University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
TWO LITTLE INDIANS.

THE sunshine follows the rain. There was a
sort of general joyousness. The Prince was
now a king, it seemed to me. He had fought
a battle with himself, with fate against him; fought
it silent, patient and alone; he had conquered, and he
was glad.

The great hero is born of the long hard struggle.
Who cannot go down to battle with banners, with
trumps and the tramp of horses? Who cannot fight
for a day in a line of a thousand strong with the eyes
of the world upon him? But the man who fights a
moral battle coolly, quietly, patiently and alone, with
no one to applaud or approve, as the strife goes on
through all the weary year, and after all to have no
reward but that of his own conscience, the calm delight
of a duty well performed, is God's own hero.

He is knighted and ennobled there, when the fight
is won, and he wears thenceforth the spurs of gold
and an armour of invulnerable steel.

We went down again among the boulders in the
bed of the creek. The Prince swung his pick, I
shovelled the thrown-out earth, and the little Indians
would come and look on and wonder, and lend a
hand in an awkward sort of a way for a few minutes
at a time, then go back to the cabin or high up on
the hills in the sun, following whatever pursuit they
chose.

The Prince did not take it upon himself to direct
or dictate what they should do, but watched their
natural inclinations and actions with the keenest
interest.

He loved freedom too well himself to attempt to
fetter these little unfortunates with rules and forms
that he himself did not hold in too great respect;
and as for taxing them to labour, they were yet
weak, and but poorly recovered from the effects of
the famine on the Klamat.

Besides, he had no disposition to reduce them to
the Christian slavery that was then being introduced,
and still obtains, up about Mount Shasta, wherever
any of the Indian children survive.

The girl developed an amiable and gentle nature,
but the boy showed anything but that from the first.
He always went out of the cabin whenever strangers
entered, would often spend days alone, out of sight
of everyone, and stubbornly refused to speak a word
of English. At the end of weeks he was untamed

as ever, and evidently untamable. The Prince had
procured him a cheap suit of clothes, something after
the fashion of the miner's dress; but he despised it,
and would only wear his shirt with the right arm free
and naked, the red sleeve tucked in or swinging about
his body. He submitted to have his hair trimmed,
but refused to wear a hat.

His chief delight was, in pointing and making
faces at the Doctor's bald head, whenever that individual
entered, as he stood in the corner by his club;
but I never knew him to laugh, not even to smile.
The first great epoch of his civilized life was the
receipt of a knife as a gift from the Prince. It was
more to him than diamonds to a bride. He kept it
with him everywhere; slept with it always. It was
to him as a host of companions.

Sometimes he talked in the Indian tongue to the
girl, but only when he thought no one noticed or
heard him.

The girl was quite the other way. She took to
domestic matters eagerly, learned to talk in a few
weeks, after a fashion, and was most anxious to be
useful, and as near like an American as possible.
She had a singular talent for drawing. One day she
made an excellent charcoal picture of Mount Shasta,
on the cabin door, and was delighted when she saw
the Prince take pride in her work. She was eager
to do everything, and insisted on doing all the
cooking.

She had a great idea of the use of salt, and often
an erroneous one. For instance, one morning she
put salt in the coffee as well as in the beef and beans.
I think it was an experiment of hers—that she was
so anxious to please and make things palatable, she
put it in to improve the taste. I can very well
understand how she thought it all over, and said to
herself, “Now if a little pinch of this white substance
adds to the beans, why will it not contribute
to the flavour of the coffee?” Once she put sugar on
the meat instead of salt, but the same mistake never
happened twice.

I must admit that she was deceitful, somewhat.
Not willfully, but innocently so. In fact, had anything
of importance been involved, she would have
stood up and told the whole simple truth with a perfect
indifference to results. She did this once I know,
when she had done an improper thing, in a way that
made us trust and respect her. But she did so much
like to seem wise about things of which she was
wholly ignorant. When she had learned to talk she
one day pretended to Klamat to also be able to read
and understand what was written on the bills of the
butchers. Her ambition seemed to be to appear
learned in that she knew the least about. That is so
much like many people you meet, that I know you
are prepared to call her half-civilized, even in these
few weeks.

This sort of innocent deceit is no new thing, particularly
in women. And I rather like it. Go on to
one of the fashionable streets to-day in America, and
there you will find that the lady who has the least
amount of natural hair has invariably the largest
amount of artificial fix-ups on her head. This rule is
almost infallible; it has hardly the traditional exception
to testify to its truth.

In fact, does not this weakness extend even to man?
You can nearly always detect a bald-headed man,
even while his hat is on his head, by the display and
luxuriance of the hair peeping out from under his
hat. With the bald-headed man every hair is brought
into requisition, every hair is brushed and bristled
up into a sort of barricade against the eyes of the
curious. The few hairs seem to be marshalled up
for a fierce bayonet charge against any one who dares
suspect that the head which they keep sentry round
is bald. That man is bald and he feels it. Only
bald-headed men make this display of what hair they
have left.

And I am not sure but that nature herself is a
little deceitful. The dead and leafless oaks have the
richest growth of ivy, as if to make the world believe
that the trees are thriving like the bay. All about
the mouths of caves, all openings in the earth, old
wells and pits, the rankest growths abound, as if to
say, here is no wound in the breast of earth! here is

even the richest and the choicest spot upon her
surface.

To go further into a new field. If a true woman
loves you truly she fortifies against it in every possible
way as a weak place in her nature. She tries to
deceive, not only the world, but herself. To keep
out the eyes of the inquisitive she would build a barricade
to the moon. She would not be seen to whisper
with you for the world. Yet if she loved you less,
she would laugh and talk and whisper by the hour,
and think nothing of it. I like such deceit as that.
It is natural.

The miners were at work like beavers. Up the
stream and down the stream the pick and shovel
clanged against the rock and gravel from dawn until
darkness came down out of the forests above them
and took possession of the place.

The Prince worked on patiently, industriously
with the rest, with reasonable success and first-rate
promise of fortune. The pent-up energies of the
camp were turned loose, and the stream ran thick
and yellow with sediment from pans, rockers, toms,
sluices and flumes. Never was such industry, such
energy, such ambition to get hold of the object of
pursuit and escape from the canon before another
winter set up an impassable wall to the civilized
world.

Spring came sudden and full-grown from the south.

She blew up in a fleet of sultry clouds from the
Mexican seas, along the Californian coast, and drew
up to us between the rocky, pine-topped walls of the
Klamat.

At first she hardly set foot in the canon. The sun
came down to us only about noon-tide, and then only
tarried long enough to shoot a few bright shafts
through the dusk and dense pine-tops at the banks
of snow beneath, and spring did not like the place as
well as the open, sunny plains over by the city, and
toward the Klamat lakes. But at last she came to
take possession. She planted her banners on places
the sun made bare, and put up signs and land-marks
not to be misunderstood.

The balm and alder burst in leaf, and catkins
drooped and dropped from willows in the water, till
you had thought a legion of woolly caterpillars were
drifting to the sea. Still the place was not to be
surrendered without a struggle. It was one of
winter's struggles. He had been driven, day after
day, in a march of many a thousand miles. He had
retreated from Mexico to within sight of Mount
Shasta, and here he turned on his pursuer. One
night he came boldly down and laid hands on the
muddy little stream, and stretched a border of ice all
up and down its edges; spread frost-work, white and
beautiful, on pick, and tom, and sluice, and flume
and cradle, and made the miners curse him to his

beard. He cut down the banners of the spring that
night, lamb-tongue, Indian turnip and catella, and
took possession as completely as of old.

The sun came up at last and he let go his hold
upon the stream, took off his stamp from pick and
pan, and tom, and sluice and cradle, and crept in
silence into the shade of trees and up the mountain
side against the snow.

And now the spring came back with a double
force and strength. She planted California lilies, fair
and bright as stars, tall as little flag-staffs, along the
mountain side, and up against the winter's barricade
of snow, and proclaimed possession absolute through
her messengers, the birds, and we were very glad.

Paquita gathered blossoms in the sun, threw her
long hair back, and bounded like a fawn along the
hills. Klamat took his club and knife, drew his robe
only the closer about him in the sun, and went out
gloomy and sombre in the mountains. Sometimes
he would be gone all night.

At last the baffled winter abandoned even the wall
that lay between us and the outer world, and drew
off all his forces to Mount Shasta. He retreated above
the timber line, but he retreated not an inch beyond.
There he sat down with all his strength. He
planted his white and snowy tent upon this everlasting
fortress, and laughed at the world below him.
Sometimes he would send a foray down, and even in

mid-summer, to this day, he plucks an ear of corn, a
peach, or apricot, for a hundred miles around his
battlement, whenever he may choose.

Now that the way was clear, immigrants and
new arrivals of all kinds began to pour into the
camp. The most noticeable was that of the new
Alcalde.

This Alcalde was appointed by the new commissioners
of the new county, and as might have been
expected, since the place brought neither profit nor
honour, was only a broad-cloth sort of a man. A
new arrival from the States, looking about for a
place where he could sit down and eat his bread
exempt from the primal curse. No doubt this little
egotist said to himself, “If there is a spot on earth
where God's great tribute-taker will not find me, it
is over at The Forks, on Humbug, and there will I
pitch my tent and abide.”

He had read just enough law to drive every bit of
common sense out of his head, and yet not enough to
get a bit of common law into it; except, perhaps, the
line which says that “Law is a rule of action prescribed
by the superior, which the inferior is bound
to obey.”

Being austere in his tastes, and feeling that he
had a dignity to sustain, he made friends with the
Doctor, and took up quarters in the Doctor's cabin.

As is the case with all small creatures, the Judge

came into camp with a great flourish of trumpets,
and what was most remarkable, he wore a “stovepipe”
hat and a “boiled shirt;” the first that had
ever been seen in the camp. This was a daring
thing to undertake. The Judge, of course, had not
the least idea of his achievement and the risk he
incurred.

These men of the mountains always have despised
and perhaps always will despise a beaver hat. Why?
Here is food for reflection. Here is a healthy, well-seated
antipathy to an innocent article of dress, without
any discovered reason. Let the profound look
into this.

As for myself, I have looked into this thing, but
am not satisfied. The only reason I can give for this
enmity to the “tile” in the mountains of California,
is not that the miners hold that there is anything
wrong in the act or fact of a man wearing a beaver,
but because it invests the man with a dignity—an
artificial dignity, it is true, but none the less a
dignity—too far above that of the man who wears
a slouch or felt. The beaver hat is the minority,
the slouch hat is the majority; and, like all great
majorities, is a mob—a cruel, heartless, arrogant,
insolent mob, ignorant and presumptive. The beaver
hat is a missionary among cannibals in the California
mines. And the saddest part of it all is, that there
is no hope of reform. Tracts on this subject would

be useless. Fancy a beaver hat in a dripping tunnel,
or by the splashing flume or dumping derrick!

Born of a low element in our nature is this antagonism
to the beaver hat; cruel as it is curious, selfish,
but natural.

The Englishman knows well the power and dignity
of a beaver hat. Go into the streets of London and
look about you. Surely some power has issued an
order not much unlike that of the famous one armed
Sailor—“England expects every man to wear a beaver
hat.”

But to return to this particular hat before us, it is
safe to say that no other man than the Judge in all
California could have brought into camp and worn
with impunity this hat.

It is true there was a universal giggle through the
camp, and it is likewise true that the Howlin' Wilderness
called out, “Oh, what a hat! Set 'em up!
Chuck 'em in the gutter! Saw my leg off!” and
so on, as the Judge passed that way the morning
after his arrival. But shrewd men at once took his
measure; saw that he was a harmless little egotist,
and in their hearts took his part in the hat question,
and set him up as a sort of wooden idol of the
camp.

It is not best to always seem too strong in the
presence of strong, good men. Man likes to pet
and patronize his fellow when he is weak. A strong

man will throw his arms around a helpless man and
protect him. Strength challenges strength. The
combat of bulls on the plain! Possibly man inclines
to uphold the weak because there is no suggestion
of rivalry, but I do not think that. Here is room for
thought.

“It's all right, boys,” said six-foot Sandy, as he
stood at the bar of the Howlin' Wilderness, and
held out his glass for a little peppermint: “It's all
right, I tell you! He shall run a hat as tall as
Shasta if he likes, and let me set eyes on the shyster
that interferes. It's a poor camp that can't afford
one gentleman, anyhow.” And here he hitched up
his duck breeches, threw the gin and peppermint
down his throat, and wiping his hairy mouth on his
red sleeve, turned to the crowd, ready to “chaw up
and spit out,” as he called it, the first man who raised
a voice against the Judge and his beaver hat in all
The Forks.

Six-foot Sandy was an authority at The Forks. A
brawny and reckless miner—a sort of cross between
a first-class miner and a second-class gambler; a man
who vibrated between his claim up the creek and
the Howlin' Wilderness saloon. But he was a shrewd,
brave man, of the half-horse, half-alligator kind, and
was both feared and respected. After that the beaver
hat was safe at The Forks, and a fixture.

To illustrate the power and dignity of the beaver
hat even here, where reverence and respect for any

[ILLUSTRATION]

RECEIVING THE NEW JUDGE.

[Description: 645EAF. Illustration page. A group of men stand around looking at a man in the center of the circle, who is slightly bent and has pulled his hat down over his face. In the foreground a stool or table is overturned and playing cards are on the floor. To the right, there is a table with a bottle and one man holds a glass.]

thing that smells of civilization is not to be thought
of, I may mention that a month or two after the
event described above, another beaver hat put in an
appearance at The Forks. There was not even a
protest. The man had sense enough to keep silent,
took a quiet game of “draw” with the boys at the
Howlin' Wilderness, and won at once the title of
Judge.

After dark the quiet game went on in the corner,
and Sandy came down from the claim.

“Who's that?” said Sandy to the bar-keeper, as he
threw his left thumb over his shoulder, and with his
right hand lifted his gin and peppermint.

“That? why that's Judge—Judge—why, the new
Judge.”

“Judge hell!” said Sandy, wiping his beard and
looking sharply under the hat rim. “I know him, I
do. He's a waiter over in a Yreka restaurant. I'll
go for him, I will. He is a fraud on the public.”

And he went up behind the man, as he sat there
on a three-legged stool, serenely leading out his ace
for his opponent's Jack.

“Come down!” said the new Judge, gaily; “come
down! I have you now! Come down!”

Sandy raised his hands, his great broad hands, like
slabs of pine, and brought them down on top of the
beaver hat like an avalanche. The hat shot down
and the head shot up, till it was buried out of sight
in the wrecked and ruined beaver.

The man sprung to his feet, thrust out his hands,
and jumped about like a boy in “Blind-man's-buff,”
and Sandy walked back to the bar, cool and unconcerned,
and ordered gin and peppermint.

The man at last excavated his nose, and took a
bee-line for the door, amid howls of delight from the
patrons of the Howlin' Wilderness. That is the
usual fate of beavers in the mines. They may be
respected, but they perish for all that.

Let a member of Congress, or even of the Cabinet,
go up into the mountains with a beaver, and ten to
one he would have it driven down over his nose.
He would have to stand it too; he would have to
laugh, call it a good joke, and treat “the boys” in
the bargain. After that they would call him a good
fellow, give him “feet” in an extension of the “Jenny
Lind” ledge, “Midnight Assassin,” or “Roaring Lion,”
and vote for him, if he should be a candidate for
office, to the last man.

I leave this question of the hat now to those wise
men of America who have rushed out upon the
frontier a pen in one hand, a telescope in the other,
and, viewing the Indian from afar off, decided in a
day that he was a bad and bloody character.

I leave this question to those teachers, with every
confidence that their capacities will prove equal to
the task. The subject is worthy such men, and the
men worthy such a subject.