 | The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches |  |
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT.
AS Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into
the main street of Poker Flat on the morning
of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was
conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere
since the preceding night. Two or three men,
conversing earnestly together, ceased as he
approached, and exchanged significant glances.
There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in
a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked
ominous.
Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed
small concern in these indications. Whether he
was conscious of any predisposing cause, was another
question. “I reckon they 're after somebody,”
he reflected; “likely it 's me.” He returned
to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had
been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat
from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his
mind of any further conjecture.
In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.”
It had lately suffered the loss of several
thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent
citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous
as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret
committee had determined to rid the town of all
improper persons. This was done permanently in
regard of two men who were then hanging from
the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily
in the banishment of certain other objectionable
characters. I regret to say that some of
these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however,
to state that their impropriety was professional,
and it was only in such easily established
standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit
in judgment.
Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he
was included in this category. A few of the committee
had urged hanging him as a possible example,
and a sure method of reimbursing themselves
from his pockets of the sums he had won from
them. “It 's agin justice,” said Jim Wheeler, “to
let this yer young man from Roaring Camp — an
entire stranger — carry away our money.” But a
crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts
of those who had been fortunate enough to win
from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local
prejudice.
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic
calmness, none the less coolly that he
was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He
was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate.
he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the
dealer.
A body of armed men accompanied the deported
wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of
the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was
known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose
intimidation the armed escort was intended, the
expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly
known as “The Duchess”; another, who
had bore the title of “Mother Shipton”; and
“Uncle Billy,” a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed
drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no
comments from the spectators, nor was any word
uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch
which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat
was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the
point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the
peril of their lives.
As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings
found vent in a few hysterical tears from the
Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton,
and a Parthian volley of expletives from
Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone
remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother
Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to
the repeated statements of the Duchess that
she would die in the road, and to the alarming
oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle
characteristic of his class, he insisted upon
exchanging his own riding-horse, “Five Spot,” for
the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But
even this act did not draw the party into any
closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted
her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded
coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of
“Five Spot” with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included
the whole party in one sweeping anathema.
The road to Sandy Bar — a camp that, not having
as yet experienced the regenerating influences
of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some
invitation to the emigrants — lay over a steep
mountain range. It was distant a day's severe
travel. In that advanced season, the party soon
passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the
foot-hills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the
Sierras. The trail was narrow and difficult. At
noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon
the ground, declared her intention of going no farther,
and the party halted.
The spot was singularly wild and impressive.
A wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides
by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently
toward the crest of another precipice that over-looked
the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most
suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advisable.
But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half
the party were not equipped or provisioned for delay.
This fact he pointed out to his companions
curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly
of “throwing up their hand before the game was
played out.” But they were furnished with liquor,
which in this emergency stood them in place of
food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his
remonstrances, it was not long before they were
more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy
passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of
stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother
Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained
erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying
them.
Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with
a profession which required coolness, impassiveness,
and presence of mind, and, in his own language,
he “could n't afford it.” As he gazed at
his recumbent fellow-exiles, the loneliness begotten
of his pariah-trade, his habits of life, his very
vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him.
He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes,
washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic
of his studiously neat habits, and for a
moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of
deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions
never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not
help feeling the want of that excitement which,
calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He
looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand
feet sheer above the circling pines around him;
at the sky, ominously clouded; at the valley below,
already deepening into shadow. And, doing
so, suddenly he heard his own name called.
A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the
fresh, open face of the new-comer Mr. Oakhurst
recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as “The
Innocent” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some
months before over a “little game,” and had, with
perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune —
amounting to some forty dollars — of that guileless
youth. After the game was finished, Mr.
Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind the
door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you 're a
good little man, but you can't gamble worth a
cent. Don't try it over again.” He then handed
him his money back, pushed him gently from the
room, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
There was a remembrance of this in his boyish
and enthusiastic greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He
had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek his
fortune. “Alone?” No, not exactly alone; in
fact (a giggle), he had run away with Piney
Woods. Did n't Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney?
She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance
House? They had been engaged a long
they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to
be married, and here they were. And they were
tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a
place to camp and company. All this the Innocent
delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely
damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine-tree,
where she had been blushing unseen, and
rode to the side of her lover.
Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment,
still less with propriety; but he had a
vague idea that the situation was not fortunate.
He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently
to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say
something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to
recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power
that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored
to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further,
but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that
there was no provision, nor means of making a
camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this
objection by assuring the party that he was provided
with an extra mule loaded with provisions,
and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a loghouse
near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs.
Oakhurst,” said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess,
“and I can shift for myself.”
Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst's admonishing foot
saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of
up the cañon until he could recover his gravity.
There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees,
with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face,
and the usual profanity. But when he returned
to the party, he found them seated by a fire — for
the air had grown strangely chill and the sky
overcast — in apparently amicable conversation.
Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish
fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an
interest and animation she had not shown for
many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently
with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and
Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into
amiability. “Is this yer a d—d picnic?” said
Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the
sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered
animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea
mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed
his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature,
for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram
his fist into his mouth.
As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain,
a slight breeze rocked the tops of the pine-trees,
and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles.
The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine-boughs,
was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers
parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so honest
and sincere that it might have been heard above
Mother Shipton were probably too stunned
to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity,
and so turned without a word to the hut. The
fire was replenished, the men lay down before the
door, and in a few minutes were asleep.
Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning
he awoke benumbed and cold. As he stirred
the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing
strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused
the blood to leave it, — snow!
He started to his feet with the intention of
awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to
lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been
lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to
his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the
spot where the mules had been tethered; they
were no longer there. The tracks were already
rapidly disappearing in the snow.
The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst
back to the fire with his usual calm. He
did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered
peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored,
freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her
frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by
celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his
blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches
and waited for the dawn. It came slowly in a
whirling mist of snow-flakes, that dazzled and confused
appeared magically changed. He looked over
the valley, and summed up the present and future
in two words, — “snowed in!”
A careful inventory of the provisions, which,
fortunately for the party, had been stored within
the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of
Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and
prudence they might last ten days longer. “That
is,” said Mr. Oakhurst, sotto voce to the Innocent,
“if you 're willing to board us. If you ain't — and
perhaps you 'd better not — you can wait till Uncle
Billy gets back with provisions.” For some occult
reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring himself to
disclose Uncle Billy's rascality, and so offered the
hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp
and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He
dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother
Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their
associate's defection. “They 'll find out the truth
about us all when they find out anything,” he
added, significantly, “and there 's no good frightening
them now.”
Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store
at the disposal of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to
enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion.
“We 'll have a good camp for a week, and then
the snow 'll melt, and we 'll all go back together.”
The cheerful gayety of the young man, and Mr.
with the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a
thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess directed
Piney in the rearrangement of the interior
with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of
that provincial maiden to their fullest extent. “I
reckon now you 're used to fine things at Poker
Flat,” said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply
to conceal something that reddened her cheeks
through its professional tint, and Mother Shipton
requested Piney not to “chatter.” But when Mr.
Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the
trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed
from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and
his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whiskey,
which he had prudently cachéd. “And yet
it don't somehow sound like whiskey,” said the
gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the
blazing fire through the still-blinding storm and
the group around it that he settled to the conviction
that it was “square fun.”
Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cachéd his cards
with the whiskey as something debarred the free
access of the community, I cannot say. It was
certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he “did n't
say cards once” during that evening. Haply the
time was beguiled by an accordion, produced somewhat
ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack.
Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the
managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from
its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent
on a pair of bone castinets. But the crowning
festivity of the evening was reached in a rude
camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining
hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation.
I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanters
swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional
quality, caused it speedily to infect the
others, who at last joined in the refrain:—
And I 'm bound to die in His army.”
The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled
above the miserable group, and the flames of their
altar leaped heavenward, as if in token of the
vow.
At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds
parted, and the stars glittered keenly above the
sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose professional
habits had enabled him to live on the smallest
possible amount of sleep, in dividing the watch
with Tom Simson, somehow managed to take upon
himself the greater part of that duty. He excused
himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had
“often been a week without sleep.” “Doing
what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied Oakhurst,
sententiously; “when a man gets a streak of luck,
gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler, reflectively,
“is a mighty queer thing. All you know
about it for certain is that it 's bound to change.
And it 's finding out when it 's going to change
that makes you. We 've had a streak of bad luck
since we left Poker Flat, — you come along, and
slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your
cards right along you 're all right. For,” added
the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance, —
And I 'm bound to die in His army.' ”
The third day came, and the sun, looking through
the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide
their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the
morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of
that mountain climate that its rays diffused a
kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in
regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed
drift on drift of snow piled high around
the hut, — a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of
white lying below the rocky shores to which the
castaways still clung. Through the marvellously
clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker
Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton saw it,
and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness,
hurled in that direction a final malediction. It
was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for
sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed
the Duchess. “Just you go out there and cuss,
and see.” She then set herself to the task of
amusing “the child,” as she and the Duchess were
pleased to cal Piney. Piney was no chicken, but
it was a soothing and original theory of the pair
thus to account for the fact that she did n't swear
and was n't improper.
When night crept up again through the gorges,
the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in
fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering
camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the
aching void left by insufficient food, and a new
diversion was proposed by Piney, — story-telling.
Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions
caring to relate their personal experiences, this
plan would have failed, too, but for the Innocent.
Some months before he had chanced upon a stray
copy of Mr. Pope's ingenious translation of the
Iliad. He now proposed to narrate the principal
incidents of that poem — having thoroughly mastered
the argument and fairly forgotten the words
— in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And
so for the rest of that night the Homeric demigods
again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily
Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines
in the cañon seemed to bow to the wrath of the
son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet
the fate of “Ash-heels,” as the Innocent persisted
in denominating the “swift-footed Achilles.”
So with small food and much of Homer and the
accordion, a week passed over the heads of the
outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again
from leaden skies the snow-flakes were sifted over
the land. Day by day closer around them drew
the snowy circle, until at last they looked from
their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white,
that towered twenty feet above their heads. It
became more and more difficult to replenish their
fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now
half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained.
The lovers turned from the dreary prospect
and looked into each other's eyes, and were
happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to
the losing game before him. The Duchess, more
cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of
Piney. Only Mother Shipton — once the strongest
of the party — seemed to sicken and fade. At
midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to
her side. “I 'm going,” she said, in a voice of
querulous weakness, “but don't say anything about
it. Don't waken the kids. Take the bundle from
under my head and open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did
so. It contained Mother Shipton's rations for the
last week, untouched. “Give 'em to the child,”
she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. “You 've
they call it,” said the woman, querulously, as she
lay down again, and, turning her face to the wall,
passed quietly away.
The accordion and the bones were put aside that
day, and Homer was forgotten. When the body
of Mother Shipton had been committed to the
snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and
showed him a pair of snow-shoes, which he had
fashioned from the old pack-saddle. “There 's
one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said,
pointing to Piney; “but it 's there,” he added,
pointing toward Poker Flat. “If you can reach
there in two days she 's safe.” “And you?” asked
Tom Simson. “I 'll stay here,” was the curt reply.
The lovers parted with a long embrace. “You
are not going, too?” said the Duchess, as she saw
Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany
him. “As far as the cañon,” he replied. He
turned suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving
her pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs
rigid with amazement.
Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought
the storm again and the whirling snow. Then the
Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one had
quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a
few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but
she hid them from Piney.
The women slept but little. In the morning,
Neither spoke; but Piney, accepting the position
of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm
around the Duchess's waist. They kept this attitude
for the rest of the day. That night the storm
reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the
protecting pines, invaded the very hut.
Toward morning they found themselves unable
to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As
the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept
closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many
hours: “Piney, can you pray?” “No, dear,” said
Piney, simply. The Duchess, without knowing
exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head
upon Piney's shoulder, spoke no more. And so
reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the
head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast,
they fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them.
Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine-boughs,
flew like white-winged birds, and settled
about them as they slept. The moon through the
rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the
camp. But all human stain, all trace of earthly
travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle
mercifully flung from above.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did
they waken when voices and footsteps broke the
silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers
scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt
upon them, which was she that had sinned. Even
the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned
away, leaving them still locked in each other's
arms.
But at the head of the gulch, on one of the
largest pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs
pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It bore
the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand: —
BENEATH THIS TREE
LIES THE BODY
OF
JOHN OAKHURST,
WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK
ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850,
AND
HANDED IN HIS CHECKS
ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his
side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as
in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once
the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts
of Poker Flat.
| The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches | |