 | Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches |  |
HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S
BAR.
IT had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento.
The North Fork had overflowed its
banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable. The
few boulders that had marked the summer ford at
Simpson's Crossing were obliterated by a vast
sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up
stage was stopped at Grangers; the last mail had
been abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming
for his life. “An area,” remarked the “Sierra
Avalanche,” with pensive local pride, “as large as
the State of Massachusetts is now under water.”
Nor was the weather any better in the foothills.
The mud lay deep on the mountain road; wagons
that neither physical force nor moral objurgation
could move from the evil ways into which they
had fallen, encumbered the track, and the way to
Simpson's Bar was indicated by broken-down
teams and hard swearing. And farther on, cut off
and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled,
smitten by high winds and threatened by high
water, Simpson's Bar, on the eve of Christmas day,
1862, clung like a swallow's nest to the rocky
and shook in the blast.
As night shut down on the settlement, a few
lights gleamed through the mist from the windows
of cabins on either side of the highway now
crossed and gullied by lawless streams and swept
by marauding winds. Happily most of the population
were gathered at Thompson's store, clustered
around a red-hot stove, at which they silently spat
in some accepted sense of social communion that
perhaps rendered conversation unnecessary. Indeed,
most methods of diversion had long since
been exhausted on Simpson's Bar; high water
had suspended the regular occupations on gulch
and on river, and a consequent lack of money and
whiskey had taken the zest from most illegitimate
recreation. Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave
the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket, — the
only amount actually realized of the large sums
won by him in the successful exercise of his
arduous profession. “Ef I was asked,” he remarked
somewhat later, — “ef I was asked to pint
out a purty little village where a retired sport as
did n't care for money could exercise hisself, frequent
and lively, I 'd say Simpson's Bar; but for
a young man with a large family depending on
his exertions, it don't pay.” As Mr. Hamlin's
family consisted mainly of female adults, this
remark is quoted rather to show the breadth of
Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire
sat that evening in the listless apathy begotten of
idleness and lack of excitement. Even the sudden
splashing of hoofs before the door did not arouse
them. Dick Bullen alone paused in the act of
scraping out his pipe, and lifted his head, but no
other one of the group indicated any interest in,
or recognition of, the man who entered.
It was a figure familiar enough to the company,
and known in Simpson's Bar as “The Old Man.”
A man of perhaps fifty years; grizzled and scant
of hair, but still fresh and youthful of complexion.
A face full of ready, but not very powerful sympathy,
with a chameleon-like aptitude for taking
on the shade and color of contiguous moods and
feelings. He had evidently just left some hilarious
companions, and did not at first notice the
gravity of the group, but clapped the shoulder of
the nearest man jocularly, and threw himself into
a vacant chair.
“Jest heard the best thing out, boys! Ye know
Smiley, over yar, — Jim Smiley, — funniest man
in the Bar? Well, Jim was jest telling the richest
yarn about —”
“Smiley 's a — fool,” interrupted a gloomy
voice.
“A particular — skunk,” added another in
sepulchral accents.
A silence followed these positive statements.
The Old Man glanced quickly around the group.
Then his face slowly changed. “That 's so,” he said
reflectively, after a pause, “certingly a sort of a
skunk and suthin of a fool. In course.” He was
silent for a moment as in painful contemplation
of the unsavoriness and folly of the unpopular
Smiley. “Dismal weather, ain't it?” he added,
now fully embarked on the current of prevailing
sentiment. “Mighty rough papers on the boys,
and no show for money this season. And to-morrow
's Christmas.”
There was a movement among the men at this
announcement, but whether of satisfaction or
disgust was not plain. “Yes,” continued the Old
Man in the lugubrious tone he had, within the
last few moments, unconsciously adopted, — “yes,
Christmas, and to-night 's Christmas eve. Ye see,
boys, I kinder thought — that is, I sorter had an
idee, jest passin' like, you know — that may be ye 'd
all like to come over to my house to-night and
have a sort of tear round. But I suppose, now, you
would n't? Don't feel like it, may be?” he added
with anxious sympathy, peering into the faces of
his companions.
“Well, I don't know,” responded Tom Flynn
with some cheerfulness. “P'r'aps we may. But
how about your wife, Old Man? What does she
say to it?”
The Old Man hesitated. His conjugal experience
had not been a happy one, and the fact was
known to Simpson's Bar. His first wife, a delicate,
pretty little woman, had suffered keenly and
secretly from the jealous suspicions of her husband,
until one day he invited the whole Bar to his
house to expose her infidelity. On arriving, the
party found the shy, petite creature quietly engaged
in her household duties, and retired abashed
and discomfited. But the sensitive woman did
not easily recover from the shock of this extraordinary
outrage. It was with difficulty she regained
her equanimity sufficiently to release her
lover from the closet in which he was concealed
and escape with him. She left a boy of three
years to comfort her bereaved husband. The Old
Man's present wife had been his cook. She was
large, loyal, and aggressive.
Before he could reply, Joe Dimmick suggested
with great directness that it was the “Old Man's
house,” and that, invoking the Divine Power, if
the case were his own, he would invite whom he
pleased, even if in so doing he imperilled his salvation.
The Powers of Evil, he further remarked,
should contend against him vainly. All this
delivered with a terseness and vigor lost in this
necessary translation.
“In course. Certainly. Thet 's it,” said the
Old Man with a sympathetic frown. “Thar 's no
stick on it myself. Don't you be afeard o' her,
boys. She may cut up a trifle rough, — ez wimmin
do, — but she 'll come round.” Secretly the Old
Man trusted to the exaltation of liquor and the
power of courageous example to sustain him in
such an emergency.
As yet, Dick Bullen, the oracle and leader of
Simpson's Bar, had not spoken. He now took his
pipe from his lips. “Old Man, how 's that yer
Johnny gettin' on? Seems to me he did n't look
so peart last time I seed him on the bluff heavin'
rocks at Chinamen. Did n't seem to take much
interest in it. Thar was a gang of 'em by yar
yesterday, — drownded out up the river, — and I
kinder thought o' Johnny, and how he 'd miss 'em!
May be now, we 'd be in the way ef he wus sick?”
The father, evidently touched not only by this
pathetic picture of Johnny's deprivation, but by
the considerate delicacy of the speaker, hastened
to assure him that Johnny was better and that
a “little fun might 'liven him up.” Whereupon
Dick arose, shook himself, and saying, “I 'm ready.
Lead the way, Old Man: here goes,” himself led
the way with a leap, a characteristic howl, and
darted out into the night. As he passed through
the outer room he caught up a blazing brand from
the hearth. The action was repeated by the rest
of the party, closely following and elbowing each
Thompson's grocery was aware of the intention of
his guests, the room was deserted.
The night was pitchy dark. In the first gust of
wind their temporary torches were extinguished,
and only the red brands dancing and flitting in
the gloom like drunken will-o'-the-wisps indicated
their whereabouts. Their way led up Pine-Tree
Cañon, at the head of which a broad, low, bark-thatched
cabin burrowed in the mountain-side. It
was the home of the Old Man, and the entrance to
the tunnel in which he worked when he worked at
all. Here the crowd paused for a moment, out of
delicate deference to their host, who came up panting
in the rear.
“P'r'aps ye 'd better hold on a second out yer,
whilst I go in and see thet things is all right,”
said the Old Man, with an indifference he was far
from feeling. The suggestion was graciously accepted,
the door opened and closed on the host,
and the crowd, leaning their backs against the wall
and cowering under the eaves, waited and listened.
For a few moments there was no sound but the
dripping of water from the eaves, and the stir and
rustle of wrestling boughs above them. Then the
men became uneasy, and whispered suggestion
and suspicion passed from the one to the other.
“Reckon she 's caved in his head the first lick!”
“Decoyed him inter the tunnel and barred him
“Prob'ly bilin suthin to heave on us: stand clear
the door, boys!” For just then the latch clicked,
the door slowly opened, and a voice said, “Come
in out o' the wet.”
The voice was neither that of the Old Man nor
of his wife. It was the voice of a small boy, its
weak treble broken by that preternatural hoarseness
which only vagabondage and the habit of premature
self-assertion can give. It was the face of
a small boy that looked up at theirs, — a face that
might have been pretty and even refined but that
it was darkened by evil knowledge from within,
and dirt and hard experience from without. He
had a blanket around his shoulders and had evidently
just risen from his bed. “Come in,” he repeated,
“and don't make no noise. The Old Man's
in there talking to mar,” he continued, pointing to
an adjacent room which seemed to be a kitchen,
from which the Old Man's voice came in deprecating
accents. “Let me be,” he added, querulously,
to Dick Bullen, who had caught him up, blanket
and all, and was affecting to toss him into the fire,
“let go o' me, you d—d old fool, d' ye hear?”
Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to
the ground with a smothered laugh, while the
men, entering quietly, ranged themselves around a
long table of rough boards which occupied the
centre of the room. Johnny then gravely proceeded
which he deposited on the table. “Thar 's
whiskey. And crackers. And red herons. And
cheese.” He took a bite of the latter on his way
to the table. “And sugar.” He scooped up a
mouthful en route with a small and very dirty
hand. “And terbacker. Thar 's dried appils too
on the shelf, but I don't admire 'em. Appils is
swellin'. Thar,” he concluded, “now wade in,
and don't be afeard. I don't mind the old woman.
She don't b'long to me. S'long.”
He had stepped to the threshold of a small
room, scarcely larger than a closet, partitioned off
from the main apartment, and holding in its dim
recess a small bed. He stood there a moment
looking at the company, his bare feet peeping from
the blanket, and nodded.
“Hello, Johnny! You ain't goin' to turn in
agin, are ye?” said Dick.
“Yes, I are,” responded Johnny, decidedly.
“Why, wot's up, old fellow?”
“I 'm sick.”
“How sick?”
“I 've got a fevier. And childblains. And roomatiz,”
returned Johnny, and vanished within.
After a moment's pause, he added in the dark,
apparently from under the bedclothes, — “And
biles!”
There was an embarrassing silence. The men
the appetizing banquet before them, it seemed as
if they might again fall into the despondency of
Thompson's grocery, when the voice of the Old
Man, incautiously lifted, came deprecatingly from
the kitchen.
“Certainly! Thet 's so. In course they is. A
gang o' lazy drunken loafers, and that ar Dick
Bullen 's the ornariest of all. Did n't hev no more
sabe than to come round yar with sickness in the
house and no provision. Thet 's what I said:
`Bullen,' sez I, `it 's crazy drunk you are, or a
fool,' sez I, `to think o' such a thing.' `Staples,' I
sez, `be you a man, Staples, and 'spect to raise
h—ll under my roof and invalids lyin' round?'
But they would come, — they would. Thet 's wot
you must 'spect o' such trash as lays round the
Bar.”
A burst of laughter from the men followed this
unfortunate exposure. Whether it was overheard
in the kitchen, or whether the Old Man's irate
companion had just then exhausted all other modes
of expressing her contemptuous indignation, I cannot
say, but a back door was suddenly slammed
with great violence. A moment later and the Old
Man reappeared, haply unconscious of the cause of
the late hilarious outburst, and smiled blandly.
“The old woman thought she 'd jest run over to
Mrs McFadden's for a sociable call,” he explained,
board.
Oddly enough it needed this untoward incident
to relieve the embarrassment that was beginning
to be felt by the party, and their natural audacity
returned with their host. I do not propose to
record the convivialities of that evening. The inquisitive
reader will accept the statement that the
conversation was characterized by the same intellectual
exaltation, the same cautious reverence, the
same fastidious delicacy, the same rhetorical precision,
and the same logical and coherent discourse
somewhat later in the evening, which distinguish
similar gatherings of the masculine sex in more
civilized localities and under more favorable auspices.
No glasses were broken in the absence of
any; no liquor was uselessly spilt on floor or table
in the scarcity of that article.
It was nearly midnight when the festivities
were interrupted. “Hush,” said Dick Bullen,
holding up his hand. It was the querulous voice
of Johnny from his adjacent closet: “O dad!”
The Old Man arose hurriedly and disappeared
in the closet. Presently he reappeared. “His
rheumatiz is coming on agin bad,” he explained,
“and he wants rubbin'.” He lifted the demijohn
of whiskey from the table and shook it. It was
empty. Dick Bullen put down his tin cup with
an embarrassed laugh. So did the others. The
“I reckon that 's enough; he don't need much.
You hold on all o' you for a spell, and I 'll be
back”; and vanished in the closet with an old
flannel shirt and the whiskey. The door closed
but imperfectly, and the following dialogue was
distinctly audible: —
“Now, sonny, whar does she ache worst?”
“Sometimes over yar and sometimes under yer;
but it 's most powerful from yer to yer. Rub yer,
dad.”
A silence seemed to indicate a brisk rubbing.
Then Johnny:
“Hevin' a good time out yer, dad?”
“Yes, sonny.”
“To-morrer 's Chrismiss, — ain't it?”
“Yes, sonny. How does she feel now?”
“Better. Rub a little furder down. Wot 's
Chrismiss, anyway? Wot 's it all about?”
“O, it 's a day.”
This exhaustive definition was apparently satisfactory,
for there was a silent interval of rubbing.
Presently Johnny again:
“Mar sez that everywhere else but yer everybody
gives things to everybody Chrismiss, and
then she jist waded inter you. She sez thar 's a
man they call Sandy Claws, not a white man, you
know, but a kind o' Chinemin, comes down the
chimbley night afore Chrismiss and gives things
butes! Thet 's what she tried to play upon me.
Easy now, pop, whar are you rubbin' to, — thet 's
a mile from the place. She jest made that up,
did n't she, jest to aggrewate me and you? Don't
rub thar..... Why, dad!”
In the great quiet that seemed to have fallen
upon the house the sigh of the near pines and the
drip of leaves without was very distinct. Johnny's
voice, too, was lowered as he went on, “Don't
you take on now, fur I 'm gettin' all right fast.
Wot 's the boys doin' out thar?”
The Old Man partly opened the door and peered
through. His guests were sitting there sociably
enough, and there were a few silver coins and a
lean buckskin purse on the table. “Bettin' on
suthin, — some little game or 'nother. They 're
all right,” he replied to Johnny, and recommenced
his rubbing.
“I 'd like to take a hand and win some money,”
said Johnny, reflectively, after a pause.
The Old Man glibly repeated what was evidently
a familiar formula, that if Johnny would wait until
he struck it rich in the tunnel he 'd have lots of
money, etc., etc.
“Yes,” said Johnny, “but you don't. And
whether you strike it or I win it, it 's about the
same. It 's all luck. But it 's mighty cur'o's
about Chrismiss, — ain't it? Why do they call
it Chrismiss?”
Perhaps from some instinctive deference to the
overhearing of his guests, or from some vague
sense of incongruity, the Old Man's reply was so
low as to be inaudible beyond the room.
“Yes,” said Johnny, with some slight abatement
of interest, “I 've heerd o' him before. Thar, that
'll do, dad. I don't ache near so bad as I did.
Now wrap me tight in this yer blanket. So.
Now,” he added in a muffled whisper, “sit down
yer by me till I go asleep.” To assure himself of
obedience, he disengaged one hand from the blanket
and, grasping his father's sleeve, again composed
himself to rest.
For some moments the Old Man waited patiently.
Then the unwonted stillness of the house
excited his curiosity, and without moving from
the bed, he cautiously opened the door with his
disengaged hand, and looked into the main room.
To his infinite surprise it was dark and deserted.
But even then a smouldering log on the hearth
broke, and by the upspringing blaze he saw the
figure of Dick Bullen sitting by the dying embers.
“Hello!”
Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily
toward him.
“Whar 's the boys?” said the Old Man.
“Gone up the cañon on a little pasear. They 're
coming back for me in a minit. I 'm waitin'
round for 'em. What are you starin' at, Old Man?”
drunk?”
The Old Man might have been pardoned the
supposition, for Dick's eyes were humid and his
face flushed. He loitered and lounged back to
the chimney, yawned, shook himself, buttoned up
his coat and laughed. “Liquor ain't so plenty as
that, Old Man. Now don't you git up,” he continued,
as the Old Man made a movement to release
his sleeve from Johnny's hand. “Don't you mind
manners. Sit jest whar you be; I 'm goin' in a
jiffy. Thar, that 's them now.”
There was a low tap at the door. Dick Bullen
opened it quickly, nodded “Good night” to his
host, and disappeared. The Old Man would have
followed him but for the hand that still unconsciously
grasped his sleeve. He could have easily
disengaged it: it was small, weak, and emaciated.
But perhaps because it was small, weak, and emaciated,
he changed his mind, and, drawing his chair
closer to the bed, rested his head upon it. In
this defenceless attitude the potency of his earlier
potations surprised him. The room flickered
and faded before his eyes, reappeared, faded again,
went out, and left him — asleep.
Meantime Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted
his companions. “Are you ready?” said
Staples. “Ready,” said Dick; “what 's the time?”
“Past twelve,” was the reply; “can you make it?
and yon.” “I reckon,” returned Dick, shortly.
“Whar 's the mare?” “Bill and Jack 's holdin'
her at the crossin'.” “Let 'em hold on a minit
longer,” said Dick.
He turned and re-entered the house softly. By
the light of the guttering candle and dying fire he
saw that the door of the little room was open. He
stepped toward it on tiptoe and looked in. The
Old Man had fallen back in his chair, snoring, his
helpless feet thrust out in a line with his collapsed
shoulders, and his hat pulled over his eyes. Beside
him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny,
muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save
a strip of forehead and a few curls damp with
perspiration. Dick Bullen made a step forward,
hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder into the
deserted room. Everything was quiet. With a
sudden resolution he parted his huge mustaches
with both hands and stooped over the sleeping
boy. But even as he did so a mischievous blast,
lying in wait, swooped down the chimney, rekindled
the hearth, and lit up the room with a shameless
glow from which Dick fled in bashful terror.
His companions were already waiting for him
at the crossing. Two of them were struggling in
the darkness with some strange misshapen bulk,
which as Dick came nearer took the semblance of
a great yellow horse.
It was the mare. She was not a pretty picture.
From her Roman nose to her rising haunches,
from her arched spine hidden by the stiff machillas
of a Mexican saddle, to her thick, straight, bony
legs, there was not a line of equine grace. In her
half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in her
protruding under lip, in her monstrous color, there
was nothing but ugliness and vice.
“Now then,” said Staples, “stand cl'ar of her
heels, boys, and up with you. Don't miss your
first holt of her mane, and mind ye get your off
stirrup quick. Ready!”
There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a
bound, a wild retreat of the crowd, a circle of
flying hoofs, two springless leaps that jarred the
earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, a plunge,
and then the voice of Dick somewhere in the
darkness, “All right!”
“Don't take the lower road back onless you 're
hard pushed for time! Don't hold her in down
hill! We 'll be at the ford at five. G' lang!
Hoopa! Mula! GO!”
A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the
road, a clatter in the rocky cut beyond, and Dick
was gone.
Sing, O Muse, the ride of Richard Bullen! Sing,
O Muse of chivalrous men! the sacred quest, the
doughty deeds, the battery of low churls, the fearsome
Simpson's Bar! Alack! she is dainty, this Muse!
She will have none of this bucking brute and
swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow
him in prose, afoot!
It was one o'clock, and yet he had only gained
Rattlesnake Hill. For in that time Jovita had rehearsed
to him all her imperfections and practised
all her vices. Thrice had she stumbled. Twice
had she thrown up her Roman nose in a straight
line with the reins, and, resisting bit and spur,
struck out madly across country. Twice had she
reared, and, rearing, fallen backward; and twice
had the agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat
before she found her vicious legs again. And a
mile beyond them, at the foot of a long hill, was
Rattlesnake Creek. Dick knew that here was the
crucial test of his ability to perform his enterprise,
set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her
flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk
aggression. Bullied and maddened, Jovita began
the descent of the hill. Here the artful Richard
pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation
and well-feigned cries of alarm. It is unnecessary
to add that Jovita instantly ran away.
Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it
is written in the chronicles of Simpson's Bar.
Enough that in another moment, as it seemed to
Dick, she was splashing on the overflowed banks
momentum she had acquired carried her beyond
the point of balking, and, holding her well together
for a mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of
the swiftly flowing current. A few moments of
kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a
long breath on the opposite bank.
The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain
was tolerably level. Either the plunge in
Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire,
or the art which led to it had shown her the superior
wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer
wasted her surplus energy in wanton conceits.
Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit;
once she shied, but it was from a new freshly
painted meeting-house at the crossing of the county
road. Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches
of freshly springing grasses, flew from beneath her
rattling hoofs. She began to smell unpleasantly,
once or twice she coughed slightly, but there was
no abatement of her strength or speed. By two
o'clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun
the descent to the plain. Ten minutes later the
driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and
passed by a “man on a Pinto hoss,” — an event
sufficiently notable for remark. At half past two
Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout.
Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds, and
beyond him, out of the plain, rose two spires, a
Dick jingled his spurs and swung his riata, Jovita
bounded forward, and in another moment they
swept into Tuttleville and drew up before the
wooden piazza of “The Hotel of All Nations.”
What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not
strictly a part of this record. Briefly I may state,
however, that after Jovita had been handed over
to a sleepy ostler, whom she at once kicked into
unpleasant consciousness, Dick sallied out with
the bar-keeper for a tour of the sleeping town.
Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and gambling-houses;
but, avoiding these, they stopped
before several closed shops, and by persistent tapping
and judicious outcry roused the proprietors
from their beds, and made them unbar the doors
of their magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes
they were met by curses, but oftener by interest
and some concern in their needs, and the
interview was invariably concluded by a drink.
It was three o'clock before this pleasantry was
given over, and with a small waterproof bag of
india-rubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned
to the hotel. But here he was waylaid by
Beauty, — Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in
dress, persuasive in speech, and Spanish in accent!
In vain she repeated the invitation in “Excelsior,”
happily scorned by all Alpine-climbing youth, and
rejected by this child of the Sierras, — a rejection
gold coin. And then he sprang to the saddle and
dashed down the lonely street and out into the
lonelier plain, where presently the lights, the black
line of houses, the spires, and the flagstaff sank
into the earth behind him again and were lost in
the distance.
The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk
and cold, the outlines of adjacent landmarks were
distinct, but it was half past four before Dick
reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the
county road. To avoid the rising grade he had
taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose
viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every
bound. It was a poor preparation for a steady
ascent of five miles more; but Jovita, gathering
her legs under her, took it with her usual blind,
unreasoning fury, and a half-hour later reached
the long level that led to Rattlesnake Creek. Another
half-hour would bring him to the creek. He
threw the reins lightly upon the neck of the mare,
chirruped to her, and began to sing.
Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would
have unseated a less practised rider. Hanging to
her rein was a figure that had leaped from the
bank, and at the same time from the road before
her arose a shadowy horse and rider. “Throw up
your hands,” commanded this second apparition,
with an oath.
Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently
sink under him. He knew what it meant
and was prepared.
“Stand aside, Jack Simpson, I know you, you
d—d thief. Let me pass or — ”
He did not finish the sentence. Jovita rose
straight in the air with a terrific bound, throwing
the figure from her bit with a single shake of her
vicious head, and charged with deadly malevolence
down on the impediment before her. An oath, a
pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled over in
the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred
yards away. But the good right arm of her
rider, shattered by a bullet, dropped helplessly at
his side.
Without slacking his speed he shifted the reins
to his left hand. But a few moments later he was
obliged to halt and tighten the saddle-girths that
had slipped in the onset. This in his crippled
condition took some time. He had no fear of
pursuit, but looking up he saw that the eastern
stars were already paling, and that the distant
peaks had lost their ghostly whiteness, and now
stood out blackly against a lighter sky. Day was
upon him. Then completely absorbed in a single
idea, he forgot the pain of his wound, and mounting
again dashed on toward Rattlesnake Creek.
But now Jovita's breath came broken by gasps,
Dick reeled in his saddle, and brighter and brighter
grew the sky.
Ride, Richard; run, Jovita; linger, O day!
For the last few rods there was a roaring in his
ears. Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or
what? He was dazed and giddy as he swept
down the hill, and did not recognize his surroundings.
Had he taken the wrong road, or was this
Rattlesnake Creek?
It was. But the brawling creek he had swam
a few hours before had risen, more than doubled
its volume, and now rolled a swift and resistless
river between him and Rattlesnake Hill. For the
first time that night Richard's heart sank within
him. The river, the mountain, the quickening
east, swam before his eyes. He shut them to
recover his self-control. In that brief interval, by
some fantastic mental process, the little room at
Simpson's Bar and the figures of the sleeping
father and son rose upon him. He opened his
eyes wildly, cast off his coat, pistol, boots, and
saddle, bound his precious pack tightly to his
shoulders, grasped the bare flanks of Jovita with
his bared knees, and with a shout dashed into the
yellow water. A cry rose from the opposite bank
as the head of a man and horse struggled for a few
moments against the battling current, and then
were swept away amidst uprooted trees and
whirling drift-wood.
The Old Man started and woke. The fire on
flickering in its socket, and somebody was rapping
at the door. He opened it, but fell back with a
cry before the dripping, half-naked figure that
reeled against the doorpost.
“Dick?”
“Hush! Is he awake yet?”
“No, — but, Dick? — ”
“Dry up, you old fool! Get me some whiskey
quick!” The Old Man flew and returned with —
an empty bottle! Dick would have sworn, but
his strength was not equal to the occasion. He
staggered, caught at the handle of the door, and
motioned to the Old Man.
“Thar's suthin' in my pack yer for Johnny.
Take it off. I can't.”
The Old Man unstrapped the pack and laid it
before the exhausted man.
“Open it, quick!”
He did so with trembling fingers. It contained
only a few poor toys, — cheap and barbaric enough,
goodness knows, but bright with paint and tinsel.
One of them was broken; another, I fear, was
irretrievably ruined by water; and on the third —
ah me! there was a cruel spot.
“It don't look like much, that's a fact,” said
Dick, ruefully..... “But it's the best we could
do..... Take 'em, Old Man, and put 'em in his
stocking, and tell him — tell him, you know —
his sinking figure. “Tell him,” said Dick, with a
weak little laugh, — “tell him Sandy Claus has
come.”
And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven, and
unshorn, with one arm hanging helplessly at his
side, Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar and fell
fainting on the first threshold. The Christmas
dawn came slowly after, touching the remoter
peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love.
And it looked so tenderly on Simpson's Bar that
the whole mountain, as if caught in a generous
action, blushed to the skies.
| Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches | |