by Bret Harte
CHAPTER I.
ONE HORSE GULCH.
It was a season of unexampled prosperity in One Horse Gulch. Even thedespondent original locator, who, in a fit of depressed alcoholism, hadgiven it that infelicitous title, would have admitted its injustice, butthat he fell a victim to the "craftily qualified" cups of San Franciscolong before the Gulch had become prosperous. "Hed Jim stuck to straightwhisky he might hev got his pile outer the very ledge whar his cabinstood," said a local critic. But Jim did not; after taking a thousanddollars from his claim, he had flown to San Franciscos, where,gorgeously arrayed, he had flitted from champagne to cognac, and fromgin to lager beer, until he brought his gilded and ephemeral existenceto a close in the country hospital.
Howbeit, One Horse Gulch survived not only its godfather, but thebaleful promise of its unhallowed christening. It had its Hotel and itsTemperance House, its Express office, its saloons, its two squares oflow wooden buildings in the main street, its clustering nests of cabinson the hill-sides, its freshly-hewn stumps, and its lately-cleared lots.Young in years, it still had its memories, experiences and antiquities.The first tent pitched by Jim White was still standing, the bullet holeswere yet to be seen in the shutters of the Cachucha saloon, where thegreat fight took place between Boston Joe, Harry Worth, and Thompson ofAngel's; from the upper loft of Watson's "Emporium" a beam stillprojected from which a year ago a noted citizen had been suspended,after an informal inquiry into the ownership of some mules that he wasfound possessed of. Near it was a small unpretentious square shed, wherethe famous caucus had met that had selected the delegates who chose thecelebrated and Honourable Blank to represent California in the councilsof the nation.
It was raining. Not in the usual direct, honest, perpendicular fashionof that mountain region, but only suggestively, and in a vague,uncertain sort of way, as if it might at any time prove to be fog ormist, and any money wagered upon it would be hazardous. It was rainingas much from below as above, and the lower limbs of the loungers whogathered around the square box stove that stood in Briggs's warehouse,exhaled a cloud of steam. The loungers in Briggs's were those who fromdeficiency of taste or the requisite capital avoided the gambling anddrinking saloons, and quietly appropriated biscuits from the convenientbarrel of the generous Briggs, or filled their pipes from his opentobacco canisters, with the general suggestion in their manner thattheir company fully compensated for any waste of his material.
They had been smoking silently--a silence only broken by the occasionalhiss of expectoration against the hot stove, when the door of a backroom opened softly, and Gabriel Conroy entered.
"How is he gettin' on, Gabe?" asked one of the loungers.
"So, so," said Gabriel. "You'll want to shift those bandages again," hesaid, turning to Briggs, "afore the doctor comes. I'd come back in anhour, but I've got to drop in and see how Steve's gettin' on, and it's amatter of two miles from home."
"But he says he won't let anybody tech him but you," said Mr. Briggs.
"I know he _says_ so," said Gabriel, soothingly; "but he'll get overthat. That's what Stimson sed when he was took worse, but he got overthat, and I never got to see him except in time to lay him out."
The justice of this was admitted even by Briggs, although evidentlydisappointed. Gabriel was walking to the door, when another voice fromthe stove stopped him.
"Oh, Gabe! you mind that emigrant family with the sick baby camped downthe gulch! Well, the baby up and died last night."
"I want to know," said Gabriel, with thoughtful gravity.
"Yes, and that woman's in a heap of trouble. Couldn't you kinder drop inin passing and look after things?"
"I will," said Gabriel thoughtfully.
"I thought you'd like to know it, and I thought she'd like me to tellyou," said the speaker, settling himself back again over the stove withthe air of a man who had just fulfilled, at great personal sacrifice andlabour, a work of supererogation.
"You're always thoughtful of other folks, Johnson," said Briggs,admiringly.
"Well, yes," said Johnson, with a modest serenity; "I allers allow thatmen in Californy ought to think of others besides themselves. A littlekeer and a little _sabe_ on my part, and there's that family in thegulch made comfortable with Gabe around 'em."
Meanwhile this homely inciter of the unselfish virtues of One HorseGulch had passed out into the rain and darkness. So conscientiously didhe fulfil his various obligations, that it was nearly one o'clock beforehe reached his rude hut on the hill-side, a rough cabin of pine logs, sounpretentious and wild in exterior as to be but a slight improvement onnature. The vines clambered unrestrainedly over the bark-thatched roof;the birds occupied the crevices of the walls, the squirrel ate hisacorns on the ridge pole without fear and without reproach.
Softly drawing the wooden peg that served as a bolt, Gabriel enteredwith that noiselessness and caution that were habitual to him. Lightinga candle by the embers of a dying fire, he carefully looked around him.The cabin was divided into two compartments by the aid of a canvasstretched between the walls, with a flap for the doorway. On a pinetable lay several garments apparently belonging to a girl of seven oreight--a frock grievously rent and torn, a frayed petticoat of whiteflannel already patched with material taken from a red shirt, and a pairof stockings so excessively and sincerely darned, as to have lost nearlyall of their original fabric in repeated bits of relief that coveredalmost the entire structure. Gabriel looked at these articles ruefully,and, slowly picking them up, examined each with the greatest gravity andconcern. Then he took off his coat and boots, and having in this waysettled himself into an easy dishabille, he took a box from the shelf,and proceeded to lay out thread and needles, when he was interrupted bya child's voice from behind the canvas screen.
"Is that you, Gabe?"--"Yes."
"Oh, Gabe, I got tired and went to bed."
"I see you did," said Gabriel drily, picking up a needle and thread thathad apparently been abandoned after a slight excursion into theneighbourhood of a rent and left hopelessly sticking in the petticoat.
"Yes, Gabe; they're so awfully old!"
"Old!" repeated Gabe, reproachfully. "Old! Lettin' on a little wear andtear, they're as good as they ever were. That petticoat is stronger,"said Gabriel, holding up the garment and eyeing the patches with aslight glow of artistic pride--"stronger, Olly, than the first day youput it on."
"But that's five years ago, Gabe."
"Well," said Gabriel, turning round and addressing himself impatientlyto the screen, "wot if it is?"
"And I've growed."
"Growed!" said Gabriel, scornfully. "And haven't I let out the tucks,and didn't I put three fingers of the best sacking around the waist?You'll just ruin me in clothes."
Olly laughed from behind the screen. Finding, however, no response fromthe grim worker, presently there appeared a curly head at the flap, andthen a slim little girl, in the scantiest of nightgowns, ran, and beganto nestle at his side, and to endeavour to enwrap herself in hiswaistcoat.
"Oh, go 'way!" said Gabriel, with a severe voice and the most shamelesssigns of relenting in his face. "Go away! What do you care? Here I mightslave myself to death to dress you in silks and satins, and you'd dipinto the first ditch or waltz through the first underbrush that you kemacross. You haven't got no _sabe_ in dress, Olly. It ain't ten days agoas I iron-bound and copper-fastened that dress, so to speak, and look atit now! Olly, look at it now!" And he held it up indignantly before themaiden.
Olly placed the top of her head against the breast of her brother as a_point d'appui_, and began to revolve around him as if she wished tobore a way into his inmost feelings.
"Oh, you ain't mad, Gabe!" she said, leaping first over one knee andthen over the other without lifting her head. "You ain't mad!"
Gabriel did not deign to reply, but continued mending the frayedpetticoat in dignified silence.
"Who did you see down town?" said Olly, not at all rebuffed.
"No one," said Gabriel, shortly.
"Yes," said Gabriel, "that Mexican's legs is better, but the baby'sdead. Jest remind me, to-morrow, to look through mother's things forsuthin' for that poor woman."
"Gabe, do you know what Mrs. Markle says of you?" said Olly, suddenlyraising her head.
"No," replied Gabriel, with an affectation of indifference that, likeall his affectations, was a perfect failure.
"She says," said Olly, "that you want to be looked after yourself more'nall these people. She says you're just throwing yourself away on otherfolks. She says I ought to have a woman to look after me."
Gabriel stopped his work, laid down the petticoat, and taking the curlyhead of Olly between his knees, with one hand beneath her chin and theother on the top of her head, turned her mischievous face towards his."Olly," he said, seriously, "when I got you outer the snow at StarvationCamp; when I toted you on my back for miles till we got into the valley;when we lay by thar for two weeks, and me a felling trees and picking upprovisions here and thar, in the wood or the river, wharever thar wasbird or fish, I reckon you got along as well--I won't say better--ez ifyou had a woman to look arter you. When at last we kem here to thiscamp, and I built this yer house, I don't think any woman could hev donebetter. If they could, I'm wrong, and Mrs. Markle's right."
Olly began to be uncomfortable. Then the quick instincts of her sex cameto her relief, and she archly assumed the aggressive.
"I think Mrs. Markle likes you, Gabe."
Gabriel looked down at the little figure in alarm. There are somesubjects whereof the youngest of womankind has an instinctive knowledgethat makes the wisest of us tremble.
"Go to bed, Olly," said the cowardly Gabriel.
But Olly wanted to sit up, so she changed the subject.
"The Mexican you're tendin' isn't a Mexican, he's a Chileno; Mrs. Marklesays so."
"Maybe; it's all the same. _I_ call him a Mexican. He talks toostraight, anyway," said Gabriel, indifferently.
"Did he ask you any more questions about--about old times?" continuedthe girl.
"Yes; he wanted to know everything that happened in Starvation Camp. Hewas rek'larly took with poor Gracie; asked a heap o' questions abouther--how she acted, and seemed to feel as bad as we did about neverhearing anything from her. I never met a man, Olly, afore, as seemed totake such an interest in other folks' sorrers as he did. You'd havetho't he'd been one of the party. And he made me tell him all about Dr.Devarges."
"And Philip?" queried Olly.
"No," said Gabriel, somewhat curtly.
"Gabriel," said Olly, sullenly, "I wish you didn't talk so to peopleabout those days."
"Why?" asked Gabriel, wonderingly.
"Because it ain't good to talk about. Gabriel dear," she continued, witha slight quivering of the upper lip, "sometimes I think the people roundyer look upon us sorter queer. That little boy that came here with theemigrant family wouldn't play with me, and Mrs. Markle's little girlsaid that we did dreadful things up there in the snow. He said I was acannon-ball."
"A what?" asked Gabriel.
"A cannon-ball! He said that you and I"----
"Hush," interrupted Gabriel, sternly, as an angry flush came into hissunburnt cheek, "I'll jest bust that boy if I see him round yer agin."
"But, Gabriel," persisted Olly, "nobody"----
"Will you go to bed, Olly, and not catch your death yer on this coldfloor asking ornery and perfectly ridickulus questions?" said Gabriel,briskly, lifting her to her feet. "Thet Markle girl ain't got no senseanyway--she's allers leading you round in ditches, ruinin' your bestclothes, and keepin' me up half the night mendin' on 'em."
Thus admonished, Olly retreated behind the canvas screen, and Gabrielresumed his needle and thread. But the thread became entangled, and wasoften snappishly broken, and Gabriel sewed imaginary, vindictivestitches in the imaginary calves of an imaginary youthful emigrant,until Olly's voice again broke the silence.
"Oh, Gabe!"
"Yes," said Gabriel, putting down his work despairingly.
"Do you think--that Philip--ate Grace?"
Gabriel rose swiftly, and disappeared behind the screen. As he did so,the door softly opened, and a man stepped into the cabin. The new-comercast a rapid glance around the dimly-lighted room, and then remainedmotionless in the doorway. From behind the screen came the sound ofvoices. The stranger hesitated, and then uttered a slight cough.
In an instant Gabriel reappeared. The look of angry concern at theintrusion turned to one of absolute stupefaction as he examined thestranger more attentively. The new-comer smiled faintly, yet politely,and then, with a slight halt in his step, moved towards a chair, intowhich he dropped with a deprecating gesture.
"I shall sit--and you shall pardon me. You have surprise! Yes? Five, sixhour ago you leave me very sick on a bed--where you are so kind--sogood. Yes? Ah? You see me here now, and you say crazy! Mad!"
He raised his right hand with the fingers upward, twirled them tosignify Gabriel's supposed idea of a whirling brain, and smiled again.
"Listen. Comes to me an hour ago a message most important. Mostnecessary it is I go to-night--now, to Marysville. You see. Yes? I riseand dress myself. Ha! I have great strength for the effort. I am better.But I say to myself, 'Victor, you shall first pay your respects to thegood Pike who have been so kind, so good. You shall press the hand ofthe noble grand miner who have recover you. _Bueno_, I am here!"
He extended a thin, nervous brown hand, and for the first time since hisentrance concentrated his keen black eyes, which had roved over theapartment and taken in its minutest details, upon his host. Gabriel,lost in bewilderment, could only gasp--"But you ain't well enough, youknow. You can't walk yet. You'll kill yourself!"
The stranger smiled.
"Yes?--you think--you think? Look now! Waits me, outside, the horse ofthe livery-stable man. How many miles you think to the stage town?Fifteen." (He emphasized them with his five uplifted fingers.) "It isnothing. Two hour comes the stage and I am there. Ha!"
Even as he spoke, with a gesture, as if brushing away all difficulties,his keen eyes were resting upon a little shelf above the chimney,whereon stood an old-fashioned daguerreotype case open. He rose, and,with a slight halting step and an expression of pain, limped across theroom to the shelf, and took up the daguerreotype.
"What have we?" he asked.
"It is Gracie," said Gabriel, brightening up. "Taken the day we startedfrom St. Jo."
"How long?"
"Six years ago. She was fourteen then," said Gabriel, taking the case inhis hand and brushing the glass fondly with his palm. "Thar warn't noputtier gal in all Missouri," he added, with fraternal pride, lookingdown upon the picture with moistened eyes. "Eh--what did you say?"
The stranger had uttered a few words hastily in a foreign tongue. Butthey were apparently complimentary, for when Gabriel looked up at himwith an inquiring glance, he was smiling and saying, "Beautiful!Angelic! Very pretty!" with eyes still fixed upon the picture. "And itis like--ah, I see the brother's face, too," he said, gravely, comparingGabriel's face with the picture. Gabriel looked pleased. Any nature lesssimple than his would have detected the polite fiction. In the square,honest face of the brother there was not the faintest suggestion of thedelicate, girlish, poetical oval before him.
"It is precious," said the stranger: "and it is all, ha?"
"All?" echoed Gabriel, inquiringly.
"You have nothing more?"
"No."
"A line of her writing, a letter, her private papers would be atreasure, eh?"
"She left nothing," said Gabriel, simply, "but her clothes. You know sheput on a boy's suit--Johnny's clothes--when she left. Thet's how itallus puzzles me thet they knew _who_ she was, when they came across thepoor child dead."
The stranger did not speak, and Gabriel went on--
"It was nigh on a month afor
e I got back. When I did, the snow was gone,and there warn't no track or trace of anybody. Then I heerd the story Itold ye--thet a relief party had found 'em all dead--and thet among thedead was Grace. How that poor child ever got back thar alone (for tharwarn't no trace or mention of the man she went away with) is what getsme. And that there's my trouble, Mr. Ramirez! To think of thet pootydarlin' climbing back to the old nest, and finding no one thar! To thinkof her coming back, as she allowed, to Olly and me, and findin' all herown blood gone, is suthin' thet, at times, drives me almost mad. Shedidn't die of starvation; she didn't die of cold. Her heart was broke,Mr. Ramirez; her little heart was broke!"
The stranger looked at him curiously, but did not speak. After amoment's pause, he lifted his bowed head from his hands, wiped his eyeswith Olly's flannel petticoat, and went on--
"For more than a year I tried to get sight o' that report. Then I triedto find the Mission or the Presidio that the relief party started from,and may be see some of that party. But then kem the gold excitement, andthe Americans took possession of the Missions and Presidios, and when Igot to San--San--San----"
"Geronimo," interrupted Ramirez, hastily.
"Did I tell?" asked Gabriel, simply; "I don't remember that."
Ramirez showed all his teeth in quick assent, and motioned him with hisfinger to go on.
"When I got to San Geronimo, there was nobody, and no records left. ThenI put a notiss in the San Francisco paper for Philip Ashley--that wasthe man as helped her away--to communicate with me. But thar weren't noanswer."
Ramirez rose.
"You are not rich, friend Gabriel?"
"No," said Gabriel.
"But you expect--ah--you expect?"
"Well, I reckon some day to make a strike like the rest."
"Anywhere, my friend?"
"Anywhere," repeated Gabriel, smiling.
"_Adios_," said the stranger, going to the door.
"_Adios_," repeated Gabriel. "Must you go to-night? What's your hurry?You're sure you feel better now?"
"Better?" answered Ramirez, with a singular smile. "Better! Look, I amso strong!"
He stretched out his arms, and expanded his chest, and walked erect tothe door.
"You have cured my rheumatism, friend Gabriel. Good night."
The door closed behind him. In another moment he was in the saddle, andspeeding so swiftly that, in spite of mud and darkness, in two hours hehad reached the mining town where the Wingdam and Sacramento stage-coachchanged horses. The next morning, while Olly and Gabriel were eatingbreakfast, Mr. Victor Ramirez stepped briskly from the stage that drewup at Marysville Hotel, and entered the hotel office. As the clerklooked up inquiringly, Mr. Ramirez handed him a card--
"Send that, if you please, to Miss Grace Conroy."