Gold Part 33

The little negro, who had stood by obviously worshipping, broke into a grin and darted into the hotel, almost instantly reappearing with a regulation professional satchel.

"At your service, sir," repeated Dr. Rankin.

We took our stately progress up the street, through the deep red dust.

The hot sun glared down upon us, reflecting from the surface of the earth in suffocating heat. Hard as I was, I flushed and perspired. The doctor never turned a hair. As we pa.s.sed one of the saloons a huge, hairy man lurched out, nearly colliding with us. He was not drunk, but he was well flushed with drink. His mood was evidently ugly, for he dropped his hand to the b.u.t.t of his revolver, and growled something truculent at me, glaring through bloodshot eyes. Dr. Rankin, who had stepped back to avoid collision, spoke up:

"Malone," said he, "I told you a week ago that you have to stop drinking or come to me. I repeat it."

He turned his keen black eyes upon the big man, and stepped forward. The big man muttered something and moved aside.

Arrived at the hut of the Morenas, for that it seemed was the name of our host and hostess, Dr. Rankin laid aside his furry beaver hat, walked directly to the side of the bunk on which Yank lay, and began his examination, without vouchsafing anything or anybody else the slightest glance. Nor did he seem to pay more attention to Yank as a human being, but prodded and pulled and hauled and manipulated him from top to toe, his gray, hawk face intent and absorbed. Occasionally, as he repeated some prod, he looked up keenly into Yank's face, probably for some slight symptom of pain that escaped us, for Yank remained stoical. But he asked no questions. At the end of ten minutes he threw the blanket over our friend's form and stood erect, carefully dusting the ends of his fingers against one another.

"Broken leg, badly set," said he; "two broken ribs; severe surface bruises; and possibility of internal bruises in the region of the spleen. Neglected too long. Why wasn't I sent for before?"

I explained. Dr. Rankin listened attentively, but made no comment. His eyes travelled slowly over us all--the fat, pleasant, brown California woman, her bearded husband, who had come in from the diggings, Bagsby's tall, wiry old form, the worn remains of Don Gaspar's finery, and lingered a moment on Johnny's undisguisable air of high spirit and breeding.

"How many of you belong here?" he demanded. "I can't waste time on the rest of you. Those who are not directly concerned, kindly step outside."

"Johnny and I will take care of this," I told the others hastily, before they had time to say anything.

"Now," cried Dr. Rankin, removing his blue coat, and turning back the frills of his shirt, "hot water!"

We a.s.sisted at the rather dreadful process of resetting a broken leg three days old. At the end of the operation we were all pretty limp.

"How long?" gasped Yank, opening his eyes.

"Three months; not a day less if you want that leg to be as good as ever," stated Dr. Rankin uncompromisingly.

Yank closed his eyes and groaned.

The doctor resumed his coat and picked up his beaver hat.

"What treatment?" I ventured to ask.

"I will inform the woman," replied the doctor. "These Californians are the best nurses in the world, once things are on a proper footing."

"Your fee, sir?" asked Johnny very formally, for the doctor's brusque manner had rubbed.

"One ounce," stated Dr. Rankin. "I shall direct the woman, and I shall return one week from to-day unless conditions change. In that case, summon me."

He pouched the gold dust that Johnny shook into the palm of his hand at a guess, bowed formally to each of us in turn, picked up his bag and departed, rigidly erect, the fine red dust crawling and eddying at his feet.

Then we held a council of war, all of us. Don Gaspar announced his intention of returning to his rancho in the south.

"I have found the gold, and I have made fren's, and I have now enough,"

said he.

Bagsby, too, said he thought he would just ride down as far as Sutter's Fort, there to lay in a supply of powder and ball for a trip in the mountains.

"I kind of want to git up another b'ar fight," said he. "If I thought there was a ghost of a show to git them robbers for you boys, I'd stay and help you scout for them; but there ain't a show in the world.

They've had a good three days' start."

After shaking hands with us again and again, and obtaining promises that we should all surely meet in San Francisco or Monterey, they mounted and took their departure in order to get well clear of the settlement before nightfall.

When they had gone Yank opened his eyes from the apparent sleep into which he had fallen.

"You fellows don't hang around here with me, I can tell you that," he stated. "I'm fixed all right. I want you to make arrangements with these people yere to keep me; tuck my gold under my piller, stack old Betsey up yere in the corner by me, and go about your business. You come out yere to dig gold, not to take keer of cripples."

"All right, Yank, we'll fix it somehow," I agreed. "Now if you're all right, Johnny and I will just go and straighten out our camp things a little."

We were now, it will be remembered, without horses. Don Gaspar had unpacked our few belongings before departing. Johnny and I found a good camping place, then carried the stuff over on our backs. We cooked ourselves some food, lit pipes, and sat down to talk the situation over.

We got nowhere. As a matter of fact, we were both in the dead-water of reaction from hard, long-continued labour, and we could not bring ourselves to face with any enthusiasm the resuming of gold washing.

Revulsion shook us at the mere thought of getting down in a hot, glaring ravine and moving heavy earth and rocks. Yet we had not made a fortune, nor much of a beginning at one, and neither of us was what is known as a quitter. We realized perfectly that we would go on gold mining.

"What we need is a recess," Johnny ended, "and I move we take it. Just let's camp here, and loaf for a few days or a week, and see how Yank gets along, and then we can go back to Porcupine."

As though this decision lifted a great weight, we sat back on our shoulder blades with a sigh of relief, and blew tobacco smoke straight up in the air for at least fifteen minutes. By the end of that time we, being young and restless, felt thoroughly refreshed.

"Let's go look this outfit over," suggested Johnny.

We gravitated naturally to the diggings, which were very much like those at Hangman's Gulch, except that they were rather more extensive, and branched out more into the tributary ravines. The men working there were, many of them, of a much better type than those we had seen in town; though even here was a large element of rough-looking, wild, reckless customers. We wandered about here and there, our hands in our pockets, a vast leisure filling our souls. With some of the more pleasant-appearing miners we conversed. They told us that the diggings were rich, good "ounce a day" diggings. We saw a good many cradles in use. It was easy to tell the old-timers from the riffraff of newcomers.

A great many of the latter seemed to lack the steadiness of purpose characteristic of nearly all the first rush. They worked haphazardly, spasmodically, pulling and hauling against each other. Some should not have been working at all, for their eyes were sunken in their heads from illness.

"We've got to hustle now," they told us. "We can take a good rest when the rains stop work."

We noticed especially a marked change in demeanour among some of the groups. In the early part of the summer every man answered every man good-naturedly, except he happened to have a next day's head or some other sort of a personal grouch. Now many compact little groups of men worked quite apart. When addressed they merely scowled or looked sullen, evidently quite unwilling to fraternize with the chance-comer.

We loafed about here and there through the diggings, swapping remarks with the better disposed, until the men began to knock off work. Then we returned through the village.

Its street had begun to fill. Here, too, we could not but be struck by the subtle change that had come over the spirit of the people. All used to seem like the members of a big family, good-natured and approachable even when strangers. Now a slower acquaintance must precede familiarity.

We seemed out of it because we did not know anybody, something we had not felt before in a mining camp. There was no hostility in this, not an iota; only now it had evidently become necessary to hold a man off a little until one knew something about him. People seemed, somehow, _watchful_, in spite of the surface air of good-nature and of boisterous spirits. We did not quite understand this at the moment, but we learned more about it later.

We sauntered along peering into the various buildings. The saloons were here more elaborate than at Hangman's, the gambling places larger, and with some slight attempt at San Francisco splendour. That is to say, there were large gilt-framed mirrors on the walls, nude pictures, and in some cases a stage for musical performers. One of the three stores was devoted entirely to clothing and "notions," to us a new departure in specialization. We were sadly in need of garments, so we entered, and were at once met by a very oily, suave specimen of the chosen people.

When we had escaped from this robber's den we looked at each other in humorous dismay.

"Glad Yank don't need clothes, anyway," said Johnny.

We were, it will be remembered, out of provisions, so we entered also one of the general stores to lay in a small supply. The proprietor proved to be an old friend, Jones, the storekeeper at Hangman's.

"Which," said Johnny shrewdly, "is a sad commentary on the decline of the diggings at Hangman's."

Jones was evidently prosperous, and doing business on a much larger scale than at the old place; for in his commodious building were quant.i.ties of goods displayed and many barrels and boxes still unopened.

He did not recognize us, of course; and we had to await the completion of a tale he was telling a group perched on the counters and on the boxes.

"Got a consignment of mixed goods from Mellin," he was saying, "and one of the barrels wasn't marked with anything I could make out. I knocked the top in, and chucked her out behind for spoiled beef. Certainly stunk like it. Well, sir, that barrel lay there for a good ten days; and then one day up drifted a Dutchman with a brogue on him thick enough to plant flag-poles in. 'How mooch,' says he 'is dot stoof?' 'What stuff?' says I. 'Dot stoof oudt behind.' 'I ain't got no stuff out behind! What's eating you?' says I. Then he points out that spoiled beef. 'Good Lord!'

says I, 'help yourself. I got a lot of nerve, but not enough to charge a man for anything that stinks like that beef. But you better let it alone; you'll get sick!' Well, sir, you wouldn't think there was any Dutchmen in the country, now would you? but they came to that stink like flies to mola.s.ses. Any time I'd look out the back door I'd see one or two nosing around that old spoiled beef. Then one day another old beer-belly sagged in. 'Say, you got any more barrels of dot sauerkraut?'

he wants to know. 'That what?' I asks. 'Dot sauerkraut,' says he, 'like dot in the backyard. I gif you goot price for a whole barrel,' says he.

And here I'd give away a whole barrel! I might've got a dollar a pound for the stuff. _I_ don't know what it might be worth to a Dutchman."