 | Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches |  |
1. PART I. — WEST.
The sun was rising in the foot-hills. But for
an hour the black mass of Sierra eastward
of Angel's had been outlined with fire, and the
conventional morning had come two hours before
with the down coach from Placerville. The dry,
cold, dewless California night still lingered in the
long cañons and folded skirts of Table Mountain.
Even on the mountain road the air was still sharp,
and that urgent necessity for something to keep
out the chill, which sent the barkeeper sleepily
among his bottles and wineglasses at the station,
obtained all along the road.
Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of
life was in the bar-rooms. A few birds twittered
in the sycamores at the roadside, but long before
that glasses had clicked and bottles gurgled in the
saloon of the Mansion House. This was still lit
by a dissipated-looking hanging-lamp, which was
evidently the worse for having been up all night,
and bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller
of Angel's, who even then sputtered and flickered
in his socket in an arm-chair below it, — a resemblance
pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, moved
by a sentiment of consistency and compassion, put
them both out together.
Then the sun came up haughtily. When it had
passed the eastern ridge it began, after its habit,
to lord it over Angel's, sending the thermometer
up twenty degrees in as many minutes, driving the
mules to the sparse shade of corrals and fences,
making the red dust incandescent, and renewing
its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses
of the convex shield of pines that defended Table
Mountain. Thither by nine o'clock all coolness
had retreated, and the “outsides” of the up stage
plunged their hot faces in its aromatic shadows as
in water.
It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam
coach to whip up his horses and enter Angel's at
that remarkable pace which the woodcuts in the
hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity
as the usual rate of speed of that conveyance. At
such times the habitual expression of disdainful
reticence and lazy official severity which he wore
on the box became intensified as the loungers
gathered about the vehicle, and only the boldest
ventured to address him. It was the Hon. Judge
Beeswinger, Member of Assembly, who to-day
presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength of his
official position.
“Any political news from below, Bill?” he
asked, as the latter slowly descended from his
lofty perch, without, however, any perceptible
coming down of mien or manner.
“Not much,” said Bill, with deliberate gravity.
“The President o' the United States hez n't bin
hisself sens you refoosed that seat in the Cabinet.
The ginral feelin' in perlitical circles is one o' regret.”
Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too
common in Angel's to excite either a smile or a
frown. Bill slowly entered the bar-room during
a dry, dead silence, in which only a faint spirit
of emulation survived.
“Ye did n't bring up that agint o' Rothschild's
this trip?” asked the barkeeper, slowly, by way
of vague contribution to the prevailing tone of
conversation.
“No,” responded Bill, with thoughtful exactitude.
“He said he could n't look inter that claim
o' Johnson's without first consultin' the Bank o'
England.”
The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present
as the faded reveller the barkeeper had lately put
out, and as the alleged claim notoriously possessed
no attractions whatever to capitalists, expectation
naturally looked to him for some response to this
evident challenge. He did so by simply stating that
he would “take sugar” in his, and by walking unsteadily
invitation. To the credit of Bill be it recorded
that he did not attempt to correct the mistake, but
gravely touched glasses with him, and after saying
“Here 's another nail in your coffin,” — a cheerful
sentiment, to which “And the hair all off your
head,” was playfully added by the others, — he
threw off his liquor with a single dexterous movement
of head and elbow, and stood refreshed.
“Hello, old major!” said Bill, suddenly setting
down his glass. “Are you there?”
It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious
that this epithet was addressed to him, retreated
sideways to the doorway, where he stood
beating his hat against the door-post with an
assumption of indifference that his downcast but
mirthful dark eyes and reddening cheek scarcely
bore out. Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps
it was to a certain cherubic outline of face and figure,
perhaps to a peculiar trustfulness of expression,
that he did not look half his age, which was really
fourteen.
Everybody in Angel's knew the boy. Either
under the venerable title bestowed by Bill, or as
“Tom Islington,” after his adopted father, his was
a familiar presence in the settlement, and the
theme of much local criticism and comment. His
waywardness, indolence, and unaccountable amiability
— a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous
often been the subject of fierce discussion. A
large and reputable majority believed him destined
for the gallows; a minority not quite so
reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling
themselves much about his future; to one or two
the evil predictions of the majority possessed
neither novelty nor terror.
“Anything for me, Bill?” asked the boy, half
mechanically, with the air of repeating some jocular
formulary perfectly understood by Bill.
“Anythin' for you!” echoed Bill, with an overacted
severity equally well understood by Tommy,
— “anythin' for you? No! And it 's my opinion
there won't be anythin' for you ez long ez you
hang around bar-rooms and spend your valooable
time with loafers and bummers. Git!”
The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration
of gesture (Bill had seized a decanter),
before which the boy retreated still good-humoredly.
Bill followed him to the door. “Dern my skin, if
he hez n't gone off with that bummer Johnson,”
he added, as he looked down the road.
“What 's he expectin', Bill?” asked the barkeeper.
“A letter from his aunt. Reckon he 'll hev to
take it out in expectin'. Likely they 're glad to
get shut o' him.”
“He 's leadin' a shiftless, idle life here,” interposed
the Member of Assembly.
“Well,” said Bill, who never allowed any one
but himself to abuse his protégé, “seein' he ain't
expectin' no offis from the hands of an enlightened
constitooency, it is rayther a shiftless life.” After
delivering this Parthian arrow with a gratuitous
twanging of the bow to indicate its offensive
personality, Bill winked at the barkeeper, slowly
resumed a pair of immense, bulgy buckskin
gloves, which gave his fingers the appearance
of being painfully sore and bandaged, strode to
the door without looking at anybody, called
out, “All aboard,” with a perfunctory air of supreme
indifference whether the invitation was
heeded, remounted his box, and drove stolidly
away.
Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation
at once assumed a disrespectful attitude
toward Tom and his relatives. It was more than
intimated that Tom's alleged aunt was none other
than Tom's real mother, while it was also asserted
that Tom's alleged uncle did not himself participate
in this intimate relationship to the boy to an
extent which the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed
moral and necessary. Popular opinion also believed
that Islington, the adopted father, who received
a certain stipend ostensibly for the boy's
support, retained it as a reward for his reticence
regarding these facts. “He ain't ruinin' hisself
by wastin' it on Tom,” said the barkeeper, who
of Islington's disbursements. But at this point
exhausted nature languished among some of the
debaters, and he turned from the frivolity of conversation
to his severer professional duties.
It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude
of didactic propriety was not further excited by
the subsequent conduct of his protégé. For by
this time Tom, half supporting the unstable Johnson,
who developed a tendency to occasionally dash
across the glaring road, but checked himself midway
each time, reached the corral which adjoined
the Mansion House. At its farther extremity was
a pump and horse-trough. Here, without a word
being spoken, but evidently in obedience to some
habitual custom, Tom led his companion. With
the boy's assistance, Johnson removed his coat and
neckcloth, turned back the collar of his shirt, and
gravely placed his head beneath the pump-spout.
With equal gravity and deliberation, Tom took his
place at the handle. For a few moments only the
splashing of water and regular strokes of the pump
broke the solemnly ludicrous silence. Then there
was a pause in which Johnson put his hands to
his dripping head, felt of it critically as if it belonged
to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his
companion. “That ought to fetch it,” said Tom,
in answer to the look. “Ef it don't,” replied Johnson,
doggedly, with an air of relieving himself of
to, thet 's all!”
If “it” referred to some change in the physiognomy
of Johnson, “it” had probably been “fetched”
by the process just indicated. The head that went
under the pump was large, and clothed with bushy,
uncertain-colored hair; the face was flushed, puffy,
and expressionless, the eyes injected and full. The
head that came out from under the pump was of
smaller size and different shape, the hair straight,
dark, and sleek, the face pale and hollow-cheeked,
the eyes bright and restless. In the haggard, nervous
ascetic that rose from the horse-trough there
was very little trace of the Bacchus that had bowed
there a moment before. Familiar as Tom must
have been with the spectacle, he could not help
looking inquiringly at the trough, as if expecting
to see some traces of the previous Johnson in its
shallow depths.
A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye —
a mere dusty, ravelled fringe of the green mantle
that swept the high shoulders of Table Mountain
— lapped the edge of the corral. The silent pair
were quick to avail themselves of even its scant
shelter from the overpowering sun. They had not
proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking
quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself
up, and turned to his companion with an
interrogative “Eh?”
“I did n't speak,” said Tommy, quietly.
“Who said you spoke?” said Johnson, with a
quick look of cunning. “In course you did n't
speak, and I did n't speak, neither. Nobody spoke.
Wot makes you think you spoke?” he continued,
peering curiously into Tommy's eyes.
The smile which habitually shone there quickly
vanished as the boy stepped quietly to his companion's
side, and took his arm without a word.
“In course you did n't speak, Tommy,” said
Johnson, deprecatingly. “You ain't a boy to go
for to play an ole soaker like me. That 's wot I
like you for. Thet 's wot I seed in you from the
first. I sez, `Thet 'ere boy ain't goin' to play you,
Johnson! You can go your whole pile on him,
when you can't trust even a bar-keep.' Thet 's
wot I said. Eh?”
This time Tommy prudently took no notice of
the interrogation, and Johnson went on: “Ef I
was to ask you another question, you would n't
go to play me neither, — would you, Tommy?”
“No,” said the boy.
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, without
heeding the reply, but with a growing anxiety
of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips, — “ef I
was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass
rabbit thet jest passed, — eh? — you 'd say it was
or was not, ez the case may be. You would n't
play the ole man on thet?”
“No,” said Tommy, quietly, “it was a jackass
rabbit.”
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, “ef
it wore, say, fur instance, a green hat with yaller
ribbons, you would n't play me, and say it did,
onless,” — he added, with intensified cunning, —
“onless it did?”
“No,” said Tommy, “of course I would n't; but
then, you see, it did.”
“It did?”
“It did!” repeated Tommy, stoutly; “a green
hat with yellow ribbons — and — and — a red
rosette.”
“I did n't get to see the ros-ette,” said Johnson,
with slow and conscientious deliberation, yet
with an evident sense of relief; “but that ain't
sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?”
Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There
were great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray
forehead and on the ends of his lank hair; the
hand which twitched spasmodically in his was
cold and clammy, the other, which was free, had
a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as if attached
to some deranged mechanism. Without any apparent
concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted,
and, seating himself on a log, motioned his companion
to a place beside him. Johnson obeyed
without a word. Slight as was the act, perhaps
no other incident of their singular companionship
careless, half-effeminate, but self-possessed boy
over this doggedly self-willed, abnormally excited
man.
“It ain't the square thing,” said Johnson, after
a pause, with a laugh that was neither mirthful
nor musical, and frightened away a lizard that had
been regarding the pair with breathless suspense,
— “it ain't the square thing for jackass rabbits
to wear hats, Tommy, — is it, eh?”
“Well,” said Tommy, with unmoved composure,
“sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
Animals are mighty queer.” And here Tommy
went off in an animated, but, I regret to say, utterly
untruthful and untrustworthy account of
the habits of California fauna, until he was interrupted
by Johnson.
“And snakes, eh, Tommy?” said the man, with
an abstracted air, gazing intently on the ground
before him.
“And snakes,” said Tommy; “but they don't
bite, — at least not that kind you see. There! —
don't move, Uncle Ben, don't move; they 're gone
now. And it 's about time you took your dose.”
Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon
the log, but Tommy had as quickly caught his
arm with one hand while he drew a bottle from
his pocket with the other. Johnson paused, and
eyed the bottle. “Ef you say so, my boy,” he
“say `when,' then.” He raised the bottle to his
lips and took a long draught, the boy regarding
him critically. “When,” said Tommy, suddenly.
Johnson started, flushed, and returned the bottle
quickly. But the color that had risen to his cheek
stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and as they
moved away again, the hand that rested on Tommy's
shoulder was steadier.
Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain,
— a wandering trail through a tangled solitude
that might have seemed virgin and unbroken
but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and
empty bottles that had been apparently stranded
by the “first low wash” of pioneer waves. On
the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few
tufts of gray hair caught from a passing grizzly,
but in strange juxtaposition at its foot lay an
empty bottle of incomparable bitters, — the chefd'œuvre
of a hygienic civilization, and blazoned
with the arms of an all-healing republic. The
head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had
contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded
with the high-colored effigy of a popular
danseuse. And a little beyond this the soil was
broken and fissured, there was a confused mass of
roughly hewn timber, a straggling line of sluicing,
a heap of gravel and dirt, a rude cabin, and the
claim of Johnson.
Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from
rain and cold, the cabin possessed but little advantage
over the simple savagery of surrounding
nature. It had all the practical directness of the
habitation of some animal, without its comfort or
picturesque quality; the very birds that haunted
it for food must have felt their own superiority as
architects. It was inconceivably dirty, even with
its scant capacity for accretion; it was singularly
stale, even in its newness and freshness of material.
Unspeakably dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight
visited it in a blind, aching, purposeless way,
as if despairing of mellowing its outlines or of
even tanning it into color.
The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals
of sobriety was represented by half a dozen rude
openings in the mountain-side, with the heaped-up
débris of rock and gravel before the mouth of
each. They gave very little evidence of engineering
skill or constructive purpose, or indeed showed
anything but the vague, successively abandoned
essays of their projector. To-day they served
another purpose, for as the sun had heated the
little cabin almost to the point of combustion,
curling up the long dry shingles, and starting aromatic
tears from the green pine beams, Tommy led
Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with
a sense of satisfaction threw himself panting upon
its rocky floor. Here and there the grateful dampness
a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks
above. Without lay the staring sunlight, — colorless,
clarified, intense.
For a few moments they lay resting on their
elbows in blissful contemplation of the heat they
had escaped. “Wot do you say,” said Johnson,
slowly, without looking at his companion, but abstractly
addressing himself to the landscape beyond,
— “wot do you say to two straight games
fur one thousand dollars?”
“Make it five thousand,” replied Tommy, reflectively,
also to the landscape, “and I 'm in.”
“Wot do I owe you now?” said Johnson, after
a lengthened silence.
“One hundred and seventy-five thousand two
hundred and fifty dollars,” replied Tommy, with
business-like gravity.
“Well,” said Johnson, after a deliberation commensurate
with the magnitude of the transaction,
“ef you win, call it a hundred and eighty thousand,
round. War 's the keerds?”
They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a
rock above his head. They were greasy and worn
with service. Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand
was still uncertain, — hovering, after dropping the
cards, aimlessly about Tommy, and being only recalled
by a strong nervous effort. Yet, notwithstanding
this incapacity for even honest manipulation,
the bottom of the pack with such shameless inefficiency
and gratuitous unskilfulness, that even
Tommy was obliged to cough and look elsewhere
to hide his embarrassment. Possibly for this reason
the young gentleman was himself constrained,
by way of correction, to add a valuable card to his
own hand, over and above the number he legitimately
held.
Nevertheless, the game was unexciting, and
dragged listlessly. Johnson won. He recorded
the fact and the amount with a stub of pencil and
shaking fingers in wandering hieroglyphics all over
a pocket diary. Then there was a long pause,
when Johnson slowly drew something from his
pocket, and held it up before his companion. It
was apparently a dull red stone.
“Ef,” said Johnson, slowly, with his old look of
simple cunning, — “ef you happened to pick up
sich a rock ez that, Tommy, what might you say
it was?”
“Don't know,” said Tommy.
“Might n't you say,” continued Johnson, cautiously,
“that it was gold, or silver?”
“Neither,” said Tommy, promptly.
“Might n't you say it was quicksilver? Might
n't you say that ef thar was a friend o' yourn ez
knew war to go and turn out ten ton of it a day,
and every ton worth two thousand dollars, that he
that you used sich language, which you don't?”
“But,” said the boy, coming to the point with
great directness, “do you know where to get it?
have you struck it, Uncle Ben?”
Johnson looked carefully around. “I hev,
Tommy. Listen. I know whar thar 's cartloads
of it. But thar 's only one other specimen — the
mate to this yer — thet 's above ground, and thet 's
in 'Frisco. Thar 's an agint comin' up in a day or
two to look into it. I sent for him. Eh?”
His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on
Tommy's face now, but the boy showed neither
surprise nor interest. Least of all did he betray
any recollection of Bill's ironical and gratuitous
corroboration of this part of the story.
“Nobody knows it,” continued Johnson, in a
nervous whisper, — “nobody knows it but you and
the agint in 'Frisco. The boys workin' round yar
passes by and sees the old man grubbin' away, and
no signs o' color, not even rotten quartz; the boys
loafin' round the Mansion House sees the old man
lyin' round free in bar-rooms, and they laughs
and sez, `Played out,' and spects nothin'. Maybe
ye think they spects suthin now, eh?” queried
Johnson, suddenly, with a sharp look of suspicion.
Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone
at a passing rabbit, but did not reply.
“When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy,” continued
you kem and pumped for me, an entire stranger,
and hevin no call to do it, I sez, `Johnson, Johnson,'
sez I, `yer 's a boy you kin trust. Yer 's a boy
that won't play you; yer 's a chap that 's white
and square,' — white and square, Tommy: them 's
the very words I used.”
He paused for a moment, and then went on in
a confidential whisper, “`You want capital, Johnson,'
sez I, `to develop your resources, and you
want a pardner. Capital you can send for, but
your pardner, Johnson, — your pardner is right
yer. And his name, it is Tommy Islington.'
Them 's the very words I used.”
He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon
his knees. “It 's six months ago sens I made you
my pardner. Thar ain't a lick I 've struck sens
then, Tommy, thar ain't a han'ful o' yearth I 've
washed, thar ain't a shovelful o' rock I 've turned
over, but I tho't o' you. `Share, and share alike,'
sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote ekal
for my pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin no
call to know ef the same was man or boy.”
He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps
have laid his hand caressingly upon him, but
even in his manifest affection there was a singular
element of awed restraint and even fear, — a suggestion
of something withheld even his fullest confidences,
a hopeless perception of some vague barrier
have been at times dimly conscious that, in the
eyes which Tommy raised to his, there was thorough
intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor,
even feminine softness, but nothing more. His
nervousness somewhat heightened by his embarrassment,
he went on with an attempt at calmness
which his twitching white lips and unsteady fingers
made pathetically grotesque. “Thar 's a bill
o' sale in my bunk, made out accordin' to law, of
an ekal ondivided half of the claim, and the consideration
is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
— gambling debts, — gambling debts from me
to you, Tommy, — you understand?” — nothing
could exceed the intense cunning of his eye at
this moment, — “and then thar 's a will.”
“A will?” said Tommy, in amused surprise.
Johnson looked frightened.
“Eh?” he said, hurriedly, “wot will? Who
said anythin' 'bout a will, Tommy?”
“Nobody,” replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.
Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead,
wrung the damp ends of his hair with his fingers,
and went on: “Times when I 'm took bad ez I
was to-day, the boys about yer sez — you sez,
maybe, Tommy — it 's whiskey. It ain't, Tommy.
It 's pizen, — quicksilver pizen. That 's what 's
the matter with me. I 'm salviated! Salviated
with merkery.
“I 've heerd o' it before,” continued Johnson,
appealing to the boy, “and ez a boy o' permiskus
reading, I reckon you hev too. Them men as
works in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated.
It 's bound to fetch 'em some time. Salviated by
merkery.”
“What are you goin' to do for it?” asked Tommy.
“When the agint comes up, and I begins to
realize on this yer mine,” said Johnson, contemplatively,
“I goes to New York. I sez to the
barkeep' o' the hotel, `Show me the biggest doctor
here.' He shows me. I sez to him, `Salviated
by merkery, — a year's standin', — how much?'
He sez, `Five thousand dollars, and take two o'
these pills at bedtime, and an ekil number o' powders
at meals, and come back in a week.' And I
goes back in a week, cured, and signs a certifikit to
that effect.”
Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's
eye, he went on.
“So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and
I sez, `Show me the biggest, fashionblest house
thet 's for sale yer.' And he sez, `The biggest,
nat'rally b'longs to John Jacob Astor.' And I
sez, `Show him,' and he shows him. And I sez,
`Wot might you ask for this yer house?' And he
looks at me scornful, and sez, `Go 'way, old man;
you must be sick.' And I fetches him one over
his own price for the house. I stocks that house
with mohogany furniture and pervisions, and thar
we lives, — you and me, Tommy, you and me!”
The sun no longer shone upon the hillside. The
shadows of the pines were beginning to creep over
Johnson's claim, and the air within the cavern
was growing chill. In the gathering darkness
his eyes shone brightly as he went on: “Then
thar comes a day when we gives a big spread.
We invites govners, members o' Congress, gentlemen
o' fashion, and the like. And among
'em I invites a Man as holds his head very high,
a Man I once knew; but he does n't know I
knows him, and he does n't remember me. And
he comes and he sits opposite me, and I watches
him. And he 's very airy, this Man, and very
chipper, and he wipes his mouth with a white
hankercher, and he smiles, and he ketches my eye.
And he sez, `A glass o' wine with you, Mr. Johnson';
and he fills his glass and I fills mine, and
we rises. And I heaves that wine, glass and all,
right into his damned grinnin' face. And he
jumps for me, — for he is very game, this Man,
very game, — but some on 'em grabs him, and he
sez, `Who be you?' And I sez, `Skaggs! damn
you, Skaggs! Look at me! Gimme back my
wife and child, gimme back the money you stole,
gimme back the good name you took away, gimme
twelve years! Give 'em to me, damn you, quick,
before I cuts your heart out!' And naterally,
Tommy, he can't do it. And so I cuts his heart
out, my boy; I cuts his heart out.”
The purely animal fury of his eye suddenly
changed again to cunning. “You think they
hangs me for it, Tommy, but they don't. Not
much, Tommy. I goes to the biggest lawyer there,
and I says to him, `Salviated by merkery, — you
hear me, — salviated by merkery.' And he winks
at me, and he goes to the judge, and he sez, `This
yer unfortnet man is n't responsible, — he 's been
salviated by merkery.' And he brings witnesses;
you comes, Tommy, and you sez ez how you 've
seen me took bad afore; and the doctor, he comes,
and he sez as how he 's seen me frightful; and
the jury, without leavin' their seats, brings in a
verdict o' justifiable insanity, — salviated by merkery.”
In the excitement of his climax he had risen to
his feet, but would have fallen had not Tommy
caught him and led him into the open air. In
this sharper light there was an odd change visible
in his yellow-white face, — a change which caused
Tommy to hurriedly support him, half leading, half
dragging him toward the little cabin. When they
had reached it, Tommy placed him on a rude
“bunk,” or shelf, and stood for a moment in anxious
him. Then he said rapidly: “Listen, Uncle
Ben. I 'm goin' to town — to town, you understand
— for the doctor. You 're not to get up
or move on any account until I return. Do you
hear?” Johnson nodded violently. “I 'll be back
in two hours.” In another moment he was gone.
For an hour Johnson kept his word. Then he
suddenly sat up, and began to gaze fixedly at a
corner of the cabin. From gazing at it he began
to smile, from smiling at it he began to talk, from
talking at it he began to scream, from screaming
he passed to cursing and sobbing wildly. Then
he lay quiet again.
He was so still that to merely human eyes he
might have seemed asleep or dead. But a squirrel,
that, emboldened by the stillness, had entered
from the roof, stopped short upon a beam above
the bunk, for he saw that the man's foot was
slowly and cautiously moving toward the floor,
and that the man's eyes were as intent and watchful
as his own. Presently, still without a sound,
both feet were upon the floor. And then the
bunk creaked, and the squirrel whisked into the
eaves of the roof. When he peered forth again,
everything was quiet, and the man was gone.
An hour later two muleteers on the Placerville
Road passed a man with dishevelled hair, glaring,
bloodshot eyes, and clothes torn with bramble and
pursued him, when he turned fiercely on the foremost,
wrested a pistol from his grasp, and broke
away. Later still, when the sun had dropped behind
Payne's Ridge, the underbrush on Deadwood
Slope crackled with a stealthy but continuous
tread. It must have been an animal whose dimly
outlined bulk, in the gathering darkness, showed
here and there in vague but incessant motion; it
could be nothing but an animal whose utterance
was at once so incoherent, monotonous, and unremitting.
Yet, when the sound came nearer, and
the chaparral was parted, it seemed to be a man,
and that man Johnson.
Above the baying of phantasmal hounds that
pressed him hard and drove him on, with never
rest or mercy; above the lashing of a spectral whip
that curled about his limbs, sang in his ears, and
continually stung him forward; above the outcries
of the unclean shapes that thronged about him, —
he could still distinguish one real sound, — the
rush and sweep of hurrying waters. The Stanislaus
River! A thousand feet below him drove its
yellowing current. Through all the vacillations of
his unseated mind he had clung to one idea, — to
reach the river, to lave in it, to swim it if need be,
but to put it forever between him and the harrying
shapes, to drown forever in its turbid depths
the thronging spectres, to wash away in its yellow
now he was leaping from boulder to boulder, from
blackened stump to stump, from gnarled bush to
bush, caught for a moment and withheld by clinging
vines, or plunging downward into dusty hollows,
until, rolling, dropping, sliding, and stumbling, he
reached the river-bank, whereon he fell, rose, staggered
forward, and fell again with outstretched
arms upon a rock that breasted the swift current.
And there he lay as dead.
A few stars came out hesitatingly above Deadwood
Slope. A cold wind that had sprung up
with the going down of the sun fanned them into
momentary brightness, swept the heated flanks of
the mountain, and ruffled the river. Where the
fallen man lay there was a sharp curve in the
stream, so that in the gathering shadows the rushing
water seemed to leap out of the darkness and
to vanish again. Decayed drift-wood, trunks of
trees, fragments of broken sluicing, — the wash
and waste of many a mile, — swept into sight a
moment, and were gone. All of decay, wreck, and
foulness gathered in the long circuit of mining-camp
and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of
a crude and wanton civilization, reappeared for
an instant, and then were hurried away in the
darkness and lost. No wonder that as the wind
ruffled the yellow waters the waves seemed to lift
their unclean hands toward the rock whereon the
too, and hurry him toward the sea.
It was very still. In the clear air a horn blown
a mile away was heard distinctly. The jingling
of a spur and a laugh on the highway over Payne's
Ridge sounded clearly across the river. The rattling
of harness and hoofs foretold for many minutes
the approach of the Wingdam coach, that at
last, with flashing lights, passed within a few feet
of the rock. Then for an hour all again was
quiet. Presently the moon, round and full, lifted
herself above the serried ridge and looked down
upon the river. At first the bared peak of Deadwood
Hill gleamed white and skull-like. Then
the shadows of Payne's Ridge cast on the slope
slowly sank away, leaving the unshapely stumps,
the dusty fissures, and clinging outcrop of Deadwood
Slope to stand out in black and silver. Still
stealing softly downward, the moonlight touched
the bank and the rock, and then glittered brightly
on the river. The rock was bare and the man was
gone, but the river still hurried swiftly to the sea.
“Is there anything for me?” asked Tommy
Islington, as, a week after, the stage drew up at the
Mansion House, and Bill slowly entered the bar-room.
Bill did not reply, but, turning to a stranger
who had entered with him, indicated with a
jerk of his finger the boy. The stranger turned
looked critically at Tommy. “Is there anything
for me?” repeated Tommy, a little confused at the
silence and scrutiny. Bill walked deliberately to
the bar, and, placing his back against it, faced
Tommy with a look of demure enjoyment.
“Ef,” he remarked slowly, — “ef a hundred
thousand dollars down and half a million in perspektive
is ennything, Major, THERE IS!”
| Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches | |