The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories

by Various Writers

  The puncher smiled faintly as Hawley, running to them, helped him toward his hotel. “Th’ bone is plumb smashed. I reckon I’ll hop along through life. It’ll be hop along, Cassidy, for me, all right. That’s my name, all right. Huh! Hopalong Cassidy! But I didn’t hop into h—l, did I, Harris?” he grinned bravely.

  * * * *

  And thus was born a nickname that found honor and fame in the cow-country—a name that stood for loyalty, courage and most amazing gun-play. I have Red’s word for this, and the endorsement of those who knew him at the time. And from this on, up to the time he died, and after, we will know him and speak of him as Hopalong Cassidy, a cow-puncher.

  DEMONS OF DISASTER, by Johnston McCulley

  Squatting on his heels beside the fire in front of the small log cabin, old Lee Chung ate gobs of rice and chunks of boiled pork with his chopsticks. His cousin, Wong Chin, a younger Oriental, sat on the opposite side of the fire and ate also.

  The brilliant sunset had died in the western sky, and dusk was descending into the rocky canyon through which the tumbling whitewater creek rushed to empty into the Yuba River. The firelight played over the faces of the two men as they devoured their evening meal.

  Wong Chin was watching old Lee Chung’s countenance carefully, hoping to read therein some inkling of what Lee Chung was thinking, what he intended doing about the situation that confronted them, and hoping it would not be something he would dislike.

  For there was an important problem to be solved. The demons of disaster had been visiting this modest gold-seekers’ camp on the bank of the creek again. So it followed that the gods were displeased about something, and Lee and Wong should do whatever would appease them and gain their favor.

  What did it profit them to work from daylight until dusk each day and wash out gold-dust and nuggets if evil men came and robbed their sluice boxes and took the rewards of their toil? And once the masked visitors had even located the poke which Lee Chung believed he had hidden so cunningly, and had taken that.

  Wong Chin wished half a hundred times a day that he had remained in the thriving city of San Francisco instead of coming out here to this lonesome rocky canyon on the Yuba river to help his elderly kinsman on the claim.

  A Chinese could make good money in San Francisco washing shirts for miners and gamblers, and many of their own kind lived there. They could play fantan and dominoes together, and with the frantic gold-rushers coming to the diggings on every ship there was always amusing activity.

  Lee Chung again silently filled his bowl with rice and boiled pork from the big pot over the cooking fire, grasped his chopsticks, and looked across at Wong Chin.

  “There must be a swift end to it!” he declared. “We have suffered more than our proper share at the hands of the thieves. The gods must be appeased so they will grant us a season of good fortune.”

  Wong Chin began jabbering in his native tongue, but his elderly cousin halted him with a gesture.

  “You will spleak Melican,” Lee ordered. “Must learn language well.” Then he dropped into his native tongue himself. “I have considered our problem. The demons of disaster are preying upon us. They must be driven away, so we may profit in peace from our hard toil.”

  Wong Chin nodded his head vigorously in agreement.

  “A low thief stole our poke,” Lee continued. “Three times our sluice boxes have been robbed of gold. One time a masked man held a flaming stick to my naked toes to make me tell where our dust and nuggets were hidden. It is too much!”

  Wong nodded in agreement again, so vigorously this time that his queue, which had been wrapped around his head, became undone and slapped him in his face.

  “A certain amount of trouble and adversity is good for a man, but we have had too much,” Lee announced. “So, I have made a decision. At dawn tomorrow you will start for Saclamento.”

  Wong Chin’s slant eyes opened a bit wider than usual at that and he sat erect, but otherwise did not reveal he had been startled. So he was to journey to Sacramento! Next to San Francisco, he liked Sacramento best. He had several cousins there, younger than Lee Chung.

  “You will go to the joss house and see the priest,” Lee instructed. “You will burn many punk sticks in front of the joss. You will get plenty of sacred firecrackers which have been blessed by priest, and you will return here swiftly. We will shoot off sacred firecrackers and frighten away the demons of disaster.”

  Wong Chin thought that would be an excellent idea, especially since it would give him a trip to Sacramento. It was the proper thing to do under the circumstances.

  He would go to Sacramento and see the head priest at the joss house, burn punk sticks before the sacred joss, make a suitable donation, get the blessed firecrackers and return at top speed.

  Then he and his elderly cousin would shoot the loud firecrackers a string at a time and make a terrific din. The demons of disaster would be frightened and driven out of the canyon, out of the Yuba River district, and bother them no more.

  Now that everything was planned, Wong Chin gave his attention to the meal. He filled his bowl from the pot again and ate ravenously, his mind on the forthcoming journey.

  A loud “hee-haw” made him jerk and almost drop chopsticks and bowl.

  “It is the devil animal belonging to the men up the gulch,” Lee said. “You encourage him, my cousin. His evil master, known to men as Chuck Gardon, is the chief of the sluice robbers, I believe.”

  A burro ambled into the circle of firelight and stood waiting with his head extended. He was a shaggy beast, generally docile, but known to have a fit of energy at times, especially when frightened. He made a habit of coming down the canyon and stopping at the cabin, for Wong had made the mistake once of giving him sugar. “It is good to be kind to animals,” Wong said.

  He got up and hurried into the cabin, and returned with a handful of sugar. The burro licked the sugar from his hand, voiced his thanks, and walked around the fire to return up the canyon.

  “It is a waste,” Lee complained. “Feeding good sugar to a donkey. You must learn thrift, my cousin. Go now, and stretch on your pallet, for you must rest and be up before dawn to start your journey. I’ll have a package of cold food ready for you.”

  It was just at dawn when Wong Chin bobbed his head in farewell to Lee Chung and left the cabin to hurry down the canyon beside the tumbling stream. Hidden on his person was a tiny poke containing a couple of pinches of gold dust for his traveling expenses.

  He carried the package of cold food Lee had prepared. And he wore his oldest and most comfortable sandals, which gave with every movement of his feet and helped him cling safely to the surfaces of slippery rocks.

  Where the tumbling creek emerged from the canyon and emptied into the Yuba River, Wong came upon a comfortable cabin. A man was working at the edge of the stream, and a girl stood in the cabin doorway.

  Eli Madison, a kind middle-aged man, was the owner of this claim. The Chinese in the district liked him because he was honest and fair in his dealings. His wife had died of a fever in Sacramento the year before, and he had brought his daughter Elsie, only twenty, to the claim with him.

  Wong Chin bobbed his head in greeting, and Madison stopped shoveling gravel to talk.

  “Making a trip to Marysville?” Madison asked.

  “Me glo all way to Saclamento,” Wong explained, proudly. “Glet back soon as can.”

  “I’ll walk up the creek and visit Lee while yuh’ve gone,” Madison promised. “I want to tell him that I’ve sent word to Marysville to the Vigilantes. We’ve had more’n enough of sluice box robbers around here. I shot at a couple the other night, but missed ’em.”

  Wong bobbed his head to show that he understood, and drew in his breath sharply to indicate that he was sorry Madison had missed.

  “The Vigilantes have a pretty good idea about who’s doin’ the sluice box thievin’ around here,” Madison continued. “Chuck Gardon and the two men who live with him up the gulch above yore claim. They don�
��t do much work on their property, but they always seem to have plenty of dust to spend.”

  Wong bobbed his head in agreement. He and Lee Chung had suspected Gardon and his friends.

  ELSIE MADISON called to him from the doorway, and he bowed to her and looked at Madison questioningly.

  “She’s made some cookies,” Madison told him, laughing. “Wants to try ’em out on yuh. Go get some.”

  Wong hurried to the cabin. Elsie Madison handed him a small paper bag filled with cookies, and he muttered his thanks and bowed again and hurried away. All this ceremony was delaying him, he thought. But the cookies were welcome.

  He hurried on down the creek and turned into the trail which ran along the bank of the Yuba to Marysville. He dog-trotted at times where the trail was smooth, and covered the miles easily and without much fatigue. At times, he slowed down and munched cookies.

  It was dusk when he reached Marysville, and lights were burning in the shacks and business establishments. Wong sought out one of his own kind he knew, had a meal, and arranged for a pallet upon which to sleep. Then he went down to the principal street.

  Nobody gave him special attention, for pigtailed Chinese were not strangers in the district. He shuffled along, keeping his eyes and ears open. He heard bearded miners talking about the sluice box robberies, and of the dreaded Vigilantes, and once he came to where men were reading a freshly painted sign which had been nailed to the side of a store building.

  Wong listened as a man read it aloud:

  NOTICE! We have good idea regarding the identities of the sluice box robbers in this district. One more theft, and the guilty men will receive what they deserve. If they are wise, they will leave these diggings immediately. The Committee.

  “Well, it’s about time the Vigilantes got after ’em!” a miner standing near Wong said. “If them thieves ain’t stopped now, no sluice box along the Yuba will be safe. String ’em up, I say!”

  Wong thought that was a good idea. He remembered how Lee Chung’s feet had been blistered by a flaming stick. And he knew that all men feared the Vigilantes. Perhaps this warning would stop the thieves, he thought.

  He slept at his friend’s house and at dawn hastened on, making his way as rapidly as possible toward Sacramento. When he reached his destination, he located some of his cousins and told them of his errand. He rested for a time, ate, then went to the joss house.

  Following Lee Chung’s orders carefully, Wong burned many punk sticks as he kowtowed humbly before the joss. He gave the head priest a pinch of gold dust and told him of his desire.

  “Evil men should be undone,” the priest declared, after Wong had finished his recital. “It is a terrible crime to steal. I shall bless many strings of firecrackers, and you shall carry them back and explode them and frighten away the demons of disaster. Then peace will come to your mining claim, and you can enjoy the fruits of your toil.”

  Fatigued from his journey, Wong spent two days and nights with his cousins in Sacramento, marveling at the manner in which the town was growing, and eating much rice and pork. He was a guest, and did not have to pay for it.

  Then he began his homeward trip, the firecrackers safe in a bundle wrapped carefully in waterproof silk, which he hung around his neck and carried on his back. He was eager to get home. Fired in the narrow rocky canyon, he knew, the firecrackers would make a loud noise and frighten the demons of disaster so they would never bother around the canyon again.

  In time, he came once more to Marysville, and decided to rest there during the afternoon and night. He visited his friends again, and found them excited.

  “Great news came to us yesterday,” they told Wong. “There has been a great strike of gold on the Yuba River, just above where your creek empties into the larger stream. The man Madison has found many rich pockets and will be a person of wealth. And the report said also that your cousin and ours, Lee Chung, washed gravel in a new place on your own claim and is now a man of much wealth also.”

  “Lee Chung and I share alike,” Wong told them, trying to keep an expression of happiness out of his face. It was not proper to flaunt his good fortune in the faces of those less fortunate.

  “We are your cousins,” one of them reminded him. “You must come to Marysville again soon, and perhaps bring us gifts to show that you are truly thankful for the good fortune the gods have given you.”

  Wong finally managed to get away from them, and hurried down to the crowded street to watch and listen. Men were outfitting feverishly to go to the scene of the new strike. Claims were being staked far up the Yuba, they were saying.

  “There’s a bunch of Chinese in the little canyon,” Wong heard one man say. “We can stake claims above ’em. We won’t bother ’em any. It’s bad luck to bother a Chinese.”

  Wong shuffled on, watching and listening, and trying to gather information. So he came, presently, to the rear of a large building which held the town’s biggest saloon and gambling hall. The windows were open, and the roar of the rollicking crowd rolled out.

  Wong stepped up close to one of the windows to peer in at the scene. He heard two men talking only a few feet away, as they sat across a table from each other, a bottle and glasses before them.

  Wong knew one of them by sight. He was “Chuck” Gardon, who had a claim above Lee’s and was suspected of being the leader of the sluice box robbers. The second man was thick in body and heavily bearded, and Wong decided he had mean eyes.

  “You don’t own the country, Gardon,” this man was saying.

  “I ain’t claimin’ I do,” Chuck Gardon replied. “I’m sayin’ that I was playin’ the Yuba River diggin’s first. Why can’t yuh stay over on the American River and work there?”

  “Because the pickin’s are gettin’ better over on the Yuba,” the other man replied. “And it got too hot for us over on the American.”

  “It’s goin’ to get hot here, too, Knowles,” Chuck Gardon replied. “The cussed Vigilantes are startin’ to get busy and fuss around, and yuh know what that’ll mean. I’m fixin’ to make one more big haul and go down to Frisco. This new strike—there ought to be some fat pokes to pick up if a man acts quick.”

  “I’ve got the same idea, Gardon.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m warnin’ yuh, Knowles, to keep away from the Yuba district, ’specially where I’ve been workin’ with my two men. That man Madison belongs to me. I happen to know that he’s the feller who sent for the Vigilantes. I want his gold and his hide, both. And that pair of Chinese in the canyon—they’re my meat, too.”

  “Not unless yuh can get to ’em before I do,” the other man told him.

  Wong heard somebody approaching, so had to move on swiftly and silently to avoid being caught listening at the window, and possibly getting a stiff cuff on the side of his head.

  He understood that Chuck Gardon was preparing to steal again, and that the other man was of the same sort. Lee Chung and Madison would be at the mercy of them both, unless Wong hurried with the sacred firecrackers and drove the demons of disaster away.

  He entered a shop and bought a few cheap presents with a tiny pinch of gold dust and took them to his friends. Later, he stretched himself on a pallet to rest, but did not sleep.

  When all his friends were asleep, Wong slipped out of the shack, put on his sandals, fixed his pack, and was ready to start for home. As he neared the street, he heard a tumult. Men were shouting and running toward the big saloon and gambling hall.

  “Chuck Gardon and Bart Knowles are fightin’!” he heard somebody yell.

  Wong got in the fringe of the crowd to watch. Gardon and Knowles were in the street, slugging it out. The crowd was cheering them on. They seemed about evenly matched, until Gardon picked up a bottle somebody had thrown out of the saloon, and crashed it down on Knowles’ head.

  Knowles collapsed, and men rushed in to end the battle. Gardon and his two men got through the crowd and started up the street. Unobserved, Wong followed them and saw them enter a shack.

 
; He felt he had an interest in this and that it would not be wrong to play eavesdropper, especially since these men were evil. He got on the dark side of the shack and listened beneath a window.

  One of the men was bathing Gardon’s cut and bruised face, and the other was opening a box of salve. Gardon was raging.

  “I’ll get Knowles if we ever meet again!” he threatened. “This country ain’t big enough to hold us both! But first we’ll make our haul. We’ll slip out of town before daylight. You boys get everything ready. We’ll beat Knowles to it. We’ll travel fast and hit hard, then go over the hills and make for Frisco. The game’s played out here.”

  “If Knowles is able to travel in the mornin’, he’ll be startin’ up there with his men,” one of Gardon’s companions said. “He’s got three men, I happen to know.”

  “We’ll beat him to it, I said. Neither of us can make a haul till tomorrer night. We’ll make our plans while we’re gettin’ to the canyon.”

  Wong understood all that. And he was eager to learn the plans so he could warn Lee Chung and Eli Madison. He decided he would wait and trail the trio when they left the town.

  He went ahead and waited outside the town, hiding behind some brush. Before daylight, Gardon and his two men appeared, walking at a steady pace. They passed Wong, who trailed at a distance, keeping to the shadows. His sandals made no sound when he walked, and besides the wind was blowing toward him.

  At a spot where the trail was almost obscured by shadows, Wong got closer, for the wind was carrying their talk to him. Gardon led the way off the trail and up a ravine.