Gold Part 45

It would be supposed, naturally, by you in our modern and civilized days, that such a condition of affairs would cast a fear and gloom over the life of the community. Not at all. Men worked and played and gambled and drank and joked and carried on the light-hearted, jolly existence of the camps just about the same as ever. Outside a few princ.i.p.als like Morton and his immediate satellites, there was no accurate demarkation between the desperadoes and the miners. Indeed, no one was ever quite sure of where his next neighbour's sympathies lay. We all mingled together, joked, had a good time--and were exceedingly cautious. It was a polite community. Personal quarrels were the product of the moment, and generally settled at the moment or soon after. Enmities were matters for individual adjustment.

Randall's express messengers continued to make their irregular trips with the gold dust. They were never attacked, though they were convinced, and I think justly, that on numerous occasions they had only just escaped attack. Certainly the sums of money they carried were more than sufficient temptation to the bandits. They knew their country, however, and were full of Indian-like ruses, twists, doublings and turns which they employed with great gusto. How long they would have succeeded in eluding what I considered the inevitable, I do not know; but at this time occurred the events that I shall detail in the next chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE LAST STRAW

This is a chapter I hate to write; and therefore I shall get it over with as soon as possible.

Yank had progressed from his bunk to the bench outside, and from that to a slow hobbling about near the Morena cabin. Two of the three months demanded by Dr. Rankin had pa.s.sed. Yank's leg had been taken from the splint, and, by invoking the aid of stout canes, he succeeded in shifting around. But the trail to town was as yet too rough for him.

Therefore a number of us were in the habit of spending our early evenings with him. We sat around the door, and smoked innumerable pipes, and talked sixty to the minute. Morena had a guitar to the accompaniment of which he sang a number of plaintive and sweet-toned songs. Three or four of his countrymen occasionally came up from below. Then they, too, sang more plaintive songs; or played a strange game with especial cards which none of us "gringos" could ever fathom; or perhaps stepped a grave, formal sort of dance. Senora Morena, the only woman, would sometimes join in this. She was a large woman, but extraordinarily light on her feet. In fact, as she swayed and balanced opposite her partner she reminded me of nothing so much as a balloon tugging gently at its string.

"But it ees good, the dance, eh, senores?" she always ended, her broad, kind face shining with pleasure.

We Americans reciprocated with a hoe-down or so, to jigging strains blasphemously evoked by one of our number from that gentle guitar; and perhaps a song or two. _Oh, Susannah!_ was revived; and other old favourites; and we had also the innumerable verses of a brand-new favourite, local to the country. It had to do with the exploits and death of one Lame Jesse. I can recall only two of the many verses:

"Lame Jesse was a hard old case; He never would repent.

He ne'er was known to miss a meal-- He never paid a cent!

"Lame Jesse, too, like all the rest, He did to Death resign; And in his bloom went up the flume In the days of Forty-nine."

When the evening chill descended, which now was quite early, we scattered to our various occupations, leaving Yank to his rest.

One Sunday in the middle of October two men trudged into town leading each a pack-horse.

I was at the time talking to Barnes at his hotel, and saw them from a distance hitching their animals outside Morton's. They stayed there for some time, then came out, unhitched their horses, led them as far as the Empire, hesitated, finally again tied the beasts, and disappeared. In this manner they gradually worked along to the Bella Union, where at last I recognized them as McNally and Buck Barry, our comrades of the Porcupine. Of course I at once rushed over to see them.

I found them surrounded by a crowd to whom they were offering drinks free-handed. Both were already pretty drunk, but they knew me as soon as I entered the door, and surged toward me hands out.

"Well! well! well!" cried McNally delightedly. "And here's himself! And who'd have thought of seeing you here! I made sure you were in the valley and out of the country long since. And you're just in time! Make a name for it? Better call it whiskey straight. Drink to us, my boy!

Come, join my friends! We're all friends here! Come on, and here's to luck, the best luck ever! We've got two horse-loads of gold out there--nothing but gold--and it all came from our old diggings. You ought to have stayed. We had no trouble. Bagsby was an old fool!" All the time he was dragging me along by the arm toward the crowd at the bar. Barry maintained an air of owlish gravity.

"Where's Missouri Jones?" I inquired; but I might as well have asked the stone mountains. McNally chattered on, excited, his blue eyes dancing, bragging over and over about his two horse-loads of gold.

The crowd took his whiskey, laughed with him, and tried shrewdly to pump him as to the location of his diggings. McNally gave them no satisfaction there; but even when most hilarious retained enough sense to put them off the track.

As will be imagined, I was most uneasy about the whole proceeding, and tried quietly to draw the two men off.

"No, sir!" cried McNally, "not any! Jes' struck town, and am goin' to have a _time_!" in which determination he was cheered by all the bystanders. I did not know where to turn; Johnny was away on one of his trips, and Danny Randall was not to be found. Finally inspiration served me.

"Come down first and see Yank," I urged. "Poor old Yank is crippled and can't move."

That melted them at once. They untied their long-suffering animals, and we staggered off down the trail.

On the way down I tried, but in vain, to arouse them to a sense of danger.

"You've let everybody in town know you have a lot of dust," I pointed out.

McNally merely laughed recklessly.

"Good boys!" he cried; "wouldn't harm a fly!" and I could veer him to no other point of view. Barry agreed to everything, very solemn and very owlish.

We descended on Yank like a storm. I will say that McNally at any time was irresistible and irrepressible, but especially so in his cups. We laughed ourselves sick that afternoon. The Morenas were enchanted. Under instructions, and amply supplied with dust, Morena went to town and returned with various bottles. Senora Morena cooked a fine supper. In the meantime, I, as apparently the only responsible member of the party, unsaddled the animals, and brought their burdens into the cabin.

Although McNally's statement as to the loads consisting exclusively of gold was somewhat of an exaggeration, nevertheless the _cantinas_ were very heavy. Not knowing what else to do with them, I thrust them under Yank's bunk.

The evening was lively, I will confess it, and under the influence of it my caution became hazy. Finally, when I at last made my way back to my own camp, I found myself vastly surprised to discover Yank hobbling along by my side. I don't know why he came with me, and I do not think he knew either. Probably force of habit. At any rate, we left the other four to sleep where they would. I remember we had some difficulty in finding places to lie.

The sun was high when we awoke. We were not feeling very fresh, to say the least; and we took some little time to get straightened around. Then we went down to the Morena cabin.

I am not going to dwell on what we found there. All four of its inmates had been killed with buckshot, and the place ransacked from end to end.

Apparently the first volley had killed our former partners and Senora Morena as they lay. Morena had staggered to his feet and halfway across the room.

The excitement caused by this frightful crime was intense. Every man quit work. A great crowd a.s.sembled. Morton as sheriff was very busy, and loud threats were uttered by his satellites as to the apprehension of the murderers. The temper of the crowd, however, was sullen. No man dared trust his neighbour, and yet every honest breast swelled with impotent indignation at this wholesale and unprovoked ma.s.sacre. No clue was possible. Everybody remembered, of course, how broadcast and publicly the fact of the gold had been scattered. n.o.body dared utter his suspicions, if he had any.

The victims were buried by a large concourse, that eddied and hesitated and muttered long after the graves had been filled in. Vaguely it was felt that the condition of affairs was intolerable; but no one knew how it was to be remedied. Nothing definite could be proved against any one, and yet I believe that every honest man knew to a moral certainty at least the captains and instigators of the various outrages. A leader could have raised an avenging mob--provided he could have survived the necessary ten minutes!

We scattered at last to our various occupations. I was too much upset to work, so I returned to where Yank was smoking over the fire. He had, as near as I can remember, said not one word since the discovery of the tragedy. On my approach he took his pipe from his mouth.

"Nothing done?" he inquired.

"Nothing," I replied. "What is there to be done?"

"Don't know," said he, replacing his pipe; then around the stem of it, "I was fond of those people."

"So was I," I agreed sincerely. "Have you thought what a lucky escape you yourself had?"

Yank nodded. We sat for a long time in silence. My thoughts turned slowly and sullenly in a heavy, impotent anger. A small bird chirped plaintively from the thicket near at hand. Except for the tinkle of our little stream and the m.u.f.fled roar of the distant river, this was the only sound to strike across the dead black silence of the autumn night.

So persistently did the bird utter its single call that at last it aroused even my downcast attention, so that I remarked on it carelessly to Yank. He came out of his brown study and raised his head.

"It's no bird, it's a human," he said, after listening a moment. "That's a signal. Go see what it is. Just wander out carelessly."

In the depths of the thicket I found a human figure crouched. It glided to me, and I made out dimly the squat form of Pete, Barnes's negro slave, from the hotel.

"Lo'_dee_, ma.s.sa," whispered he, "done thought you nevah _would_ come."

"What is it, Pete?" I asked in the same guarded tones.

"I done got somefin' to tell you. While I ketchin' a lil' bit of sleep 'longside that white trash Mo'ton's place, I done heah dey all plannin'

to git out warrant for to arres' Ma.s.sa Fairfax and Ma.s.sa Pine and Ma.s.sa Ma'sh for a-killin' dem men las' week; and I heah dem say dey gwine fer to gib dem trial, and if dey fight dey gwine done shoot 'em."

"That _is_ serious news, Pete," said I. "Who were talking?" But Pete, who was already frightened half to death, grew suddenly cautious.

"I don' jest rightly know, sah," he said sullenly. "I couldn't tell.

Jes' Ma.s.sa Mo'ton. He say he gwine sw'ar in good big posse."