p645-172 CHAPTER X. TWO LITTLE INDIANS.

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THE sunshine follows the rain. There was a
sort of general joyousness. The Prince was
now a king, it seemed to me. He had fought
a battle with himself, with fate against him; fought
it silent, patient and alone; he had conquered, and he
was glad.

The great hero is born of the long hard struggle.
Who cannot go down to battle with banners, with
trumps and the tramp of horses? Who cannot fight
for a day in a line of a thousand strong with the eyes
of the world upon him? But the man who fights a
moral battle coolly, quietly, patiently and alone, with
no one to applaud or approve, as the strife goes on
through all the weary year, and after all to have no
reward but that of his own conscience, the calm delight
of a duty well performed, is God's own hero.

He is knighted and ennobled there, when the fight
is won, and he wears thenceforth the spurs of gold
and an armour of invulnerable steel.

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We went down again among the boulders in the
bed of the creek. The Prince swung his pick, I
shovelled the thrown-out earth, and the little Indians
would come and look on and wonder, and lend a
hand in an awkward sort of a way for a few minutes
at a time, then go back to the cabin or high up on
the hills in the sun, following whatever pursuit they
chose.

The Prince did not take it upon himself to direct
or dictate what they should do, but watched their
natural inclinations and actions with the keenest
interest.

He loved freedom too well himself to attempt to
fetter these little unfortunates with rules and forms
that he himself did not hold in too great respect;
and as for taxing them to labour, they were yet
weak, and but poorly recovered from the effects of
the famine on the Klamat.

Besides, he had no disposition to reduce them to
the Christian slavery that was then being introduced,
and still obtains, up about Mount Shasta, wherever
any of the Indian children survive.

The girl developed an amiable and gentle nature,
but the boy showed anything but that from the first.
He always went out of the cabin whenever strangers
entered, would often spend days alone, out of sight
of everyone, and stubbornly refused to speak a word
of English. At the end of weeks he was untamed

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as ever, and evidently untamable. The Prince had
procured him a cheap suit of clothes, something after
the fashion of the miner's dress; but he despised it,
and would only wear his shirt with the right arm free
and naked, the red sleeve tucked in or swinging about
his body. He submitted to have his hair trimmed,
but refused to wear a hat.

His chief delight was, in pointing and making
faces at the Doctor's bald head, whenever that individual
entered, as he stood in the corner by his club;
but I never knew him to laugh, not even to smile.
The first great epoch of his civilized life was the
receipt of a knife as a gift from the Prince. It was
more to him than diamonds to a bride. He kept it
with him everywhere; slept with it always. It was
to him as a host of companions.

Sometimes he talked in the Indian tongue to the
girl, but only when he thought no one noticed or
heard him.

The girl was quite the other way. She took to
domestic matters eagerly, learned to talk in a few
weeks, after a fashion, and was most anxious to be
useful, and as near like an American as possible.
She had a singular talent for drawing. One day she
made an excellent charcoal picture of Mount Shasta,
on the cabin door, and was delighted when she saw
the Prince take pride in her work. She was eager
to do everything, and insisted on doing all the
cooking.

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She had a great idea of the use of salt, and often
an erroneous one. For instance, one morning she
put salt in the coffee as well as in the beef and beans.
I think it was an experiment of hers—that she was
so anxious to please and make things palatable, she
put it in to improve the taste. I can very well
understand how she thought it all over, and said to
herself, “Now if a little pinch of this white substance
adds to the beans, why will it not contribute
to the flavour of the coffee?” Once she put sugar on
the meat instead of salt, but the same mistake never
happened twice.

I must admit that she was deceitful, somewhat.
Not willfully, but innocently so. In fact, had anything
of importance been involved, she would have
stood up and told the whole simple truth with a perfect
indifference to results. She did this once I know,
when she had done an improper thing, in a way that
made us trust and respect her. But she did so much
like to seem wise about things of which she was
wholly ignorant. When she had learned to talk she
one day pretended to Klamat to also be able to read
and understand what was written on the bills of the
butchers. Her ambition seemed to be to appear
learned in that she knew the least about. That is so
much like many people you meet, that I know you
are prepared to call her half-civilized, even in these
few weeks.

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This sort of innocent deceit is no new thing, particularly
in women. And I rather like it. Go on to
one of the fashionable streets to-day in America, and
there you will find that the lady who has the least
amount of natural hair has invariably the largest
amount of artificial fix-ups on her head. This rule is
almost infallible; it has hardly the traditional exception
to testify to its truth.

In fact, does not this weakness extend even to man?
You can nearly always detect a bald-headed man,
even while his hat is on his head, by the display and
luxuriance of the hair peeping out from under his
hat. With the bald-headed man every hair is brought
into requisition, every hair is brushed and bristled
up into a sort of barricade against the eyes of the
curious. The few hairs seem to be marshalled up
for a fierce bayonet charge against any one who dares
suspect that the head which they keep sentry round
is bald. That man is bald and he feels it. Only
bald-headed men make this display of what hair they
have left.

And I am not sure but that nature herself is a
little deceitful. The dead and leafless oaks have the
richest growth of ivy, as if to make the world believe
that the trees are thriving like the bay. All about
the mouths of caves, all openings in the earth, old
wells and pits, the rankest growths abound, as if to
say, here is no wound in the breast of earth! here is

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even the richest and the choicest spot upon her
surface.

To go further into a new field. If a true woman
loves you truly she fortifies against it in every possible
way as a weak place in her nature. She tries to
deceive, not only the world, but herself. To keep
out the eyes of the inquisitive she would build a barricade
to the moon. She would not be seen to whisper
with you for the world. Yet if she loved you less,
she would laugh and talk and whisper by the hour,
and think nothing of it. I like such deceit as that.
It is natural.

The miners were at work like beavers. Up the
stream and down the stream the pick and shovel
clanged against the rock and gravel from dawn until
darkness came down out of the forests above them
and took possession of the place.

The Prince worked on patiently, industriously
with the rest, with reasonable success and first-rate
promise of fortune. The pent-up energies of the
camp were turned loose, and the stream ran thick
and yellow with sediment from pans, rockers, toms,
sluices and flumes. Never was such industry, such
energy, such ambition to get hold of the object of
pursuit and escape from the canon before another
winter set up an impassable wall to the civilized
world.

Spring came sudden and full-grown from the south.

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She blew up in a fleet of sultry clouds from the
Mexican seas, along the Californian coast, and drew
up to us between the rocky, pine-topped walls of the
Klamat.

At first she hardly set foot in the canon. The sun
came down to us only about noon-tide, and then only
tarried long enough to shoot a few bright shafts
through the dusk and dense pine-tops at the banks
of snow beneath, and spring did not like the place as
well as the open, sunny plains over by the city, and
toward the Klamat lakes. But at last she came to
take possession. She planted her banners on places
the sun made bare, and put up signs and land-marks
not to be misunderstood.

The balm and alder burst in leaf, and catkins
drooped and dropped from willows in the water, till
you had thought a legion of woolly caterpillars were
drifting to the sea. Still the place was not to be
surrendered without a struggle. It was one of
winter's struggles. He had been driven, day after
day, in a march of many a thousand miles. He had
retreated from Mexico to within sight of Mount
Shasta, and here he turned on his pursuer. One
night he came boldly down and laid hands on the
muddy little stream, and stretched a border of ice all
up and down its edges; spread frost-work, white and
beautiful, on pick, and tom, and sluice, and flume
and cradle, and made the miners curse him to his

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beard. He cut down the banners of the spring that
night, lamb-tongue, Indian turnip and catella, and
took possession as completely as of old.

The sun came up at last and he let go his hold
upon the stream, took off his stamp from pick and
pan, and tom, and sluice and cradle, and crept in
silence into the shade of trees and up the mountain
side against the snow.

And now the spring came back with a double
force and strength. She planted California lilies, fair
and bright as stars, tall as little flag-staffs, along the
mountain side, and up against the winter's barricade
of snow, and proclaimed possession absolute through
her messengers, the birds, and we were very glad.

Paquita gathered blossoms in the sun, threw her
long hair back, and bounded like a fawn along the
hills. Klamat took his club and knife, drew his robe
only the closer about him in the sun, and went out
gloomy and sombre in the mountains. Sometimes
he would be gone all night.

At last the baffled winter abandoned even the wall
that lay between us and the outer world, and drew
off all his forces to Mount Shasta. He retreated above
the timber line, but he retreated not an inch beyond.
There he sat down with all his strength. He
planted his white and snowy tent upon this everlasting
fortress, and laughed at the world below him.
Sometimes he would send a foray down, and even in

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mid-summer, to this day, he plucks an ear of corn, a
peach, or apricot, for a hundred miles around his
battlement, whenever he may choose.

Now that the way was clear, immigrants and
new arrivals of all kinds began to pour into the
camp. The most noticeable was that of the new
Alcalde.

This Alcalde was appointed by the new commissioners
of the new county, and as might have been
expected, since the place brought neither profit nor
honour, was only a broad-cloth sort of a man. A
new arrival from the States, looking about for a
place where he could sit down and eat his bread
exempt from the primal curse. No doubt this little
egotist said to himself, “If there is a spot on earth
where God's great tribute-taker will not find me, it
is over at The Forks, on Humbug, and there will I
pitch my tent and abide.”

He had read just enough law to drive every bit of
common sense out of his head, and yet not enough to
get a bit of common law into it; except, perhaps, the
line which says that “Law is a rule of action prescribed
by the superior, which the inferior is bound
to obey.”

Being austere in his tastes, and feeling that he
had a dignity to sustain, he made friends with the
Doctor, and took up quarters in the Doctor's cabin.

As is the case with all small creatures, the Judge

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came into camp with a great flourish of trumpets,
and what was most remarkable, he wore a “stovepipe”
hat and a “boiled shirt;” the first that had
ever been seen in the camp. This was a daring
thing to undertake. The Judge, of course, had not
the least idea of his achievement and the risk he
incurred.

These men of the mountains always have despised
and perhaps always will despise a beaver hat. Why?
Here is food for reflection. Here is a healthy, wellseated
antipathy to an innocent article of dress, without
any discovered reason. Let the profound look
into this.

As for myself, I have looked into this thing, but
am not satisfied. The only reason I can give for this
enmity to the “tile” in the mountains of California,
is not that the miners hold that there is anything
wrong in the act or fact of a man wearing a beaver,
but because it invests the man with a dignity—an
artificial dignity, it is true, but none the less a
dignity—too far above that of the man who wears
a slouch or felt. The beaver hat is the minority,
the slouch hat is the majority; and, like all great
majorities, is a mob—a cruel, heartless, arrogant,
insolent mob, ignorant and presumptive. The beaver
hat is a missionary among cannibals in the California
mines. And the saddest part of it all is, that there
is no hope of reform. Tracts on this subject would

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be useless. Fancy a beaver hat in a dripping tunnel,
or by the splashing flume or dumping derrick!

Born of a low element in our nature is this antagonism
to the beaver hat; cruel as it is curious, selfish,
but natural.

The Englishman knows well the power and dignity
of a beaver hat. Go into the streets of London and
look about you. Surely some power has issued an
order not much unlike that of the famous one armed
Sailor—“England expects every man to wear a beaver
hat.”

But to return to this particular hat before us, it is
safe to say that no other man than the Judge in all
California could have brought into camp and worn
with impunity this hat.

It is true there was a universal giggle through the
camp, and it is likewise true that the Howlin' Wilderness
called out, “Oh, what a hat! Set 'em up!
Chuck 'em in the gutter! Saw my leg off!” and
so on, as the Judge passed that way the morning
after his arrival. But shrewd men at once took his
measure; saw that he was a harmless little egotist,
and in their hearts took his part in the hat question,
and set him up as a sort of wooden idol of the
camp.

It is not best to always seem too strong in the
presence of strong, good men. Man likes to pet
and patronize his fellow when he is weak. A strong

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man will throw his arms around a helpless man and
protect him. Strength challenges strength. The
combat of bulls on the plain! Possibly man inclines
to uphold the weak because there is no suggestion
of rivalry, but I do not think that. Here is room for
thought.

“It's all right, boys,” said six-foot Sandy, as he
stood at the bar of the Howlin' Wilderness, and
held out his glass for a little peppermint: “It's all
right, I tell you! He shall run a hat as tall as
Shasta if he likes, and let me set eyes on the shyster
that interferes. It's a poor camp that can't afford
one gentleman, anyhow.” And here he hitched up
his duck breeches, threw the gin and peppermint
down his throat, and wiping his hairy mouth on his
red sleeve, turned to the crowd, ready to “chaw up
and spit out,” as he called it, the first man who raised
a voice against the Judge and his beaver hat in all
The Forks.

Six-foot Sandy was an authority at The Forks. A
brawny and reckless miner—a sort of cross between
a first-class miner and a second-class gambler; a man
who vibrated between his claim up the creek and
the Howlin' Wilderness saloon. But he was a shrewd,
brave man, of the half-horse, half-alligator kind, and
was both feared and respected. After that the beaver
hat was safe at The Forks, and a fixture.

To illustrate the power and dignity of the beaver
hat even here, where reverence and respect for any

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thing that smells of civilization is not to be thought
of, I may mention that a month or two after the
event described above, another beaver hat put in an
appearance at The Forks. There was not even a
protest. The man had sense enough to keep silent,
took a quiet game of “draw” with the boys at the
Howlin' Wilderness, and won at once the title of
Judge.

After dark the quiet game went on in the corner,
and Sandy came down from the claim.

“Who's that?” said Sandy to the bar-keeper, as he
threw his left thumb over his shoulder, and with his
right hand lifted his gin and peppermint.

“That? why that's Judge—Judge—why, the new
Judge.”

“Judge hell!” said Sandy, wiping his beard and
looking sharply under the hat rim. “I know him, I
do. He's a waiter over in a Yreka restaurant. I'll
go for him, I will. He is a fraud on the public.”

And he went up behind the man, as he sat there
on a three-legged stool, serenely leading out his ace
for his opponent's Jack.

“Come down!” said the new Judge, gaily; “come
down! I have you now! Come down!”

Sandy raised his hands, his great broad hands, like
slabs of pine, and brought them down on top of the
beaver hat like an avalanche. The hat shot down
and the head shot up, till it was buried out of sight
in the wrecked and ruined beaver.

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The man sprung to his feet, thrust out his hands,
and jumped about like a boy in “Blind-man's-buff,”
and Sandy walked back to the bar, cool and unconcerned,
and ordered gin and peppermint.

The man at last excavated his nose, and took a
bee-line for the door, amid howls of delight from the
patrons of the Howlin' Wilderness. That is the
usual fate of beavers in the mines. They may be
respected, but they perish for all that.

Let a member of Congress, or even of the Cabinet,
go up into the mountains with a beaver, and ten to
one he would have it driven down over his nose.
He would have to stand it too; he would have to
laugh, call it a good joke, and treat “the boys” in
the bargain. After that they would call him a good
fellow, give him “feet” in an extension of the “Jenny
Lind” ledge, “Midnight Assassin,” or “Roaring Lion,”
and vote for him, if he should be a candidate for
office, to the last man.

I leave this question of the hat now to those wise
men of America who have rushed out upon the
frontier a pen in one hand, a telescope in the other,
and, viewing the Indian from afar off, decided in a
day that he was a bad and bloody character.

I leave this question to those teachers, with every
confidence that their capacities will prove equal to
the task. The subject is worthy such men, and the
men worthy such a subject.

p645-188 CHAPTER XI. “A MAN FOR BREAKFAST. ”

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NOW that we have got a Judge,” said Sandy
one day, “why not put him to work?”

There had been a pretty general feeling
against those who took part in the murder of the
Indians the last winter kept alive by the miners, and
Sandy, who was always boiling over on some subject,
and was brimfull of energy, went and laid the case
before the Judge and instituted a prosecution. Here
was a sensation! The court sent a constable to
arrest a prisoner with a verbal warrant, and the man
came into Court; the Howlin' Wilderness, followed
by half the town, gave verbal bonds for his
appearance next Saturday, and the Court adjourned
to that day.

Sides were taken at once. The idlers of course
all taking sides with the prisoner; the miners mostly
going the other way. Sandy took it upon himself
to prosecute. He could hardly have been in earnest,
yet he seemed to be terribly so. The assassins were

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active in getting evidence out of the way, making
friends with the Judge, and intimidating all who
dared express sympathy with the Indians. The
miners, with the exception of Sandy, were rather indifferent.
They knew very well that this weak
little egotist would only make a farce of the affair,
even though he had capacity to enter a legal committal.
The giant Sandy, however, held his own
against all the town and promised a lively time.

The Indian boy came home that night beaming
with delight. His black eyes flashed like the eyes of
a cat in the dark. I had thought him incapable of
excitement. He had always seemed so passive and
sullen that we had come to believe he had no life or
passion in him.

He talked to Paquita eagerly, and made all kinds
of gestures; put his fingers about his neck, stabbed
himself with an imaginary knife, threw himself towards
the fire, and shot with an imaginary gun at
an imaginary prisoner. Would he be hung, stabbed,
burnt or shot? The boy was so eager and excited, that
once or twice he broke out into pretty fair English
at some length, the first I had ever heard him utter.

The Doctor, as I said, was unpopular. In fact,
doctors usually are in the mines. Whether this is
because nine-tenths of those who are there are frauds
and impostors, or whether it is because miners give
open expression to a natural dislike that all men

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feel for the man to whose ministry we all have to
submit ourselves some day, I do not pretend to
say.

Even the Indian boy disliked the Doctor bitterly,
and one day flew at him, without any cause, and
clutched a handful of hair from his thin and half-bald
head. The Judge, too, disliked the Doctor, and only
the evening before the trial some one, passing the
cabin, heard the Judge call the Doctor a fool to his
teeth.

That was a feather in the Judge's hat, in the eyes
of The Forks, but a bad sign for the Doctor. The
Doctor should have knocked him down, said The
Forks.

The day of trial came, and Sandy, in respect for
the Court and the occasion, buttoned up his flannel
shirt, hid his hairy bosom, and gave over his gin and
peppermint during all the examination.

The prisoner was named “Spades.” Whether it
was because he looked so like the black, squatty
Jack of Spades I do not know; but I should say he
was indebted to his likeness to that right or left
bower for his name.

There was not the slightest doubt that he had
deliberately murdered two or three Indian children,
butchered them, as they crouched on the ground and
tried to hide under the lodges, with his knife, on the
day of the massacre; but there were grave doubts as

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to what the Judge would do in the case, for he had
been pretty plainly told that he must not hold the
man to answer.

A low, wretched man was this—the lowest in the
camp; but he stood between others of a more respectable
character and danger. His fortune in the matter
was a prophecy of theirs. The prisoner was nearly
drunk as he took his seat on a three-legged stool
before the Judge in the Howlin' Wilderness. He sat
with his hat on. In fact, miners, in the matter of
wearing hats, would make first-class Israelites.

“Ef I ain't out o' this by dark,” said Spades, as
he jerked his head over his shoulder and spirted a
stream of amber at the back-log, “I'll sun somebody's
moccasins, see if I don't.” And he looked
straight at the Judge, who settled down uneasily in
his seat, and placed his beaver hat on the table between
himself and the prisoner as a sort of barricade.

Two or three gamblers, good enough men in
their way, acted as attorneys for Spades. They at
once turned themselves loose in plausible, if not
eloquent, speeches against the treacherous savage.
Sandy now introduced his witness for the prosecution.
This man told how Spades had butchered the
babes down on the Klamat, in detail; and then
others were called and did the same. It was a clear
case, and Sandy was delighted with his prosecution.

The other side did not ask any questions. The

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attorneys whispered a moment among themselves, and
then one of them got up, took the stand, and gravely
asserted that on that day, and at the very moment
described, he was playing poker with Spades at two
bits a corner in the Howlin' Wilderness. Then
another arose with the same account; and then
another. It was the clearest alibi possible.

Sandy said nothing, and the case was closed. He
looked black across the table at the defence, and then
went up to the bar, and called for gin and peppermint,
alone.

This was the first attempt to introduce law practice
at The Forks, and no wonder that it did not
work well, and that some things were forgotten. All
were new hands—Court, counsel, and nearly all
present, here witnessed their first trial.

Poor Sandy had forgotten to have his witnesses
sworn, and the Court had not thought of it.

The testimony being all in, the Court proceeded
solemnly to sum up the case. In conclusion, it
said, “You will observe that, as a rule, the further
we go from the surface of things the nearer we get
to the bottom.” This brought cheers and waving of
hats from the Howlin' Wilderness, and the Court repeated,
“I am free to say that the Court has gone
diligently into the depths of this case, and that, as a
rule, the further you get from the surface of things
the nearer you get to the bottom. The case looked

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dark indeed against the prisoner at first; but the
Court has gone to the bottom of the matter, and he
is now white as snow.”

“Hear! hear! hear!” shouted a man from Sydney,
who always hobbled a little as if he dragged a chain
when he walked.

“Snow is good!” said a miner between his
teeth, as he looked at the black visage of the
prisoner.

“You see,” continued the Judge, “that things are
often not so black as they first appear, particularly
if they are only fairly washed.”

“Particularly if they are white-washed!” said
Sandy, as he swallowed his gin and peppermint and left
the saloon in disgust.

All this time a tawny little figure had stood back
in the corner unseen, perhaps, by any one. It was
Klamat with his club. He had watched with the
eyes of a hawk the whole proceeding. He had drank
in every sentence, and had never once taken his eyes
from the Court or the prisoner.

At last, when the Judge decreed the prisoner free,
and the Court adjourned, and all ranged themselves
in a long, single file before the bar, calling out
“Cocktail,” “Tom-and-Jerry,” “Brandy-smash, “Ginsling,”
“Lightning straight,” “Forty rod,” and so
on, he slipped out, looking back over his shoulders,
with his thin lips set, and his hand clutching a knife
under his robe.

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That evening the Judge was again belabouring the
Doctor with his tongue, which had been made more
than ordinarily loose and abusive by the single-file
drilling process that had been repeated at the
Howlin' Wilderness in the celebration of Spades'
acquittal.

“That little Doctor 'll put a bug in his soup for
him yet, see 'f he don't,” said some one that evening
at the saloon, when the man who had heard the
Judge's abuse had finished reciting it.

“All right, let him,” said a man, who stood stirring
his liquor with a spoon, in gum-boots and with a gold-pan
under his left arm. “All right, let him;” said
the bearded sovereign, as he threw back his head
and opened his mouth. “It's not my circus, nor
won't be my funeral;” and he wiped his beard and
went out saying to himself:—

The Prince, with that clear common-sense which
always came to the surface, had foreseen the whole
affair so far as the trial was concerned, and had
remained at home hard at work in the claim; I told
him all that had happened, and he only shrugged
his shoulders.

The next morning the butcher shouted down from
the cabin as he weighed out the steaks: “A man for
breakfast up in town, I say! a man for breakfast up

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in town, and I'll bet you can't guess who it is.”

“Who?”

“The Judge!”

The man had been stabbed to death not far from
his own door, some time in the night, perhaps just
before retiring. There were three distinct mortal
wounds in the breast. There had evidently been a
short, hard struggle for life, for in one hand he
clutched a lock of somebody's hair. There was no
mistake about the hair. That long, soft, silken, half
curling, yellow German hair of the Doctor's, that
grew on the sides of his naked head—there was not
to be found another lock of hair like this in the
mountains.

The dead man had not been robbed. That was a
point in the Doctor's favour. He had been met in
the front, had not been poisoned, or stabbed or shot
in the back; that was another very strong point in
the Doctor's favour.

In some of the northern states of Mexico, particularly
at Guadalajara, I remember some years ago
it was a pretty good defence for a man charged with
murder, if he could prove that he had not plundered
the dead, and that he had met him from the face like
a man. These Mexicans held that man is not naturally
vicious or bloodthirsty, and will not take life
without cause: that if he did not murder a man to
rob him, he had some secret and perhaps sufficient

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

wrong to redress, to at least give some show of
right; then if, added to these, he met his man like a
man and he came off victor, although he slew the
man, the law for that would hardly take his life.

There was something of this feeling in the camp
now. However, if there had been an alcalde at The
Forks, there is no doubt the Doctor had been at
once arrested; but as there was nothing of the kind
nearer than a day's ride, nothing was done. Besides,
the Judge had made himself particularly odious to
the miners, and gamblers are the last men in the
world to meddle with the law. They settled their
suits with steel across a table, or with little bull-dog
deringers around a corner. Sometimes they have a
six-shooter war dance in the streets, if the misunderstanding
is one in which many parties are concerned.

As a rule, a funeral in the mines is a mournful
thing. It is the saddest and most pitiful spectacle I
have ever seen. The contrast of strength and weakness
is brought out here in such a way that you
must turn aside or weep when you behold it. To
see those strong, rough men, long-haired, bearded
and brown, rugged and homely-looking, with something
of the grizzly in their great, awkward movements,
now take up one of their number, straightened
in the rough pine box, in his miner's dress, and
carry him up, up on the hill in silence—it is sad
beyond expression.

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He has come a long way, he has journeyed by
land or sea for a year, he has toiled and endured,
and denied himself all things for some dear object at
home, and now after all, he must lie down in the
forests of the Sierras, and turn on his side and
die. No one to kiss him, no one to bless him,
and say “good-bye,” only as a woman can, and
close the weary eyes, and fold the hands in their
final rest: and then at the grave, how awkward—
how silent! How they would like to look at each
other and say something, yet how they hold down
their heads, or look away to the horizon, lest they
should meet each other's eyes. Lest some strong man
should see the tears that went silently down from
the eyes of another over his beard and on to the
leaves.

But the Judge had no such burial as this. Sandy
was on a spree, and the gamblers placed Spades at
the head of the funeral. They had no respect for
the man and kept away. Spades was chief mourner,
and the poor little man was laid alone on the hill-side,
with hardly enough in attendance to do the last
offices for the dead.

That night Spades entered the Howlin' Wilderness
wearing a beaver hat. Sandy saw this, set
down the glass of gin and peppermint untouched,
and went straight up to the man. He seized him
by the throat and shook him till his teeth smote and

[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]

ground together like quartz rocks in a feeder. Then
he picked up the hat reverently and respectfully as
his condition would allow, and laid it gently on the
roaring pine-log fire. That was the last of the first
beaver hat of Humbug.

The Doctor appeared out of place in this camp from
the first. Every one seemed to feel that—perhaps
no one felt it more keenly than himself.

There are people, it seems to me, who go all
through life looking for the place where they belong
and never finding it. This to me is a very sad
sight. They seem to fit in no place on top of the
earth.

The general feeling of dislike that had always
been observed, now became one of contempt. No one
noticed or spoke to him now. He came to hold
down his head very soon, and to shun people instinctively
since they seemed to wish to shun him.

I am bound to confess, right here, that after this
murder, when the whole camp seemed turned against
this shy, shrinking, silent man, when he was despised
by all, when no one would share the path with him,
but would make him stand aside and leave the trail
as if he had been an Indian or a Chinaman, I began
to sympathize with him. When the world pointed
its finger and set the mark of Cain upon the man, I
began to like him.

This, you say, seems to you remarkable. It is

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certainly remarkable, or I should not trouble myself
to mention it.

There was now an expression in this man's face that
I had not seen before. A sort of weary, tired look it
was, that was pitiful. An idea took possession of
me that he had grown tired in his journey from
place to place in the world, looking for the place
where he belonged, for a sort of niche where he
would fit in, and which he had never yet found.

There are men who sit in a community like a
centre gem in a cluster of diamonds, and who
cannot be taken away without deranging and
marring the whole. The place of such a man
is vacant till the last one of the cluster of which he
forms the centre goes down in the dust.

There are others, again, who grow on the side or
even in the centre of a community, like a great wart
or wen. They sap its strength, they stop its growth,
they poison it thoroughly, and it dies: a miserable,
contemptible community, all through that one bad
man.

But the Doctor was neither of these. He had
never yet found his place, had never yet taken root
or hold anywhere, but had been blown or rolled or
thrown or pitched or shuttle-cocked about, it seemed
to me, from the beginning of his life; whenever that
may have been. A sort of sour, dried-up apple, that
no one would eat, yet an apple that no one would
care to pitch out of the window.

[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]

I had always hated and feared the man till now.
The universal dislike, however, aroused a sort of
antagonism in my nature, that always has, and I
expect always will, come to the surface on such
occasions on the side of the poor or much despised,
perfectly regardless of propriety, self-interest, or any
consideration whatever.

If a man has succeeded and is glad, let him go his
way. What should I have to do with him? My lot
and my life thus far have been with the poor and the
lonely, and so shall be to the end. They can understand
me.

And maybe, often, there is a kind of subtle
wisdom in this view of men. I think it is born of
the fact that your ostentatious, prosperous man,
your showy rich man of America, is so very, very
poor, that you do not care to call him your neighbour.
It is true he has horses and houses and
land and gold, but these horses and houses, and
lands and coins, are all in the world he has. When
he dies these will all remain and the world will
lose nothing whatever. His death will not make
even a ripple in the tide of life. His family, whom
he has taught to worship gold, will forget him in
their new estates. In their hearts they will be glad
that he is gone. They will barter and haggle with
the stone-cutter toiling for his bread, and for a
starve-to-death price they will lift a marble shaft

p645-201 [figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]

above his head with an iron fence around it—typical,
cold, and soulless!

Poor man, since he took nothing away that one
could miss, what a beggar he must have been. The
poor and unhappy never heard of him: the world has
not lost a thought. Not a note missed, not a word
was lost in the grand, sweet song of the universe
when he died.

Save us from such men. America is full of them.
She boils over with them in a sort of annual eruption.
She throws them over the sea into abbeys and
sacred places, with their hats on; they are howling,
hoarser than jackals, up and down the Nile and
over and away towards Jerusalem.

It was remarkable how suddenly the Indian
children sprung up with the summer. No one could
have recognized in this neat, modest, sensitive girl,
and this silent, savage-looking boy, who sometimes
looked almost a man, the two starved, naked little
creatures of half a year before.

There was a little lake belted by wild red roses
and salmon berries, and fretted by overhanging ferns
under the great firs that shut out the sun save in
little spars and bars of light that fell through upon
a bench of the hills; a sort of lily pond, only half
a pistol shot across, at the bottom of a waterfall, and
clear as sunshine itself. Here Paquita would go
often and alone to pass her idle hours. I chanced

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to see her there on the rim, walking against the sun
and looking into the water as she moved forward,
now and then back, across her shoulder, as a maiden
in a glass preparing for a ball. She had just been
made glad with her first new dress—red, and
decorated with ribbons, made gay and of many
colours. The poor child was studying herself in the
waters.

This was not vanity; no doubt there was a deal of
satisfaction, a sort of quiet pride, in this, but it was
something higher, also. A desire to study grace, to
criticize her movements in this strange and to her
lovely dress, and learn to move with the most
perfect propriety. She practiced this often. The
finger lifted sometimes, the head bowed, then the
hands in rest and the head thrown back, she would
walk back and forth for hours, contemplating herself
and catching the most graceful motion from the
water.

What a rich, full, and generous mouth was hers—
frank as the noon-day. Beware of people with small
mouths, they are not generous. A full, rich mouth,
impulsive and passionate, is the kind of mouth to
trust, to believe in, to ask a favour of, and to give
kind words to.

There are as many kinds of mouths as there are
crimes in the catalogue of sins. There is the mouth
for hash!—thick-lipped, coarse, and expressionless, a

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picket of teeth behind with bread about the roots.
Bah! Then there is the thin-lipped, sour-apple
mouth, sandwiched in between a sharp chin and thin
nose. Look out!

There are mischievous mouths, ruddy and full of
fun, that you would like to be on good terms with if
you had time, and then there is the rich, full mouth,
with dimples dallying and playing about it like
ripples in a shade, half sad, half glad—a mouth to
love. Such was Paquita's. A rose, but not yet
opened; only a bud that in another summer would
unfold itself wide to the sun.

p645-206 CHAPTER XII. BONE AND SINEW.

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STILL we wrought, the Prince and I, patiently
and industriously. So did thousands
above us and below us; there was a clang of
picks and shovels, the smiting of steel on the granite,
a sound through the sable forests, an echoing up the far
hill-sides like the march of an army to battle, clashing
the sword and buckler.

Every man that wrought there, worked for an object.
There was a payment to be met at home; a
mortgage to be lifted. The ambition of one I knew
was to buy a little home for his parents; another had
orphan sisters to provide for; this had an invalid
mother. This had a bride, and that one the promise
of a bride. Every man there had a history, a plan,
a purpose.

Every man there who bent above the boulders,
and toiled on silently under the dark-plumed pines
and the shadows of the steep and stupendous mountains,
was a giant in body and soul.

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

Never since the days of Cortez has there been
gathered together such a hardy and brave body of
men as these first men of the Pacific. When it took
six months' voyaging round the Horn, and imminent
perils, with like dangers and delays, to cross the
isthmus or the continent, then the weak of heart
did not attempt it and the weak of body died on the
way. The result was a race of men worthy of the
land. The world's great men were thus drawn out,
separated and set apart to themselves out here on the
Pacific.

There was another segregation and sifting out
after the Pacific was reached. There lay the mines
open to all who would work; no capital but a pick
and pan required. The most manly and independent
life on earth. At night you had your pay in your
hand, your reward weighed out in virgin gold. If
you made five, ten, fifty, or a thousand dollars that
day, you made it from the fall of no man; no decline
of stocks or turn in trade which carried some man to
the bottom brought you to the top; no speculation,
no office, no favour, only your own two hands and
your strong, true heart, without favour from any
man. You had contributed that much to the commerce
of the world. If there is any good in gold, you
had done that much good to the world, besides the
good to yourself. What men took this line of life!
But some preferred to trade, build towns, hang about

[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

them, and practise their wits on their fellow-men.

You see at once that the miners were the cream
of the milk in this second separation.

The summer wore on, and Paquita remained with
us, an industrious, lovely little girl. She was the
pet of the camp. She dressed with taste, and was
modest, sensitive, intelligent, and beautiful. It was
noticeable that men who lived in that vicinity dressed
much more neatly than in any other part of the
camp, and even men who had to pass that way to
reach The Forks kept their shaggy beards in shape,
and their shirt bosoms buttoned up when they passed.
Such is the influence of even the presence of woman.

Klamat was wild as ever. The miners would
suppose him spending his nights with us, and we
would suppose him still with them, and thus he had
it all his own way, wandered off with his club and
knife into the hills, down to the river, and slept
Heaven knows where.

At last one Sunday the Prince taught him the use
of the rifle. This was to him perhaps the greatest
event of his life. He danced with delight, made all
sorts of signs about the game he would kill, and how
much he would do for the Prince. He was faithful
to his word. He began to repay something of his
trouble. He brought game to the Prince and to us
in abundance, but refused to let any one else have so
much as a quail.

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

Once the Prince gave a shoulder of venison to some
neighbour boys below us. Klamat went down when
the men were at work, took the axe, broke open the
door, and took and threw the meat over the bank
into the claim. This made him natural enemies, and
it took great caution on the part of the Prince to save
his life.

He never talked, never smiled; a sour, bitter-looking
face was his, and he had no friends in the camp
outside our own cabin. He stood his club in the
corner now, and used the rifle instead. In a few days
he had polished the barrel and all the brass ornaments
till they shone like silver and gold.

Once a travelling missionary, as he called himself,
gave him a tract. He took it to Paquita, who held it
up and pretended to him that she could read it all as
readily as the white men. This was one of her little
deceits. Poor children. No one had time to teach
them to read, or to set them much of an example.
How they wondered at the endless toil of the men.

The Doctor in the meantime ranged around the
hill sides, wrote some, gathered some plants, and
seemed altogether the most listless, wretched, miserable
man you could conceive. He made his home
in our cabin now, and rarely went to town; for
when he did, so sure one of the hangers-on about
the saloons was sure to insult him. Sometimes,
however, he would be obliged to go, such as when

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

some accident or severe illness would compel the
miners to send for him, and he never refused to
attend. On one of these occasions, Spades, half
drunk and wholly vicious, caught the Doctor by the
throat as he met him in the trail near town, and
shook him much as he had been shaken by Sandy
some months before.

Spades boasted he had made his old teeth rattle
like rocks in a rocker. The Doctor said nothing, but
got off as best he could and came home. He did
not even mention the matter to any one.

Shortly after this Spades was found dead. He was
found just as the Judge had been found, close to his
cabin door, with the mortal stabs in the breast,
only he did not have the lock of hair in his hands
from the Doctor's head.

There was talk of a mob. This thing of killing
people in the night, even though they were the most
worthless men of the camp, and even though they
were killed in a way that suggested something like
fair play, and revenge rather than robbery, was not
to be indulged in, even at Humbug, with impunity.
Some of the idlers got together at the Howlin'
Wilderness to pass resolutions, and take some steps
in the matter, as Spades lay stretched out under
the old blue soldier coat on a pine slab that had
many dark stains across and along its rugged surface,
but they fell into an exciting game of poker, at ten

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

dollars a corner, and the matter for the time was left
to rest. No Antony came to hold up the dead Cæsar's
mantle, and poor Spades was buried much as he had
buried the Judge a short time before.

Some one consulted Sandy on the subject, about
the time of the funeral, as he stood at the bar of the
Howlin' Wilderness for his gin and peppermint.
Sandy was something of a mouth-piece for the miners,
not that he was a recognized leader; miners, as a
rule, decline to be led, but rather that he knew what
they thought on most subjects, and preferred to act
with them and express their thoughts, rather than
incline to the idlers about The Forks. He drank his
gin in silence, set down his glass, and said in an
oracular sort of way, as if to himself, when passing
out of the door:

“Well, let 'em rip; it's dog eat dog, anyhow!”

But it was evident that this matter would not blow
over as easily as did the death of the Judge. True,
there was no magistrate in camp yet, but there was a
live Sheriff in the city.

The Doctor went on as usual, avoiding men a little
more than before, but other than this I could see no
change in the man or his manner of life.

He and the Prince had many strange theories.
Men in the mines think out some great things, as
they dig for gold all day, with no sound save the
ripple of the mountain stream and the sharp quick

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

call of the quail in the chapparal, to disturb them,
through all the days of summer. They come upon
new thoughts as upon nuggets of gold.

Sometimes they talked in bitter terms about the
treatment of the Indians. They had humane and I
think just and possible theories on this subject, which
I remember very well, and may sometime submit to
the Government, if I can only get a hearing within
the next ten years. It will hardly be worth while
after that time, although, after the Indians are all
dead, no doubt we will have some very humane and
Christian plans advanced by which they may be made
a prosperous and contented people.

I am constantly asked: “Does not the Government
interfere? Does not the Government take charge of
these Indians after having taken their lands, and
lakes, and rivers?” Nonsense! The Government!
The Indian Bureau, Indian Agent, or whatever you
choose to call that part of the North American Republic
deputed to distribute red blankets and glass
beads to the North-American Indian, had not yet put
in an appearance on the Klamat. I doubt if he has
reached that particular portion of the interior to this
day.

When he does arrive he will find now only falling
lodges with grass growing rank about the doorways;
he will find mounds all up and down the river that
were made by a continual round of encampments

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reaching back to a time when the Chaldeans named
the stars; he will find perhaps an old woman or two,
or a bent old warrior, sitting in rags and wretchedness,
lamenting, looking back with dimmed eyes to
another age, and that is all.

Twenty years ago the Indians of the Forks of the
Willamette, rode by my father's cabin in bands,
single file, a mile or two in length. They rode
spotted horses, had gay clothes and garments of many
colours. The squaws chanted songs of a monotonous
kind, not without some melody, as they rode by
astride, with papooses swinging on boards from the
saddle-bow, and were very happy.

They saw the country settling up day by day, but
never raised a hand against the whites.

The whites were insolent, it is true, for had not
Government given them the land, and had they not
journeyed a long way to possess it?

Then the country was fenced up and their ponies
could not get pasture; the lands were ploughed and
the squaws could not get roots and acorns. But worst
of all, the whites killed and frightened off the game,
and the Indians began to starve and die. Once or
twice they undertook to beg, about the Forks of the
Willamette, but the settlers set dogs on them, and
they went back to their lodges and died off in a few
years by thousands. The world wondered why the
Indians died. “They are passing away,” said the

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substantial idiot who edited the “Star of the West.”
“They are a doomed race,” said the minister. I think
they were.

Less than six months ago I visited this spot. How
many Indians do you suppose I found there of the
permanent old settlers? Two! Captain Jim and
his squaw. All along the silver river, where it
makes its flashing course against the sun, the banks
are black and mellow, and the grass grows tall and
strong from the bones and ashes of the “doomed
race.”

Captain Jim declines to surrender to the Reservation.
They caught him once, him and his squaw,
but he got away after a year or two, and not only
brought back his own squaw, but one of a neighbouring
tribe, and has ever since been dodging about
through the hills overlooking the great valley where
his fathers were once the lords and masters, with
only the Great Spirit to say yea or nay to them.

Captain Jim is a harmless fellow, and a good hunter.
Sometimes in harvest he goes down in the fields and
binds wheat, and gets pay like a white man. His
squaws gather berries and sell them to the whites.
Sometimes they take a great fancy to children, and
give them all the berries they have, and will take
nothing for them. Captain Jim says that is not good
management. One day some one asked him why he
had two squaws. He studied awhile, and said he

p645-215 [figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

had two squaws so that they could bury him when
he died.

He wears a stiff-brimmed beaver hat with feathers
in it; clothes like a white man, even to the white
shirt; smokes and chews tobacco, swears, and sometimes
gets drunk. In fact, he is so nearly civilized,
that no great efforts are now made to return him to
the Reservation.

Some day soon the two wives of Captain Jim will
be permitted to lay the last of the Willamette Indians
to sleep on the banks of that sunny river.

What would I do? It would be long to tell. But
I would blow the Indian Bureau to the moon. I
would put good men, and plenty of them, to look into
the Indians' interest. I would set apart, out of their
original possessions, good tracts of land for each tribe.
I would pay these men so well, if possible, that they
would not steal from the Indians, if I could not get
honest men otherwise. I would make their office
perpetual, and I would make it one of honor and of
trust.

But what do we do instead? We change the man
in charge every few years, before he has even got a
glimpse at the inner life of an Indian. We send out
some red-mouthed politician, who gets the place
because he happens to have a great influence with the
Irish vote of New York, or the German vote of Pennsylvania.
We wait, nine cases out of ten, till the

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matter adjusts itself between the whites and the reds.
If the Indians are peaceful, as in the case of the Willamette,
why interfere? If they go to war they must
be made peaceful. This is the way it has gone and
still goes on, to the eternal disgrace of the country.
If a trouble comes of this clashing together of the
whites and the reds, we hear but one side of the
story. The Indian daily papers are not read.

p645-219 CHAPTER XIII. A STORM IN THE SIERRAS.

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VIRGIN gold, like truth, lies at the bottom.
It is a great task in the placer mines, as a
rule, particularly in the streams, to get on
the bed-rock to open a claim and strike a lead.
When this is done the rest is simple enough. You
have only to keep your claim open, to see that the
drain is not clogged, the tail race kept open, and that
the water does not break in and fill up your excavation,
by which you have reached the bed rock.
All this the Prince and I had accomplished. The
summer was sufficiently cool to be tolerable in toil:
the season was unusually healthy, and all was well.

At night, when the flush of the sun would be blown
from the tree tops to the clouds, we two would sit at
the cabin door in the gloaming, and look across and
up, far up, into the steep and sable skirting forest of
firs, and listen to the calls of the cat-bird, or the
coyote lifting his voice in a plaintive murmur for his
mate on the other side.

[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]

The Doctor would sit there too, in silence, close
at hand, and dream and forget the ways of man; and,
perhaps, think sadly, but certainly enough, there was
one place, one narrow place, at last, where he would
fit in and no one would come to disturb him.

Klamat would come in with a string of quails,
sometimes, at dusk, or a venison saddle, a red fox or
a badger, stand his gun in the corner with his club,
and turn himself to rest close at hand.

Paquita would drop down from the woods on the
hill above the cabin, the little belle and beauty of the
camp. But she never spoke to the miners or any
one, save to only answer them in the briefest way
possible.

They hardly liked this; and they hardly liked the
Prince from the start, I think, anyhow. He was, as an
expression of the time went, a little too “fine-haired.”
He spoke too properly; he never “got on any glorious
benders,” with the western men, nor could he
eat codfish, or talk about Boston, with the eastern.
He took hold of no man's hand hastily.

I like that.

Paquita had a great deal to tell about Mount
Shasta. She had been on the side beyond. In
fact her home was there, she said, and she described
the whole land in detail. A country sloping
off gradually toward the east and south; densely
timbered, save little dimples of green prairies, alive

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with game, dotted down here and there, buried in
the dark and splendid forests on the little trout
streams that wound still and crooked through wood
and meadow.

She had been out here on the Klamat on a visit,
with her mother and others, the fall and winter
before. She said they had come down from the
lakes in canoes. She also insisted strongly that her
father was a great chief of the Modocs and mountain
Shastas.

Indians are great travelers, far greater than is
generally believed, and it was quite reasonable to
take that part of the young lady's story as literally
true; but the part about her father being a great
chief was set down as one of her innocent fictions
by which she wished to dignify herself, and appear
of some importance in the eyes of the Prince.

Still as there had been quite a sensation in camp
about new mines in that direction, it was interesting
to talk to one who had been through the country,
and could give us some accurate account of it. After
that, finding the Prince was interested enough to
listen, she would take great pleasure in describing
the country, character, and habits of the Indians, and
the kind of game with which the forest abounded.

She would map out on the ground with a stick
the whole country, as you would draw a chart on
the black board.

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The feeling against the Doctor had not yet blown
over. It was pretty generally understood that the
sheriff or a deputy from across the mountain would
soon be over with a warrant for his apprehension.

Why not escape? There are some popular errors
of opinion that are amusing. Men suppose that if
a man is in the mountains he is safe, hid away, and
secure; that he has only to step aside in the brush
and be seen no more.

As a rule, it is infinitely better to be in the heart of
a city. Here was a camp of three thousand men.
Each man knew the face of his neighbour. There
was but one way to enter this camp, but one way to
go out; that way led to the city. We were in a
sac, the further end of a cave, as it were. You
could not go this way, or that, through the mountains
above. There were no trails; there was no
food. You would get lost; you would starve.

Besides, there were wild beasts, and wilder men,
ready to revenge the hundred massacres up and down
the country, not unlike the one described. Here, in
that day at least, if a man did wrong he could not
hide. The finger of God pointed him out to all.

Late one September day it grew intensely sultry;
there was a haze in the sky and a circle about the
sun. There was not a breath. The perspiration
came out and stood on the brow, even as we rested
in the shadow of the pines. A singular haze; such
a day, it is said, as precedes earthquakes.

[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]

The black crickets ceased to sing; the striped
lizards slid quick as ripples across the rocks, and
birds went swift as arrows overhead, but uttered
no cry. There was not a sound in the air nor on
the earth.

Paquita came rushing down to the claim, pale and
excited. She lifted her two hands above her head
as she stood on the bank, and called to us to come
up from the mine. “Come,” she cried, “there will
be a storm. The trees will blow and break against
each other. There will be a flood, a sea, a river in
the mountains. Come!” She swayed her body to
and fro, and the trees began to sway above her on
the hills, but not a breath had touched the mines.

Then it grew almost dark; we fairly had to feel
our way up the ladder. A big drop sank in the
water close at hand, splashing audibly; the trees
surged above us and began to snap like reeds.

There was a roar like the sea—loud, louder. Nearer
now the trees began to bend and turn and lick their
limbs and trunks, interweave and smite and crush,
and lurch until their tops were like one black and
boiling sea.

Fast, faster, the rain in great warm drops began
to strike us in the face, as we miners hastened up the
hill to the shelter of the cabin. At the door we
turned to look. The darkness of death was upon us;
we could hear the groans and the battling of the

[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]

trees, the howling of the tempest, but all was darkness,
blackness, desolation. Lightning cleft the
heavens.

A sheet of flame—as if the hand of God had thrust
out through the dark and smote the mountain side
with a sword of fire.

And then the thunder shook the earth till it
trembled, as if Shasta had been shaken loose and
broken from its foundation. No one spoke. The
lightning lit the cabin like a bonfire. Klamat stood
there in the cabin by his club and gun. There was
in his face a grim delight. The Doctor lay on his
face in his bunk, hiding his eyes in his two hands.

No one undressed that night in the camp.

The next morning the fury of the storm was over,
but it was not yet settled. We ventured out and
looked down into the stream. It was nearly large
enough to float a steamer. The claim was filled up
as perfectly as when we first took it from the
hands of the Creator. Ten feet of water flowed
swift and muddy over it towards the Klamat and the
sea.

Logs, boards, shingles, rockers, toms, sluices,
flumes, pans, riffles, aprons went drifting, bobbing,
dodging down the angry river like a thousand eager
swimmers.

The storm had stolen everything, and was rushing
with his plunder straight as could be to the sea, as

[figure description] Page 192.[end figure description]

if he feared that dawn should catch him in the
camp, and the miners come upon him to reclaim
their goods.

Every man in the camp was ruined. No man had
dreamed of this. Maybe a few had saved up a little
fortune, but, as a rule, all their fortunes lay in the
folds of the next few months. Every man had his
burden now to bear. The mortgage on the farm,
the home for the old, the orphans, the invalid
sister.

Brave men! they said nothing; they set their
teeth, looked things squarely in the face, but did not
complain. One man, however, who watched the
flood from a point on the other side and saw his
flume swept away, swung his old slouched hat,
danced a sort of savage hokee-pokee, and sang:

A strange song, indeed!

To them this disaster meant another weary winter
in the mines—disease, scurvy, death. Many could
not endure it. They understood their claims could
not be opened till another year, and set their faces for
other mines which they had heard of, further on.
Mining life is not unlike life at large.

We two had not saved much money. And what
portion of that had I earned? I could not well
claim a great deal, surely. How much would be

[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]

left when the debts were paid—the butcher and the
others? True, the claim was valuable, but it had
no value now—not so much as a sack of flour.
There were too many wanting to get away, and men
had not yet learned the worth of a mine. Sometimes
in these days new excitements, new diversions,
would tap a camp, drain it dry, and not leave a soul
to keep the coyotes from taking possession of the
cabins.

“What will you do?” said the Prince to me one
day, as we sat on the bank, wishing in vain for the
water to subside.

“We cannot reach the bed-rock again till far into
the next year. What will you do?”

“May I stay with you?”

The strong man reached me his two hands—“As
long as I live and you live, my little one, and
there is a blanket to my name we will sleep under
it together.

“We will leave this camp. I have hated it from
the first. I have grown old here in a year. I
cannot breathe in this narrow canon with its great
walls against the clouds. We will go.”

p645-227 CHAPTER XIV. A HOUSE TO LET.

[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]

THAT night the Prince talked a long time
with Paquita about the new country on the
other side of the Shasta, and putting her
account and my brief knowledge of the country
together, we resolved to go there, where gold, according
to her story, was to be had almost for the picking
up, if the Indians did not interfere.

A new trouble arose. What was to be done with
the two little savages? What would any other man
have done? Gone about his business and left them
to shift for themselves. Had he not saved their
lives? Had he not fed them through all that dreadful
winter? What more should he do?

One morning this man rested his elbows on the
table, and with his face buried in his hands was a
long time silent.

“Pack up,” said the Prince, at last, to the little
girl. In a few moments she stood by his side with
a red calico dress and some ribbons tied up in a

[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]

handkerchief in one hand, and a pair of moccasins in
the other.

The Doctor was anxious to get away—more anxious,
perhaps, than any one. For what had the camp been
to him? If I could have had my way or say, I
would have left this mysterious, sad-faced, silent man
behind.

I think the Prince would have done the same.
We cannot always have our own way, even with
ourselves.

Why does the man not do thus and so, we say?
What is there to hinder him? Who shall say yea
or nay? Is he not his own master? No. No man
is his own master who has a conscience.

If this man had been of stronger will, had he not
been so utterly helpless and friendless, we could
have left him, and would have left him gladly; as it
was, it was not a matter of choice at all.

Ponies were scarce, and mules were high-priced and
hard to get, but the Doctor was not so poor as we,
and he put his money all in the Prince's hands. So
we had a tolerable outfit.

A very little pony would answer for me, the
commonest kind could bear Paquita and her extra
dress, while Klamat could walk and make his own
way through the woods, like a greyhound.

The Prince procured a great double-barrelled shot
gun, throwing buck-shot by the handful, for himself,

[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]

and pistols for all, for we were going into the heart
of a hostile country.

An officer, it was rumoured, was on the watch
for the Doctor, and Klamat prepared to lead us by
way of a blind trail, up the mountain side, without
passing out by way of the Howlin' Wilderness at The
Forks.

One of the most interesting studies, as well as one
of the rarest, is that of man in a state of nature.
Next to that is the state of man removed from, or
above the reach of, all human law, utterly away from
what is still more potent to control the actions of
men, public opinion—the good or ill-will of the
world.

As far as my observation has gone I am bound to
say, that any expression on the subject would be
highly laudatory of the native goodness of man. I
should say, as a rule, he, in that state, is brave,
generous, and just.

But in civilization I find that the truly just and
good man is rarely prominent, he is hardly heard of,
while some little sharp-faced commercial meddler,
who never spends or bestows a farthing without first
balancing it on his finger, and reckoning how much
it will bring him by way of honour in return, is
often counted the noblest man among you.

Therefore, I say that the truest men are those who
are men for the sake of their manhood. A true man

[figure description] Page 197.[end figure description]

does a good deed for the sake of doing good, for the
satisfaction of it, for the dignity that it gives him in
his own eyes, and not in the eyes of the world.

You see some noble and interesting things when
the winds have blown men away from the shore to
where there is no law to punish crime, no public
opinion to reward merit, where men act from within
and not from without.

That aristocratic and highly respectable gentleman,
the Hon. Mr. Perkins, of Perkinsville, who gave the
thousand dollars to the Sanitary Commission, and a
like sum to the church, and had it published over all
the land, received offices and posts of honour for the
same, and always cherished a fond hope that the
facts would be appropriately set forth on his tombstone,
for which he had just contracted with a dealer,
in finest Italian marble, and at a splendid bargain,
too, as the man was about to fail and compelled to
have the money,—would probably have acted quite
otherwise here.

Similar deeds done under the eyes of an approving
world might not take place in the mountains where
there is no public opinion, no press to pronounce
a man a benefactor, no responding public to build a
monument. Such gifts have their reward on earth.
In fact, they are more than repaid. The glory is
worth more than the gold; and the poor are under
no obligations whatever. “Let not thy left hand

[figure description] Page 198.[end figure description]

know what thy right hand doeth” means very much
more than is expressed.

With his moccasins bound tight about his feet and
reaching up so as to embrace the legs of his buckskin
pantaloons, his right arm freed from the hateful
red-shirt sleeve which hung in freedom at his side,
some eagle feathers in his hair, and his rifle on his
shoulder, Klamat, with a beaming countenance, led
the way from the cabin.

The Prince had assigned him the post of honour,
and he was carried away with delight. He seemed to
forget that he was the only one on foot. No doubt
he would gladly have given up the red shirt and
buckskins, all but his rifle, with pleasure, at this
supreme moment, had they been required, to insure
his position as leader.

Alexander gave away to his friends the last of the
spoils after a great battle. “And what have you
kept for yourself?” said one. “Hope and glory,”
he answered.

Klamat was an infant Alexander.

I followed, then Paquita, the Doctor next. The
Prince took up a piece of charcoal from the heap
of ashes outside the cabin, and wrote in great bold
letters on the door:

“To Let.”

We crossed the stream at a cabin below, just as
the men were beginning to stir.

[figure description] Page 199.[end figure description]

They seemed to know that something unusual was
taking place. They straightened themselves in the
fresh light and air, washed their hands and hairy
faces in the gold-pans on the low pine stump by the
door, but tried, or seemed to try, not to observe.

Once across the stream, Klamat led steeply up
the hill for a time, then he would chop and cut to
right and left in a zigzag route until we had
reached the rim of a bench in the mountain. Here
he stopped and motioned the Prince to approach, after
he had looked back intently into the camp and taken
sight by some pines that stood before him.

The Prince rode up to the boy and dismounted;
when he had done so, the little fellow lifted three
fingers, looked excited, and pointed down upon the
old cabin. It was more than a mile away, nearly a
mile below; but the sun was pitching directly down
upon it, and all things stood out clear and large as life.

Three men rode quickly up to the cabin, leaned
from their mules and read the inscription. The
leader now dismounted, kicked open the door and
entered. It does not take long to search a cabin,
without a loft or even a bed to hide under, and the
man did not remain a great while within.

Without even taking pains to close the door,
to keep out coyotes and other things, as miners
do, so that cabins may be habitable for some wayfarer,
or fortune-hunters who may not have a house

[figure description] Page 200.[end figure description]

of their own, he hastily mounted and led the party
down to the next cabin below.

The miners were evidently at breakfast, for the
man leaned from his saddle and shouted two or three
times before any one came out.

The door opened, and a very tall, black-bearded
hairy man came forth, and walked up before the man
leaning from his mule.

What was said I do not know, but the bare-headed,
hairy man pointed with his long arm up the
mountain on the other side, exactly the opposite
course from the one that had been taken by the
fugitives.

Here the officer said something very loud, pushed
back his broad-brimmed hat, and pointed down the
stream. The long-armed, bare-headed, hairy man
again pointed emphatically up the mountain on the
other side, and then wheeled on his heel, entered,
and closed the door.

The interview had evidently not been a satisfactory
one, or a friendly one to the officer, and he led his
men slowly down the creek with their heads bent
down intently to the trail. They did not go far.
There were no fresh tracks in the way. The recent
great rain had made the ground soft, and there was
no mistaking the absence of the signs.

There was a consultation: three heads in broad
hats close together as they could get sitting on their

[figure description] Page 201.[end figure description]

mules. Now a hat would be pushed back, and a
face lifted up exactly in our direction. We had
sheltered behind the pines. Klamat was holding
the Prince's mule's nose to keep it from braying to
those below. Paquita had dismounted a little way
off, behind a clump of pines, and was plucking some
leaves and grasses for her pony and the pack-mule
to keep them still. The Doctor never seemed more
stupid and helpless than now; but, at a sign from
Klamat, stole out to the shelter where Paquita stood,
dismounted, and began to gather grasses, too, for his
mule.

A poor, crooked, imitative little monkey he looked
as he bent to pluck the grass; at the same time
watching Paquita, as if he wished to forget that there
was any graver task on hand than to pluck grass
and feed the little mules.

Mules are noisy of a morning when they first set
out. The utmost care was necessary now to insure
silence.

Had the wind blown in our direction, or even a
mule brayed below, these mules in the midst of our
party would have turned their heads down hill,
pointed their opera-glasses sharply for a moment or
two at the sounds below, and then, in spite of kicks
or clubs, have brayed like trumpets, and betrayed us
where we stood.

There was no excitement in the face of the Prince,

[figure description] Page 202.[end figure description]

not much concern. His foot played and patted in
the great wooden stirrup, and shook and jingled the
bells of steel on his Spanish spur, but he said
nothing.

Sometimes the men below would point in this
direction and then in that with their long yellow
gauntlets, then they would prick and spur their
mules till they spun round like tops.

When a man pricks and spurs his mule, you may
be sure that he is bothered.

A Yankee would scratch his head, pull at his ear,
or rub his chin; an Englishman would take snuff;
a Missourian would take a chew of tobacco, and
perhaps swear; but a Californian in the mountains
disdains to do anything so stupid and inexpressive.
He kicks and cuffs and spurs his mule.

At length the leader set his spurs in the broad
hair-sinch, with the long steel points of the rowels,
and rode down to the water's edge. A twig was
broken there. The Doctor had done that as we
crossed, to get a switch for his mule, and brought
down the wrath of Klamat, expressed, however, only
in frightful grimaces, signs, and the flashing of his
eyes. The officer dismounted, leaned over, brushed
the burrs aside, took some of them up, and examined
them closely.

An arm was now lifted and waved authoritatively
to the two men sitting on their mules in the trail,

[figure description] Page 203.[end figure description]

and they instantly struck the spurs in the broad
sinch, and through into the tough skins of their
mules, I think, for they ambled down toward the
officer at a rapid pace and —consternation! One of
them threw up his head and brayed as if for life.

The Prince's mule pointed his opera-glasses, set
out his legs, took in a long breath, and was just
about to make the forest ring, when his master sprung
to the ground, caught him by the nose, and wrenched
him around till he fell upon his haunches.

Here Klamat made a sign, threw the Doctor on
his mule, left Paquita to take care of herself, and led
off up the hill. We mounted, and followed as fast as
possible; but the Prince's mule, as if in revenge, now
stopped short, set out his legs, lifted his nose, and
brayed till the very pine-quills quivered overhead.

After he had brayed to his satisfaction, he gave a
sort of grunt, as if to say, “We are even now,” and
shot ahead. The little pack-mule was no trouble.
He had but a light load, and, as if in gratitude, faithfully
kept his place.

A pony or horse must be led. Anything but a
mule will roam and run against trees, will lodge
his pack in the boughs that hang low overhead, or,
worse still, stop to eat of the branches or weeds, and
grasses under foot. The patient, cunning little
Mexican mule will do nothing of the sort. He
would starve rather than stop to eat when on duty;

[figure description] Page 204.[end figure description]

and would as soon think of throwing himself down
over one of the cliffs that he is familiar with as to
injure or imperil the pack that has been trusted to
his care, by butting against trees, or lodging under
the boughs that hang above the trail. He stops the
instant the pack is loose, or anything falls to the
ground, and refuses to move till all is made right.

We could not keep pace with Klamat, hasten as
we might, through the pines. Like a spirit, he
darted here and there through the trees, urging and
beckoning all the time for us to follow faster.

We could not see our pursuers now, yet we knew
too well that they were climbing fast as their strong-limbed
sturdy mules would serve them, the hill that
we had climbed an hour before. The advantage,
on one hand, was theirs; on the other, we had things
somewhat our own way. The chances were about
evenly balanced for escape without blood.

Any one who frequents the mountains of the north
will soon notice that on all the hill-sides facing the
sun there is no undergrowth. You may ride there,
provided you do not wedge in between the trees that
grow too close together to let you pass, or go under
a hanging bough, the same as in a park. But if you
get on the north side of the hill, you find an undergrowth
that is almost impassable for man or beast.
Chaparral, manzanita, madrono, plum, white thorn,
and many other kinds of shrubs and trees, contribute

[figure description] Page 205.[end figure description]

to make a perfectly safe retreat from men for the wild
beasts of those regions. In a flight, this is the chief
thing to do. Keep your eye on the lay of the hills,
so that you may always be on the south side, or you
will find yourself in a net.

p645-239 CHAPTER XV. TURN TO THE RIGHT AS THE LAW DIRECTS.

[figure description] Page 206.[end figure description]

ANOTHER danger lies in getting too low
down on the hillside to the sea. On that
side, where only grass has grown and
pine-quills fallen without any undergrowth to hold
them there, and contribute its own decaying and cast-off
clothes to the soil, the ground is often broken,
and, unlike the north side of the hills, shows here and
there steep bluffs and impassable, basaltic blocks, or
slides of slate or shale on which it would be madness
to venture.

The only safe thing to do is to find the summit,
and keep along the backbone of the mountain, and
thus escape the chaparral nets of the north and the
precipices of the south.

Great skill consists in being able to reach the
summit successfully, and still greater in keeping
along the backbone when it is once reached, and not
follow off on one of the spurs that often shoot up
higher than the back of the main ridge. There are

[figure description] Page 207.[end figure description]

many trails here, made by game going to and fro in
the warm summer days, or in crossing the ridges in
their semi-annual migrations down to the rivers and
back again to the mountains.

The temptations to take one of these trails and
abandon the proper one, which is often dim and
sometimes wholly indistinct, are many. It takes the
shrewdest mountaineer to keep even so much as
for one day's journey along the backbone without
once being led aside down the spurs into the nets
of chaparral, or above the impassable crags and
precipices. Of course, when you can retrace your
steps it is a matter of no great moment; you will only
lose your time. But with us there was no going back.

When we had reached the second bench we turned
to look. Soon the heads of the men were seen to
shoot above the rim of the bench below; perhaps less
than a mile away. No doubt they caught sight of us
now, for the hand of the officer lifted, pointed in this
direction, and he settled his spurs in his sinch, and
led his men in pursuit.

Deliberately the Prince dismounted, set his saddle
well forward, and drew the sinch tight as possible.

We all did the same; mounted then, and followed
little Klamat, who had by this time set both arms
free from the odious red shirt which was now belted
about the waist, up the hill as fast as we could
follow.

[figure description] Page 208.[end figure description]

We reached the summit of the ridge. Scintillations
from the flashing snows of Mount Shasta
shimmered through the trees, and a breath of air
came across from the Klamat lakes and the Modoc
land beyond, as if to welcome us from the dark, deep
canon with its leaden fringe, and lining of dark and
eternal green.

The Doctor pushed his hat back from his brow
and faintly smiled. He was about to kiss his hand
to the splendid and majestic mountain showing in
bars and sections through the trees, but looked
around, caught the eye of Klamat, and his hand fell
timidly to his side.

As for Paquita, she leaped from her pony and put
out her arms. Her face was radiant with delight.
Beautiful with divine beauty, she arched her hand
above her brow, looked long and earnestly at the
mountain, and then, in a wild and unaccountable sort
of ecstasy, turned suddenly, threw her arms about
her pony's neck, embraced him passionately and
kissed his tawny nose.

We had been buried in that canon for so long.
We were like men who had issued from a dungeon.
As for myself, I was much as usual; I clasped
and twisted my hands together as I let my reins fall
on my horse's neck, and said nothing.

Our animals were mute now, too; no mule of the
party could have been induced to bray. They were

[figure description] Page 209.[end figure description]

tired, dripping with sweat, and held their brown
noses low and close to the ground, without attempting
to touch the weeds or grasses.

Klamat threw up his hand. The men had appeared
on the bench below. We had evidently gained on
them considerably, for here we had ten minutes' rest
before they broke over the mountain bench beneath.
This was encouraging. No doubt a saddle had
slipped off back over a mule's rump in some steep
place they had just mounted, and thus caused the
delay, for they had neglected to sinch their saddles in
their great haste.

They dismounted now, and settled their saddles.
We tightened our saddles also. This was the summit,
and now came the demand for skill.

When the officer threw his leg over the macheers
of his saddle below, Klamat set forward. His skill
was as wonderful as his endurance. Being now on
the summit, he could travel without halting to
breathe; this, of course would be required if he hoped
to keep ahead. And even then, where would it all
end? It is most likely no one had thought of that.
For my part, I kept watching the sun and wishing
for night.

This is an instinctive desire of all things rational
or irrational, I think, that are compelled to fly—

“O that night or Blucher would come.”

It was hardly possible to keep ahead of our

[figure description] Page 210.[end figure description]

pursuers all day, well mounted as they were, and
one of our party on foot, yet that seemed to be the
only hope. There yet was an alternative, if the worst
came to the worst. We could ambush and shoot
them down. I saw that Klamat kept an eye constantly
on his rifle when not foxing the trail and
eyeing the pursuers.

The Prince was well armed. He carried his
double-barrelled piece before him in the saddle-bow.
The rest of us were not defenceless. The deed was
more than possible.

These men wanted the Doctor: him only, so far as
we knew. The Doctor was accused of murder.
The officer, no doubt, had due process, and the legal
authority to take him. To the Prince he was nothing
much. He was no equal in physical or mental
capacity. He was failing in health and in strength,
and could surely be of no future possible use to us.
Why should the Prince take life, or even imperil ours
for his sake?

The answer, no doubt, would be very unsatisfactory
to the civilized world, but it was enough for
the Prince. The man needed his help. The man
was almost helpless. This, perhaps, was the first
and strongest reason for his course. There is a
great deal in this chivalrous disposition to shield the
weak.

When woman arises and asserts herself, as the

[figure description] Page 211.[end figure description]

sharp-tongued, thin-lipped puritaness proposes, and
is no longer dependent, man's arm will no longer be
reached as a shield, but as a sword.

Whenever woman succeeds in making herself a
soldier she must fight. The beasts of the field will
fight to the death for the young while they are helpless;
but when they grow strong and swift the beasts
of the field will run away and leave them to their
fate, or even fight against them when they are
strong, as bravely as they did for them when they
were weak.

At the bottom of all other reasons for taking care
of this man, who seemed to become every day less
capable of taking care of himself, was a little poetical
fact not forgotten. This man furnished bread when
we were hungry—when the snow was deep, when the
earth lay in a lock-jaw, as it were, and could not open
her mouth to us.

Now and then Klamat would turn his eyes over
his shoulder, toss his head, and urge on. The eagle-feathers
in his black hair, as if glad to get back again
in the winds of Shasta, floated and flew back at us,
and we followed as if we followed a banner. A black
banner, this we followed, made of the feathers of a
fierce and bloody bird. Where would it lead us?
No buccaneers of the sea were freer, wilder, braver
at heart than we. Where would it lead us?

One thing was fearfully against us. The recent

[figure description] Page 212.[end figure description]

rains had made the ground soft and spongy. The
four horses made a trail that could be followed on
the run. Even where the pine-quills lay thickest,
the ground would be broken here and there so as to
leave little doubt or difficulty to our pursuers.

Had it been a dry autumn the ground would have
been hard as an adobe, and we might have dodged
to one side almost anywhere, and, providing our
mules did not smell and hail the passing party,
escaped with impunity. As it was, nothing seemed
left but to persist in flight to the uttermost. And
this we did.

We did not taste food. We had not tasted water
since sunrise, and it was now far in the afternoon.
The Doctor began to sit with an unsteady motion in
his saddle. The mules were beginning to bray; this
time from distress, and not excess of spirits. The
Prince's mule had his tongue hanging out between
his teeth, and, what was worse, his ears began to flop
to and fro as if they had wilted in the sun. Some
mules put their tongues out through their teeth and
go very well for days after; but when a mule lets his
ears swing, he has lost his ambition, and is not to be
depended on much longer.

A good mountain mule should not tire short of a
week, but there is human nature wherever there is a
bargain to be made, and there are mule jockeys as
well as horse jockeys even in the mountains; and

[figure description] Page 213.[end figure description]

you cannot pick up good mules when you like, either
for love or money. The men who followed had, no
doubt, a tried and trusty stock. Things began to
look critical.

The only thing that seemed unaffected was Klamat.
Two or three times through the day he had stood
his rifle against a pine, drew his belt a knot or two
tighter, fastened his moccasin-strings over, and then
dashed ahead without a word. Our banner of eagle
feathers still floated defiantly, and promised to lead
even further than we could follow. Closer and
closer came the pursuers. We could see them
striking their steel spurs in their sinches as if
they would lift their tired mules along with their
heels.

Once they were almost within hail; but a saddle
slipped, and they lost at least ten minutes with a
fractious mule, that for a time concluded not to be
sinched again till it had taken rest.

The sugar-pines dropped their rich and delicate
nuts as we rode by, from pyramid cones as long as
your arm, and little foxy-looking pine squirrels with
pink eyes, stopped from their work of hoarding them
for winter, to look or chatter at us as we hurried
breathless and wearily past.

Mount Shasta still flashed down upon us through
the dark rich boughs of fir and pine, but did not
thrill us now.

[figure description] Page 214.[end figure description]

When the body is tired, the mind is tired too.
You get surfeited with grandeur at such a time. No
doubt the presence tames you somewhat, tones
down the rugged points in you that would like to
find expression; that would find expression in fretful
words but for this greatness which shows you how
small you are; but you are subdued rather than
elevated.

Suddenly Klamat led off to the right as if forsaking
the main summit for a spur. This seemed a bad sign.
The Prince said nothing. At any other time I dare
say he would have protested.

We had no time to dispute now; besides, almost
any change from this toilsome and eternal run was a
relief. What made things seem worse, however, this
boy seemed to be leading us back again to The Forks.
We were edging around at right angles with our pursuers.
They could cut across if we kept on, and
head us off. We were making more than a crescent;
the boy was leading us right back to the men we
wished to escape.

Soon he went out on a point and stopped. He
beckoned us to ride up. We did so. It seemed less
than half a mile to a point we had passed less than
an hour since, and, as far as we could see, there
was only a slight depression between. The officer
and his party soon came in sight. As they did so
he raised his arm. We were not unobserved.

[figure description] Page 215.[end figure description]

Klamat sat down to rest, and made signs that we
should dismount. I looked at the Prince to see
what he would do. He swung himself to the ground,
looking tired and impatient, and we all did the same.
The Doctor could not keep his feet, but lay down,
helpless, on the brown bed of quills from the sugar-pines
that clustered around and crowned the point
where we had stopped to rest.

The officer and his men looked to their catenas;
each drew out a pistol, revolved the cylinder, settled
the powder back in the tubes by striking the ivory
handles gently on the saddle pommels, saw that each
nipple still held its cap, and then spurred their
mules down the hillside as if to cross the depression
that lay between, and head us off at once. They
were almost within hail, and I thought I could hear
the clean sharp click of the steel bells on their Spanish
spurs as they descended and disappeared among the
tree-tops as if going down into a sea.

Klamat had learned some comic things in camp,
even though he had not learned, or pretended he
had not learned, to talk. When the men had disappeared
among the branches of the trees, he turned
to the Prince and gravely lifted his thumb to his
nose, elevated his fingers in the air, and wriggled
them in the direction of the place where the officer
was seen to descend.

Every moment I expected to see the muzzles of

[figure description] Page 216.[end figure description]

those pistols thrust up through the pines as the
three men turned the brow of the hill. They did
not appear, however, and as we arose to adjust our
saddles after some time, I stepped to the rim of the
hill and looked over to the north side. The hill was
steep and rugged, with a ledge, and lined with chapparral.
A white-tailed rabbit came through, sat down,
and looked back into the canon. Some quails started
and flew to one side, but that was all I saw or heard.

The Doctor had to be assisted to his saddle. He
was pale, and his lips were parched and swollen.
Slowly now Klamat walked ahead; he, too, was tired.
We had rested too long, perhaps. You cannot get
an Indian to sit down when on a long and severe
journey, unless compelled to, to rest others. The
cold and damp creeps into the joints, and you get
stiff and tenfold more tired than before. Great as
the temptation is to rest, you should first finish your
race, the whole day's journey, before you let your
nerves relax.

Slowly as we moved, however, our pursuers did
not reappear. We were still on the ridge, in spite
of the sharp and eccentric turn it had taken around
the head of the river.

As the sun went down, broad, blood-red banners
ran up to the top of Shasta, and streamed
away to the south in hues of gold; streamed and
streamed as if to embrace the universe in one great

[figure description] Page 217.[end figure description]

union beneath one banner. Then the night came down
as suddenly on the world as the swoop of an eagle.

The Doctor, who had all the afternoon kept an
uncertain seat, now leaned over on his mule's mane,
and had fallen, but for the Prince who was riding at
his side.

Klamat came back and set his rifle against a pine.
We laid the feeble man on the bed of quills, loosened
the sinches as the mules and ponies let their noses
droop almost to the ground, and prepared to spend
the night. This was imperative. It was impossible to
go farther. That would have been the death of the
man we wished to save.

A severe ride in the mountains at any time is a
task. Your neck is wrenched, and your limbs are
weary as you leap this log or tumble and stumble
your tired animal over this pile of rocks or through
that sink of mud, until you are tired enough by night;
but when you ride an awkward and untrained mule,
when you have not sat a horse for a year, and have
an old saddle that fits you like an umbrella or a
barrel, you get tired, stiff-limbed, and used up in a
way that is indescribable. As for poor Paquita she
was literally crucified, but went about picking up
quills for beds for all, and never once murmured.

The Doctor was very ill. Klamat went down the
hill-side and found some water to wet his lips, but
this did not revive him. It was a cold evening. The

[figure description] Page 218.[end figure description]

autumn wind came pitching down from the Shasta,
sharp and sudden. The old Frost King, who had
been driven to the mountain-top in the early summer,
was descending now by degrees to reclaim his
original kingdom.

We unpacked the little mule and spread a bed for
the suffering man, but still he shivered and shook,
and we could not get him warm. We, too, were
suffering from the cold. We could hardly move
when we had rested a moment and let the cold
drive back the perspiration, and drive the chill to
the marrow.

“A fire,” said the Prince.

Klamat protested against it. The sick man grew
worse. Something warm would restore him.

We must have a fire. Paquita gathered up some
pine knots from the hill side. A match was struck
in the quills. The mules started, lifted their noses,
but hardly moved as the fire sprung up like a giant
full-grown, and reached for the cones of the sugar-pines
overhead. There was comfort and companionship
in the fire. We could see each other now,—
our little colony of pilgrims. We looked at each
other and were revived.

We had a little coffee-pot, black and battered it
is true, but the water boiled just the same, and as
soon as if it had been silver.

This revived the Doctor. Hunger had much to

[figure description] Page 219.[end figure description]

do with his faintness. He now sat up and talked, in
his low quiet way, looking into the fire and brushing
the little mites of dust and pine-quills from his shirt,
as if still to retain his great respectability of dress;
and by the time we all had finished our coffee, he was
almost as cheerful as we had ever seen him before.

The moon came out clear and cold, and we spread
our damp and dusty blankets on the quills between
the pines, with the snowy front of the Shasta lifting,
lifting like a bank of clouds away to the left, and the
heads of many mining streams dipping away in so
many wild and dubious directions that no one but
our little leader, perhaps, could have found the way to
the settlements without the gravest embarrassment.

Klamat had gone down the hill for water, this
time leaving his rifle leaned against a pine, though
not without casting a glance back over his shoulder
as if to say, “Look sharp! but I will be back at
once.” We all were still warming ourselves by the
fire, I think, though there are some sudden things
you cannot just recall.

A wave of fate strikes you so strong sometimes,
that you are swallowed up. Head and ears you go
under it and you see nothing, you remember nothing.
It seems to take your breath.

Click! click! click! a tired mule started, snuffed,
and then dropped his head, for it was over in an
instant.

[figure description] Page 220.[end figure description]

“Hands up, gentlemen! hands up! Don't trouble
yourselves to move! There, that will do! You are
the one we want. Pass in your checks!”

The Doctor hid his face in his hands, and let them
take his arms without a word.

The fire had done the mischief. Klamat did not
come back; at least, he did not let it be known if he
did. Paquita opened her large eyes very wide,
pushed back her hair, and rested her hands in her
lap as she sat looking at the three strange men in
elegant top boots and broad-brimmed hats.

“A pretty man you are, Mr. Prince, to run with
this fellow,” said the officer, “to give me this race.
For a coon skin I would take you in charge too.”

Here he arose, went over, and looked at the animals
in the firelight, as if looking for some cause to lay
hands on the Prince, took general charge of the camp
as if it were his own, lit his pipe, had one of the men
make coffee, and seemed quite at home.

If the Prince uttered a word all this time I do not
remember it.

“Where's your other Ingin, Prince?” said the
officer, looking about and seeing but the four saddles.
“Put him in the bush, or left him in the camp?
Rather a good-looking piece you got here now, ain't
she?” He pointed his pipe-stem at Paquita.

For the first time the Prince showed colour.

The officer and his men, toward midnight, spread

[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]

their blankets on the other side of the fire. They
were scarce of blankets, and the night was cold.

This may be the reason they all spread down
together. But there is nothing that will excuse
such a stupid thing in the mountains. Sleep apart.
Wide apart, rods apart: never two together, unless
you wish to make a broad target of yourselves
where the muzzle of one gun can do the work of
many.

Before lying down the men did what they could
for their tired beasts; and then the officer came up
to the Doctor, who still gazed and gazed into the
fire, and, drawing something from his pockets that
clinked like chains, said—

“Your hands!”

“He is ill,” said the Prince, “very ill. I will answer
for him. Iron me if you like; but that man is a nervous,
sensitive man that cannot bear to be chained.”

The officer laughed a little and, without answering,
took the Doctor's unresisting hands and linked them
together with a snap that made on shudder; then
laid him back in his blankets. He looked to his
pistol, and saying—

“Don't move! Don't you attempt to move!”
walked over to the other side of the pine-knot fire,
and, pistol in hand, lay down by his companions,
looking all the time across the fire at his prisoner.

The Prince arose, went and gathered up pine-knots

[figure description] Page 222.[end figure description]

by the light of the moon, and laid them on the fire.
Paquita looked inquiringly at him, and then went
and did the same. When the fire loomed up, he
lifted the blankets from the Doctor's feet, drew off
his boots, and let the warm, cheerful fire fall on the
wretched man.

The officer lay like a fox watching every move and
motion, with his head on his saddle, and his nose
just above the blankets. His pistol hand was at his
side clutching the revolver. The other men were
equally wide awake and watchful at his side.

“Lie down, Paquita,” said the Prince, “lie down
and rest with your moccasins to the fire; you have
had a hard and bitter day of it. I will keep the
fire.”

The child obeyed. He waved his hand at me to
do the same, and I was soon sound asleep.

The last I saw of the Prince before falling asleep—
he was resting on his side with his hand on his head,
and elbow on his blankets. In the mountains, when
you spread your blankets, you put your arms—rifle
or pistols—in between the blankets as carefully as
if they were children. This is done, in the first
place, to keep them dry, and, in the second place, to
have them ready for use. They are laid close to
your side. The heat of your body keeps out the
damp.

I awoke soon. I was too bruised, and sore, and

[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]

sick in mind and body, to sleep. There is a doleful,
dreary bird that calls in this country in the night, in
the most mournful tone you can imagine. It is a
sort of white-headed owl; not large, but with a very
hoarse and coarse note. One of these birds was
calling at intervals down the gorge to the right, and
another answered on the other side so faintly I could
just hear it. An answer would come just as regularly
as this one called, and that would sound even more
doleful and dreary still, because so far and indistinct.
The moon hung cold and crooked overhead, and fell
in flakes through the trees like snow.

The Doctor put out his two hands, pushed back
the blanket, and raised his head. He looked to the
left in the gorge as if he contemplated a spring in
that direction. I think that, at last, he had summoned
up courage to make a desperate effort to escape.

He drew up his legs slowly, as if gathering his
muscles for a leap. My heart stood still. All seemed
clear. I could see the nerves of his face quiver in
the moon.

He turned his head to the officer, not six feet away
across the fire, and looked squarely into the ugly,
sullen muzzles of three lifted pistols.

The Doctor sank back with a groan. His face was
now white as the moon that shone down upon it
through the quills above his head.

The officer and his men exchanged glances, and

[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]

lay down without a word. The Prince was possibly
asleep. Still, ever and again, the doleful bird kept
calling, and the woful answer came back like an
echo of sorrow across the great black canon below.

The moon kept settling and settling to the west
among the yellow stars, as broad and spangled as
California lilies, and the morning was not far away.

Again the Doctor drew in his naked feet. I could
see the muscles gather and contract, and I knew he
was again preparing for a spring. All was still. He
raised his head, and three pistol muzzles raised and
met the man half way. He crept back far down in
the blankets, hid his head in the folds, and shuddered
and shivered as with an ague.

Dawn was descending and settling around the head
of Shasta in a splendour and a glory that words
will never touch.

There are some things that are so far beyond the
reach of words that it seems like desecration to
attempt description. It was not the red of Pekin,
not the purple of Tyre or the yellow of the Barbary
coast; but merge all these, mixed and made mellow
in a far and tender light—snow and sun, and sun
and snow—and stars, and blue and purple skies all
blended, all these in a splendid, confused, and indescribable
glory, suffusing the hoary summit, centering
there, gathering there, resting a moment—then radiating,
going on to the sea, to broad and burning plains

[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]

of the south, to the boundless forests of fir in the north,
even to the mining camps of Cariboo, and you have
a sunrise on the summit of Shasta.

The Prince lifted his head, rested on his elbow,
rubbed his eyes as if he had surely slept, and then
slowly and stiffly arose. The fire was low, almost
out. He turned to gather pine-knots, laid them on
the fire, and turned away as if to gather more. The
Doctor seemed to sleep. The officer and his men
were resting too. Perhaps they slept also.

“Click! click!”

I sprang to my feet.

“Don't trouble yourselves to move, gentlemen!
Remain just where you are, gentlemen, just where
you are!”

It was the Prince who spoke this time. He had
approached the three heads from behind, and had
the double-barrelled gun with its double handful of
buck-shot levelled, as he spoke, against the tops of
their heads as they lay there on their backs.

Approach a man lying down as if you meant to
tread upon his scalp and pin him to the earth, and he
is the most helpless of mortals. He cannot see you,
he cannot turn around, he can do nothing. Here lay
those men; they could see nothing but the black
ugly muzzles of the double barrels. Their pistols
were in their hands; they were plucky fellows, but
they could not draw; they were as likely to shoot
each other as an enemy or any one.

p645-259

[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]

This coming upon a man when he is lying down on
his back may not be the manliest way in the world,
but it is the safest, certainly; and when the game is
three to one, you have to take all the per-cent. you
can, or, in mountain phrase, “just pass in your
checks.”

“Don't trouble yourselves to move, gentlemen;
don't trouble to rise!”

The Prince said this with a mockery and irony in
his tone that was bitter beyond expression; as if
all the poison and the venom of the cruel words and
cruel treatment of the Doctor the night before had
been rankling in his heart till it was ready to burst
out of itself, and he now hissed it out between his
teeth.

There was something in his words that told the
three men that he would rather like it if they would
only “trouble to move,” move the least bit in the
world. As if he would be particularly glad if even
one of them would lift a finger, and give him even
the least shadow of an excuse to blow them to the
moon. They therefore “did not trouble to move.”

Klamat came out here from the dark with the
dawn. He approached the men like a shadow thrown
by a pine from the far light, pulled down the blankets,
and took the three pistols from their unresisting
hands.

“You may sit up now,” said the Prince, taking a

[figure description] Illustration page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]

seat across the fire by the side of the Doctor. “You
may sit up now. You are my prisoners, but I will
not handcuff you. I will give you back your arms
if you obey me, and you shall return to your town.”

“I will not ask you not to mention this little affair,”
said the Prince—raising the double barrels, as one of
the men seemed to be gathering his legs under him—
I will not ask you not to mention this little affair.
That is safe enough. You gents will be the last men
on earth to mention it. But I give you my word
that it shall never be mentioned by us, never, so long
as you do not attempt to molest this man. Make
the least attempt against him, or any one here, and
you shall be made the laughing-stock of your town.”

The men looked at each other with hope. They
had expected to die on the spot.

“It's your pot, Prince, take it down. You hold
the papers, called us on a dead hand, you did, but this
was no bluff of mine. The only mislead made was
not to chain you down too, like a dog, as you deserve
to be.”

The Prince coloured. “If you had not chained
this man,” he said at last, quietly, “perhaps you
could have taken him with you. The only mistake
you made was to chain any man at all. Chain a man
that could not stand on his feet! You deserve to
be shot; and if you repeat yourself, I will let Klamat
scalp you where you sit.”

[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]

The Indian arose with his hand on his knife.
There was a fierce satisfaction in his face. He had
suffered too much through the night, through the
winter, through the year, to feel like trifling now.
The Indian boy had no other idea than the death of
the men. He certainly looked blank amazement
when, an hour later, the Prince, after discharging
their arms, and emptying their catenas of ammunition,
returned them all again, and turned their faces
to the city, civilly, almost politely.

The men rode sadly and silently away through the
trees, now and then looking back over their shoulders.
The man-hunt was over.

p645-264 CHAPTER XVI. HOME.

[figure description] Page 229.[end figure description]

A PECULIARLY nervous man suffers from
a mental ailment as distinctly as from a
wound. He grows weak under the sense
of mental distress the same as an ordinary man does
from the loss of blood. Remove the cause of apprehension,
and he recovers the same as the wounded
man recovers. Free the mind, and you stop the flow
of blood. He grows strong again.

We moved on a little way that day, slowly, to be
sure, but fast enough and far enough to be able to
pitch our camp in a place of our own choosing, with
wood, water, and grass, the indispensable requisites
of a mountain camp, all close at hand.

To the astonishment of all, the Doctor unsaddled
his mule, gathered up wood, and was a full half-hand
at supper. At night he spread his own blankets,
looked to his pistols like an old mountaineer, and
seemed to be at last getting in earnest with life.
The next day, as we rode through the trees, he

[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]

whistled at the partridges as they ran in strings
across the trails, and chirped at the squirrels overhead.

How delightful it was to ride through the grass
and trees, hear the partridges whistle, pack and
unpack the horses, pitch the tent by the water, and
make a military camp, and talk of war; imagine
battles, shoot from behind the pines, and always, of
course, making yourself a hero. Splendid! I was
busy as a bee. I cooked, packed, stood guard, killed
game, did everything. And so we journeyed on
through the splendid forests, under the face of Shasta,
and over peaceful little streams that wound silently
through the grass, as if afraid, till we came to the
head-waters of the Sacramento.

Sometimes we saw other camps. White tents
pitched down by the shining river, among the scattered
pines; brown mules and spotted ponies feeding,
and half buried in the long grass; and the sound of
the picks in the bar below us all made a picture in
my life to love.

Once we fell in with an Indian party; pretty girls
and lively unsuspicious boys along with their parents,
fishing for salmon, and not altogether at war with
the whites. They treated us with great kindness.

At last we branched off entirely to ourselves, cutting
deep into the mountain as the winter approached,
looking for a home. The weak condition of the

[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]

Doctor made it necessary that we brought our
journey to a close. We had taken a different route
from others, for good and sufficient reasons. The
trails and tracks of the hundreds of gold-hunters, who
had mostly preceded us some months, lay considerably
west of Mount Shasta, striking the head of the Sacramento
river at its very source. They had found only
a few bars with float gold, not in sufficient quantities
to warrant the location of a camp, and pushed
on to the mines farther south. Some, however,
returned.

We sometimes met a party of ten or more, all
well armed and mounted, ready to fight or fly as the
case might require. The usual mountain civilities
would be exchanged, brief and brusque enough, and
each party would pass on its way, with a frequent
glance thrown back suspiciously at our Indian
boy with his rifle, the invalid Doctor leaning on his
catenas, the Indian girl with her splendid hair and
face as bright as the morning, and the majestic figure
of the Prince. An odd-looking party was ours, I
confess.

Paquita knew every dimple, bend or spur in these
mountains now. The Prince entrusted her to select
some suitable place to rest. One evening she drew
rein and reached out her hand. Klamat stood his
rifle against a pine, and began to unpack the tired
little mule, and all dismounted without a word.

[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]

It was early sundown. A balm and a calm was
on and in all things. The very atmosphere was still
as a shadow and seemed to say, “Rest, rest!” We
were on the edge of an opening; a little prairie of
a thousand acres, inclining south, with tall, very tall
grass, and a little stream straying from where we
stood to wander through the meadow. A wall of
pines stood thick and strong around our little Eden,
and when we had unsaddled our tired animals and
taken the aparrajo from the little packer, we
turned them loose in the little Paradise, without even
so much as a lariat or hackamoor to restrain them.

The sun had just retired from the body of the
mountain, but it was evident that all day long he
rested here and made glad the earth; for crickets
sang in the grass as they sing under the hearthstones
in the cabins of the west, and little birds started up
from the edge of the valley that were not to be found
in the forest.

An elk came out from the fringe of the wood,
threw his antlers back on his shoulders with his
brown nose lifted, and blew a blast as he turned to
fly that made the horses jerk their heads from the
grass, and start and wheel around with fright. Brown
deer came out, too, as if to take a walk in the meadow
beneath the moon, but snuffed a breath from
the intruders and turned away. Bears came out two
by two in single file, but did not seem to notice us.

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Some men say that the bear is deprived of the sense
of smell in the wild state. A mistake. He relies as
much on his nose as the deer; perhaps more, for his
little black eyes are so small that they surely are
not equal to the great liquid eyes of the buck, which
are so set in his head that he may see far and wide
at once. But the bear carries his nose close to the
ground, while that of the deer is lifted, and of course
can hardly smell an intruder in his dominions until
he comes upon his track. Then it is curious to observe
him. He throws himself on his hind legs,
stands up tall as a man, thrusts out his nose, lifts it,
snuffs the air, turns all around in his tracks, and
looks and smells in every direction for his enemy.
If he is a cub, however, or even a cowardly grown
bear, he wheels about the moment he comes upon
the track, will not cross it under any circumstances,
and plunges again into the thicket.

We had a blazing fire soon, and at last, when
we had sat down to the mountain meal, spread on
a canvas mantaro on the ground, each man on his
saddle or a roll of blankets, with his knife in hand,
Klamat looked at our limited supply of provisions,
and then pointed to the game in the meadow.

He pictured sun-rise, the hunt, the deer, the
crack of his rifle, and how he would come into camp
laden with supplies. All this, he gave us to understand,
would take place to-morrow, as he placed a

[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]

sandwich between his teeth, and threw his eyes
across his shoulder at the dark figures stealing
through the grass across the other side of our little
Eden.

The morning witnessed the fulfilment. Paquita
was more than busy all day in dressing venison, and
drying the meat for winter. The place was as full
of game as a park. No lonelier or more isolated place
than this on earth. We walked about and viewed
our new estates. The mules and ponies rolled in
the rich grass, or rested in the sun with drooping
heads and half-closed eyes.

Even the invalid Doctor seemed to revive in a
most sudden and marvellous way. He saw that no
white man's foot had ever trod the grasses of this
valley; that there we might rest and rest and never
rise up from fear. He could trust the wall of pine
that environed us. It was impassable. He stood
before an alder-tree that leaned across the babbling,
crooked little stream, and with his sheath-knife cut
this one word:—Home.

A little way from here Paquita showed us another
opening in the forest. This was a wider valley,
with warm sulphur and soda springs in a great
crescent all around the upper rim. Here the elk
would come to winter, she said; and hence we could
never want for meat. The earth and atmosphere
were kept warm here from the eternal springs; and

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p645-272 [figure description] Page 235.[end figure description]

grass, she said, was fresh and grew the winter
through.

This is the true source of the stream which the
white men call Soda; the proper Indian name of
which is Numken; and here we built our cabin,
reared a fortress against the approaching winter
without delay, for every night his sentries were
coming down bolder and bolder about the camp.

This was the famous “Lost Cabin.” It stood on
a hillside, a little above the prairie, facing the sun,
close to the warm springs, and on the very head of
the Numken, and was not unlike an ordinary miner's
cabin, except that the fireplace was in the centre
of the room instead of being awkwardly placed at
one end, where but few can get the benefit of the
fire. This departure was not without reason.

In the first place, the two Indians, constituting
nearly half of the voting population of our little colony,
insisted on it with a zeal that was certainly commendable;
and as they insisted on nothing else, it
was only justice to listen to them in this.

“By-and-by my people will come,” said Paquita,
“and then you will want an Indian fire, a fire that
they can sit down by and around without sending
somebody back in the cold.”

Again, you cannot build a cabin so strong with
one end devoted to a chimney, as if it is one solid
square body of logs. Then, it is no small task to

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