Gold

by White, Stewart Edward

  “They say to us,” narrated Don Gaspar evenly, “that they wash much gold, and that they cannot take the time; and when I tell them our friend is dying, they laugh, and essay that we ought to be glad they come and essave our lives; and that we get along all right.”

  We did not believe this, though we could see no object in Don Gaspar’s deceiving us on the point. Three months had passed while we had been isolated in the valley of the Porcupine; and we had not yet been taught what a difference three months can make in a young country. In that time thousands had landed, and the diggings had filled. All the world had turned to California; its riffraff and offscourings as well as its true men. Australia had unloaded its ex-convicts, so that the term “Sydney duck” had become only too well known. The idyllic time of order and honesty and pleasant living with one’s fellow-men was over. But we were unaware of that; and, knowing the average generous-hearted miner, we listened to Don Gaspar with a certain surprised skepticism.

  “But I follow them,” said Don Gaspar, “and I offer them to pay; and after a while two of them come back with me, and we make a litter of branches with many blanket; and we carry Señor Yank down to the town. There is a town there now. And by good chance,” concluded Don Gaspar with a little show of quiet racial pride, “we find a California man and his wife, and they do their bes’ for Señor Yank, who is very essick, and I think he is now dead from the tramp of the horses. And we borrow the fresh horse and come back.”

  It was indeed, as I think of it, a wonderful ride in the darkness; but at the time my mind was full of our poor friend. The others, however, thought only of the gold.

  “We have left,” replied Don Gaspar to the rudely expressed shower of questions, “just the one half. It is well known to all that Señor Yank carried the most of the gold.”

  “Yes, and we have Munroe to thank for that,” snarled Missouri Jones.

  “As far at that is concerned, I was against sending out the gold from the very start,” I retorted. “If you’d listened to me, it would have all been safe right here.”

  “If we’d had a decently strong guard, we’d have been all right,” growled McNally.

  We all saw the futility of our first instinctive flare of suspicion. It was obvious that if Don Gaspar and Buck Barry had intended treachery they would never have returned to us. I think that, curiously enough, we were unreasonably a little sorry for this. It would have been satisfactory to have had something definite to antagonize. As it was, we sat humped around our fire until morning. For a long period we remained sullenly silent; then we would break into recriminations or into expressions of bitter or sarcastic dissatisfaction with the way things had been planned and carried out. Bagsby alone had the sense to turn in. We chewed the cud of bitter disappointment. Our work had been hard and continuous; we were, as I have pointed out, just ready for a reaction; and now this catastrophe arrived in the exact moment to throw us into the depths of genuine revulsion. We hated each other, and the work, and the valley of the Porcupine, and gold diggings, and California with a fine impartiality. The gray morning light found us sitting haggard, dejected, disgusted, and vindictive around the dying embers of our fire.

  *

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE BULLY

  With daylight we began to get a grip on ourselves a little. I felt strongly that I should see to Yank, and so announced. Johnny at once offered to accompany me. While we were talking over the future prospects, McNally came over to us, saying:

  “The boys are pretty well agreed that we ought to divide up what gold is left, and let each man take care of his own share. Are you agreeable?”

  We instantly assented. The scales were brought out, and the division began. It consumed most of the morning, and was productive of much squabbling, in which, however, we took no part. Our share, including Yank’s–with which we were intrusted–came to about thirty-one pounds: a value of about seven thousand dollars. We were impatient to be off, and now wanted nothing so much as to be done with the whole affair. Yank had ridden one of our horses; the other had been stolen in the Indian raid. We approached Don Gaspar, who had his own saddle horse and that of Vasquez, not to speak of the remaining pack-animals. To our surprise and delight he offered to accompany us; and Bagsby, too, decided to leave. McNally, Buck Barry, and Missouri Jones, however, could not be persuaded out of their intention of remaining to dig fresh gold; nor, I am afraid, were we very cordial in our insistence. We considered them foolhardy; but in our then mood we did not greatly care.

  By noon we had packed our goods, and by night we had broken the back of our return journey.

  We found a full-grown town where we had left a few tents and miners’ cabins. Its main street ran either side the deep dust of the immigrant trail, and consisted of the usual shanties, canvas shacks, and log structures, with rather more than the customary allowance of tin cans, old clothes, worn-out boots, and empty barrels kicking around. The diggings were in the gulch below the road; but the streets of the town, and especially the shady sides of the buildings, were numerously furnished with lounging men. Some of these were employees or owners of the gambling halls, saloons, and boarding-houses; but most were plain “loafers”–a class never wholly absent from any mining camp, men who washed just enough gold to keep themselves fed and pickled in drink. Many of them were evil-looking customers, in fact about as tough a lot as a man would care to see, unshaven generally, but not always, dirty, truculent and rough, insolent in manner. In our passage of the main street I saw just three decent looking people–one was evidently a gambler, one a beefy, red-faced individual who had something to do with one of the hotels, and the third was a tall man, past middle age, with a clean shaven, hawk face, a piercing, haughty, black eye, and iron gray hair. He was carefully and flawlessly dressed in a gray furred “plug” hat, tailed blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, trousers of the same shade, and a frilled shirt front. Immaculate down to within six inches or so of the ground, his nether garments and boots were coated thickly with the inevitable red dust. He strode slowly down the street, looking neither to right nor left.

  Don Gaspar led the way for a short distance along the wagon road. On the outskirts of the settlement he turned aside to a small log cabin supplemented by a brush lean-to. A long string of bright red peppers hung down the face of it. To our knock came a very fat, rather dirty, but exceedingly pleasant-faced woman with glossy black hair, parted smoothly, and soft black eyes. She opened the door only the fraction of an inch at first, but instantly recognized Don Gaspar, and threw it wide.

  To our great relief we found Yank very much alive. He greeted us rather feebly, but with satisfaction. We found that he had been kindly cared for, and that the surface wounds and bruises from the horses’ hoofs had been treated with some skill.

  “But I reckon I’m hurt some inside,” he whispered with difficulty, “for I can’t breathe easy; and I can’t eat nothin’ but soup. And my leg is hell.”

  The broken leg too had been bound up after a fashion, but it was badly swollen above and below the bandages.

  “He ought to have a doctor,” said I positively. “There’s no doubt of that. There must be some among the miners–there generally is. I’m going to see if I can find one.”

  I returned to town, and hunted up the beefy, red-faced hotel keeper, who had impressed me as being an honest man.

  “Yes, there’s a doctor,” said he, “a mighty good one. He went by here a little while ago. Name’s Dr. Rankin. I’ll rustle him out for you. Oh, you Pete!” he shouted into the interior of the building.

  A moment’s shuffling about preceded the appearance of a negro boy of twelve or fourteen.

  “Yes, sah.”

  “Go find Dr. Rankin and bring him here right away. Tell him a gentleman wants him.”

  “You’ve got a mighty sudden sort of camp here,” said I, as we settled ourselves to wait. “Three months ago I went through here, and there was practically nothing.”

  “Looks to be a thousand y
ears, though,” agreed the hotel man. “Where you been?”

  “Oh, just prospecting,” I replied vaguely.

  “Strike it?”

  “Just fair,” I evaded; “not rich enough to keep me from coming back, you see. Any finds here?”

  “The diggings are rich as mud,” replied the hotel man dispassionately. “It’s a prosperous camp all right.”

  “You don’t ’wash’ yourself?” I asked.

  “Not I! I make more than my ‘ounce a day’ right here.” He jerked his thumb at his hotel.

  “A good many ‘loafers,’” I suggested.

  He looked at me steadily, hesitated for a moment, then evidently changed his mind.

  “Quite a few,” he agreed.

  At this moment the negro boy appeared, closely followed by the man with the blue coat and white beaver hat whom I had taken for an eccentric gambler. This man walked slowly up to face me.

  “Well, sir?” he demanded. “I am told I can be of service. In what way?”

  His piercing black eye held mine with a certain high arrogance.

  “Professionally, doctor,” I replied. “A friend of mine is lying badly hurt in a nearby hut.”

  For a barely appreciable instant his eye held mine after I had ceased speaking, as though he was appraising me. Then he bowed with old-fashioned courtesy.

  “At your service, sir,” said he. “Pete, you black rascal, get my bag, and get it quick.”

  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 passed 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 butt 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 Moreñas, 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 assisted 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 exten
sive, 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.