Gold

by Stewart Edward White

  CHAPTER XLI

  WE GO OUT

  We made our way out of the hills without adventure worth noting. Theroad was muddy, and a good deal washed. In fact, we had occasionally todo considerable manoeuvring to find a way at all around the landslidesfrom the hills above.

  As we descended we came upon traces of the great exodus that was takingplace from the hills. All the miners were moving out. We found discardedarticles of camp equipment; we passed some people without any equipmentat all. Sick men lay under bushes without covering, or staggeredpainfully down the muddy trails. Many were utterly without food. If itrained, as it did from frequent showers, they took it as cheerfully asthey could. This army of the unsuccessful was a striking commentary onthe luck of the mines.

  Robbers most singularly lacked. I did not hear of a single case ofviolence in all the rather slow journey out. The explanation did notseem difficult, however. Those who travelled alone had nothing worth thetaking; while those who possessed gold went in numbers too strong to beattacked. The road agents had gone straight to the larger cities. Nor,must I confess, did I see many examples of compassion to theunfortunate. In spite of the sentimental stories that have beentold--with real enough basis in isolated fact, probably--the time wasselfish. It was also, after eliminating the desperadoes and blacklegs,essentially honest. Thus one day we came upon a wagon apparentlydeserted by the roadside. On it was a rudely scrawled sign:

  "_Will some kind person stay by my wagon. I am in distress looking formy oxen. Please do not take anything, for I am poor, and the property isnot mine._"

  Nothing had been touched, as near as I could make out. We travelled byeasy stages, and by a roundabout route, both because the road was bad,and because we wanted to see the country. On our way we passed severalother small camps. A great many Chinese had come in, and were engaged inscratching over the abandoned claims. In fact, one man told me thatsometimes it was worth while to file on some of the abandoned claimsjust to sell them to these patient people! As we descended from themountains we naturally came upon more and more worked-out claims. Somehad evidently been abandoned in disgust by men with little stamina; but,sometimes, with a considerable humour. An effigy clad in regulationgambler's rig, including the white shirt, swayed and swung slowly abovethe merest surface diggings. Across the shirt front these words werewritten:

  "_My claim failed!_"

  And then below them:

  "_Oh, Susannah! don't you cry for me! I'm a-living dead in Californi-ee_"--which was very bad as doggerel, but probably very accurate as to itsauthor's state of mind.

  One afternoon we turned off on a trail known to Old, and rode a fewmiles to where the Pine family had made its farm. We found the old manand his tall sons inhabiting a large two-roomed cabin situated on aflat. They had already surrounded a field with a fence made of splitpickets and rails, and were working away with the tireless energy of theborn axemen at enclosing still more. Their horses had been turned intoploughing; and from somewhere or other they had procured a cock and adozen hens. Of these they were inordinately proud, and they took greatpains to herd them in every night away from wildcats and other beasts.We stayed with them four days, and we had a fine time. Every man of themwas keenly interested in the development of the valley and the discoveryof its possibilities. We discussed apples, barley, peaches, apricots,ditches, irrigation, beans, hogs, and a hundred kindred topics, toJohnny's vast disgust. I had been raised on a New England farm; Yank hadexperienced agricultural vicissitudes in the new country west of theAlleghanies; and the Pines had scratched the surface of the earth inmany localities. But this was a new climate and a new soil to all of us;and we had nothing to guide us. The subject was fascinating. Johnny wasfrankly bored with it all, but managed to have a good time hunting forthe game with which the country abounded.

  For a brief period Yank and I quite envied the lot of these pioneers whohad a settled stake in the country.

  "I wish I could go in for this sort of thing," said Yank.

  "Why don't you?" urged old man Pine. "There's a flat just above us."

  "How did you get hold of this land?" I inquired curiously.

  "Just took it".

  "Doesn't it belong to anybody?"

  "It's part of one of these big Greaser ranchos," said Pine impatiently."I made a good try to git to the bottom of it. One fellar says he ownsit, and will sell; then comes another that says _he_ owns it andwon't sell. And so on. They don't nohow use this country, except a fewcattle comes through once in a while. I got tired of monkeying with themand I came out here and squatted. If I owe anybody anything, they got toshow me who it is. I don't believe none of them knows themselves who itreally belongs to."

  "I'd hate to put a lot of work into a place, and then have to move out,"said I doubtfully.

  "I'd like to see anybody move me out!" observed old man Pine grimly.

  Farther up in the hills they were putting together the framework of asawmill, working on it at odd times when the ranch itself did not demandattention. It was built of massive hewn timbers, raised into place withgreat difficulty. They had no machinery as yet, but would get that laterout of their first farming profits.

  "There ain't no hurry about it anyway," explained Pine, "for as yetthere ain't no demand for lumber yereabouts."

  "I should say not!" exploded Johnny with a derisive shriek of laughter,"unless you're going to sell it to the elks and coyotes!"

  Pine turned toward him seriously.

  "This is all good land yere," said he, "and they'll want lumber."

  "It looks mighty good to me," said Yank.

  "Well, why don't you settle?" urged Pine.

  "And me with fifteen hundred good dollars?" replied Yank. "It ain't suchan everlasting fortune; but it'll git me a place back home; and I've hadmy fun. This country is too far off. I'm going back home."

  To this sentiment Johnny and I heartily agreed. It is a curious factthat not one man in ten thousand even contemplated the possibility ofmaking California his permanent home. It was a place in which to get asrich as he could, and then to leave.

  Nevertheless we left our backwoods friends reluctantly; and at the topof the hill we stopped our two horses to look back on the valley. Itlay, with its brown, freshly upturned earth, its scattered broad oaks,its low wood-crowned knolls, as though asleep in the shimmering warmfloods of golden sunshine. Through the still air we heard plainly thebeat of an axe, and the low, drowsy clucking of hens. A peaceful andgrateful feeling of settled permanence, to which the restless temporarylife of mining camps had long left us strangers, filled us with thevague stirrings of envy.

  The feeling soon passed. We marched cheerfully away, our hopes busy withwhat we would do when we reached New York. Johnny and I had accumulatedvery fair sums of money, in spite of our loss at the hands of therobbers, what with the takings at Hangman's Gulch, what was left fromthe robbery, and Italian Bar. These sums did not constitute an enormousfortune, to be sure. There was nothing spectacular in our winnings; butthey totalled about five times the amount we could have made at home;and they represented a very fair little stake with which to start life.We were young.

  We found Sacramento under water. A sluggish, brown flood filled the townand spread far abroad over the flat countryside. Men were living in thesecond stories of such buildings as possessed second stories, and on theroofs of others. They were paddling about in all sorts of improvisedboats and rafts. I saw one man keeping a precarious equilibrium in abaker's trough; and another sprawled out face down on an India rubberbed paddling overside with his hands.

  We viewed these things from the thwarts of a boat which we hired for tendollars. Our horses we had left outside of town on the highlands.Everywhere we passed men and shouted to them a cheery greeting.Everybody seemed optimistic and inclined to believe that the flood wouldsoon go down.

  "Anyway, she's killed the rats," one man shouted in answer to our call.

  We grinned an appreciation of what we thought merely a facetious reply.Rats had not ye
t penetrated to the mines, so we did not know anythingabout them. Next day, in San Francisco, we began to apprehend the man'sremark.

  Thus we rowed cheerfully about, having a good time at the other fellow'sexpense. Suddenly Johnny, who was steering, dropped his paddle with anexclamation. Yank and I turned to see what had so struck him. Beyond thetrees that marked where the bank of the river ought to be we saw twotall smokestacks belching forth a great volume of black smoke.

  "A steamer!" cried Yank.

  "Yes, and a good big one!" I added.

  We lay to our oars and soon drew alongside. She proved to be a sidewheeler, of fully seven hundred tons, exactly like the craft we hadoften seen plying the Hudson.

  "Now how do you suppose they got her out here?" I marvelled.

  She was almost completely surrounded by craft of all descriptions; herdecks were crowded. We read the name _McKim_ on her paddle boxes.

  A man with an official cap appeared at the rail.

  "Bound for San Francisco?" I called to him.

  "Off in two minutes," he replied.

  "What's the fare?"

  "Forty dollars."

  "Come on, boys," said I to my comrades, at the same time seizing adangling rope.

  "Hold on!" cried Yank. "How about our two horses and our blankets, andthis boat?"

  I cast my eye around, and discovered a boy of fourteen or fifteen in thestern of a neat fisherman's dory a few feet away.

  "Here!" I called to him. "Do you want two good horses and someblankets?"

  "I ain't got any money."

  "Don't need any. These are free. We're going down on this boat. You'llfind the outfit under the big white oak two miles above the forks on theAmerican. They're yours if you'll go get them."

  "What do you want me to do?" he demanded suspiciously.

  "Two things: return this boat to its owner--a man named Lilly wholives----"

  "I know the boat," the boy interrupted.

  "The other is to be sure to go up to-day after those horses. They'repicketed out."

  "All right," agreed the boy, whose enthusiasm kindled as his belief inthe genuineness of the offer was assured.

  I seized a rope, swung myself up to the flat fender, and thence to thedeck.

  "Come on!" I called to Yank and Johnny, who were hesitating. "It'll costmore than those horses and blankets are worth to wait."

  Thereupon they followed me. The boy made fast our boat to his own. Fiveminutes later we were dropping down the river.

  "This is what I call real luxury," said Johnny, returning from aninspection of our craft. "There's a barroom, and a gambling layout, andvelvet carpets and chairs, mirrors, a minstrel show, and all thefixings. Now who'd expect to run against a layout like this on theriver?"

  "What I'd like to know is how they got her out here," said I. "Look ather! She's a river boat. A six-foot wave ought to swamp her!"

  We thought of a half dozen solutions, and dismissed them all. Thediscussion, however, served its purpose in inflaming our curiosity.

  "I'm going to find some one who knows," I announced at last.

  This was not so easy. The captain was of course remote and haughty andinaccessible, and the other officers were too busy handling the ship andthe swarming rough crowd to pay any attention to us. The crew were newhands. Finally, however, we found in the engine room a hard bittenindividual with a short pipe and some leisure. To him we proffered ourquestion.

  "Sailed her," said he.

  "Around the Horn?" I cried.

  He looked at me a bitter instant.

  "The sailing wasn't very good across the plains, _at that time_,"said he.

  Little by little we got his story. I am not a seafaring man, but itseems to me one of the most extraordinary feats of which I have everheard. The lower decks of the _McKim_ had been boarded up withheavy planks; some of her frailer gimcracks of superstructure had beendismantled, and then she had been sent under her own power on the longjourney around the Horn. Think of it! A smooth-water river boat, lightdraught, top heavy, frail in construction, sent out to battle with themight of three oceans! However, she made it; and after her her sistership, the _Senator_, and they made money for their owners, and I amglad of it. That certainly was a gallant enterprise!

  She was on this trip jammed full of people, mostly those returning fromthe mines. A trip on the _McKim_ implied a certain amount ofprosperity, so we were a jolly lot. The weather was fine, and a brightmoon illuminated the swollen river. We had drinkers, songsters,debaters, gamblers, jokers, and a few inclined to be quarrelsome, all ofwhich added to the variety of the occasion. I wandered around from onegroup to another, thoroughly enjoying myself, both out on deck and inthe cabins. It might be added that there were no sleepers!

  Along toward midnight, as I was leaning on the rail forward watching theeffect of the moon on the water and the shower of sparks from the twinstacks against the sky, I was suddenly startled by the cry of "manoverboard," and a rush toward the stern. I followed as quickly as I wasable. The paddle wheels had been instantly reversed, and a half dozensailors were busily lowering a boat. A crowd of men, alarmed by thetrembling of the vessel as her way was checked, poured out from thecabins. The fact that I was already on deck gave me an advantageouspost; so that I found myself near the stern rail.

  "He was leaning against the rail," one was explaining excitedly, "and itgive way, and in he went. He never came up!"

  Everybody was watching eagerly the moonlit expanse of the river.

  "I guess he's a goner," said a man after a few moments. "He ain't insight nowhere."

  "There he is!" cried a half dozen voices all at once.

  A head shot into sight a few hundred yards astern, blowing the silveredwater aside. The small boat, which was now afloat, immediately headed inhis direction, and a moment later he was hauled aboard amid franticcheers. The dripping victim of the accident clambered to the deck.

  It was Johnny!

  He was beside himself with excitement, sputtering with rage and utteringfrantic threats against something or somebody. His eyes were wild, andhe fairly frothed at the mouth. I seized him by the arm. He stared atme, then became coherent, though he still spluttered. Johnny washabitually so quietly reserved as far as emotions go that his presentexcitement was at first utterly incomprehensible.

  It seemed that he had been leaning against the rail, watching themoonlight, when suddenly it had given way beneath his weight and he hadfallen into the river.

  "They had no business to have so weak a rail!" he cried bitterly.

  "Well, you're here, all right," I said soothingly. "There's no greatharm done."

  "Oh, isn't there?" he snarled.

  Then we learned how the weight of the gold around his waist had carriedhim down like a plummet; and we sensed a little of the desperate horrorwith which he had torn and struggled to free himself from that dreadfulburden.

  "I thought I'd burst!" said he.

  And then he had torn off the belt, and had shot to the surface.

  "It's down there," he said more calmly, "every confounded yellow grainof it." He laughed a little. "Broke!" said he. "No New York in mine!"

  The crowd murmured sympathetically.

  "Gol darn it, boys, it's rotten hard luck!" cried a big miner with someheat. "Who'll chip in?"

  At the words Johnny recovered himself, and his customary ease of mannerreturned.

  "Much obliged, boys," said he, "but I've still got my health. I don'tneed charity. Guess I've been doing the baby act; but I was damn mad atthat rotten old rail. Anyway," he laughed, "there need nobody say in thefuture that there's no gold in the lower Sacramento. There is; I put itthere myself."

  The tall miner slowly stowed away his buckskin sack, looking keenly inJohnny's face.

  "Well, you'll have a drink, anyway," said he.

  "Oh, hell, yes!" agreed Johnny, "I'll have a drink!"