene.

I dipped for her also that poetry in a tin pot.

“This,” said she, “is finer balm than the
enchanted cup of Comus; never did lips touch a
draught

To-day my life is worthy of this nepenthe. My
dear friend, this is the first night of peaceful,
hopeful rest I have had, since my poor father was
betrayed into his delusion. Thank you and God
for it!”

And again her eyes filled with happy tears,
and she knelt by her patient. While she was
tenderly and deftly renewing the bandages, Armstrong
stood by, and inspected the wound in
silence. Presently he walked off and called me
to help him with our camp-fire.

“Pretty well ploughed up, that arm of his'n,”
said he.

“I have seen amputation performed for less.”

“Then I 'm dum glad there 's no sawbones
about. I don't believe Nater means a man's
leg or arm to go, until she breaks the solid
bone, so that it ain't to be sot nohow. But
what do you allow to do? Lamm ahead or
squat here?”

“You are the oldest; you have most experience;
I will take your advice.”

“October is sweet as the smile of a gal when
she hears that her man has made fifteen hundred
dollars off the purceeds of a half-acre of onions,
to the mines; but these yer fall storms is reg'lar
Injuns; they light down 'thout sendin' on handbills.
We ought to be p'intin' for home if we
can.”

“But Brent's wound! Can he travel?”

“Now, about that wound, there 's two ways of
lookin' at it. We ken stop here, or we ken poot
for Laramie. I allow that it oughter take that
arm of his'n a month to make itself right. Now
in a month ther 'll be p'r'aps three feet of snow
whar we stand.”

“We must go on.”

“Besides, lookerhere! Accordin' to me the
feelin's mean suthin', when a man's got any.
He 'll be all the time worryin' about the gal till
he gets her to her father. It 's my judgment
she'd better never see the old man agin; but I

would n't want my Ellen to quit me, ef I was an
unhealthy gonoph like him. Daughters ought to
stick closer 'n twitch-grass to their fathers, and
sons to their mothers, and she ain't one to knock
off lovin' anybody she 's guv herself to love.
No, she 's one of the stiddy kind, — stiddy as the
stars. He knows that, that there pardener of
yourn knows it, and his feelin's won't give his
arm no rest until she 's got the old man to take
care of and follow off on his next streak. So
we must poot for Laramie, live or die. Thar 'll
be a doctor there. Ef we ken find the way, it
should n't take us more 'n ten days. I 'll poot
him on Bill's sorrel, jest as gentle a horse as Bill
was that rode him, and we 'll see ef we hain't
worked out the bad luck out of all of us, for one
while.”

Armstrong's opinion was only my own, expressed
Oregonly. We went on preparing breakfast.

“That there A. & A. mule,” says Armstrong,
“was Bill's and mine, and this stuff in the packs
was ours. I don't know what the fellers did
with the two mean mustangs they was ridin'
when they found us fust on Bear River, — used
'em up, I reckon.”

Here Brent hailed us cheerily.

“Look alive there, you two cooks! We idlers
here want to be travelling.”

“I told you so,” said Armstrong. “He understands
this business jest as well as we do.
He 'll go till he draps. Thar 's grit into him, ef
I know grit.”

Yes; but when I saw him sit still with his
back against the spruce-tree, and remembered his
exuberant life of other days, I desponded. He
soon took occasion to speak to me apart.

“Dick,” said he, “you see how it is. I am
not good for much. If we were alone, you and
I might settle here for a month or so, and write
`Bubbles from the Brünnen.' But there is a lady
in the case. It is plain where she belongs. I
know every inch of the way to Laramie. I can
take you through in a week” — he paused and
quavered a little, as he continued — “if I live.
But don't look so anxious. I shall.”

“It would be stupid for you to die now, John
Brent the Lover, with the obstacles cut away and
an heroic basis of operations.”

“A wounded man, perhaps a dying man, has
no business with love. I will never present her
my services and ask pay. But, Dick, if I should
wear out, you will know what to say to her for
me.”

At this she joined us, her face so illumined
with resolution and hope that we both kindled.
All doubt skulked away from her presence.
Brent was nerved to rise and walk a few steps

to the camp-fire, supported by her arm and
mine.

Armstrong had breakfast ready, such as it was.
And really, the brace of wood grouse he had
shot that morning, not a hundred yards from
camp, were not unworthy of a lady's table,
though they had never made journey in a
crowded box, over a slow railroad, from Chicago
to New York, in a January thaw, and then been
bought at half price of a street pedler, a few
hours before they dropped to pieces.

We grouped to depart.

“I shall remember all this for scores of
sketches,” said Miss Clitheroe.

And indeed there was material. The rocks
behind threading away and narrowing into the
dim gorge of the Alley; the rushing fountains,
one with its cloud of steam; the two great
spruces; the greensward; the thickets; and
above them a far-away glimpse of a world, all
run to top and flinging itself up into heaven, a
tumult of crag and pinnacle. So much for the
scenery. And for personages, there was Armstrong,
with his head turbaned, saddling the
white machine; the two mules, packed and taking
their last nibbles of verdure; Miss Clitheroe, in
her round hat and with a green blanket rigged
as riding-skirt, mounted upon the sturdy roan;
Brent resting on my shoulder, and stepping on

my knee, as he climbed painfully to his seat on
the tall sorrel; Don Fulano waiting, proud and
eager. And just as we were starting, a stone fell
from overhead into the water; and looking up,
we saw a bighorn studying us from the crags,
wishing, no doubt, that his monster horns were
ears to comprehend our dialect.

I gave the party their stirrup-cup from the
Champagne Spring. The waters gurgled adieu.
Rich sunrise was upon the purple gates of the
pass. We struck a trail through the thicket.

Good bye to the Luggernel Springs and Luggernel
Alley! to that scene of tragedy and tragedy
escaped!