5i .F. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ . BRET HARTE'S WRITINGS THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER SKETCHES SPECIAL EDITION MADE FOR REVIEW OF REVIEWS" BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ftitoer?ifte press, Cambridge, COPYRIGHT 1871 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO, COPYRIGHT 1899 BY BRET HARTE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED K l* ff) SKETCHES. PREFACE. A SERIES of designs suggested, I think, by Hogarth's familiar cartoons of the Industrious and Idle Apprentices I remember as among the earliest efforts at moral teaching in California. They represented the respective careers of The Honest and Dissolute Miners : the one, as I recall him, retrograd- ing through successive planes of dirt, drunkenness, disease, and death; the other advancing by corre- sponding stages to affluence and a white shirt. What- ever may have been the artistic defects of these drawings, the moral at least was obvious and distinct. That it failed, however, as it did, to produce the desired reform in mining morality may have been owing to the fact that the average miner refused to recognize himself in either of these positive char- acters ; and that even he who might have sat for the model of the Dissolute Miner was perhaps dimly conscious of some limitations and circumstances which partly relieved him from responsibility. " Yer see," remarked such a critic to the writer, in the un- translatable poetry of his class, "it ain't no square game. They 've just put up the keerds on that chap from the start." iv PREFACE. With this lamentable example before me, I trust that in the following sketches I have abstained from any positive moral. I might have painted my villains of the blackest dye, so black, indeed, that the origi- nals thereof would have contemplated them with the glow of comparative virtue. I might have made it impossible for them to have performed a virtuous or generous action, and have thus avoided that moral confusion which is apt to arise in the contemplation of mixed motives and qualities. But I should have burdened myself with the responsibility of their creation, which, as a humble writer of romance and entitled to no particular reverence, I did not care to do. I fear I cannot claim, therefore, any higher motive than to illustrate an era of which Californian history has preserved the incidents more often than the char- acter of the actors, an era which the panegyrist was too often content to bridge over with a general com- pliment to its survivors, an era still so recent that in attempting to revive its poetry, I am conscious also of awakening the more prosaic recollections of these same survivors, and yet an era replete with a certain heroic Greek poetry, of which perhaps none were more unconscious than the heroes themselves. And I shall be quite content to have collected here merely the materials for the Iliad that is yet to be sung. SAN F HAS Cisco, December 24, 1868. CONTENTS. SKETCHES THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP . . . 1 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT . . 19 HIGGLES . . . ...... 37 TENNESSEE'S PARTNER ..* 56 THE IDYL OF RED GULCH 72 BROWN OF CALAVERAS 89 HIGH-WATER MARK 107 A LONELY RIDE 121 THE MAN OF No ACCOUNT . . . . .131 STORIES. MLISS 141 THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER . . . 184 NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD 198 BOHEMIAN PAPERS. MISSION DOLORES 237 JOHN CHINAMAN ....... 242 FROM A BACK WINDOW 248 BOONDIR . . t 253 F. B, SCHWJCHTENBERG THE LUCK OF ROARING- CAMP. was commotion in Roaring Camp. It J- 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 con- tributed 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 wo- man in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she most needed the minis- tration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyr- dom hard enough to bear even when veiled by 2 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. sympathizing 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 expia- tion of her sin, that, at a moment when she most lacked her sex's intuitive tenderness and care, she met only the half-contemptuous faces of her mas- culine 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 contemplation 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 db 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 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 3 Camp a city of refuge was indebted to 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 Eoaring 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 Eaphael 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, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but these slight omissions did not detract from their ag- gregate force. The strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand ; the best shot had but one eye. 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 liver. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illumi- 4 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. nated 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 fire 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 crack- ling 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, bet- ter counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were discharged ; for, whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Chero- kee Sal was sinking fast. Within an houi she had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 5 sin and shame forever. I do not think that the an- nouncement disturbed them much, except in spec- ulation as to the fate of the child. " Can he live now ? " was asked of Stumpy. The answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal's sex and maternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less prob- lematical than the ancient treatment of Eomulus and Kemus, and apparently as successful When these details were completed, which ex- hausted 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 Eoaring Camp. Be- side the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was soon indicated. " Gentlemen," said Stumpy, with a singular mixture of authority and ex officio com- placency, " Gentlemen will please pass in at the front door, round the table, and out at the back door. Them as wishes to contribute anything to- ward the orphan will find a hat handy." The first man entered with his hat on ; he uncovered, how- ever, as he looked about him, and so, unconscious- ly, set an example to the next. In such commu- 6 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. nities good and bad actions are catching. As the procession filed in, comments were audible, crit- icisms addressed, perhaps, rather to Stumpy, in the character of showman, " Is that him ? " " mighty small specimen " ; " has n't mor'n got the color " ; " ain't bigger nor a derringer." The con- tributions were as characteristic : A silver tobacco- box ; a doubloon ; a navy revolver, silver mounted ; a gold specimen ; a very beautifully embroidered lady's handkerchief (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 re- gret to say, were not the giver's) ; a pair of sur- geon's shears ; a lancet ; a Bank of England note for 5 ; and about $ 200 in loose gold and silver coin. During these proceedings Stumpy maintained a silence as impassive as the dead on his left, a gravity as inscrutable as that of the newly born on his right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony of the curious procession. As Ken- tuck 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. Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Some- thing like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek. "The d d little cuss I" THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 7 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 re- pose. 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, inva- riably 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 red- wood 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 toward the candle-box. " All serene," replied Stumpy. " Anything up ? " " Nothing." 8 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 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. The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude se- pulture as Eoaring 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 Eoaring Camp. Tipton proposed that they should send the child to Eed Dog, a distance of forty miles, where female attention could be procured. But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce and unan- imous opposition. It was evident that no plan which entailed parting from their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained. " Besides," said Tom Eyder, " them fellows at Eed Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us." A dis- belief in the honesty of other camps prevailed at Eoaring Camp as in other places. The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection. It was argued that no THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 9 decent woman could be prevailed to accept Boar* ing Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that " they did n't want any more of the other kind." This unkind allusion to the defunct moth- er, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety, the first symptom of the camp's re- generation. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps 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 something 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 m the cost ! " 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 odor, 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 phospho- rus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the i* 10 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. latter and good nursing. " Me and that ass," he would say, " has been father and mother to him ! Don't you," he would add, apostrophizing the help- less 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 di- minutive of "the d d little cuss." But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gam- blers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought "the luck" to Eoaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful. " Luck " was the name agreed upon, with the pre- fix of Tommy for greater convenience. No allu- sion 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 accord- ingly set apart for the christening. What was meant by this ceremony the reader may imagine, who has already gathered some idea of the reck- less irreverence of Eoaring Camp. The master of ceremonies was one "Boston," a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the greatest face- tiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 11 days in preparing a burlesque of the church ser- vice, with pointed local allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand godfather. But after the procession 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, stout- ly, eying 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 humorists 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 '11 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 pro- fanely 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 Chris- 12 THE LUCK OF BOABING CAMP. tian roof, and cried and was comforted in as ortho* dox fashion. And so the work of regeneration began in Roar- ing Camp. Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to " Tom- my Luck" or "The Luck/' as he was more frequently called first showed signs of improve- ment. It was kept scrupulously clean and white- washed. 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 rehabili- tation 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 appre- ciate the change, and, in self-defence, the rival es- tablishment of " Tuttle's grocery " bestirred itself, and imported a carpet and mirrors. The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Eoaring Camp tended to produce stricter habits of personal clean- liness. Again, Stumpy imposed a kind of quaran- tine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of holding " The Luck." It was a cruel mortification to Kentuck who, in the careless- ness 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 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 13 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 yell- ing 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 expletive, known as "D n the luck!" and "Curse the luck!" was abandoned, as having a new personal bearing. Vo- cal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing, tranquillizing 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 lugu- brious 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 con- 14 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. tinued 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, smok- ing their pipes and drinking in the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pas- toral happiness pervaded the camp. "This 'ere kind o' think," said the Cockney Simmons, medi- tatively 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 gen- erally 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 signifi' cance in these trifles, which they had so long trod- den carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glit- tering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, *> bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to 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." Sur- THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 15 rounded by playthings such as never child out of fairy-land had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be securely happy- albeit there was an infantine gravity about hin>- a contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes worried Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is recorded that once, having crept beyond his "corral," a hedge of tessellated 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 minutea with unflinching gravity. He was extricated with- out a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfor- tunately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of super- stition. " I crep' up the bank just now," said Ken- tuck one day, in a breathless state of excitement, " and dern my skin if he was n'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 cherry-bums." 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 16 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 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 red-woods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumble-bees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accom- paniment. Such was the golden summer of Koaring 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 sus- piciously on strangers. No encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the moun- tain wall that surrounded the camp they duly pre- empted. This, and a reputation for singular pro- ficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring Camp inviolate. The expressman their only connecting link with the surrounding world sometimes 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 a hotel in the following spring, and to invite one or two decent families to reside there for the sake THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 1? if "The Luck," who might perhaps profit by fe- male companionship. The sacrifice that this con- cession to the 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. Eed 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 night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its' banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Eoar - jng 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 scat- tered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of 18 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. Stumpy nearest the river-bank was gone. Highei up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner; but the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Eoaring Camp had disappeared. 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, and did they belong here ? It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed and bruised, but still holding the Luck of Koaring Camp in his arms. As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was cold and pulseless. " He is dead," said one. Kentuck opened his eyes. " Dead ? " he repeated feebly. " 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, cling- ing to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea. THE OUTCASTS OF POKEK FLAT. AS Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous. Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause, was an- other question. "I reckon they're after some- body," he reflected ; " likely it 's me." He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture. In point of fact, Poker Flat was " after some- body." It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a promi- nent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of vir- 20 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. tuous 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 tempo- rarily in the banishment of certain other objec- tionable characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, how- ever, to state that their impropriety was profes- sional, 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 com- mittee had urged hanging him as a possible exam- ple, 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 Bearing Camp an entire stranger carry away our money." But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice. Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with phil- osophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. THE OUTCASTS OF POKEB FLAT. 21 With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer. A body of armed men accompanied the deport- ed 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 fa- miliarly known as " The Duchess " ; another, who had won the title of "Mother Shipton"; and " Uncle Billy," a suspected sluice-robber and con- firmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of their lives. As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Ship- ton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle 22 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. Billy as he rode forward. With the easy good- humor 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 in- cluded the whole party in one sweeping anathema. The road to Sandy Bar a camp that, not hav- ing as yet experienced the regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some invitation to the emigrants lay over a steep mountain range. It was distant a day's severe travel. In that advanced season, the party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foot-hills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the ground, declared her intention of going no far- ther, 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 gen- tly toward the crest of another precipice that over- looked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advis- able. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half THE OUTCASTS OF POKES FLAT. 23 the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or provisioned for de- lay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of " throwing up their hand before the game was played out." But they were furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them. Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness, impassive- ness, and presence of mind, and, in his own lan- guage, he " could n't afford it." As he gazed at his recumbent fellow-exiles, the loneliness begot- ten 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 charac- teristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which, 24 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 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 be- low, already deepening into shadow. And, doing so, suddenly he heard his own name called. A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the new-comer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as " The Innocent " of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over a " little game," and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune amounting to some forty dollars of that guile- less 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 fcim his money back, pushed him gently from the *oom, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson. There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek his fortune. " Alone ? " No, not exactly alone ; in fact (a giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods. Did n't Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney ? She that used to wait on the table at the Tem- perance House ? They had been engaged a long THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 25 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 Inno- icent 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 sen- timent, still less with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind suffi- ciently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was pro- vided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, nnd by the discovery of a rude attempt at a log- nouse near the trail. " Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst," said the Innocent, pointing to the Duch- ess, " and I can shift for myself." Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst's admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of 26 THE OUTCASTS OF POKEB FLAT. 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. 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, ap- parently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. " Is this yer a d d picnic ? " said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the teth- ered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist ir> to 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 hon- est and sincere that it might have been heard above THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 27 the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the ma- levolent Mother Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep. Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morn- ing 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. Oak- hurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slum- bered peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It came slowly in a whirling mist of snow-flakes, that dazzled and con- 28 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. fused the eye. What could be seen of the land- scape appeared magically changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two words, " snowed in ! " A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence they might last ten days longer. " That is," said Mr. Oakhurst, sotto wee to the Innocent, " if you 're willing to board us. If you ain't and perhaps you 'd better not you can wait till Uncle Billy gets back with provisions." For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy's rascality, and so offered the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate's defection. " They '11 find out the truth about us all when they find out anything," he added, significantly, " and there 's no good frighten- ing them now." Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion. " We '11 have a good camp for a week, and then the snow '11 melt, and we '11 all go back together." The cheerful gayety of the young man, and Mr. THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 29 Oakhurst's calm infected the others. The Inno- cent, with the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess di- rected Piney in the rearrangement of the interior with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden to their fullest extent. " I r ckon now you 're used to fine things at Poker Flat," said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharp- ly to conceal something that reddened her cheeks through its professional tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to " chatter." But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whis- key, which he had prudently cached. "And yet it don't somehow sound like whiskey," said the gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still-blinding storm and the group around it that he settled to the convic- tion that it was " square fun." Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cacMd his cards with the whiskey as something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he " did n't say cards once " during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced some- what ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the 30 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castinets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and vocifera- tion. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Cove- Danter's swing to it? chorus, rather than any de- votional quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joiiled HI the refrain : " I 'm proud to live in the service of the Lord, And I 'm bound to die in His army." The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled ebove the miserable group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token of the At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds Carted, and the stars glittered keenly above the Sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson, somehow managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had "often been a week without sleep." "Doing what 1 " asked Tom. " Poker ! " replied Oakhurst, sententiously ; " when a man gets a streak of luck, THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 31 -- nigger-luck, he don't get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck/' continued the gambler, re- flectively, " is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it 's bound to change. And it's finding out when it's going to change that makes you. We 've had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat, you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards right along you 're all right. For," added the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance, " ' I 'm proud to lire in the service of the Lord, And I 'm bound to die in His army.' " The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it re- vealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut, a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Po- ker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness, hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for 32 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess. " Just you go out there and cuss, and see." She then set herself to the task of amusing " the child," as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact that she did n't swear and was n't improper. When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flicker- ing camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by Piney, story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed, too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope's ingenious translation of the Iliad. He now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem having thoroughly mas- tered the argument and fairly forgotten the words in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the canon seemed to bow to the wrath of the eon of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 33 satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of "Ash-heels," as the Innocent persisted in denominating the " swift-footed Achilles." So with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week passed over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again from leaden skies the snow-flakes were sifted over the land. Day by day closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered twenty feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one com- plained. The lovers turned from the dreary pros- pect and looked into each other's eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton once the strong- est of the party seemed to sicken and fade. At midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. " I 'm going," she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, " but don't say anything about it. Don't waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head and open it." Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton's rations for the last week, untouched. "Give 'em to the child," she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. " You 've a* a 34 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. starved yourself," said the gambler. " That 's what they call it/' said the woman, querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning her face to the wall, passed quietly away. The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle. "There 's one chance in a hundred to save her yet," he said, pointing to Piney; "but it's there," he added, pointing toward Poker Mat. "If you can reach there in two days she 's safe." " And you ? " asked Tom Simson. " I '11 stay here," was the curt reply. The lovers parted with a long embrace. " You are not going, too ? " said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany him. "As far as the canon," he replied. He turned suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement. Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney. The women slept but little. In the morning, THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 35 looking into each other's faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke ; but Piney, accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the Duchess's waist. They kept this atti- tude for the rest of the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut. Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours : " Piney, can you pray ? " " No, dear," said Piney, simply. The Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney's shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep. The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine- boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above. They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers 36 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each other's arms. But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It boro the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand : BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A STREAK OP BAD LUCK ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, I860, AND HANDED IN HIS CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1860. And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts cf Poker Flat. HIGGLES, WE were eight, including &e driver. We had not spoken during the passage of the last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehi- cle over the roughening road had spoiled the Judge's last poetical quotation. The tall man be- side the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through the swaying strap and his head resting upon it, altogether a limp, helpless-looking object, as if he had hanged himself and been cut down too late. The French lady on the back seat was asleep, too, yet in a half-conscious propriety of attitude, shown even in the disposition of the handkerchief which she held to her forehead and which partially veiled her face. The lady from Virginia City, travelling with her husband, had long since lost all indi- viduality in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils, furs, and shawls. There was no sound but the rattling of wheels and the dash of rain upon the roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became dimly aware of voices. The driver was evidently in the midst of an exciting colloquy with some one in the road, a colloquy of which such frag- ments as " bridge gone," " twenty feet of water," 38 HIGGLES. "can't pass," were occasionally distinguishable above the storm. Then came a lull, and a myste- rious voice from the road shouted the parting ad- juration, Try Higgles's." We caught a glimpse of our leaders as the vehi- cle slowly turned, of a horseman vanishing through the rain, and we were evidently on our way to Miggles's. Who and where was Higgles ? The Judge, our authority, did not remember the name, and he knew the country thoroughly. The Washoe trav- eller thought Higgles must keep a hotel. We only knew that we were stopped by high water in front and rear, and that Higgles was our rock of refuge. A ten minutes' splashing through a tan- gled by-road, scarcely wide enough for the stage, and we drew up before a barred and boarded gate in a wide stone wall or fence about eight feet high. Evidently Higgles's, and evidently Higgles did not keep a hotel. The driver got down and tried the gate. It was securely locked. "Higgles! Higgles!" No answer. "Higg-ells! You Higgles !" continued the driver, with rising wrath. " Higglesy ! " joined in the expressman, persua* sively. " Higgy ! Hig ! " MIGGLES. 39 But no reply came from the apparently insen- sate Higgles. The Judge, who had finally got the window down, put his head out and propounded a series of questions, which if answered categorically would have undoubtedly elucidated the whole mystery, but which the driver evaded by replying that "if we didn't want to sit in the coach all night, we -had better rise up and sing out for Higgles." So we rose up and called on Higgles in chorus ; then separately. And when we had finished, a Hibernian fellow-passenger from the roof called for " Haygells ! " whereat we all laughed. While we were laughing, the driver cried " Shoo !" We listened. To our infinite amazement the chorus of " Higgles " was repeated from the other side of the wall, even to the final and supplemen- tal Haygells." " Extraordinary echo," said the Judge. " Extraordinary d d skunk ! " roared the driver, contemptuously. "Come out of that, Higgles, and show yourself ! Be a man, Higgles ! Don't hide in the dark; I would n't if I were you, Higgles," continued Yuba Bill, now dancing about in an excess of fury. " Higgles ! " continued the voice, " Higgles ! " " Hy good man ! Hr. Hyghail ! " said the Judge, softening the asperities of the name as much as possible. " Consider the inhospitality of refusing 40 MIGGLES. shelter from the inclemency of the weather to helpless females. Keally, my dear sir " But a succession of "Higgles," ending in a burst of laughter, drowned his voice. Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy stone from the road, he battered down the gate, and with the expressman entered the enclosure. We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the gathering darkness all that we could distinguish was that we were in a garden from the rose- bushes that scattered over us a minute spray from their dripping leaves and before a long, ram- bling wooden building. " Do you know this Higgles ? " asked the Judge of Yuba Bill. " No, nor don't want to," said Bill, shortly, who felt the Pioneer Stage Company insulted in his person by the contumacious Higgles. " But, my dear sir," expostulated the Judge, as he thought of the barred gate. " Lookee here," said Yuba Bill, with fine irony, " had n't you better go back and sit in the coach till yer introduced ? I 'm going in," and he pushed open the door of the building. A long room lighted only by the embers of a fire that was dying on the large hearth at its fur- ther extremity ; the walls curiously papered, and the flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque pattern; somebody sitting in a large arm-chaii HIGGLES. 41 by the fireplace. All this we saw as we crowded together into the room, after the driver and ex- pressman. " Hello, be you Higgles ? " said Yuba Bill to the solitary occupant. The figure neither spoke nor stirred. Yuba Bill walked wrathfully toward it, and turned the eye of his coach-lantern upon its face. It was a man's face, prematurely old and wrinkled, with very large eyes, in which there was that expres- sion of perfectly gratuitous solemnity which I had sometimes seen in an owl's. The large eyes wan- dered from Bill's face to the lantern, and finally fixed their gaze on that luminous object, without further recognition. Bill restrained himself with an effort. " Higgles ! Be you deaf ? You ain't dumb anyhow, you know " ; and Yuba Bill shook the insensate figure by the shoulder. To our great dismay, as Bill removed his hand, the venerable stranger apparently collapsed, sinking into half his size and an undistinguish- able heap of clothing. "Well, dern my skin," said Bill, looking ap- pealingly at us, and hopelessly retiring from the contest. The Judge now stepped forward, and we lifted the mysterious invertebrate back into his original position. Bill was dismissed with the lantern to 42 MIGGLES. reconnoitre outside, for it was evident that from the helplessness of this solitary man there nmst be attendants near at hand, and we all drew around the fire. The Judge, who had regained his au- thority, and had never lost his conversational amiability, standing before us with his back to the hearth, charged us, as an imaginary jury, as follows : "It is evident that either our distinguished friend here has reached that condition described by Shakespeare as 'the sere and yellow leaf,' or has suffered some premature abatement of his mental and physical faculties. Whether he is really the Higgles " Here he was interrupted by " Higgles ! O Hig- gles ! Higglesy ! Hig ! " and, in fact, the whole chorus of Higgles in very much the same key as it had once before been delivered unto us. We gazed at each other for a moment in some alarm. The Judge, in particular, vacated his po- sition quickly, as the voice seemed to come di^ rectly over his shoulder. The cause, however, was soon discovered in a large magpie who was perched upon a shelf over the fireplace, and who immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence, which contrasted singularly with his previous volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voice which we had heard in the road, and our friend in the chair was not responsible for the discourtesy. HIGGLES. 43 Yuba Bill, who re-entered the room after an un- successful search, was loath to accept the explana- tion, and still eyed the helpless sitter with suspi- cion. He had found a shed in which he had put up his horses, hut he came back dripping and sceptical. "Thar ain't nobody but him within ten mile of the shanty, and that 'ar d d old skeesicks knows it." But the faith of the majority proved to be se- curely based. Bill had scarcely ceased growling before we heard a quick step upon the porch, the trailing of a wet skirt, the door was flung open, and with a flash of white teeth, a sparkle of dark eyes, and an utter absence of ceremony or diffidence, a young woman entered, shut the door, and, panting, leaned back against it. " 0, if you please, I 'm Higgles ! " And this was Higgles ! this bright-eyed, full- throated young woman, whose wet gown of coarse blue stuff could not hide the beauty of the femi- nine curves to which it clung ; from the chestnut crown of whose head, topped by a man's oil-skin sou'wester, to the little feet and ankles, hid- den somewhere in the recesses of her boy's bro- gans, all was grace ; this was Higgles, laughing at us, too, in the most airy, frank, off-hand man- ner imaginable. " You see, boys," said she, quite out of breath, and holding one little hand against her side, quite 44 HIGGLES. unheeding the speechless discomfiture of our par, ty, or the complete demoralization of Yuba Bill, whose features had relaxed into an expression of gratuitous and imbecile cheerfulness, " you see, boys, I was mor'n two miles away when you passed down the road. I thought you might pull up here, and so I ran the whole way, knowing nobody was home but Jim, and and I 'm out of breath and that lets me out." And here Higgles caught her dripping oil-skin hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that scattered a shower of rain-drops over us; at- tempted to put back her hair ; dropped two hair- pins in the attempt ; laughed and sat down beside Yuba Bill, with her hands crossed lightly on her lap. The Judge recovered himself first, and essayed an extravagant compliment. " I '11 trouble you for that thar har-pin," said Higgles, gravely. Half a dozen hands were eagerly stretched forward; the missing hair-pin was re- stored to its fair owner ; and Higgles, crossing the room, looked keenly in the face of the invalid. The solemn eyes looked back at hers with an ex- pression we had never seen before. Life and in- telligence seemed to struggle back into the rugged face. Higgles laughed again, it was a singularly eloquent laugh, and turned her black eyes and white teeth once more toward us. HIGGLES. 45 "This afflicted person is " hesitated the Judge. " Jim,'* said Higgles. " Your father ? " "No." " Brother ? " "No." \ "Husband?" Higgles darted a quick, half-defiant glance at the two lady passengers who I had noticed did not participate in the general masculine admira- tion of Higgles, and said, gravely, "No; it's Jim." There was an awkward pause. The lady pas- sengers moved closer to each other ; the Washoe husband looked abstractedly at the fire ; and the tall man apparently turned his eyes inward for self-support at this emergency. But Higgles's laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence. " Come," she said briskly, " you must be hungry. Who '11 bear a hand to help me get tea ? " She had no lack of volunteers. In a few mo- ments Yuba Bill was engaged like Caliban in bearing logs for this Hiranda ; the expressman was grinding coffee on the veranda ; to myself the arduous duty of slicing bacon was assigned i and the Judge lent each man his good-humored and voluble counsel. And when Higgles, assisted by the Judge and our Hibernian " deck passen- 46 HIGGLES. ger," set the table with all the available crock* ery, we had become quite joyous, in spite of the rain that beat against windows, the wind that whirled down the chimney, the two ladies who whispered together in the corner, or the magpie who uttered a satirical and croaking commentary on their conversation from his perch above. In the now bright, blazing fire we could see that the walls were papered with illustrated journals, arranged with feminine taste and discrimination. The furniture was extemporized, and adapted from candle-boxes and packing-cases, and covered with gay calico, or the skin of some animal. The arm-chair of the helpless Jim was an ingenious variation of a flour-barrel. There was neatness, and even a taste for the picturesque, to be seen in the few details of the long low room. The meal was a culinary success. But more, it was a social triumph, chiefly, I think, owing to the rare tact of Higgles in guiding the conversa- tion, asking all the questions herself, yet bearing throughout a frankness that rejected the idea of any concealment on her own part, so that we talked of ourselves, of our prospects, of the journey, of the weather, of each other, of everything but our host and hostess. It must be confessed that Miggles's conversation was never elegant, rarely grammatical, and that at times she employed exple- tives, the use of which had generally been yielded MIGGLES. t fo our sex. But they were delivered with such a lighting up of teeth and eyes, and were usually followed by a laugh a laugh peculiar to Hig- gles so frank and honest that it seemed to clear the moral atmosphere. Once, during the meal, we heard a noise like the rubbing of a heavy body against the outer walls of the house. This was shortly followed by a scratching and sniffling at the door. " That 's Joa- quin," said Higgles, in reply to our questioning glances ; " would you like to see him ? " Before we could answer she had opened the door, and dis- closed a half-grown grizzly, who instantly raised himself on his haunches, with his forepaws hang- ing down in the popular attitude of mendicancy, and looked admiringly at Higgles, with a very singular resemblance in his manner to Yuba Bill " That 's my watch-dog," said Higgles, in explana- tion. " 0, he don't bite," she added, as the two lady passengers fluttered into a corner. " Does he, old Toppy ? " (the latter remark being addressed directly to the sagacious Joaquin.) "I tell you what, boys," continued Higgles, after she had fed and closed the door on Ursa Minor, " you were in. big luck that Joaquin was n't hanging round when you dropped in to-night." " Where was he ? " asked the Judge. "With me," said Higgles. " Lord love you ; he trots round with me nights like as if he was a man." 48 HIGGLES. We were silent for a few moments, and lis tened to the wind. Perhaps we all had the sam picture before us, of Higgles walking through the rainy woods, with her savage guardian at her side. The Judge, I remember, said something about Una and her lion ; but Higgles received it as she did other compliments, with quiet gravity. Whether she was altogether unconscious of the admiration she excited, she could hardly have been oblivious of Yuba Bill's adoration, I know not ; but her very frankness suggested a perfect sexual equality that was cruelly humiliating to the younger members of our party. The incident of the bear did not add anything in Higgles's favor to the opinions of those of her own sex who were present. In fact, the repast over, a dullness radiated from the two lady pas- sengers that no pine-boughs brought in by Yuba Bill and cast as a sacrifice upon the hearth could wholly overcome. Higgles felt it ; and, suddenly declaring that it was time to " turn in," offered to show the ladies to their bed in an adjoining room. " You, boys, will have to camp out here by the fire as well as you can," she added, " for thar ain't but the one room." Our sex by which, my dear sir, I allude of course to the stronger portion of humanity has been generally relieved from the imputation of cu- riosity, or a fondness for gossip. Yet I am con* HIGGLES. 49 strained to say, that hardly had the door closed on Higgles than we crowded together, whispering, snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions, surmises, and a thousand speculations in regard to our pretty hostess and her singular companion. I fear that we even hustled that imbecile paralytic, who sat like a voiceless Memnon in our midst, gazing with the serene indifference of the Past in his passionless eyes upon our wordy counsels. In the midst of an exciting discussion the door opened again, and Higgles re-entered. But not, apparently, the same Higgles who a few hours before had flashed upon us. Her eyes were downcast, and as she hesitated for a moment on the threshold, with a blanket on her arm, she seemed to have left behind her the frank fearless- ness which had charmed us a moment before. Coming into the room, she drew a low stool beside the paralytic's chair, sat down, drew the blanket over her shoulders, and saying, " If it 's all the same to you, boys, as we 're rather crowded, I '11 stop here to-night," took the invalid's withered hand in her own, and turned her eyes upon the dying fire. An instinctive feeling that this was only premoni- tory to more confidential relations, and perhaps some shame at our previous curiosity, kept us si- lent. The rain still beat upon the roof, wander- ing gusts of wind stirred the embers into momen- tary brightness, until, in a lull of the elements, 50 HIGGLES. Higgles suddenly lifted up her head, and, throw- ing her hair over her shoulder, turned her face upon the group and asked, " Is there any of you that knows me ? " There was no reply. "Think again! I lived at Marysville in '53. Everybody knew me there, and everybody had the right to know me. I kept the Polka Saloon until I came to live with Jim. That 's six years ago. Perhaps I've changed some." The absence of recognition may have discon- certed her. She turned her head to the fire again, and it was some seconds before she again spoke, and then more rapidly : " Well, you see I thought some of you must have known me. There's no great harm done, anyway. What I was going to say was this : Jim here " she took his hand in both of hers as she spoke "used to know me, if you didn't, and spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he spent all he had. And one day it 's six years ago this winter Jim came into my back room, sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that chair, and never moved again without help. He was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to know what ailed him. The doctors came and said as how it was caused all along of his way of life, for Jim was mighty free and wild like, and that he would never get better, and could n't last HIGGLES. 51 long anyway. They advised me to send him to Frisco to the hospital, for he was no good to any one and would be a baby all his life. Perhaps it was something in Jim's eye, perhaps it was that I never had a baby, but I said ' No.' I was rich then, for I was popular with everybody, gentle- men like yourself, sir, came to see me, and I sold out my business and bought this yer place, because it was sort of out of the way of travel, you see, and I brought my baby here." With a woman's intuitive tact and poetry, she had, as she spoke, slowly shifted her position so as to bring the mute figure of the ruined man be- tween her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet spoke for her ; helpless, crushed, and smitten with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an in- visible arm around her. Hidden in the darkness, but still holding his hand, she went on : " It was a long time before I could get the hang of things about yer, for I was used to company and excitement. I could n't get any woman to help me, and a man I dursent trust; but what with the Indians hereabout, who 'd do odd jobs for me, and having everything sent from the North Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The Doctor would run up from Sacramento once in a 52 HIGGLES. while. He'd ask to see 'Miggles's baby/ as he called Jim, and when he'd go away, he'd say, ' Higgles ; you 're a trump, God bless you ' ; and it did n't seem so lonely after that. But the last time he was here he said, as he opened the door to go, ' Do you know, Higgles, your baby will grow up to be a man yet and an honor to his mother ; but not here, Higgles, not here ! ' And I thought he went away sad, and and " and here Hig- gles's voice and head were somehow both lost com- pletely in the shadow. " The folks about here are very kind," said Hig- gles, after a pause, coming a little into the light again. "The men from the fork used to hang around here, until they found they was n't wanted, and the women are kind, and don't call. I was pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in the woods yonder one day, when he was n't so high, and taught him to beg for his dinner ; and then thar 's Polly that 's the magpie she knows no end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of even- ings with her talk, and so I don't feel like as I was the only living being about the ranch. And Jim here," said Higgles, with her old laugh again, and coming out quite into the firelight, " Jim why, boys, you would admire to see how much he knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring him flowers, and he looks at 'em just as natural as if he knew 'em; and times, when we 're sitting HIGGLES. 53 alone, I read him those things on the wall. Why, Lord ! " said Higgles, with her frank laugh, " I 've read him that whole side of the house this winter. There never was such a man for reading as Jim." "Why," asked the Judge, "do you not marry this man to whom you have devoted your youth- ful life ? " "Well, you see," said Higgles, "it would be playing it rather low down on Jim, to take advan- tage of his being so helpless. And then, too, if we were man and wife, now, we 'd both know that I was bound to do what I do now of my own accord." " But you are young yet and attractive " " It 's getting late," said Higgles, gravely, " and you 'd better all turn in. Good-night, boys " ; and, throwing the blanket over her head, Higgles laid herself down beside Jim's chair, her head pillowed on the low stool that held his feet, and spoke no more. The fire slowly faded from the hearth ; we each sought our blankets in silence ; and presently there was no sound in the long room but the pat- tering of the rain upon the roof, and the heavy breathing of the sleepers. It was nearly morning when I awoke from a troubled dream. The storm had passed, the stars were shining, and through the shutterless window the full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines without, looked into the room. It touched the 54 HIGGLES. lonely figure in the chair with an infinite compas- sion, and seemed to baptize with a shining flood the lowly head of the woman whose hair, as in the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him she loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged outline of Yuba Bill, half reclining on his elbow between them and his passengers, with savagely patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then I fell asleep and only woke at broad day, with Yuba Bill standing over me, and "All aboard" ringing in my ears. Coffee was waiting for us on the table, but Hig- gles was gone. We wandered about the house and lingered long after the horses were harnessed, but she did not return. It was evident that she wished to avoid a formal leave-taking, and had so left us to depart as we had come. After we had helped the ladies into the coach, we returned to the house and solemnly shook hands with the paralytic Jim, as solemnly settling him back into position after each hand-shake. Then we looked for the last time around the long low room, at the stool where Higgles had sat, and slowly took our seats in the waiting coach. The whip cracked, and we were off! But as we reached the high-road, Bill's dexterous hand laid the six horses back on their haunches, and the stage stopped with a jerk. For there, on a little eminence beside the road, stood Higgles, HIGGLES. 55 her hair flying, her eyes sparkling, her white hand- kerchief waving, and her white teeth flashing a last "good-by." We waved our hats in return. And then Yuba Bill, as if fearful of further fasci- nation, madly lashed his horses forward, and we sank back in our seats. We exchanged not a word until we reached the North Fork, and the stage drew up at the Independence House. Then, the Judge leading, we walked into the bar-room and took our places gravely at the bar. " Are your glasses charged, gentlemen ? " said the Judge, solemnly taking off his white hat. They were. " Well, then, here 's to Higgles* GOD BLESS HER ! " Perhaps He had. Who kaows ? TENNESSEE'S PAKTNER I DO not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in 1854 most men were christened anew. Some- times these appellatives were derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of " Dunga- ree Jack " ; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in " Saleratus Bill," so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread ; or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been the beginning of a rude heraldry ; but I am constrained to think that it was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you ? " said Boston, addressing a timid new-comer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such Cliffords ! " He then introduced the unfortu- nate man, whose name happened to be really Clif' ford, as "Jay-bird Charley," an unhallowed inspi- ration of the moment^ that clung to him ever after. TENNESSEE'S PARTNER. 57 But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other than this relative title ; that he had ever existed as a separate and distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was at- tracted by a young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He fol- lowed her, and emerged a few moments later, cov- ered with more toast and victory. That day week they were married by a Justice of the Peace, and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy Bar, in the gulches and bar-rooms, where all sentiment was modified by a strong sense of humor. Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said, she smiled not unkindly and chastely retreated, this time as far as Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to housekeeping without the aid of a Justice 58 TENNESSEE'S PARTNER of the Peace. Tennessee's Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee one day returned from Marysville, without his partner's wife, she having smiled and retreated with some- body else, Tennessee's Partner was the first man to shake his hand and greet him with affection. The "boys who had gathered in the canon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their in- dignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady applica- tion to practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty. Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar. He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued intimacy with Ten- nessee after the affair above quoted could only be accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last Tennessee's guilt became fla- grant. One day he overtook a stranger on his way to Ked Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled the time with interesting anec- dote and reminiscence, but illogically concluded the interview in the following words : " And now, young man, I '11 trouble you for your knife, your TENNESSEE'S PARTNER. 59 pistols, and your money. You see your weppings might get you into trouble at Eed Dog, and your money 's a temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was San Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may he stated here that Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation could wholly subdue. This exploit was his last. Ked Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same fash- ion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him, he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canon ; but at its farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The men looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both self-possessed and independent; and both types of a civilization that in the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but, in the nineteenth, simply " reckless." " What have you got there ? I call," said Tennessee, quietly. " Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger, as quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie-knife. " That takes me," returned Tennessee ; and with this gamblers' epigram, he threw away his useless pis- tol, and rode back with his captor. It was a warm night. The cool breeze which 60 TENNESSEE'S PARTNEB. usually sprang up with the going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested, mountain was that evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little canon was stifling with heated resinous odors, and the decaying drift-wood on the Bar sent forth faint, sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day, and its fierce passions, still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank of the river, strik- ing no answering reflection from its tawny current. Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless panes the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even then deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and pas- sionless, crowned with remoter passionless stars. The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The law of Sandy Bar was im- placable, but not vengeful. The excitement and personal feeling of the chase were over ; with Ten- nessee safe in their hands they were ready to listen patiently to any defence, which they were already satisfied was insufficient There being no doubt in their own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any that might exist Se- TENNESSEE'S PARTNER 61 cure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged, on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defence than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise uncon- cerned, evidently took a grim pleasure in the re- sponsibility he had created. " I don't take any hand in this yer game," had been his invariable, but good-humored reply to all questions. The Judge who was also his captor for a moment vaguely regretted that he had not shot him " on sight," that morning, but presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said that Tennessee's Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger mem- bers of the jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed him as a relief. For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose duck "jumper," and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even ridicu- lous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpet-bag he was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and inscriptions. 62 TENNESSEE'S PARTNER. that the material with which his trousers had been patched had been originally intended for a les* ambitious covering. Yet he advanced with great gravity, and after having shaken the hand of each person in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious, perplexed face on a red bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and thus addressed the Judge : " I was passin' by," he began, by way of apology, " and I thought I 'd just step in and see how things was gittin' on with Tennessee thar, my pardner. It 's a hot night. I disremember any sich weather before on the Bar." He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for some moments mopped his face diligently. " Hav3 you anything to say in behalf of the prisoner ? " said the Judge, finally. " Thet 's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. " I come yar as Tennessee's pardner, knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet and dry, in luck and out o' luck His ways ain't allers my ways, but thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness as he 's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez you, eonfidential-like, and between man and man, sez you, ' Do you know anything in his behalf ? ' and I TENNESSEE'S PARTNER. 63 eez to you, sez I, confidential-like, as between man and man, ' What should a man know of his pardner?'" " Is this all you have to say ? " asked the Judge, impatiently, feeling, perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize the Court. " Thet 's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. * It ain't for me to say anything agin' him. And now, what 's the case ? Here 's Tennessee wants money, wants it bad, and does n't like to ask it of his old pardner. Well, what does Tennessee do ? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches that stranger. And you lays for him, and you fetches him ; and the honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a far-minded man, and to you, gentlemen, all, as far-minded men, ef this is n't so." " Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting,