 | The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches |  |
NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD.
1. PART I. — IN THE FIELD.
IT was near the close of an October day that I
began to be disagreeably conscious of the Sacramento
Valley. I had been riding since sunrise,
and my course through the depressing monotony
of the long level landscape affected me more like
a dull dyspeptic dream than a business journey,
performed under that sincerest of natural phenomena,
— a California sky. The recurring stretches of
brown and baked fields, the gaping fissures in the
dusty trail, the hard outline of the distant hills,
and the herds of slowly moving cattle, seemed like
features of some glittering stereoscopic picture that
never changed. Active exercise might have removed
this feeling, but my horse by some subtle
instinct had long since given up all ambitious
effort, and had lapsed into a dogged trot.
It was autumn, but not the season suggested to
the Atlantic reader under that title. The sharply
defined boundaries of the wet and dry seasons were
prefigured in the clear outlines of the distant hills.
In the dry atmosphere the decay of vegetation was
Eastern landscape, or else Nature was too practical
for such thin disguises. She merely turned the
Hippocratic face to the spectator, with the old diagnosis
of Death in her sharp, contracted features.
In the contemplation of such a prospect there
was little to excite any but a morbid fancy. There
were no clouds in the flinty blue heavens, and the
setting of the sun was accompanied with as little
ostentation as was consistent with the dryly practical
atmosphere. Darkness soon followed, with a
rising wind, which increased as the shadows deepened
on the plain. The fringe of alder by the
watercourse began to loom up as I urged my horse
forward. A half-hour's active spurring brought
me to a corral, and a little beyond a house, so low
and broad it seemed at first sight to be half buried
in the earth.
My second impression was that it had grown out
of the soil, like some monstrous vegetable, its
dreary proportions were so in keeping with the
vast prospect. There were no recesses along its
roughly boarded walls for vagrant and unprofitable
shadows to lurk in the daily sunshine. No
projection for the wind by night to grow musical
over, to wail, whistle, or whisper to; only a long
wooden shelf containing a chilly-looking tin basin,
and a bar of soap. Its uncurtained windows were
red with the sinking sun, as though bloodshot and
tracks of cattle led to its front door, firmly closed
against the rattling wind.
To avoid being confounded with this familiar
element, I walked to the rear of the house, which
was connected with a smaller building by a slight
platform. A grizzled, hard-faced old man was
standing there, and met my salutation with a look
of inquiry, and, without speaking, led the way to
the principal room. As I entered, four young men,
who were reclining by the fire, slightly altered
their attitudes of perfect repose, but beyond that
betrayed neither curiosity nor interest. A hound
started from a dark corner with a growl, but was
immediately kicked by the old man into obscurity,
and silenced again. I can't tell why, but I instantly
received the impression that for a long time
the group by the fire had not uttered a word or
moved a muscle. Taking a seat, I briefly stated
my business.
Was a United States surveyor. Had come on
account of the Espíritu Santo Rancho. Wanted
to correct the exterior boundaries of township
lines, so as to connect with the near exteriors of
private grants. There had been some intervention
to the old survey by a Mr. Tryan who had preempted
adjacent — “settled land warrants,” interrupted
the old man. “Ah, yes! Land Warrants,
— and then this was Mr. Tryan?”
I had spoken mechanically, for I was preoccupied
in connecting other public lines with private
surveys, as I looked in his face. It was certainly
a hard face, and reminded me of the singular effect
of that mining operation known as “ground sluicing”;
the harder lines of underlying character
were exposed, and what were once plastic curves
and soft outlines were obliterated by some powerful
agency.
There was a dryness in his voice not unlike the
prevailing atmosphere of the valley, as he launched
into an ex parte statement of the contest, with a
fluency, which, like the wind without, showed frequent
and unrestrained expression. He told me
— what I had already learned — that the boundary
line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described
in the loose phraseology of the deseño as beginning
in the valda or skirt of the hill, its precise location
long the subject of litigation. I listened and
answered with little interest, for my mind was still
distracted by the wind which swept violently by
the house, as well as by his odd face, which was
again reflected in the resemblance that the silent
group by the fire bore toward him. He was still
talking, and the wind was yet blowing, when my
confused attention was aroused by a remark addressed
to the recumbent figures.
“Now, then, which on ye 'll see the stranger up
the creek to Altascar's, to-morrow?”
There was a general movement of opposition in
the group, but no decided answer.
“Kin you go, Kerg?”
“Who 's to look up stock in Strarberry perar-ie?”
This seemed to imply a negative, and the old
man turned to another hopeful, who was pulling
the fur from a mangy bear-skin on which he was
lying, with an expression as though it were somebody's
hair.
“Well, Tom, wot 's to hinder you from goin'?”
“Man 's goin' to Brown's store at sun-up, and I
s'pose I 've got to pack her and the baby agin.”
I think the expression of scorn this unfortunate
youth exhibited for the filial duty into which he
had been evidently beguiled, was one of the finest
things I had ever seen.
“Wise?”
Wise deigned no verbal reply, but figuratively
thrust a worn and patched boot into the discourse.
The old man flushed quickly.
“I told ye to get Brown to give you a pair the
last time you war down the river.”
“Said he would n't without'en order. Said it
was like pulling gum-teeth to get the money from
you even then.”
There was a grim smile at this local hit at the
old man's parsimony, and Wise, who was clearly
the privileged wit of the family, sank back in honorable
retirement.
“Well, Joe, ef your boots are new, and you are
n't pestered with wimmin and children, p'r'aps
you 'll go,” said Tryan, with a nervous twitching,
intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably
mirthful.
Tom lifted a pair of bushy eyebrows, and said
shortly, —
“Got no saddle.”
“Wot 's gone of your saddle?”
“Kerg, there,” — indicating his brother with a
look such as Cain might have worn at the sacrifice.
“You lie!” returned Kerg, cheerfully.
Tryan sprang to his feet, seizing the chair, flourishing
it around his head and gazing furiously in
the hard young faces which fearlessly met his own.
But it was only for a moment; his arm soon
dropped by his side, and a look of hopeless fatality
crossed his face. He allowed me to take the chair
from his hand, and I was trying to pacify him by
the assurance that I required no guide, when the
irrepressible Wise again lifted his voice:—
“Theer 's George comin'! why don't ye ask him?
He 'll go and introduce you to Don Fernandy's
darter, too, ef you ain't pertickler.”
The laugh which followed this joke, which evidently
had some domestic allusion (the general
tendency of rural pleasantry), was followed by a
light step on the platform, and the young man entered.
Seeing a stranger present, he stopped and
then, drawing a box from the corner, sat down, his
hands clasped lightly together and his very handsome
bright blue eyes turned frankly on mine.
Perhaps I was in a condition to receive the romantic
impression he made upon me, and I took
it upon myself to ask his company as guide, and
he cheerfully assented. But some domestic duty
called him presently away.
The fire gleamed brightly on the hearth, and, no
longer resisting the prevailing influence, I silently
watched the spirting flame, listening to the wind
which continually shook the tenement. Besides
the one chair which had acquired a new importance
in my eyes, I presently discovered a crazy
table in one corner, with an ink-bottle and pen; the
latter in that greasy state of decomposition peculiar
to country taverns and farm-houses. A goodly
array of rifles and double-barrelled guns stocked
the corner; half a dozen saddles and blankets lay
near, with a mild flavor of the horse about them.
Some deer and bear skins completed the inventory.
As I sat there, with the silent group around me,
the shadowy gloom within and the dominant wind
without, I found it difficult to believe I had ever
known a different existence. My profession had
often led me to wilder scenes, but rarely among
those whose unrestrained habits and easy unconsciousness
made me feel so lonely and uncomfortable.
doubts — which I think occur naturally to people
in like situations — that this was the general rule
of humanity, and I was a solitary and somewhat
gratuitous exception.
It was a relief when a laconic announcement of
supper by a weak-eyed girl caused a general movement
in the family. We walked across the dark
platform, which led to another low-ceiled room.
Its entire length was occupied by a table, at the
farther end of which a weak-eyed woman was already
taking her repast, as she, at the same time,
gave nourishment to a weak-eyed baby. As the
formalities of introduction had been dispensed
with, and as she took no notice of me, I was enabled
to slip into a seat without discomposing or interrupting
her. Tryan extemporized a grace, and the
attention of the family became absorbed in bacon,
potatoes, and dried apples.
The meal was a sincere one. Gentle gurglings
at the upper end of the table often betrayed the
presence of the “wellspring of pleasure.” The
conversation generally referred to the labors of the
day, and comparing notes as to the whereabouts
of missing stock. Yet the supper was such a vast
improvement upon the previous intellectual feast,
that when a chance allusion of mine to the business
of my visit brought out the elder Tryan, the
interest grew quite exciting. I remember he inveighed
by the “greasers,” as he was pleased to term
the native Californians. As the same ideas have
been sometimes advanced under more pretentious
circumstances, they may be worthy of record.
“Look at 'em holdin' the finest grazin' land that
ever lay outer doors? Whar 's the papers for it?
Was it grants? Mighty fine grants, — most of
'em made arter the 'Merrikans got possession.
More fools the 'Merrikans for lettin' 'em hold 'em.
Wat paid for 'em? 'Merrikan blood and money.
“Did n't they oughter have suthin out of their
native country? Wot for? Did they ever improve?
Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not
so sensible as niggers to look arter stock, and they
a sittin' home and smokin'. With their gold and
silver candlesticks, and missions, and crucifixens,
priests and graven idols, and sich? Them sort
things wurent allowed in Mizzoori.”
At the mention of improvements, I involuntarily
lifted my eyes, and met the half-laughing,
half-embarrassed look of George. The act did
not escape detection, and I had at once the satisfaction
of seeing that the rest of the family had
formed an offensive alliance against us.
“It was agin Nater, and agin God,” added
Tryan. “God never intended gold in the rocks to
be made into heathen candlesticks and crucifixens.
That 's why he sent 'Merrikins here. Nater never
never gin six months' sunshine to be slept and
smoked away.”
How long he continued, and with what further
illustration I could not say, for I took an early opportunity
to escape to the sitting-room. I was
soon followed by George, who called me to an open
door leading to a smaller room, and pointed to a
bed.
“You 'd better sleep there to-night,” he said;
“you 'll be more comfortable, and I 'll call you
early.”
I thanked him, and would have asked him
several questions which were then troubling me,
but he shyly slipped to the door and vanished.
A shadow seemed to fall on the room when he
had gone. The “boys” returned, one by one, and
shuffled to their old places. A larger log was
thrown on the fire, and the huge chimney glowed
like a furnace, but it did not seem to melt or subdue
a single line of the hard faces that it lit. In
half an hour later, the furs which had served as
chairs by day undertook the nightly office of mattresses,
and each received its owner's full-length
figure. Mr. Tryan had not returned, and I missed
George. I sat there, until, wakeful and nervous, I
saw the fire fall and shadows mount the wall.
There was no sound but the rushing of the wind
and the snoring of the sleepers. At last, feeling
the door, ran out briskly into the night.
The acceleration of my torpid pulse in the keen
fight with the wind, whose violence was almost
equal to that of a tornado, and the familiar faces
of the bright stars above me, I felt as a blessed
relief. I ran not knowing whither, and when I
halted, the square outline of the house was lost
in the alder-bushes. An uninterrupted plain
stretched before me, like a vast sea beaten flat by
the force of the gale. As I kept on I noticed a
slight elevation toward the horizon, and presently
my progress was impeded by the ascent of an Indian
mound. It struck me forcibly as resembling
an island in the sea. Its height gave me a better
view of the expanding plain. But even here
I found no rest. The ridiculous interpretation
Tryan had given the climate was somehow sung
in my ears, and echoed in my throbbing pulse,
as, guided by the star, I sought the house again.
But I felt fresher and more natural as I stepped
upon the platform. The door of the lower building
was open, and the old man was sitting beside
the table, thumbing the leaves of a Bible with a
look in his face as though he were hunting up
prophecies against the “Greaser.” I turned to
enter, but my attention was attracted by a blanketed
figure lying beside the house, on the platform.
The broad chest heaving with healthy slumber,
George, who had given up his bed to the stranger
among his people. I was about to wake him, but
he lay so peaceful and quiet, I felt awed and
hushed. And I went to bed with a pleasant impression
of his handsome face and tranquil figure
soothing me to sleep.
I was awakened the next morning from a sense
of lulled repose and grateful silence by the cheery
voice of George, who stood beside my bed, ostentatiously
twirling a “riata,” as if to recall the
duties of the day to my sleep-bewildered eyes. I
looked around me. The wind had been magically
laid, and the sun shone warmly through the windows.
A dash of cold water, with an extra chill
on from the tin basin, helped to brighten me. It
was still early, but the family had already breakfasted
and dispersed, and a wagon winding far in
the distance showed that the unfortunate Tom had
already “packed” his relatives away. I felt more
cheerful, — there are few troubles Youth cannot
distance with the start of a good night's rest.
After a substantial breakfast, prepared by George,
in a few moments we were mounted and dashing
down the plain.
We followed the line of alder that defined the
creek, now dry and baked with summer's heat,
but which in winter, George told me, overflowed
morning's ride, the far-off mountains, like silhouettes,
against the steel-blue sky, the crisp dry air, and
the expanding track before me, animated often by
the well-knit figure of George Tryan, musical with
jingling spurs, and picturesque with flying “riata.”
He rode a powerful native roan, wild-eyed, untiring
in stride and unbroken in nature. Alas!
the curves of beauty were concealed by the cumbrous
machillas of the Spanish saddle, which levels
all equine distinctions. The single rein lay
loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe, and, if need
be, crush the jaw it controls.
Again the illimitable freedom of the valley rises
before me, as we again bear down into sunlit
space. Can this be “Chu-Chu,” staid and respectable
filly of American pedigree, — “Chu-Chu,” forgetful
of plank-roads and cobble-stones, wild with
excitement, twinkling her small white feet beneath
me? George laughs out of a cloud of dust, “Give
her her head; don't you see she likes it?” and
“Chu-Chu” seems to like it, and, whether bitten
by native tarantula into native barbarism or
emulous of the roan, “blood” asserts itself, and
in a moment the peaceful servitude of years is
beaten out in the music of her clattering hoofs.
The creek widens to a deep gully. We dive into
it and up on the opposite side, carrying a moving
cloud of impalpable powder with us. Cattle are
together in vast restless herds. George makes a
wide, indefinite sweep with the “riata,” as if to
include them all in his vaquero's loop, and says,
“Ours!”
“About how many, George?”
“Don't know.”
“How many?”
“Well, p'r'aps three thousand head,” says George,
reflecting. “We don't know, takes five men to
look 'em up and keep run.”
“What are they worth?”
“About thirty dollars a head.”
I make a rapid calculation, and look my astonishment
at the laughing George. Perhaps a recollection
of the domestic economy of the Tryan household
is expressed in that look, for George averts
his eye and says, apologetically, —
“I 've tried to get the old man to sell and
build, but you know he says it ain't no use to
settle down, just yet. We must keep movin'.
In fact, he built the shanty for that purpose, lest
titles should fall through, and we 'd have to get
up and move stakes further down.”
Suddenly his quick eye detects some unusual
sight in a herd we are passing, and with an exclamation
he puts his roan into the centre of the
mass. I follow, or rather “Chu-Chu” darts after
the roan, and in a few moments we are in the
“Toro!” shouts George, with vaquero enthusiasm,
and the band opens a way for the swinging “riata.”
I can feel their steaming breaths, and their spume
is cast on “Chu-Chu's” quivering flank.
Wild, devilish-looking beasts are they; not
such shapes as Jove might have chosen to woo a
goddess, nor such as peacefully range the downs of
Devon, but lean and hungry Cassius-like bovines,
economically got up to meet the exigencies of a
six months' rainless climate, and accustomed to
wrestle with the distracting wind and the blinding
dust.
“That 's not our brand,” says George; “they 're
strange stock,” and he points to what my scientific
eye recognizes as the astrological sign of Venus
deeply seared in the brown flanks of the bull he is
chasing. But the herd are closing round us with
low mutterings, and George has again recourse to
the authoritative “Toro,” and with swinging “riata”
divides the “bossy bucklers” on either side. When
we are free, and breathing somewhat more easily, I
venture to ask George if they ever attack any
one.
“Never horsemen, — sometimes footmen. Not
through rage, you know, but curiosity. They think
a man and his horse are one, and if they meet a
chap afoot, they run him down and trample him
under hoof, in the pursuit of knowledge. But,”
and here 's Altascar's corral, and that white
building you see yonder is the casa.”
A whitewashed wall enclosed a court containing
another adobe building, baked with the solar beams
of many summers. Leaving our horses in the charge
of a few peons in the courtyard, who were basking
lazily in the sun, we entered a low doorway, where
a deep shadow and an agreeable coolness fell upon
us, as sudden and grateful as a plunge in cool
water, from its contrast with the external glare
and heat. In the centre of a low-ceiled apartment
sat an old man with a black silk handkerchief tied
about his head; the few gray hairs that escaped
from its folds relieving his gamboge-colored face.
The odor of cigarritos was as incense added to the
cathedral gloom of the building.
As Señor Altascar rose with well-bred gravity
to receive us, George advanced with such a heightened
color, and such a blending of tenderness and
respect in his manner, that I was touched to the
heart by so much devotion in the careless youth.
In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by the effect of
the outer sunshine, and at first I did not see the
white teeth and black eyes of Pepita, who slipped
into the corridor as we entered.
It was no pleasant matter to disclose particulars
of business which would deprive the old Señor of
the greater part of that land we had just ridden
he listened calmly, — not a muscle of his dark face
stirring, — and the smoke curling placidly from
his lips showed his regular respiration. When I
had finished, he offered quietly to accompany us
to the line of demarcation. George had meanwhile
disappeared, but a suspicious conversation in
broken Spanish and English, in the corridor, betrayed
his vicinity. When he returned again, a
little absent-minded, the old man, by far the coolest
and most self-possessed of the party, extinguished
his black silk cap beneath that stiff, uncomely
sombrero which all native Californians
affect. A serapa thrown over his shoulders hinted
that he was waiting. Horses are always ready
saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in half an hour
from the time of our arrival we were again “loping”
in the staring sunlight.
But not as cheerfully as before. George and
myself were weighed down by restraint, and Altascar
was gravely quiet. To break the silence, and
by way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him
that there might be further intervention or appeal,
but the proffered oil and wine were returned with
a careless shrug of the shoulders and a sententious
“Que bueno? — Your courts are always
just.”
The Indian mound of the previous night's discovery
was a bearing monument of the new line,
the old man Tryan waiting us. For the first time
during our interview the old Spaniard seemed
moved, and the blood rose in his yellow cheek.
I was anxious to close the scene, and pointed out
the corner boundaries as clearly as my recollection
served.
“The deputies will be here to-morrow to run
the lines from this initial point, and there will be
no further trouble, I believe, gentlemen.”
Señor Altascar had dismounted and was gathering
a few tufts of dried grass in his hands. George
and I exchanged glances. He presently arose from
his stooping posture, and, advancing to within a
few paces of Joseph Tryan, said, in a voice broken
with passion, —
“And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put
you in possession of my land in the fashion of my
country.”
He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points.
“I don't know your courts, your judges, or your
corregidores. Take the llano! — and take this
with it. May the drought seize your cattle till
their tongues hang down as long as those of your
lying lawyers! May it be the curse and torment
of your old age, as you and yours have made it of
mine!”
We stepped between the principal actors in this
scene, which only the passion of Altascar made
his triumph, interrupted: —
“Let him curse on. He 'll find 'em coming home
to him sooner than the cattle he has lost through
his sloth and pride. The Lord is on the side of
the just, as well as agin all slanderers and revilers.”
Altascar but half guessed the meaning of the
Missourian, yet sufficiently to drive from his mind
all but the extravagant power of his native invective.
“Stealer of the Sacrament! Open not! — open
not, I say, your lying, Judas lips to me! Ah!
half-breed, with the soul of a cayote! — Car-r-r-ramba!”
With his passion reverberating among the consonants
like distant thunder, he laid his hand
upon the mane of his horse as though it had been
the gray locks of his adversary, swung himself
into the saddle and galloped away.
George turned to me: —
“Will you go back with us to-night?”
I thought of the cheerless walls, the silent figures
by the fire, and the roaring wind, and hesitated.
“Well then, good by.”
“Good by, George.”
Another wring of the hands, and we parted. I
had not ridden far, when I turned and looked back.
The wind had risen early that afternoon, and was
travelled before it, and a picturesque figure occasionally
emerging therefrom was my last indistinct
impression of George Tryan.
2. PART II. — IN THE FLOOD.
Three months after the survey of the Espíritu
Santo Rancho, I was again in the valley of the
Sacramento. But a general and terrible visitation
had erased the memory of that event as completely
as I supposed it had obliterated the boundary
monuments I had planted. The great flood of
1861 - 62 was at its height, when, obeying some
indefinite yearning, I took my carpet-bag and embarked
for the inundated valley.
There was nothing to be seen from the bright
cabin windows of the “Golden City” but night
deepening over the water. The only sound was
the pattering rain, and that had grown monotonous
for the past two weeks, and did not disturb
the national gravity of my countrymen as they
silently sat around the cabin stove. Some on
errands of relief to friends and relatives wore
anxious faces, and conversed soberly on the one
absorbing topic. Others, like myself, attracted by
curiosity, listened eagerly to newer details. But
circumstance that might give chance event the
exaggerated importance of instinct, I was half
conscious of something more than curiosity as an
impelling motive.
The dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water,
and a leaden sky greeted us the next morning as
we lay beside the half-submerged levee of Sacramento.
Here, however, the novelty of boats to
convey us to the hotels was an appeal that was
irresistible. I resigned myself to a dripping rubber-cased
mariner called “Joe,” and, wrapping myself
in a shining cloak of the like material, about
as suggestive of warmth as court-plaster might
have been, took my seat in the stern-sheets of his
boat. It was no slight inward struggle to part
from the steamer, that to most of the passengers
was the only visible connecting link between us
and the dry and habitable earth, but we pulled
away and entered the city, stemming a rapid current
as we shot the levee.
We glided up the long level of K Street, — once
a cheerful, busy thoroughfare, now distressing in
its silent desolation. The turbid water which seemed
to meet the horizon edge before us flowed at right
angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature
had revenged herself on the local taste by
disarraying the regular rectangles by huddling
houses on street corners, where they presented
in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds were gliding
in and out of low-arched doorways. The water
was over the top of the fences surrounding well-kept
gardens, in the first stories of hotels and
private dwellings, trailing its slime on velvet carpets
as well as roughly boarded floors. And a
silence quite as suggestive as the visible desolation
was in the voiceless streets that no longer
echoed to carriage-wheel or footfall. The low
ripple of water, the occasional splash of oars, or
the warning cry of boatmen were the few signs of
life and habitation.
With such scenes before my eyes and such
sounds in my ears, as I lie lazily in the boat, is
mingled the song of my gondolier who sings to the
music of his oars. It is not quite as romantic as
his brother of the Lido might improvise, but my
Yankee “Giuseppe” has the advantage of earnestness
and energy, and gives a graphic description
of the terrors of the past week and of noble deeds
of self-sacrifice and devotion, occasionally pointing
out a balcony from which some California Bianca
or Laura had been snatched, half clothed and famished.
Giuseppe is otherwise peculiar, and refuses
the proffered fare, for — am I not a citizen
of San Francisco, which was first to respond to the
suffering cry of Sacramento? and is not he, Giuseppe,
a member of the Howard Society? No!
Still, if I must spend it, there is the Howard
Society, and the women and children without food
and clothes at the Agricultural Hall.
I thank the generous gondolier, and we go to
the Hall, — a dismal, bleak place, ghastly with
the memories of last year's opulence and plenty,
and here Giuseppe's fare is swelled by the stranger's
mite. But here Giuseppe tells me of the “Relief
Boat” which leaves for the flooded district in the
interior, and here, profiting by the lesson he has
taught me, I make the resolve to turn my curiosity
to the account of others, and am accepted of
those who go forth to succor and help the afflicted.
Giuseppe takes charge of my carpet-bag, and does
not part from me until I stand on the slippery
deck of “Relief Boat No. 3.”
An hour later I am in the pilot-house, looking
down upon what was once the channel of a peaceful
river. But its banks are only defined by tossing
tufts of willow washed by the long swell that
breaks over a vast inland sea. Stretches of “tule”
land fertilized by its once regular channel and
dotted by flourishing ranchos are now cleanly
erased. The cultivated profile of the old landscape
had faded. Dotted lines in symmetrical
perspective mark orchards that are buried and
chilled in the turbid flood. The roofs of a few
farm-houses are visible, and here and there the
tenements show an undaunted life within. Cattle
and sheep are gathered on Indian mounds waiting
the fate of their companions whose carcasses drift
by us, or swing in eddies with the wrecks of barns
and out-houses. Wagons are stranded everywhere
where the tide could carry them. As I wipe the
moistened glass, I see nothing but water, pattering
on the deck from the lowering clouds, dashing
against the window, dripping from the willows,
hissing by the wheels, everywhere washing, coiling,
sapping, hurrying in rapids, or swelling at last
into deeper and vaster lakes, awful in their suggestive
quiet and concealment.
As day fades into night the monotony of this
strange prospect grows oppressive. I seek the
engine-room, and in the company of some of the
few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked
up from temporary rafts, I forget the general
aspect of desolation in their individual misery.
Later we meet the San Francisco packet, and
transfer a number of our passengers. From them
we learn how inward-bound vessels report to having
struck the well-defined channel of the Sacramento,
fifty miles beyond the bar. There is
a voluntary contribution taken among the generous
travellers for the use of our afflicted, and we
part company with a hearty “God speed” on
either side. But our signal-lights are not far distant
an indomitable Yankee cheer, — which scatters the
gloom.
Our course is altered, and we are steaming over
the obliterated banks far in the interior. Once or
twice black objects loom up near us, — the wrecks
of houses floating by. There is a slight rift in the
sky towards the north, and a few bearing stars to
guide us over the waste. As we penetrate into
shallower water, it is deemed advisable to divide
our party into smaller boats, and diverge over the
submerged prairie. I borrow a pea-coat of one of
the crew, and in that practical disguise am doubtfully
permitted to pass into one of the boats. We
give way northerly. It is quite dark yet, although
the rift of cloud has widened.
It must have been about three o'clock, and we
were lying upon our oars in an eddy formed by a
clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer
is a solitary, bright star in the distance, when the
silence is broken by the “bow oar”: —
“Light ahead.”
All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few
seconds a twinkling light appears, shines steadily,
and again disappears as if by the shifting position
of some black object apparently drifting close
upon us.
“Stern, all; a steamer!”
“Hold hard there! Steamer be d—d!” is the
one too.”
It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a
huge fragment of the darkness. The light comes
from a single candle, which shines through a
window as the great shape swings by. Some
recollection is drifting back to me with it, as I
listen with beating heart.
“There 's some one in it, by Heavens! Give
way, boys, — lay her alongside. Handsomely, now!
The door 's fastened; try the window; no! here 's
another!”
In another moment we are trampling in the
water, which washes the floor to the depth of several
inches. It is a large room, at the further end
of which an old man is sitting wrapped in a
blanket, holding a candle in one hand, and apparently
absorbed in the book he holds with the
other. I spring toward him with an exclamation:
—
“Joseph Tryan!”
He does not move. We gather closer to him,
and I lay my hand gently on his shoulder, and
say: —
“Look up, old man, look up! Your wife and
children, where are they? The boys, — George!
Are they here? are they safe?”
He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to
mine, and we involuntarily recoil before his look.
or pain; but it somehow sends the blood curdling
through our veins. He bowed his head over his
book again, taking no further notice of us. The
men look at me compassionately, and hold their
peace. I make one more effort: —
“Joseph Tryan, don't you know me? the surveyor
who surveyed your ranch, — the Espíritu
Santo? Look up, old man!”
He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his
blanket. Presently he repeated to himself, “The
surveyor who surveyed your ranch, — Espíritu
Santo,” over and over again, as though it were a
lesson he was trying to fix in his memory.
I was turning sadly to the boatmen, when he
suddenly caught me fearfully by the hand and
said, —
“Hush!”
We were silent.
“Listen!” He puts his arm around my neck
and whispers in my ear, “I 'm a moving off!”
“Moving off?”
“Hush! Don't speak so loud. Moving off.
Ah! wot 's that? Don't you hear? — there! listen!”
We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click
beneath the floor.
“It 's them wot he sent! — Old Altascar sent.
They 've been here all night. I heard 'em first in
move farther off. They came nearer and nearer.
They whispered under the door, and I saw their
eyes on the step, — their cruel, hard eyes. Ah,
why don't they quit?”
I tell the men to search the room and see if they
can find any further traces of the family, while
Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is so much
like the figure I remember on the breezy night
that a superstitious feeling is fast overcoming me.
When they have returned, I tell them briefly what
I know of him, and the old man murmurs again, —
“Why don't they quit, then? They have the
stock, — all gone — gone, gone for the hides and
hoofs,” and he groans bitterly.
“There are other boats below us. The shanty
cannot have drifted far, and perhaps the family are
safe by this time,” says the coxswain, hopefully.
We lift the old man up, for he is quite helpless,
and carry him to the boat. He is still grasping
the Bible in his right hand, though its strengthening
grace is blank to his vacant eye, and he cowers
in the stern as we pull slowly to the steamer, while
a pale gleam in the sky shows the coming day.
I was weary with excitement, and when we
reached the steamer, and I had seen Joseph Tryan
comfortably bestowed, I wrapped myself in a
blanket near the boiler and presently fell asleep.
But even then the figure of the old man often started
made a strong undercurrent to my drifting dreams.
I was awakened at about eight o'clock in the
morning by the engineer, who told me one of the
old man's sons had been picked up and was now on
board.
“Is it George Tryan?” I ask quickly.
“Don't know; but he 's a sweet one, whoever he
is,” adds the engineer, with a smile at some luscious
remembrance. “You 'll find him for'ard.”
I hurry to the bow of the boat, and find, not
George, but the irrepressible Wise, sitting on a
coil of rope, a little dirtier and rather more dilapidated
than I can remember having seen him.
He is examining, with apparent admiration, some
rough, dry clothes that have been put out for his
disposal. I cannot help thinking that circumstances
have somewhat exalted his usual cheerfulness.
He puts me at my ease by at once addressing
me: —
“These are high old times, ain't they? I say,
what do you reckon 's become o' them thar
bound'ry moniments you stuck? Ah!”
The pause which succeeds this outburst is the
effect of a spasm of admiration at a pair of high
boots, which, by great exertion, he has at last
pulled on his feet.
“So you 've picked up the ole man in the
shanty, clean crazy? He must have been soft
woman. Did n't know me from Adam; took me
for George!”
At this affecting instance of paternal forgetfulness,
Wise was evidently divided between amusement
and chagrin. I took advantage of the contending
emotions to ask about George.
“Don't know whar he is! If he 'd tended
stock instead of running about the prairie, packin'
off wimmin and children, he might have saved
suthin. He lost every hoof and hide, I 'll bet a
cookey! Say you,” to a passing boatman, “when
are you goin' to give us some grub? I 'm hungry
'nough to skin and eat a hoss. Reckon I 'll turn
butcher when things is dried up, and save hides,
horns, and taller.”
I could not but admire this indomitable energy,
which under softer climatic influences might have
borne such goodly fruit.
“Have you any idea what you 'll do, Wise?” I
ask.
“Thar ain't much to do now,” says the practical
young man. “I 'll have to lay over a spell, I
reckon, till things comes straight. The land ain't
worth much now, and won't be, I dessay, for some
time. Wonder whar the ole man 'll drive stakes
next.”
“I meant as to your father and George, Wise.”
“O, the ole man and I 'll go on to `Miles's,' whar
George 'll turn up somewhar atween this and
Altascar's, ef he ain't thar now.”
I ask how the Altascars have suffered.
“Well, I reckon he ain't lost much in stock. I
should n't wonder if George helped him drive 'em
up the foot-hills. And his `casa' 's built too high.
O, thar ain't any water thar, you bet. Ah,” says
Wise, with reflective admiration, “those greasers
ain't the darned fools people thinks 'em. I 'll bet
thar ain't one swamped out in all 'er Californy.”
But the appearance of “grub,” cut this rhapsody
short.
“I shall keep on a little farther,” I say, “and
try to find George.”
Wise stared a moment at this eccentricity until
a new light dawned upon him.
“I don't think you 'll save much. What 's the
percentage, — workin' on shares, eh!”
I answer that I am only curious, which I feel
lessens his opinion of me, and with a sadder feeling
than his assurance of George's safety might
warrant, I walked away.
From others whom we picked up from time to
time we heard of George's self-sacrificing devotion,
with the praises of the many he had helped
and rescued. But I did not feel disposed to return
until I had seen him, and soon prepared myself
to take a boat to the lower “valda” of the
my arrangements, bade farewell to Wise, and took
a last look at the old man, who was sitting by the
furnace-fires quite passive and composed. Then
our boat-head swung round, pulled by sturdy and
willing hands.
It was again raining, and a disagreeable wind
had risen. Our course lay nearly west, and we
soon knew by the strong current that we were in
the creek of the Espíritu Santo. From time to
time the wrecks of barns were seen, and we
passed many half-submerged willows hung with
farming implements.
We emerge at last into a broad silent sea. It is
the “llano de Espíritu Santo.” As the wind whistles
by me, piling the shallower fresh water into
mimic waves, I go back, in fancy, to the long ride
of October over that boundless plain, and recall
the sharp outlines of the distant hills which are
now lost in the lowering clouds. The men are
rowing silently, and I find my mind, released from
its tension, growing benumbed and depressed as
then. The water, too, is getting more shallow as
we leave the banks of the creek, and with my
hand dipped listlessly over the thwarts, I detect
the tops of chimisal, which shows the tide to have
somewhat fallen. There is a black mound, bearing
to the north of the line of alder, making an
adverse current, which, as we sweep to the right to
I call to the men to stop.
There was a stake driven near its summit with
the initials, “L. E. S. I.” Tied half-way down was
a curiously worked “riata.” It was George's. It
had been cut with some sharp instrument, and the
loose gravelly soil of the mound was deeply dented
with horse's hoofs. The stake was covered with
horse-hairs. It was a record, but no clew.
The wind had grown more violent, as we still
fought our way forward, resting and rowing by
turns, and oftener “poling” the shallower surface,
but the old “valda,” or bench, is still distant.
My recollection of the old survey enables me to
guess the relative position of the meanderings of
the creek, and an occasional simple professional
experiment to determine the distance gives my
crew the fullest faith in my ability. Night overtakes
us in our impeded progress. Our condition
looks more dangerous than it really is, but I urge
the men, many of whom are still new in this mode
of navigation, to greater exertion by assurance of
perfect safety and speedy relief ahead. We go on
in this way until about eight o'clock, and ground
by the willows. We have a muddy walk for a
few hundred yards before we strike a dry trail,
and simultaneously the white walls of Altascar's
appear like a snow-bank before us. Lights are
moving in the courtyard; but otherwise the old
tomb-like repose characterizes the building.
One of the peons recognized me as I entered the
court, and Altascar met me on the corridor.
I was too weak to do more than beg his hospitality
for the men who had dragged wearily with
me. He looked at my hand, which still unconsciously
held the broken “riata.” I began,
wearily, to tell him about George and my fears,
but with a gentler courtesy than was even his
wont, he gravely laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Poco a poco Señor, — not now. You are tired,
you have hunger, you have cold. Necessary it is
you should have peace.”
He took us into a small room and poured out
some French cognae, which he gave to the men
that had accompanied me. They drank and threw
themselves before the fire in the larger room. The
repose of the building was intensified that night,
and I even fancied that the footsteps on the corridor
were lighter and softer. The old Spaniard's
habitual gravity was deeper; we might have been
shut out from the world as well as the whistling
storm, behind those ancient walls with their timeworn
inheritor.
Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired.
In a few minutes two smoking dishes of “chupa”
with coffee were placed before us, and my men
ate ravenously. I drank the coffee, but my excitement
and weariness kept down the instincts
of hunger.
I was sitting sadly by the fire when he re-entered.
“You have eat?”
I said, “Yes,” to please him.
“Bueno, eat when you can, — food and appetite
are not always.”
He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity
with which most of his countrymen utter a
proverb, as though it were an experience rather
than a legend, and, taking the “riata” from the
floor, held it almost tenderly before him.
“It was made by me, Señor.”
“I kept it as a clew to him, Don Altascar,” I
said. “If I could find him — ”
“He is here.”
“Here! and” — but I could not say, “well!”
I understood the gravity of the old man's face, the
hushed footfalls, the tomb-like repose of the building
in an electric flash of consciousness; I held
the clew to the broken riata at last. Altascar took
my hand, and we crossed the corridor to a sombre
apartment. A few tall candles were burning in
sconces before the window.
In an alcove there was a deep bed with its
counterpane, pillows, and sheets heavily edged
with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the
humblest of these strange people lavish upon this
single item of their household. I stepped beside
it and saw George lying, as I had seen him once
than that he had known was here, and his generous
heart was stilled forever.
“He was honest and brave,” said the old man,
and turned away.
There was another figure in the room; a heavy
shawl drawn over her graceful outline, and her
long black hair hiding the hands that buried her
downcast face. I did not seem to notice her, and,
retiring presently, left the loving and loved together.
When we were again beside the crackling fire,
in the shifting shadows of the great chamber, Altascar
told me how he had that morning met the
horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie;
how that, farther on, he found him lying, quite
cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his
person; that he had probably become exhausted
in fording the creek, and that he had as probably
reached the mound only to die for want of that
help he had so freely given to others; that, as a
last act, he had freed his horse. These incidents
were corroborated by many who collected in the
great chamber that evening, — women and children,
— most of them succored through the devoted
energies of him who lay cold and lifeless
above.
He was buried in the Indian mound, — the
single spot of strange perennial greenness, which
plain. A little slab of sandstone with the initials
“G. T.” is his monument, and one of the bearings
of the initial corner of the new survey of the
“Espíritu Santo Rancho.”
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