Gold Part 39

"I'm to practise, under Danny Randall, from now until the first trip."

"When is that?"

"Do you think we'll advertise the date? Of course I'd tell you, Jim; but honestly I don't know yet."

Since the matter seemed settled, and Johnny delighted, I said no more.

My cradle occupied me for three days longer. In that length of time Johnny banged away an immense quant.i.ty of ammunition, much of it under the personal supervision of Danny Randall. The latter had his own ideas as to the proper practice. He utterly refused to let Johnny shoot at a small mark or linger on his aim.

"It's only fairly accurate work you want, but quick," said he. "If you practise always getting hold of your revolver the same way, and squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it, you'll do. If you run against robbers it isn't going to be any target match."

When my cradle was finished, I went prospecting with a pan; and since this was that golden year 1849, and the diggings were neither crowded nor worked out, I soon found 'colour.' There I dragged my cradle, and set quite happily to work. Since I performed all my own labour, the process seemed slow to me after the quick results of trained cooperation; yet my cleanings at night averaged more than my share used to be under the partnership. So I fell into settled work, well content.

A week later Johnny rode up on a spirited and beautiful horse, proud as could be over his mount.

He confided to me that it was one of the express horses; that the first trip would be very soon; and that if I desired to send out my own savings, I could do so. I was glad to do this, even though the rates were high; and we easily persuaded Yank of the advisability. n.o.body antic.i.p.ated any danger from this first trip, for the simple reason that few knew anything about it. Randall and his friends made up the amount that could be carried by the three men. For the first time I learned that Johnny had companions. They started from our own tent, a little after sundown. Indeed, they ate their supper with us, while their beautiful horses, head high, stared out into the growing darkness. One of the express riders was a slight, dark youth whom I had never seen before. In the other I was surprised to recognize Old Hickory Pine. He told me his people had "squatted" not far from Sacramento, but that he had come up into the hills on summons by Danny Randall. The fact impressed me anew as to Randall's wide knowledge, for the Pines had not been long in the country.

The trip went through without incident. Johnny returned four days later aglow with the joy of that adventurous ride through the dark. Robbers aside, I acknowledge I should not have liked that job. I am no horseman, and I confess that at full speed I am always uneasy as to how a four-hoofed animal is going successfully to plant all four of them. And these three boys, for they were nothing else, had to gallop the thirty miles of the road to Sacramento that lay in the mountains before dawn caught them in the defiles.

Johnny seemed to glory in it, however. Danny Randall had arranged for a change of horses; and the three express riders liked to dash up at full speed to the relay station, fling themselves and their treasure bags from one beast to the other, and be off again with the least possible expenditure of time. The incoming animal had hardly come to a stand before the fresh animal was off. There could have been no real occasion for quite so much haste; but they liked to do it. The trips were made at irregular intervals; and the riders left camp at odd times. Indeed, no hour of the twenty-four was unlikely to be that of their start. Each boy carried fifty pounds of gold dust distributed in four pouches. This was a heavy weight, but it was compensated for to some extent by the fact that they rode very light saddles. Thus every trip the enormous sum of thirty-five thousand dollars went out in charge of the three.

The first half dozen journeys were more or less secret, so that the express service did not become known to the general public. Then the news inevitably leaked out. Danny Randall thereupon openly received shipments and gave receipts at the Bella Union. It seemed to me only a matter of time before the express messengers should be waylaid, for the treasure they carried was worth any one's while. I spoke to Randall about it one day.

"If Amijo or Murietta or d.i.c.k Temple were in this part of the country, I'd agree with you," said he seriously, "but they are not, and there's n.o.body in this lot of cheap desperadoes around here that has the nerve.

Those three boys have a big reputation as fighters; their horses are good; they constantly vary their route and their times of starting; and Johnny in especial has a foxy head on him."

"The weak point is the place they change horses," said I.

Randall looked at me quickly, as though surprised.

"Why, that's true," said he; "not a doubt of it. But I've got five armed men there to look after just that. And another thing you must remember: they know that Danny Randall is running this show."

Certainly, thought I, Danny at least appreciates himself; and yet, after all, I do not think he in any way exaggerated the terror his name inspired.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

ITALIAN BAR

As now we are all settled down to our various occupations, Yank of patience, Johnny of delighted adventuring, and myself of dogged industry, it might be well to give you some sort of a notion of Italian Bar, as this new camp was called. I saw a great deal of it, more than I really wished, for out of working hours I much frequented it in the vague hope of keeping tabs on its activities for Johnny's sake.

It was situated on one of the main overland trails, and that was possibly the only reason its rich diggings had not been sooner discovered--it was too accessible! The hordes of immigrants dragged through the dusty main street, sometimes in an almost unending procession. More of them hereafter; they were in general a sad lot. Some of them were always encamped in the flats below town; and about one of the stores a number of them could be seen trying to screw their resolution up to paying the appalling prices for necessities. The majority had no spare money, and rarely any spirit left; and n.o.body paid much attention to them except to play practical jokes on them. Very few if any of this influx stopped at Italian Bar. Again it was too accessible. They had their vision fixed hypnotically on the West, and westward they would push until they b.u.mped the Pacific Ocean. Of course a great many were no such dumb creatures, but were capable, self-reliant men who knew what they were about and where they were going. n.o.body tried to play any practical jokes on them.

Of the regular population I suppose three fourths were engaged in gold washing. The miners did not differ from those of their cla.s.s anywhere else; that is to say, they were of all nationalities, all cla.s.ses of life, and all degrees of moral responsibility. They worked doggedly and fast in order to get as much done as possible before the seasonal rains.

When night fell the most of them returned to their cabins and slept the sleep of the weary; with a weekly foray into town of a more or less lurid character. They had no time for much else, in their notion; and on that account were, probably unconsciously, the most selfish community I ever saw. There was a great deal of sickness, and many deaths, but unless a man had a partner or a friend to give him some care, he might die in his cabin for all the attention any one else would pay him. In the same spirit only direct personal interest would arouse in any of them the least indignation over the only too frequent killings and robberies.

"They found a man shot by the Upper Bend this morning," remarks one to his neighbour.

"That so? Who was he?" asks the other.

"Don't know. Didn't hear," is the reply.

The barroom or street killings, which averaged in number at least two or three a week, while furnishing more excitement, aroused very little more real interest. Open and above-board homicides of that sort were always the result of differences of opinion. If the victim had a friend, the latter might go gunning for his pal's slayer; but n.o.body had enough personal friends to elevate any such row to the proportions of a general feud.

All inquests were set aside until Sunday. A rough and ready public meeting invariably brought in the same verdict--"justifiable self-defence." At these times, too, popular justice was dispensed, but carelessly and not at all in the spirit of the court presided over by John Semple at Hangman's Gulch. A general air of levity characterized these occasions, which might strike as swift and deadly a blow as a shaft of lightning, or might puff away as harmlessly as a summer zephyr.

Many a time, until I learned philosophically to stay away, did my blood boil over the haphazard way these men had of disposing of some poor creature's destinies.

"Here's a Mex thief," observed the chair. "What do you want done with him?"

"Move we cut off his ears!" yelled a voice from the back of the crowd.

"Make it fifty lashes!" shouted another.

A wrangle at once started between the advocates of cropping and the whip. The crowd wearied of it.

"Let the ---- ---- ---- go!" suggested someone.

And this motion was carried with acclamation. No evidence was offered or asked as to the extent of the man's guilt, or indeed if he was guilty at all!

The meeting had a grim sense of humour, and enjoyed nothing more than really elaborate foolery. Such as, for example, the celebrated case of Pio Chino's bronco.

Pio Chino was a _cargador_ running a train of pack-mules into some back-country camp. His bell mare was an ancient white animal with long s.h.a.ggy hair, ewe neck, bulging joints, a placid wall eye, the full complement of ribs, and an extraordinarily long Roman nose ending in a pendulous lip. Yet fifteen besotted mules thought her beautiful, and followed her slavishly, in which fact lay her only value. Now somebody, probably for a joke, "lifted" this ancient wreck from poor Chino on the ground that it had never been Chino's property anyway. Chino, with childlike faith in the dignity of inst.i.tutions, brought the matter before the weekly court.

That body took charge with immense satisfaction. It appointed lawyers for the prosecution and the defence.

Prosecution started to submit Chino's claim.

Defence immediately objected on the ground that Chino, being a person of colour, was not qualified to testify against a white man.

This point was wrangled over with great relish for an hour or more. Then two solemn individuals were introduced as experts to decide whether Chino was a man of colour, or, as the prosecution pa.s.sionately maintained, a n.o.ble, great-minded and patriotic California member of the Caucasian race.

"Gentlemen," the court addressed this pair, "is there any infallible method by which your science is able to distinguish between a n.i.g.g.e.r and a white man?"

"There is," answered one of the "experts."

"What?"

"The back teeth of a white man have small roots reaching straight down,"

expounded the "expert" solemnly, "while those of a negro have roots branching in every direction."

"And how do you expect to determine this case?"

"By extracting one or more of the party's back teeth," announced the "expert" gravely, at the same time producing a huge pair of horseshoeing nippers.

Chino uttered a howl, but was violently restrained from bolting. He was understood to say that he didn't want that mare. I should not have been a bit surprised if they had carried the idea of extraction to a finish; but the counsel for defence interposed, waiving the point. He did not want the fun to come to that sort of a termination.

Prosecution then offered the evidence of Chino's brand. Now that old mare was branded from muzzle to tail, and on both sides. She must have been sold and resold four or five times for every year of her long and useful life. The network of brands was absolutely indecipherable.