TO miners, whose gold-fever had not reached a ridiculous degree of heat, Blugsey’s was certainly a very satisfactory location. The dirt was rich, the river ran dry, there was plenty of standing-room on the banks, which were devoid of rocks, the storekeeper dealt strictly on the square, and the saloon contained a pleasing variety of consolatory fluids, which were dispensed by Stumpy Flukes, ex-sailor, and as hearty a fellow as any one would ask to see.
All thieves and claim-jumpers had been shot as fast as discovered, and the men who remained had taken each other’s measures with such accuracy, that genuine fights were about as unfrequent as prayer-meetings.
The miners dug and washed, ate, drank, swore and gambled with that delightful freedom which exists only in localities where society is established on a firm and well-settled basis.
Such being the condition of affairs at Blugsey’s, it seemed rather strange one morning, hours after breakfast, to see, sprinkled in every direction, a great number of idle picks, shovels and pans; in fact, the only mining implements in use that morning were those handled by a single miner, who was digging and carrying and washing dirt with an industry which seemed to indicate that he was working as a substitute for each and every man in the camp.
He was anything but a type of gold-hunters in general; he was short and thin, and slight and stooping, and greatly round-shouldered; his eyes were of a painfully uncertain gray, and one of them displayed a cast which was his only striking feature; his nose had started as a very retiring nose, but had changed its mind half-way down; his lips were thin, and seemed to yearn for a close acquaintance with his large ears; his face was sallow and thin, and thickly seamed, and his chin appeared to be only one of Nature’s hasty afterthoughts. Long, thin gray hair hung about his face, and imparted the only relief to the monotonous dinginess of his features and clothing.
Such being the appearance of the man, it was scarcely natural to expect that miners in general would regard him as a special ornament to the profession.
In fact, he had been dubbed “Old Scrabblegrab” on the second day of his occupancy of Claim No. 32, and such of his neighbors as possessed the gift of tongues had, after more intimate acquaintance with him, expressed themselves doubtful of the ability of language to properly embody Scrabblegrab’s character in a single name.
The principal trouble was, that they were unable to make anything at all of his character; there was nothing about him which they could understand, so they first suspected him, and then hated him violently, after the usual manner of society toward the incomprehensible.
And on the particular morning which saw Scrabblegrab the only worker at Blugsey’s, the remaining miners were assembled in solemn conclave at Stumpy Fluke’s saloon, to determine what was to be done with the detested man.
The scene was certainly an impressive one; for such quiet had not been known at the saloon since the few moments which intervened between the time, weeks before, when Broadhorn Jerry gave the lie to Captain Greed, and the captain, whose pistol happened to be unloaded, was ready to proceed to business.
The average miner, when sober, possesses a degree of composure and gravity which would be admirable even in a judge of ripe experience, and miners, assembled as a deliberative body, can display a dignity which would drive a venerable Senator or a British M. P. to the uttermost extreme of envy.
On the occasion mentioned above, the miners ranged themselves near the unoccupied walls, and leaned at various graceful and awkward angles. Boston Ben, who was by natural right the ruler of the camp, took the chair—that is, he leaned against the centre of the bar. On the other side of the bar leaned Stumpy Flukes, displaying that degree of conscious importance which was only becoming to a man who, by virtue of his position, was sole and perpetual secretary and recorder to all stated meetings at Blugsey’s.
Boston Ben glanced around the room, and then collectively announced the presence of a quorum, the formal organization of the meeting, and its readiness for deliberation, by quietly remarking:
“Blaze away!”
Immediately one of the leaners regained the perpendicular, departed a pace from the wall, rolled his tobacco neatly into one cheek, and remarked:
“We’ve stood it long enough—the bottom’s clean out of the pan, Mr. Chairman. Scrabblegrab’s declined bitters from half the fellers in camp, an’ though his gray old top-knot’s kept ’em from takin’ satisfaction in the usual manner, they don’t feel no better ’bout it than they did.”
The speaker subsided into his section of wall, composed himself into his own especial angles, and looked like a man who had fully discharged a conscientious duty.
From the opposite wall there appeared another speaker, who indignantly remarked:
“Goin’ back on bitters ain’t a toothful to what he’s done. There’s young Curly, that went last week. That boy played his hand in a style that would take the conceit clean out uv an angel. But all to onct Curly took to lookin’ flaxed, an’ the judge here overheard Scrabblegrab askin’ Curly what he thort his mother’d say ef she knew he was makin’ his money that way? The boy took on wuss an’ wuss, an’ now he’s vamosed. Don’t b’lieve me ef yer don’t want ter, fellers—here’s the judge hisself.”
The judge briskly advanced his spectacles, which had gained him his title, and said:
“True ez gospel; and when I asked him ef he wasn’t ashamed of himself fur takin’ away the boy’s comfort, he said No, an’ that I’d be a more decent man ef I’d give up keards myself.”
“He’s alive yit!” said the first speaker, in a tone half of inquiry and half of reproof.
“I know it,” said the judge, hastening to explain. “I’d lent my pepperbox to Mose when he went to ’Frisco, an’ the old man’s too little fur a man uv my size to hit.”
The judge looked anxiously about until he felt assured his explanation had been generally accepted. Then he continued:
“What’s he good fur, anyhow? He can’t sing a song, except somethin’ about ‘Tejus an’ tasteless hours,’ that nobody ever heard before, an’ don’t want to agin; he don’t drink, he don’t play keards, he don’t even cuss when he tumbles into the river. Ev’ry man’s got his p’ints, an’ ef he hain’t got no good uns, he’s sure to have bad uns. Ef he’d only show ’em out, there might be somethin’ honest about it; but when a feller jist eats an’ sleeps an’ works, an’ never shows any uv the tastes uv a gentleman, ther’s somethin’ wrong.”
“I don’t wish him any harm,” said a tall, good-natured fellow, who succeeded the judge; “but the feller’s looks is agin the reputation uv the place. In a camp like this here one, whar society’s first-class—no greasers nur pigtails nur loafers—it ain’t the thing to hev anybody around that looks like a corkscrew that’s been fed on green apples and watered with vinegar—it’s discouragin’ to gentlemen that might hev a notion of stakin’ a claim, fur the sake uv enjoyin’ our social advantages.”
“N-none uv yer hev got to the wust uv it yit,” remarked another. “The old cuss is too fond uv his dust. Billy Banks seen him a-buyin’ pork up to the store, an’ he handled his pouch ez ef ’twas eggs instid of gold-dust—poured it out as keerful ez yer please, an’ even scraped up a little bit he spilt. Now, when I wuz a little rat, an’ went to Sunday-school, they used to keep a-waggin’ at me ’bout evil communication a-corruptin’ o’ good manners. That’s what he’ll do—fust thing yer know, other fellers’ll begin to be stingy, an’ think gold-dust wuz made to save instid uv to buy drinks an’ play keards fur. That’s what it’ll come to.”
“Beggin’ ev’rybody’s pardon,” interposed a deserter from the army, “but these here perceedin’s is irreg’lar. ’Tai’nt the square thing to take evidence till the pris’ner’s in court.”
Boston Ben immediately detailed a special officer to summon Old Scrabblegrab, declared a recess of five minutes, and invited the boys to drink with him.
Those who took sugar in theirs had the cup dashed from their lips just as they were draining the delicious dregs, for the officer and culprit appeared, and the chairman rapped the assembly to order.
Boston Ben had been an interested attendant at certain law-courts in the States, so in the calm consciousness of his acquaintance with legal procedure he rapidly arraigned Scrabblegrab.
“Scrabblegrab, you’re complained uv for goin’ back on bitters, coaxin’ Curly to give up keards, thus spoilin’ his fun, an’ knockin’ appreciatin’ observers out of their amusement; uv insultin’ the judge, uv not cussin’ when you stumble into the river, uv not havin’ any good p’ints, an’ not showin’ yer bad ones; uv bein’ a set-back on the tone uv the place—lookin’ like a green-apple-fed, vinegar-watered corkscrew, or words to that effect; an’, finally, in savin’ yer money. What hev you got to say agin’ sentence bein’ passed on yer?”
“I DON’T GENERALLY SHOOT TILL THE OTHER FELLER DRAWS.”
The old man flushed as the chairman proceeded, and when the indictment reached its end, he replied, in a tone which indicated anything but respect for the court:
“I’ve got just this to say, that I paid my way here, I’ve asked no odds of any man sence I’ve ben here, an’ that anybody that takes pains to meddle with my affairs is an impudent scoundrel!”
Saying which, the old man turned to go, while the court was paralyzed into silence.
But Tom Dosser, a new arrival, and a famous shot, now stepped in front of the old man.
“I ax yer parding,” said Tom, in the blandest of tones, “but, uv course, yer didn’t mean me when yer mentioned impudent scoundrels?”
“Yes, I did—I meant you, and ev’rybody like yer,” replied the old man.
Tom’s hand moved toward his pistol. The chairman expeditiously got out of range. Stumpy Flukes promptly retired to the extreme end of the bar, and groaned audibly.
The old man was in the wrong; but, then, wasn’t it too mean, when blood was so hard to get out, that these difficulties always took place just after he’d got the floor clean?
“I don’t generally shoot till the other feller draws,” explained Tom Dosser, while each man in the room wept with emotion as they realized they had lived to see Tom’s skill displayed before their very eyes—“I don’t generally shoot till the other feller draws; but you’d better be spry. I usually make a little allowance for age, but——”
Tom’s further explanations were indefinitely delayed by an abnormal contraction of his trachea, the same being induced by the old man’s right hand, while his left seized the unhappy Thomas by his waist-belt, and a second later the dead shot of Blugsey’s was tossed into the middle of the floor, somewhat as a sheaf of oats is tossed by a practiced hand.
“Anybody else?” inquired the old man. “I’ll back Vermont bone an’ muscle agin’ the hull passel of ye, even if I be a deacon. ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.’”
“The angel needn’t hurry hisself,” said Tom Dosser, picking himself up, one joint at a time. “Ef that’s the crowd yer travelin’ with, and they’ve got a grip anything like yourn, I don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em.”
Boston Ben looked excited, and roared:
“This court’s adjourned sine die.”
Then he rushed up to the newly announced deacon, caught him firmly by the right hand, slapped him heartily between the shoulders, and inquired, rather indignantly:
“Say, old Angelchum, why didn’t you ever let folks know yer style, instead uv trottin’ ‘round like a melancholy clam with his shells shut up tight? That’s what this crowd wants to know! Now yev opened down to bed-rock, we’ll git English Sam from Sonora, an’ git up the tallest kind uv a rasslin’ match.”
“Not unless English Sam meddles with my business, you won’t,” replied the deacon, quickly. “I’ve got enough to do fightin’ speretual foes.”
“Oh,” said Boston Ben, “we’ll manage it so the church folks needn’t think ’twas a set-up job. We’ll put Sam up to botherin’ yer, and yer can tackle him at sight. Then——”
“Excuse me, Boston,” interrupted Tom Dosser, “but yer don’t hit the mark. I’m from Vermont myself, an’ deacons there don’t fight for the fun of it, whatever they may do in the village you hail from.” Then, turning to the old man, Tom asked: “What part uv the old State be ye from, deacon, an’ what fetched ye out?”
“From nigh Rutland,” replied the deacon, “I hed a nice little place thar, an’ wuz doin’ well. But the young one’s eyes is bad. None uv the doctors thereabouts could do anythin’ fur ’em. Took her to Boston; nobody thar could do anythin’—said some of the European doctors were the only ones that could do the job safely. Costs money goin’ to Europe an’ payin’ doctors—I couldn’t make it to hum in twenty year; so I come here.”
“Only child?” inquired Tom Dosser, while the boys crowded about the two Vermonters, and got up a low buzz of sympathetic conversation.
The old man heard it all, and to his lonesome and homesick soul it was so sweet and comforting, that it melted his natural reserve, and made him anxious to unbosom himself to some one. So he answered Tom:
“Only child of my only darter.”
“Father dead?” inquired Tom Dosser.
“Better be,” replied the deacon, bitterly. “He left her soon after they were married.”
“Mean skunk!” said Tom, sympathetically.
“I want to judge as I’d be judged,” replied the deacon; “but I feel ez ef I couldn’t call that man bad enough names. Hesby was ez good a gal ez ever lived, but she went to visit some uv our folks at Burlington, an’ fust thing I know’d she writ me she’d met this chap, and they’d been married, an’ wanted us to forgive her; but he was so good, an’ she loved him so dearly.”
“Good for the gal,” said Tom, and a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd.
“Of course, we forgave her. We’d hev done it ef she married Satan himself,” continued the deacon. “But we begged her to bring her husband up home, an’ let us look at him. Whatever was good enough for her to love was good enough for us, and we meant to try to love Hesby’s husband.”
“Done yer credit, deacon, too,” declared Tom, and again the crowd uttered a confirmatory murmur. “Ef some folks—deacons, too—wuz ez good—But go ahead, deac’n.”
“Next thing we heard from her, he had gone to the place he was raised in; but a friend of his, who went with him, came back, an’ let out he’d got tight, an’ been arrested. She writ him right off, beggin’ him to come home, and go with her up to our place, where he could be out of temptation an’ where she’d love him dearer than ever.”
“Pure gold, by thunder!” ejaculated Tom, while a low “You bet,” was heard all over the room.
Tom’s eyes were in such a condition that he thought the deacon’s were misty, and the deacon noticed the same peculiarities about Tom.
“She never got a word from him,” continued the deacon; “but one of her own came back, addressed in his writing.”
“The infernal scoundrel!” growled Tom, while from the rest of the boys escaped epithets which caused the deacon, indignant as he was, to shiver with horror.
“She was nearly crazy, an’ started to find him, but nobody knowed where he was. The postmaster said he’d come to the office ev’ry day for a fortnight, askin’ for a letter, so he must hev got hers.”
“Ef all women had such stuff in ’em,” sighed Tom, “there’ll be one fool less in California. ’Xcuse me, deac’n.”
“She never gev up hopin’ he’d come back,” said the deacon, in accents that seemed to indicate labored breath “an’ it sometimes seems ez ef such faith’d be rewarded by the Lord some time or other. She teaches Pet—that’s her child—to talk about her papa, an’ to kiss his pictur; an’ when she an’ Pet goes to sleep, his pictur’s on the pillar between ’em.”
“An’ the idee that any feller could be mean enough to go back on such a woman! Deacon, I’d track him right through the world, an’ just tell him what you’ve told us. Ef that didn’t fetch him, I’d consider it a Christian duty an’ privilege to put a hole through him.”
“I couldn’t do that,” replied the deacon, “even ef I was a man uv blood; fur Hesby loves him, an’ he’s Pet’s dad; Besides, his pictur looks like a decent young chap—ain’t got no hair on his face, an’ looks more like an innercent boy than anythin’ else. Hesby thinks Pet looks like him, an’ I couldn’t touch nobody looking like Pet. Mebbe you’d like to see her pictur,” continued the deacon, drawing from his pocket an ambrotype, which he opened and handed Tom.
“Looks sweet ez a posy,” said Tom, regarding it tenderly. “Them little lips uv hern look jest like a rose when it don’t know whether to open a little further or not.”
The deacon looked pleased, and extracted another picture, and remarked, as he handed it to Tom:
“That’s Pet’s mother.”
THE DEACON LOOKED PLEASED, AND EXTRACTED ANOTHER
PICTURE, AND REMARKED, AS HE HANDED IT TO TOM, “THAT’S PET’S MOTHER.”
TOM TOOK IT, LOOKED AT IT, AND SCREAMED, “MY WIFE!”
Tom took it, looked at it, and screamed:
“My wife!”
He threw himself on the floor, and cried as only a big-hearted man can cry.
The deacon gazed wildly about, and gasped:
“What’s his name?—tell me quick!”
“Tom Dosser!” answered a dozen or more.
“That’s him! Bless the Lord!” cried the deacon, and finding a seat, dropped into it, and buried his face in his hands.
For several moments there was a magnificent attempt at silence, but it utterly failed. The boys saw that the deacon and Tom were working a very large claim, and to the best of their ability they assisted.
Stumpy Flukes, under the friendly shelter of the bar, was able to fully express his feelings through his eyelids, but the remainder of the party, by taking turns at staring out the windows, and contemplating the bottles behind the bar, managed to delude themselves into the belief that their eyes were invisible. Finally, Tom arose. “Deacon—boys,” he said, “I never got that letter. I wus afeard she’d hear about my scrape, so I wrote her all about it, ez soon ez I got sober, an’ begged her to forgive me. An’ I waited an’ hoped an’ prayed for an answer, till I growed desperate, an’ came out here.”
“She never heerd from you, Thomas,” sighed the deacon.
“Deac’n,” said Tom, “do you s’pose I’d hev kerried this for years”—here he drew out a small miniature of his wife—“ef I hadn’t loved her? Yes, an’ this too,” continued Tom, producing a thin package, wrapped in oilskin. “There’s the only two letters I ever got from her, an’, just ’cos her hand writ ’em, I’ve had ’em just where I took ’em from for four years. I got ’em at Albany, fore I got on that cussed tare, an’ they was both so sweet an’ wifely, that I’ve never dared to read ’em since, fur fear that thinkin’ on what I’d lost would make me even wuss than I am. But I ain’t afeard now,” said Tom, eagerly tearing off the oilskin, and disclosing two envelopes.
He opened one, took out the letter, opened it with trembling hands, stared blankly at it, and handed it to the deacon.
“Thar’s my letter now—I got ’em in the wrong envelope!”
“Thomas,” said the deacon, “the best thing you can do is to deliver that letter yourself. An’ don’t let any grass grow under your feet, ef you ken help it.”
“I’m goin’ by the first hoss I ken steal,” said Tom.
“An’ tell her I’ll be along ez soon as I pan out enough,” continued the deacon.
“An’ tell her,” said Boston Ben, “that the gov’nor won’t be much behind you. Tell her that when the crowd found out how game the old man was, and what was on his mind, that the court was so ashamed of hisself that he passed around the hat for Pet’s benefit, and”—here Boston Ben thoughtfully weighed the hat in his hands—“and that the apology’s heavy enough to do Europe a dozen times; I know it, for I’ve had to travel myself occasionally.”
Here he deposited the venerable tile with its precious contents on the floor in front of the deacon. The old man looked at it, and his eyes filled afresh, as he exclaimed:
“God bless you! I wish I could do something for you in return.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Boston Ben, “unless—you—You couldn’t make up your mind to a match with English Sam, could you?”
“Come, boys,” interrupted Stumpy Flukes; “it’s my treat—name your medicine—fill high—all charged?—now then—bottom up, to ‘The meanest man at Blugsey’s’!”
“That did mean you, deacon!” exclaimed Tom; “but I claim it myself now, so—so I won’t drink it.”
The remainder of the crowd clashed glasses, while Tom and his father-in-law bowed profoundly. Then the whole crowd went out to steal horses for the two men, and had them on the trail within an hour. As they rode off, Stumpy Flukes remarked:
“There’s a splendid shot ruined for life.”
“Yes,” said Boston Ben, with a deep sigh struggling out of his manly bosom, “an’ a bully rassler, too. The Church has got a good deal to answer fur, fur sp’ilin’ that man’s chances.”
