f ALES. POEMS University of California Berkeley . CHAM, poems, anb Sketches, BY BRET HARTE E. W. COLE, BOOK ARCADE, MELBOURNE. CONTENTS. TALES. PAGE THE LUCK OP ROARING CAMP 9 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT 22 TENNESSEE'S PARTNER 35 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 46 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 59 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 92 HIGGLES Ill How SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 124 MLISS . 142 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY ..... . . 172 POEMS. THE HEATHEN CHINEE . . < ...... 203 THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS 205 FURTHER LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES 206 THE STAGE-DRIVER'S STORY . .209 THE AGED STRANGER 211 Dow's FLAT 212 HER LETTER 215 His ANSWER TO "HER LETTER" 218 IN THE TUNNEL 220 MRS. JUDGE JENKINS 222 PENELOPE 224 IN THE MISSION GARDEN 225 CONCEPCION DE ARGUELLO ..... .226 vi CONTENTS. PAGE "JiM" 231 HALF AN HOUR BEFORE SUPPER 233 THE IDYLL OF BATTLE HOLLOW 235 ASPIRING Miss DE LAINE. .... ... 237 DICKENS IN CAMP 243 THE REVEILLE 244 A GREYPORT LEGEND 245 A NEWPORT ROMANCE . . 247 THE LOST GALLEON 249 GRANDMOTHER TENTERDEN . . . . . . . 255 LUKE . 257 V THE RETURN OF BELISARIUS " 261 CHIQUITA 262 JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG 264 BELIEVING GUARD 268 THE WILLOWS . 268 THE MIRACLE OF PADRE JUNIPERO 271 CALIFORNIA MADRIGAL . . 273 SKETCHES. BROWN OF CALAVERAS . - 277 THE IDYLL OF RED GULCH 290 THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER ...... 302 HIGH-WATER MARK 311 A LONELY RIDE 321 THE MAN OF No ACCOUNT 328 BABY SYLVESTER . 333 MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 350 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 359 MELONS 376 TALES. CI)e Hurft of Soaring Camp* THERE was commotion in Hearing Camp. It could not have been a fight, for in 1850 that was not novel enough to have called together the entire settlement. The ditches and claims were not only deserted, but " Tuttle's Grocery " had contributed its gamblers, who, it will be remembered, calmly continued their game the day that French Pete and Kanaka Joe shot each other to death over the bar in the front room. The whole camp was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing. Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the camp " Cherokee Sal." Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse, and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only woman in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear even when veiled by sympathising womanhood, but now terrible in her loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that original isolation which must have made the punishment of the first transgression so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin that, at a moment when she most lacked her sex's intuitive tenderness and care, she met only the half-contemp. tuous faces of her masculine associates. Yet a few of the spectators were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought it was "rough on Sal," and, in the contem- 10 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. plation of her condition, for a moment rose superior to the fact that he had an ace and two bowers in his sleeve. It will be seen, also, that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had been dismissed the camp effectively, finally, and with no possibility of return ; but this was the first time that anybody had been introduced ab initio. Hence the excitement. "You go in there, Stumpy," said a prominent citizen, known as " Kentuck," addressing one of the loungers. " Go in there, and see what you kin do. You've had experience in them things." Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes, had been the putative head of two families ; in fact, it was owing to some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp a city of refuge was indebted for his company. The crowd approved the choice, and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked its pipe, and awaited the issue. The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. Physically, they exhibited no indication of their past lives and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion of blond hair ; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet ; the coolest and most courageous man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice, and an embarrassed,' timid manner. The term "roughs," applied to them, was a distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details of fingers, toes, ears, &c., the camp may have been deficient ; but these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. The strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand ; the best shot had but one eye. THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 11 Such was the physical aspect of the men that were dispersed around the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley, between two hills and a river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering woman might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay seen it winding like a silver thread, until it was lost in the stars above. A tire of withered pine-boughs added sociability to the gathering. By degrees the natural levity of Koaring Camp returned. Bets were freely offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that *' Sal would get through with it ; " even that the child would survive ; side bets as to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst of an excited discussion, an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and the camp stopped to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the pines, the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire, rose a sharp, querulous cry a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp. The pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to crackle. It seemed as if nature had stopped to listen too. The camp rose to its feet as one man ! It was proposed to explode a barrel of gunpowder, but, in consideration of the situation of the mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were discharged ; for, whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame, for ever. I do not think that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as to the fate of the child. " Can he live now 1 " was asked of Stumpy. The answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal's sex and maternal con- dition in the settlement was an ass. There was some con- 12 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. jecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was loss problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and apparently as successful. When these details were completed, which exhausted another hour, the door was opened, and the anxious crowd of men, who had already formed themselves into a queue, entered in single file. Beside the low bunk or shelf on which the figure of the mother was starkly outlined below the blankets, stood a pine table. On this a candle-box was placed, and within it, swathed in staring red flannel, lay the last arrival at Roaring Camp. Beside the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was soon indicated. "Gentlemen," said Stumpy, with a singular mixture of authority and ex qfficio complacency " Gentlemen will please pass in at the front door, round the table, and out at the back door. Them as wishes to contribute anything toward the orphan will find a hat handy." The first man entered with his hat on; he uncovered, however, as he looked about him, and so, unconsciously, set an example to the next. In such communities good and bad actions are catching. As the procession filed in, comments were audible criticisms addressed, perhaps, rather to Stumpy, in the character of showman " Is that him ? " " Mighty small speci- men ! " " Hasn't mor'n got the colour ; " " Ain't bigger nor a derringer.'* The contributions were as characteristic : A silver tobacco-box ; a doubloon ; a navy revolver, silver mounted ; a gold specimen ; a very beautifully embroidered lady's hand- kerchief (from Oakhurst the gambler) ; a diamond breastpin ; a diamond ring (suggested by the pin with the remark from the giver that he " saw that pin and went two diamonds better"); a slung shot; a Bible (contributor not detected); a golden spur ; a silver teaspoon (the initials, I regret to say, were not the giver's) ; a pair of surgeon's shears ; a lancet ; a Bank of England note for 5 ; and about 200 dols. in loose gold and silver coin. During these proceedings Stumpy maintained a silence as impassive as the dead on his left, a gravity as THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 13 inscrutable as that of the newly born on his right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony of the curious procession. As Kentuck bent over the candle-box, half curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Ken- tuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek. " The d d little cuss ! " he said, as he extricated his finger, with, perhaps, more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously. The examination provoked the same original remark in regard to the child. In fact he seemed to enjoy repeating it. " He rastled with my finger," he remarked to Tipton, holding up the member ; " the d d little cuss ! " It was four o'clock before the camp sought repose. A light burnt in the cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night. Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of the new-comer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication of sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river, and whistled reflectingly. Then he walked up the gulch, past the cabin, still whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood-tree he paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin. Half-way down to the river's bank he again paused, and then returned and knocked at the door. It was opened by Stumpy. "How goes it?" said Kentuck, looking past Stumpy towards the candle-box. "All serene," replied Stumpy. " Anything up *? " " Nothing." There was a pause an embarrassing one Stumpy still holding the door. Then Kentuck had recourse to his finger, which he held up to Stumpy, "Eastled with it the d d little cuss ! " he said, and retired. 14 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Hearing Camp afforded. After her body had been committed to the hillside, there was a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with her infant. A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic. But an animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility of providing for its wants at once sprung up. It was remarkable that the argument partook of none of those fierce personalities with which discussions were usually conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed that they should send the child to Red Dog a distance of forty miles where female attention could be procured. But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce and unanimous opposition. It was evident that no plan which entailed parting with their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained. " Besides," said Tom Ryder, " them fellows at Red Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us. 5 ' A disbelief in the honesty of other camps prevailed at Roaring Camp, as in other places. The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection. It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept Roaring Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that " they didn't want any more of the other kind." This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety the first symptom of the camp's regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing. Per- haps he felt a certain delicacy in interfering with the selection of a possible successor in office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and "Jinny" the mammal before alluded to could manage to rear the child. There was some- thing original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were sent for to Sacramento. " Mind," said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust into the expressman's hand, " the best that can be got, lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills ; d the cost ! " THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 15 Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foot-hills that air pungent with balsamic odour, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted asses' milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing. "Me and that ass," he would say, " has been father and mother to him ! Don't you," he would add, apostrophising the helpless bundle before him, " never go back on us." By the time he was a month old, the necessity of giving him a name became apparent. He had generally been known as "the Kid," "Stumpy's boy," "the Cayote"(an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck's endearing diminutive of " the d d little cuss." But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally super- stitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought " the luck " to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful. "Luck" was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was unknown. " It's better," said the philosophical Oakhurst, " to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair." A day was accordingly set apart for the christening. What was meant by this ceremony the reader may imagine, who has already gathered some idea of the reckless irreverence of Roaring Camp. The master of ceremonies was one " Bos- ton," a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two Kiays in preparing a burlesque of the church service, with pointed local allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand godfather. But after the procession 1C TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. had marched to the grove with music and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar, Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. "It ain't my style to spoil fun, boys," said the little man, stoutly, eyeing the faces around him, " but it strikes me that this thing ain't exactly on the squar. It's playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in fun on him that he ain't going to understand. And ef there's going to be any godfathers round, I'd like to see who's got any better rights than me." A silence followed Stumpy's speech. To the credit of all humourists, be it said, that the first man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist, thus stopped of his fun. "But," said Stumpy, quickly, following up his advantage, " we're here for a christening, and we'll have it. I proclaim you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of California, so help me God." It was the first time that the name of the Deity had been uttered otherwise than profanely in the camp. The form of christening was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had conceived ; but, strangely enough, nobody saw it, and nobody laughed. "Tommy" was christened as seriously as he would have been under a Christian roof, and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion. And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to " Tommy Luck " or " The Luck," as he was more frequently called first showed signs of im- provement. It was kept scrupulously clean and whitewashed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rosewood cradle packed eighty miles by mule had, in Stumpy's way of putting it, " sorter killed the rest of the furniture." So the rehabilitation of the cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of lounging in at Stumpy's to see " how The Luck got on " seemed to appreciate the change, and, in self- defence, the rival establishment of " Tuttle's Grocery " bestirred itself, and imported a carpet and mirrors. The reflections of THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 17 the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again, Stumpy im- posed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honour and privilege of holding " The Luck." It was a cruel mortification to Ken tuck who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake's, only sloughed off through decay to be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt, and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor were moral and social sanitary laws neglected. " Tommy," who was supposed to spend his whole existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must not be disturbed by noise. The shouting and yelling which had gained the camp its infelicitous title were not permitted within hearing distance of Stumpy's. The men conversed in whispers, or smoked with Indian gravity. Profanity was tacitly given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout the camp a popular form of exple- tive, known as " D n the luck ! " and " Curse the luck ! " was abandoned, as having a new personal bearing. Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing, tran- quillising quality, and one song, sung by " Man-o'-War Jack," an English sailor, from Her Majesty's Australian colonies, was quite popular as a lullaby. It was a lugubrious recital of the exploits of " the Arethusa, Seventy-four," in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, " On b-o-o-o-ard of the Arethusa." It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious deliberation to the bitter end the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such times the men would lie at full length under the trees, in the soft summer twilight, B 18 TALES. POEMS. AND SKETCHES. smoking their pipes and drinking in the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral happiness pervaded the camp. "This 'ere kind o' think," said the Cockney Simmons, meditatively reclining on his elbow, " is 'evingly." It reminded him of Greenwich. On the long summer days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch, from whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket spread over pine-boughs, he would lie while the men were working in the ditches below. Latterly, there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally some one would bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to the eyes thus cleared and strengthened, and were invariably put aside for " The Luck." It was wonderful how many treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that "would do for Tommy." Surrounded by play- things such as never child out of fairyland had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be securely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity about him, a contemplative light in his round grey eyes, that some- times worried Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet ; and it is recorded that once, having crept beyond his " corral " a hedge of tesselated pine-boughs which surrounded his bed he dropped over the bank on his head in the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in that position for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of superstition. THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 19 u I crep' up the bank just now." said Kentuck, one day, in a breathless state of excitement, " and dern my skin if he wasn't a talking to a jay -bird as was a-sittin' on his lap. There they was just as free and sociable as anything you please, a jawin' at each other just like two cherrybums." Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine-boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp ; she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous gums ; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumble-bees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumberous accom- paniment. Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were "flush times" and The Luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp was jealous of its privileges, and looked suspiciously on strangers. No encourage- ment was given to emigration, and, to make their, seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain wall that surrounded the camp they duly pre-empted. This, and a reputation for singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring Camp inviolate. The expressman their only connecting link with the surrounding world some- times told wonderful stories of the camp. He would say " They've a street up there in ' Roaring ' that would lay over any street in Red Dog. They've got vines and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. But they're mighty rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby." With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement. It was proposed to build an hotel in the following spring, and to invite one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of " The Luck," who might perhaps B2 20 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this con- cession to sex cost these men, who were fiercely sceptical in regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority meekly yielded, in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it. And it did. The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foot- hills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous watercourse, that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees, and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. "Water put the gold into them gulches," said Stumpy. " It's been here once, and will be here again ! " And that Hight the North Fork suddenly leaped over its banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp. In the confusion of rushing water, crushing trees, and crackling timber, and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy nearest the river-bank was gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner ; but the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Roaring Camp had dis- appeared. They were returning with sad hearts, when a shout from the bank recalled them. It was a relief-boat from down the river. They had picked up, they said, a man and an infant, nearly exhausted, about two miles below. Did anybody know them 1 and did they belong here 1 It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed and bruised, but still holding The Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms. As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was cold and pulseless. THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 21 " He is dead," said one. Kentuck opened his eyes. " Dead 1 " he repeated, fesbly. " Yes, my man ; and you are dying too." A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. "Dying," he repeated ; " he's a taking me with him tell the boys I've got The Luck with me now ; " and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows for ever to the unknown sea. 22 TALES, POEMS, AND FETCHES. Cfte utraste of ^ofeer jflat As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of Novem- ber, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmo- sphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, con- versing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous. Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small con- cern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question. " I reckon they're after somebody," he reflected; "likely it's me." He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further con- jecture. In point of fact, Poker Flat was " after somebody." It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objection- able characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 23 impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment. Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of the sums he had won from them. "It's agin justice," said Jim Wheeler, "to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp an entire stranger carry away our money." But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local pre- judice. Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calm- ness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him, life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognised the usual percentage in favour of the dealer. A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a 'young woman, familiarly known as " The Duchess " ; another, who had won the title of " Mother Shipton " ; and " Uncle Billy," a suspected sluice- robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only when the gulch which marked the utter- most limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly, and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return, at the peril of their lives. As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. 24 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut some- body's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess tha^ she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the easy good-humour characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, " Five Spot," for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry ; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of " Five Spot " with malevolence ; and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping anathema. The road to Sandy Bar a camp that, not having as yet experienced the regenerating influences of Poker Flat, con- sequently seemed to offer some invitation to the emigrants lay over a steep mountain range. It was distant a day's severe travel. In that advanced season, the party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foot-hills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party halted. The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or pro- visioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of " throw- ing up their hand before the game was played out." But they were furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 25 under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a belli- cose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them. Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own language, he "couldn't afford it." As he gazed at his recumbent fellow-exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah-trade, his habits of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. Ihe thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling pines around him ; at the sky, ominously clouded ; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow. And, doing so, suddenly he heard his own name called. A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the new T -comer Mr. Oakhurst recognised Tom Simson, otherwise known as " The Innocent " of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over a " little game," and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune amounting to some forty dollars of that guileless youth. After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind the door, and thus addressed him : " Tommy, you're a good little man, but you can't gamble worth a cent. Don't try it over again." He then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson. There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and en- thusiastic greeting of Mr, Oakhurst. He had started, he said, 26 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. to go to Poker Flat to seek his fortune. " Alone ? " No, not exactly alone ; in fact (a giggle), lie had run away with Piney Woods. Didn't Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney 1 She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance House ? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected ; and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine-tree where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of her lover. Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with propriety ; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognise in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavoured to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a loghouse near the trail. " Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst," said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, " and I can shift for myself." Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst's admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the canon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire for the air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast in apparently amicable conversation. THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 27 Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. 11 Is this yer a d d picnic 1 " said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again a-nd cram his fist into his mouth. As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked the tops of the pine-trees, and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine-boughs, was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton w.ere probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep. Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke, benumbed and cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave it snow. He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered ; they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly disappearing in the snow. The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. 28 TALES, POEMS, AND SKETCHES. The Innocent slumbered peacefully, with a smile on his good- humoured, freckled face ; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his shoulders, stroked his moustaches and waited for the dawn. It camo slowly in a whirling mist of snowflakes, that dazzled and con- fused the eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two words " snowed in ! " A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence they might last ten days longer.