First Fam'lies of the Sierras Part 5

They threatened hard things to Washee-Washee, these rough, outraged, hairy fellows, who had patronized him and helped him and tried to get him along in the world, but he was perfectly pa.s.sive and tranquil.

A man who stood there with a bundle of recovered treasure-trove, in the shape of shirts and coats of many colors, because of many patches, took Washee-Washee by the little pink ear, and twisted him up and around till he saw his face. Then he let him go, and catching his clothes up under his arm strode on out of the cabin and on down to his claim and his work. The meekest man that the world has seen since Socrates, was Washee-Washee. He sat there with the same semi-grin on his face, the same half smile in his almond eyes, though a man shook a rope in his face, jerked it up, thrust out his tongue, pointed to a tree, and hung himself in pantomime before this placid Chinaman.

"What will we do with him?" A bearded citizen stood there with a bundle of clothes under his arm, waiting to be gone.

"Poor, lonesome, harmless little man." Sandy stood there, repeating the words of the little Widow without knowing it.

"He does lie so helplessly," said one. "If he could only lie decently, we might hang him decently."

"Tell you what, flog him and send him adrift." The man who proposed this was a stranger, with an anchor and other hall-marks of the sea on his hairy arms.

"Wolves would eat 'im on the mountain."

"Wolves eat a Chinaman! They 'd eat a gum boot fust!"

"Tell you what we'll do," growled the Gopher, "reform him."

"Reform h.e.l.l!" said the sailor to himself.

"Come, let's do a little missionary business, and begin at home," urged the Gopher. "Get the Judge to reprimand him. Have him talk to him an hour, then let the Parson speak to him another hour. If he lives that through he will be an honest man, or if not honest he will at least be harmless."

Now they had no preacher in the Forks, not even the semblance of one yet, neither had they a lawyer or doctor, but this Parson was a power in the camp. He was perhaps the most popular man there. He was certainly the most influential, for he was a man who could talk. They called him the Parson because he was certainly the profanest man in all the mines.

The idea was novel and was at once adopted.

Here at last was a practical application of the popular feeling, in older republics, that the officers are the servants of the public.

The little Judge here was certainly the people's servant. If he had not been, if he had a.s.serted himself at all and taken up arms and fortified himself behind a barricade of books, they would simply have called a miners' meeting in half an hour, and in half an hour would have had the little man ousted and another man in his place, and then back to their work as if nothing ever had happened. Never in the world had men known such absolute liberty as was attained here. There was not even the dominion of woman. And yet they were not happy.

They marched Washee-Washee to the Howling Wilderness, told the sentence, and called upon the Parson to enforce judgment.

He now took a cordial and began. Washee-Washee sat before him on a bench, leaning against the wall. The little man seemed as if he was about to go to sleep; possibly his conscience had kept him awake the night before, when he found that all his little investments had been a failure in the Forks.

The Parson began. Washee-Washee flinched, jerked back, sat bolt upright, and seemed to suffer.

Then the Parson shot another oath. This time it came like a cannon ball, and red hot too, for Washee-Washee was almost lifted out of his seat.

Then the Parson took his breath a bit, rolled the quid of tobacco in his mouth from left to right and from right to left, and as he did so he selected the very broadest, knottiest, and ugliest oaths that he had found in all his fifty years of life at sea and on the border.

Washee-Washee had lost his expression of peace. He had evidently been terribly shaken. The Parson had rested a good spell, however, and the little, slim, brown man before him, who had crawled out over the great wall of China, sailed across the sea of seas, climbed the Sierras, and sat down in their midst to begin the old clothes business, without pay or promise, was again settling back, as if about to surrender to sleep.

Cannon b.a.l.l.s! conical shot! chain shot! and shot red hot! Never were such oaths heard in the world before! The Chinaman fell over.

"Stop!" cried the bar-keeper of the Howling Wilderness, who didn't want the expense of the funeral; "stop! do you mean to cuss him to death?"

The Chinaman was allowed time to recover, and then they sat him again on the bench. A man fanned him with his broad bamboo hat, lest he should faint before the last half of the punishment was nearly through, and the Judge was called upon to enforce the remainder of their sentence.

The Judge come forward slowly, put his two hands back under his coat tails, tilted forward on his toes and began:

"Washee-Washee! In this glorious climate of Californy--how could you?"

Washee-Washee nodded, and the Judge broke down badly embarra.s.sed. At last he recovered himself, and began in a deep, earnest and entreating tone:

"Washee-Washee, in this glorious climate of Californy you should remember the seventh Commandment, and never, under any circ.u.mstances or temptations that beset you, should you covet your neighbor's goods, or his boots, or his shirt, or his socks, or his handkerchief, or any thing that is his, or--"

The Judge paused, the men giggled, and then they roared, and laughed, and danced about their little Judge; for Washee-Washee had folded his little brown hands in his lap, and was sleeping as sweetly as a baby in its cradle.

CHAPTER VI.

SOME UNWRITTEN HISTORY.

The murder of Joseph Smith, the so-called prophet, meant more than any other similar event in history. This man, as well as his brother, Hiram, was not only an honest, brave gentleman, but also a man of culture and refinement. The latter, it may not be generally known, was a candidate for Congress, when that place was counted the post of honor.

Nothing in the New World ever so intensified the minds of men as the life and death of this singular man, Joseph Smith. On the one hand he was hated to death, on the other hand he was adored while living, worshiped when dead. Men for his memory's sake burned their bridges behind them, as it were, and fled dest.i.tute to the wilderness.

With no capital but a hoe and a wheelbarrow, they built up, in a quarter of a century, in the middle of a desert, the most remote and the most remarkable commonwealth that the world has ever seen. Salt Lake City was the one pier upon which was laid the long and unbroken iron chain of the Pacific Railroad.

On what singular foundations lie the corner stones of some of the greatest achievements! I think you can safely say that had there been no Joseph Smith there had been, up to this date at least, no Pacific Railroad.

This tragedy meant everything to those who took part in it, no matter on which side they fought or followed.

No one saw beyond the circle of houses in which they then lived and moved. As a rule those who followed the prophet, as well as those who murdered him, were wild, ignorant men, from the mountains of Tennessee, the wilds of Virginia and their own Missouri.

To these men, as I have said, this tragedy meant all the world. Carthage to them meant all that Carthage ever meant to Rome.

Nearly a hundred men, heavily masked, moving down upon a prison, with its half dozen inmates. A little tussle; one struggle at the door. Then a few shots. Then a few men lying in their blood on the prison floor.

Then a leap from a window, a fall; a man lying dead in the jail yard.

Some masked men pick up the body. They sit it up against a pump in the yard; and then they, as if to be doubly certain, fire at the dead body of the prophet as they file out of the jail yard and disappear.

All is consternation, terror now, flight! It seems there will not be one human being, save the dead and dying, left in the town. One family alone dares to remain to care for the murdered.

The work was well done. If such a deed can be done well, this certainly was. The secret was kept as never had secret been kept before. Life was depending. Not only the life of the man who had taken part, but the lives of his children, his wife, all his house. Who says the West is not the world of Romance and Tragedy?

A pendulum must swing about as far one way as it does the other. Blood meant blood. From the stains on that prison floor sprang the Draggon's teeth. Out of that awful day came forth a singular conception: the Danites--Destroying Angels.

The prophet of G.o.d, as these men professed, had been slain. Unlike the Christians, they proposed to slay in revenge.

I fancy you might trace this on till you came to the awful tragedy of Mountain Meadows. Putting the two tragedies together, side by side, and pa.s.sing them on to the impartial judgment of some pagan, I am not certain that he would not p.r.o.nounce in favor of the Mormon.

History trenches closely upon romance, and here we must leave the very uncertain and crudely traced outline of the former and follow on in the latter, as we began.

The story runs that the Danites found trace of one man who had taken an active part in the death of their prophet. His name was Williams, and was a man of a large and refined family.

Williams in the course of a year was found dead--drowned! Drowned he certainly was, but whether by accident or the design of enemies (for suicide does not sever the life of the borderer) was not known. Then his eldest son was found dead in the woods. His empty rifle was in his hand.

He too might have perished either by accident or design. The mother was the next victim. There was consternation in the family; in all the settlement.