The Comstock Club Part 12

"When I had naught to give, except Some words of hope and trust; I bade him still have faith, for G.o.d Who rules above is just."

Then the grave angel smiled and moved Ajar the pearly gate And said: "O, soul! we welcome thee Unto this new estate.

"Enter! Nor sorrow more is thine, Nor grief; we know thy creed-- Thou who hast soothed thy fellowmen In hour of sorest need.

"Thou who hast watched thy brother's dust, When the wrung soul had fled; And to the stranger gave thy cloak, And to the orphan, bread.

"And when all else was gone, had still A word of kindly cheer For one more wretched than thyself, Thou, soul, art welcome here.

"Put on the robe thou gav'st away 'Tis stainless now and white; And all thy words and deeds are gems; Wear them, it is thy right!"

And then from choir and harp awoke A joyous, welcome strain, Which other harps and choirs took up, In jubilant refrain,

Till all the aisles of Summer Land Grew resonant, as beat The measures of that mighty song Of welcome, full and sweet.

"That is purty. I hope there were no mistake about the gintleman making the showing up above," said Corrigan.

"What lots of music there must be up in that country," chimed in Carlin.

"I wonder if there are any buildings any where on the back streets where new beginners practice."

"That represents the Hebrew idea of Heaven," said Alex. "I like that of the savage better, with hills and streams and glorious old woods. There is a dearer feeling of rest attached to it, and rest is what a life craves most after a buffet of three score years in this world."

"Rest is a pretty good thing after an eight-hours' wrestle with the gnomes down on a 2,300 level of the Comstock," said Miller; "suppose we say good night."

"Withdraw the motion for a moment, Miller," said Wright. "First, I move that our friends here be made honorary members of the Club."

It was carried by acclamation, and thereafter, for several nights, the three were present nightly.

CHAPTER IX.

When the Club rea.s.sembled Carlin, addressing the Colonel, said: "You told us of a royal old b.u.mmer last night, and Miller told us of an angel in miner's garb. Your stories reminded me of something which happened in Hamilton, in Eastern Nevada, in the early times, when the thermometer was at zero, when homes were homes and food was food. There was a royal fellow there, too, only he was not a miner, and though he lived upon the earnings of others, he never accepted charity. By profession he was a gambler, and not a very 'high-toned' gambler at that. He was known as 'Andy Flinn,' though it was said, for family reasons, he did not pa.s.s under his real name.

"Well, Andy had, in sporting parlance, been 'playing in the worst kind of luck' for a good while. One afternoon his whole estate was reduced to the sum of fifteen dollars. He counted it over in his room, slipped it back into his pocket and started up town. A little way from the lodging where he roomed he was met by a man who begged him to step into a house near by and see how dest.i.tute the inmates were.

"Andy mechanically followed the man, who led the way to a cabin, threw open the door and ushered Andy in. There was a man, the husband and father, ill in bed, while the wife and mother, a delicate woman, and two little children, were, in scanty garments, hovering around the ghost of a fire.

"Andy took one look, then rushed out of doors, the man who had led him into the cabin following. Andy walked rapidly away until out of hearing of the wretched people in the house, then swinging on his heel, for full two minutes hurled the most appalling anathemas at the man for leading him, as Andy expressed it, 'into the presence of those advance agents of a famine.'

"When he paused for breath the man said, quietly: 'I like that; I like to see you fellows, that take the world so carelessly and easily, stirred up occasionally.'

"'Easy!' said Andy; 'you had better try it. You think our work is easy; you are a mere child. We don't get half credit. I tell you to make a man an accomplished gambler requires more study than to acquire a learned profession; more labor than is needed to become a deft artisan. You talk like a fool. Easy, indeed!'

"'I don't care to discuss that point with you, Andy,' said the man. 'I expect you are right, but that is not the question. What are you, a big, strong, healthy fellow, going to do to help those poor wretches in the cabin yonder?'

"Andy plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the fifteen dollars and was just going to pa.s.s it over to the man when a thought struck him.

'Hold on,' he said; 'a man is an idiot that throws away his capital and then has to take his chances with the thieves that fill this camp. You come with me. I am going to try to take up a collection. By the way,' he said, shortly, 'do you ever pray?'

"The man answered that he did sometimes. 'Then,' said Andy, 'you put in your very biggest licks when I start my collection.'

"Not another word was said until they reached and entered a then famous saloon on Main street.

"Going to the rear where a faro game was in progress, Andy exchanged his fifteen dollars for chips and began to play. He never ceased; hardly looked up from the table for two hours. Sometimes he won and sometimes he lost, but the balance was on the winning side. Finally he ceased playing, gathered up his last stakes, and beckoning to the man who had come with him to the saloon, and who had watched his playing with lively interest, he led the way into the billiard room.

"Andy went to a window on one side of the room and began to search his pockets, piling all the money he could find on the sill of the window.

The money was all in gold and silver.

"When his pockets were emptied, with the quickness of men of his cla.s.s, he ran the amount over. Then taking from a billiard table a bit of chalk he, with labored strokes, wrote on the window sill the following:

hul sum $263 50 starter 15 00 ------- doo ter G.o.d $248 50

"He picked up a ten-dollar piece and a five-dollar piece from the amount, then pushing the rest along the sill away from the figures, asked the man to count it. He did so and said:

"'I make altogether $248.50, Andy.'

"'I suspect you are correct,' said Andy, 'and now you take that money and go and fix up those people as comfortably as you can. Tell 'em we took up a collection among the boys; don't say a word about it on the outside, and see here. If you ever again show me as horrible a sight as that crowd makes in that accursed den down the street, I'll break every bone in your body.'

"'But,' said the man, 'this is not right, Andy. It is too much. Fifty dollars would be a most generous contribution from you. Give me fifty dollars and you take back the rest.'

"'What do you take me for?' was Andy's reply. 'Don't you think I have any honor about me? When I went into that saloon I promised G.o.d that if He would stand in with me, His poor should have every cent that I could make in a two hours' deal. I would simply be a liar and a thief if I took a cent of that money. You praying cusses have not very clear ideas of right and wrong after all.'

"The man went on his errand of mercy, and Andy returned and invested his money in the bank again, as he said, 'to try to turn an honest penny.'"

"That was a right ginerous man," remarked Corrigan.

"May be and may be not," was the remark of the Colonel. "It is possible that he had been 'playing in bad luck,' as they say, for a good while and did it to change that luck. Confirmed gamesters never reason clearly on ordinary subjects. They are either up in the clouds or down in the depths; they are perpetually studying the doctrine of chances, and are as full of superst.i.tions as so many fortune tellers."

"That cla.s.s of men are proverbially generous, though," said Harding; "but the way they get their money, I suspect, has something to do with the matter. Had the man earned the money at four dollars a day, running a car down in a hot mine, he would hardly have given up the whole sum."

Here Miller took up the conversation. "I knew a man down in Amador county, California," said he, "who worked in a mine as we are working here, except that wages were $3.50 instead of $4.00 per day. He came there in the fall of the year and worked eight months. His clothes were always poor. He lived in a cabin by himself, and such miners as happened into his cabin at meal time declared their belief that his food did not cost half a dollar a day. He never joined the miners down town; was never known to treat to as much as a gla.s.s of beer. We all hated him cordially and looked upon him as a miner so avaricious that he was denying himself the common comforts of life. He was the talk of the mine, and many were the scornful words which he was made to hear and to know that they were uttered at his expense. Still he was quiet and resented nothing that was said, and there was no dispute about his being a most capable and faithful miner. At last one morning as the morning shift were waiting at the shaft to be lowered into the mine, Baxter (that was his name) appeared, and, after begging our attention for a moment, said:

"'Gentlemen, there is the dead body of an old man up in the cabin across from the trail. It will cost sixty dollars to bury it in a decent coffin. The undertaker will not trust me, but if twenty of you will put in three dollars each, I will pay you all when pay-day comes.'

"Then we questioned him, and it came out at last that Baxter had found the old man sick a few days after he came to work, and of his $3.50 per day had spent $3.00 in food, medicine and medical attendance upon the man, all through the long winter, and had moreover often watched with him twelve hours out of the twenty-four. It was not a child that something might be hoped for; there was no beautiful young girl about the place to be in love with. It was simply a death watch over a worn-out pauper. I thought then, I think still, it was as fine a thing as ever I saw.

"There were sixty of us on the mine. We put in ten dollars apiece, went to Baxter in a body, and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.

"With a smile, he answered: 'I thank you, but I cannot take it. I have wasted much money in my time. Now I feel as though I had a little on interest, and I shall get along first rate.'

"Talk about royalty, our Baxter was an Emperor."

"He did have something on interest," said Brewster. "Something for this world and the world to come."

"Did you ever hear about Jack Marshall's attempt to pay his debts by clerking in a store?" asked Savage. "Jack brought a good deal of coin here and opened a store. He did first rate for several months, and after awhile branched out into a larger business, which required a good many men. When everything was promising well a fire came and swept away the store and a flood destroyed the other property. There was just enough saved out of the wreck to pay the laborers.

"When all was settled up Jack had but forty-three dollars left and an orphan boy to take care of. Just then a man that Jack had known for a good while as a miner, came into town, and hearing of Jack's misfortunes, hunted him up and told him that he had given up mining and settled down to farming, and begged Jack to come and make his home with him until he had time to think over what was best to do. He further said that he had twelve acres of land cleared and under fence, with ditches all dug for irrigating the crop; that he had a yoke of oxen to plough the land; that his intention was to plant the whole twelve acres to potatoes; that a fair crop would yield him sixty tons, which, as potatoes then were four cents a pound, would bring him nearly $5,000 for the season. But he explained that he could not drive oxen, and more than that, it required two men to do the work, and as he had not much money and did not want to run in debt, his business in town was to find some steady man who could drive oxen, who would go with him and help him plant, tend, harvest and sell the crop on shares. The ranch was down on Carson River, not far from Fort Churchill.