by Bret Harte
than theyare at the settlement. They don't hesitate to call Bassett adead-beat, whatever Captain Jim says to the contrary."
The unfortunate Captain Jim had halted irresolutely before the gloomyfaces in the shelter. Whether he felt instinctively some forewarningof what was coming I cannot say. There was a certain dog-likeconsciousness in his eye and a half-backward glance over his shoulderas if he were not quite certain that Lacy was not following. The rainhad somewhat subdued his characteristic fluffiness, and he cowered witha kind of sleek storm-beaten despondency over the smoking fire of greenwood before our tent.
Nevertheless, Rowley opened upon him with a directness and decisionthat astonished us. He pointed out briefly that Lacy Bassett had beenknown to us only through Captain Jim's introduction. That he had beenoriginally invited there on Captain Jim's own account, and that hislater connection with the company had been wholly the result of CaptainJim's statements. That, far from being any aid or assistance to them,Bassett had beguiled them by apocryphal knowledge and sham scientifictheories into an expensive and gigantic piece of folly. That, inaddition to this, they had just discovered that he had also been usingthe credit of the company for his own individual expenses at thesettlement while they were working on his d--d fool shaft--all of whichhad brought them to the verge of bankruptcy. That, as a result, theywere forced now to demand his resignation--not only on their generalaccount, but for Captain Jim's sake--believing firmly, as they did,that he had been as grossly deceived in his friendship for Lacy Bassettas THEY were in their business relations with him.
Instead of being mollified by this, Captain Jim, to our greaterastonishment, suddenly turned upon the speaker, bristling with his oldcanine suggestion.
"There! I said so! Go on! I'd have sworn to it afore you opened yourlips. I knowed it the day you sneaked around and wanted to know wothis business was! I said to myself, Cap, look out for that sneakin'hound Rowley, he's no friend o' Lacy's. And the day Lacy so fardemeaned himself as to give ye that splendid explanation o' things, Iwatched ye; ye didn't think it, but I watched ye. Ye can't fool me! Isaw ye lookin' at Walker there, and I said to myself, Wot's the use,Lacy, wot's the use o' your slingin' them words to such as THEM? Wotdo THEY know? It's just their pure jealousy and ignorance. Ef you'dcome down yer, and lazed around with us and fallen into our commonways, you'd ha' been ez good a man ez the next. But no, it ain't yourstyle, Lacy, you're accustomed to high-toned men like Professor Parker,and you can't help showing it. No wonder you took to avoidin' us; nowonder I've had to foller you over the Burnt Wood Crossin' time andagain, to get to see ye. I see it all now: ye can't stand the kempanyI brought ye to! Ye had to wipe the slum gullion of Eureka Gulch offyour hands, Lacy"-- He stopped, gasped for breath, and then lifted hisvoice more savagely, "And now, what's this? Wot's this hogwash? thisyer lyin' slander about his gettin' things on the kempany's credit?Eh, speak up, some of ye!"
We were so utterly shocked and stupefied at the degradation of thissudden and unexpected outburst from a man usually so honorable, gentle,self-sacrificing, and forgiving, that we forgot the cause of it andcould only stare at each other. What was this cheap stranger, with hisshallow swindling tricks, to the ignoble change he had worked upon theman before us. Rowley and Walker, both fearless fighters and quick toresent an insult, only averted their saddened faces and turned asidewithout a word.
"Ye dussen't say it! Well, hark to me then," he continued with whiteand feverish lips. "I put him up to helpin' himself. I told him touse the kempany's name for credit. Ye kin put that down to ME. Andwhen ye talk of HIS resigning, I want ye to understand that I resignouter this rotten kempany and TAKE HIM WITH ME! Ef all the gold yerlookin' for was piled up in that shaft from its bottom in hell to itstop in the gulch, it ain't enough to keep me here away from him! Yekin take all my share--all MY rights yer above ground and below it--allI carry,"--he threw his buckskin purse and revolver on theground,--"and pay yourselves what you reckon you've lost through HIM.But you and me is quits from to-day."
He strode away before a restraining voice or hand could reach him. Hisdripping figure seemed to melt into the rain beneath the thickeningshadows of the pines, and the next moment he was gone. From that dayforward Eureka Gulch knew him no more. And the camp itself somehowmelted away during the rainy season, even as he had done.
II.
Three years had passed. The pioneer stage-coach was sweeping down thelong descent to the pastoral valley of Gilead, and I was lookingtowards the village with some pardonable interest and anxiety. For Icarried in my pocket my letters of promotion from the box seat of thecoach--where I had performed the functions of treasure messenger forthe Excelsior Express Company--to the resident agency of that companyin the bucolic hamlet before me. The few dusty right-angled streets,with their rigid and staringly new shops and dwellings, the sternformality of one or two obelisk-like meeting-house spires, theillimitable outlying plains of wheat and wild oats beyond, with theirmonotony scarcely broken by skeleton stockades, corrals, andbarrack-looking farm buildings, were all certainly unlike the unkemptfreedom of the mountain fastnesses in which I had lately lived andmoved. Yuba Bill, the driver, whose usual expression of humorousdiscontent deepened into scorn as he gathered up his reins as if tocharge the village and recklessly sweep it from his path, indicated ahuge, rambling, obtrusively glazed, and capital-lettered building witha contemptuous flick of his whip as we passed. "Ef you're kalkilatin'we'll get our partin' drink there you're mistaken. That's wot they calla TEMPERANCE HOUSE--wot means a place where the licker ye get underhandis only a trifle worse than the hash ye get above-board. I supposeit's part o' one o' the mysteries o' Providence that wharever you finda dusty hole like this--that's naturally THIRSTY--ye run agin a'temperance' house. But never YOU mind! I shouldn't wonder if tharwas a demijohn o' whiskey in the closet of your back office, kept tharby the feller you're relievin'--who was a white man and knew the ropes."
A few minutes later, when my brief installation was over, we DID findthe demijohn in the place indicated. As Yuba Bill wiped his mouth withthe back of his heavy buckskin glove, he turned to me not unkindly. "Idon't like to set ye agin Gile-ad, which is a scrip-too-rural place,and a God-fearin' place, and a nice dry place, and a place ez I'veheard tell whar they grow beans and pertatoes and garden sass; butafore three weeks is over, old pard, you'll be howlin' to get back onthat box seat with me, whar you uster sit, and be ready to take yourchances agin, like a little man, to get drilled through with buckshotfrom road agents. You hear me! I'll give you three weeks, sonny, justthree weeks, to get your butes full o' hayseed and straws in yer har;and I'll find ye wadin' the North Fork at high water to get out o'this." He shook my hand with grim tenderness, removing his glove--arare favor--to give me the pressure of his large, soft, protectingpalm, and strode away. The next moment he was shaking the white dustof Gilead from his scornful chariot-wheels.
In the hope of familiarizing myself with the local interests of thecommunity, I took up a copy of the "Gilead Guardian" which lay on mydesk, forgetting for the moment the usual custom of the country pressto displace local news for long editorials on foreign subjects andnational politics. I found, to my disappointment, that the "Guardian"exhibited more than the usual dearth of domestic intelligence, althoughit was singularly oracular on "The State of Europe," and "JeffersonianDemocracy." A certain cheap assurance, a copy-book dogmatism, acolloquial familiarity, even in the impersonal plural, and a series ofinaccuracies and blunders here and there, struck some old chord in mymemory. I was mutely wondering where and when I had become personallyfamiliar with rhetoric like that, when the door of the office openedand a man entered. I was surprised to recognize Captain Jim.
I had not seen him since he had indignantly left us, three yearsbefore, in Eureka Gulch. The circumstances of his defection werecertainly not conducive to any voluntary renewal of friendship oneither side; and although, even as a former member of the Eureka MiningCompany, I was not conscious of retaining any sens
e of injury, yet thewhole occurrence flashed back upon me with awkward distinctness. To myrelief, however, he greeted me with his old cordiality; to my amusementhe added to it a suggestion of the large forgiveness of consciousrectitude and amiable toleration. I thought, however, I detected, ashe glanced at the paper which was still in my hand and then back againat my face, the same uneasy canine resemblance I remembered of old. Hehad changed but little in appearance; perhaps he was a trifle stouter,more mature, and slower in his movements. If I may return to my canineillustration, his grayer, dustier, and more