Forty-one Thieves Part 8

"Westward for me," replied Keeler; "and you?"

"Well, I reckon I've played my last game of poker in Nevada City. The East for me. With a little dust for capital, this country seems right good. Why, out there in the Sierras, you know as well as I do, the soil's too poor to feed lizards. Not much like the blue gra.s.s country of Kaintuck."

"Well," said Keeler, "if I had made my pile, Maryland would be good enough for me. As it is, California is all right, barring those same pesky lizards."

"The boys set too stiff a pace out there, though," replied the ex-miner.

"Why, many a Sat.u.r.day night I've seen fellows drop into town with a hundred and fifty dollars in dust, and then borrow the money to take the stage out Monday morning."

"I don't go in for sporting myself," said Keeler, "so I guess my character won't be ruined. The churches have got started, and they are giving the saloons a good deal of trouble."

"By thunder! that reminds me," quoth the Californian, "this here is a Christian country, and I'm going to join the church, first thing I do."

"And spin California yarns to a Sunday-School cla.s.s," suggested Keeler.

"Bet your cla.s.s will be a large one."

"I'll do it, by thunder! The very thing! And I'll shoot any lad as gets impertinent."

Keeler was clearly out of his element, and thought it time to terminate the brief acquaintance.

"John Keeler is my name; and I can swear I've seen you in Nevada City.

But you have the best of me."

"Why," replied the Californian, as cool as you please, "my name's Darcy."

It was the man who had killed Will c.u.mmins! But John Keeler was none the wiser, as Darcy quickly saw. He and Collins had reached Louisville undetected. Had there a.s.sumed the character of honest miners, shipped their bullion by express, a part to New Orleans and a part to Philadelphia, and were on the point of dissolving partnership.

Darcy soon afterward a.s.sumed the name of Thorn, set up in the lumber business at Union City, Indiana, where it is but a few steps across the border into Ohio,--and became a prosperous and respected citizen. He actually a.s.sociated himself with the leading church of the town and was looked upon by the young men as a Californian who had succeeded.

Honest John Keeler, who was well acquainted with the type, as he thought, could only remark, as his train sped westward, "There is a sensible miner! One who has safely transferred his money from saloons and gambling dens and robbers to the famous blue gra.s.s country. Good luck to him!"

He had well-nigh forgotten the incident when Darcy was arrested three years later.

A whole year had pa.s.sed before Keeler returned home, discouraged. In the meantime, as we shall see, the snows of the Sierras had not chilled the budding affections of Mat Bailey; but the hot sun of another California summer had stricken down old man Palmer. Keeler mistrusted that something was wrong, as he had not heard from his old friend for several months. Fortunately, his wife and child were well and happy, but they had impatiently waited for his return. From them he had heard every week or two.

At length he was safely back across the Sierras. The canon of the American River had never seemed more terrible as the train hovered over the brink of it. And now they were at Colfax, the junction of the narrow gauge railroad, whence, at nine cents a mile, you travel northward to Nevada City. The iron bars on the high, narrow windows of the station, the low whistle of the little engine, like the lonesome cry of a wolf, as it took the high trestle over Bear River, the very bars of dirt in the river bed far below, proclaimed to John Keeler that he had returned to the land of robbers and gold mining.

CHAPTER XI

The Snows of the Sierras

After the heat and turmoil of a day when the children have been especially vexing, what mother does not smile in forgiveness upon the peaceful faces of her offspring, whose characters in sleep appear as spotless as the sheets which cover them? So smiled the sun upon the grown-up children of the Sierras asleep under the winter snow. After the heat and turmoil of the summer, the mad search for gold was over. Save when there was a heavy snowstorm, the Graniteville stage traveled over the mountains, as usual; but no highwayman molested it. It would have been a practical impossibility for a robber to have made off with booty.

The snow was light and feathery, and the drifts were often twenty-five feet deep. The web-footed snow-shoes of New England could not be used with advantage in such snow, so recourse was had to skis. But it was difficult to manage these upon the steep trails of the canons, so that people generally were content to hibernate like grizzlies. Many a miner, glad to indulge his liking of conviviality, would take up his residence in some mountain village for the winter, spending with a liberal hand the precious yellow dust that he had worked so hard to get. Many, forced to keep the wolf from the door, found work with lumbermen and ditch companies.

In my opinion, Mat Bailey and Dr. Mason had a decided advantage over both miners and villagers. Like the man-o-war's man of song they enjoyed steady occupations summer and winter, and spent much of their time in the open. The cold was never extreme, the thermometer very rarely dropping below zero Fahrenheit. The dust of summer was buried deep under the gleaming snow, and the air was crisp and exhilarating. Often the doctor was one of Mat's pa.s.sengers. Often he would leave the stage where some trail wound down into a canon, and putting on his skis glide away among the great pines, which, covered with snow and ornamented with shining icicles, were scattered over the mountain slopes like great wigwams of white canvas. A doctor anywhere is a welcome visitor and a friend in need; in the wilderness, in the depth of winter he ranks but little lower than the angels. Often, coming to a lonely cabin, fairly buried in snow-drifts, he would climb in through the gable window of the loft; and no doubt his descent to the patient lying below suggested the arrival of a heavenly visitor.

One glorious winter day Mamie Sloc.u.m through Mat's persuasions accompanied him from Nevada City to Graniteville. He wanted her to see the magnificence of the Sierras in winter. Mamie needed little coaxing.

Indeed, her admiration for Mat was making her unmindful of very eligible suitors. Besides, she enjoyed life in the open almost as much as he did.

But I suspect on that beautiful winter morning both enjoyed each other's society even more than the scenery. As far as North Bloomfield, she was the only pa.s.senger, so well had Mat and the weather bureau contrived matters. He explained that he was really in need of her a.s.sistance, for in the open places where the snow had drifted across the road, it was often necessary to attack the drifts with a snow-shovel. He would then pa.s.s the reins to Mamie, who, demurely perched aloft, rosy-cheeked and most bewitching, was a picture for an artist.

No wonder Mat should have grown confidential and talked about his personal history--which was usually bad form in California, where present fortune counted for everything and family history was regarded as ancient history. He told her how in boyhood he came to California from Virginia with his parents. That was back in the fifties, when respectable women were so rare in the gold fields that their arrival was hailed by the rough miners with a sort of religious fervor. One of Mat's earliest recollections was a scene with emigrant wagon and camp-fire in the background, and in the foreground his mother, clasping him by the hand and greeting a score of bearded men, who, with hats off, were paying her homage.

He could remember, too, how they had come over the mountains through Emigrant Gap, pa.s.sing the graves of the Donner party. The tragedy of the snow-bound emigrants had made a deep impression upon his imagination. He spoke of it to Mamie, and she rather saucily inquired what he would do with her if they, too, were caught in a severe snowstorm.

"In the first place," said Mat, "I wouldn't let you start out in a snowstorm. And in the second place, if we should get caught, on the return trip, we would make for the nearest shelter and stay there till traveling was safe again."

"Oh, dear, what a stupid adventure that would be! There's very little excitement in this civilized country."

Mat laughed. "So this is what you call a civilized country? I don't see any signs of civilization except this road and the water ditch yonder."

Mat was quite right. In every direction the frost-king held sway over an unbroken wilderness. The ma.s.sive ranges of the Sierras, clothed all in white, were as majestic and as untamed as when Fremont and Kit Carson gazed down upon them from their snowy summit. To cross that mountain barrier, ninety-three hundred feet above the level of the sea, would require as much heroism as ever. The wise old Indians knew better than to attempt it; and so did the miners. Only a Fremont or a Kit Carson might pa.s.s over that awful divide in safety, pushing on through the deep drifts, half their mules and horses dead, and their comrades staggering with exhaustion. How absolutely essential was that stage-road, winding over the snow fields!

Soon Mat perceived signs that made him anxious. They would reach Graniteville without mishap. But the return trip to-morrow? A falling barometer could not have made him feel more certain of an approaching storm. He began to question the disinterestedness which had led him to show Miss Sloc.u.m the splendor of the winter landscape. The girl's gay chatter could not drown the voice of his accusing conscience.

Fortunately for Mat, at this juncture Dr. Mason came to the rescue like a fairy G.o.dfather.

They picked the doctor up at North Bloomfield. His baggage included not only his skis and medicine-case but a violin as well. For the doctor was a musical genius; and it had been his proud achievement to construct his own instrument, which friends vowed was as excellent as a Stradivarius.

Often of a winter evening his music was more sought after than his medicine. Mamie was delighted.

"So there's going to be a party to-night," she exclaimed. Mat promptly seized the opportunity to secure the lion's share of the dances, and immediately congratulated himself upon the approach of the storm, hoping it might bring a whole series of parties.

"Bless you, my children," said the doctor, "it will be a pleasure to call off the figures for the likes of you." The word "eugenics" had not been coined as yet, but like all wise physicians the doctor believed in the idea. It made his heart rejoice to watch the budding affection of these normal, healthy young people. And he knew the magic of the violin.

And so they waltzed on to their heart's content in the large dining-room of the hotel at Graniteville. At midnight, the feathery snow began to fall, insuring several other blissful nights. Between dances they looked out of doors and windows; when the drifts buried the whole first story of the hotel, the warmth of that great bare room seemed even more genial.

"The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men-- Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell."

When refreshments were served, so pleased was the doctor with his young friends' pleasure, that he drew them aside to tell them a bit of his family history.

"My family," said the doctor, "lived for many generations in Ayrshire, Scotland, neighbors to the family of Robert Burns. And, like the poet's people, they were very poor. No wonder! The poor man has no chance in the old country. Years ago an ancestor of mine leased a tract of worthless swamp land for forty-nine years at a penny an acre per year.

By hard labor and perseverance he drained the land and made it productive. So when the forty-nine years were up and the family sought an extension of the lease, the rent went up to one pound an acre. This was pretty hard; but by frugality and perseverance the family still prospered. At the end of the second forty-nine years the rent demanded was five pounds an acre. Think of it--twenty-five dollars a year! That was too much to endure, so my father, then a young blacksmith, was sent over to Canada to buy land. He bought three farms of a hundred acres each, one for himself, one for his brother, and one for their father, paying four dollars an acre. Here again the rich man had the upper hand.

For this same land had been sold by the British Government to capitalists for twenty-five cents an acre. Of course, my people had no money to pay cash down, but they quit Scotland nevertheless. They came over in 1832, in a small sailing vessel, which took four weeks to make the pa.s.sage. Then came another struggle. The land was very productive, but money was scarce and crops brought hardly anything. But at least the Mason family had enough to eat. Finally, after many years, the mortgages were paid off, and the family established."

The doctor paused, and Mat thought he saw a reason for Scotch grit. He contrasted such a history with the get-rich-quick methods of California!

"America," continued the doctor, "is the land of opportunity. With good health and industry the poor man can succeed." And he looked at Mat significantly.

CHAPTER XII

The Golden Summer Comes Again

The golden summer had come again. To old man Palmer, living alone on the top of Fillmore Hill, the great snow banks stored high upon the mountains meant abundance of water for mining. The strange flowers of California, yellow and red, grown familiar now after many years, made their appeal to him. With the returning summer he welcomed the yellow bird with red crown and black wings. He loved the exhilarating air and the glorious sunshine. But I am afraid the golden glow of morning suggested gold.

He was cleaning up several square rods of bed-rock in the ancient river bed on the hill-top, and the dirt was rich in gold. Every morning early, leaving his breakfast dishes unwashed, he carefully shoveled this dirt into his sluices, and watched the water carry mud and sand away. Once in a while he would shut off the water to examine the rich amalgam at each cleat across the trough, removing that which was saturated with gold and replacing it with fresh mercury. This clean-up was going to be especially good, and he was glad to be alone.