TWO o’clock A.M. is supposed to be a popular sleeping hour the world over, and as Flatfoot Bar was a portion of the terrestrial sphere, it was but natural to expect its denizens to be in bed at that hour.
Yet, on a certain morning twenty years ago, when there was neither sickness nor a fashionable entertainment to excuse irregular hours in camp, a bright light streamed from the only window of Chagres Charley’s residence at Flatfoot Bar, and inside of the walls of Chagres Charley’s domicile were half a dozen miners engaged in earnest conversation.
Flatfoot Bar had never formally elected a town committee, for the half-dozen men aforesaid had long ago modestly assumed the duties and responsibilities of city fathers, and so judicious had been their conduct, that no one had ever expressed a desire for a change in the government.
The six men, in half a dozen different positions, surrounded Chagres Charley’s fire, and gazed into it as intently as if they were fire-worshipers awaiting the utterances of a salamanderish oracle.
But the doughty Puritans of Cromwell’s time, while they trusted in God, carefully protected their powder from moisture, and the devout Mohammedan, to this day, ties up his camel at night before committing it to the keeping of the higher powers; so it was but natural that the anxious ones at Flatfoot Bar vigorously ventilated their own ideas while they longed for light and knowledge.
“They ain’t ornaments to camp, no way you can fix it. them Greasers ain’t,” said a tall miner, bestowing an effective kick upon a stick of firewood, which had departed a short distance from his neighbors.
“Mississp’s right, fellers,” said the host. “They ain’t got the slightest idee of the duties of citizens. They show themselves down to the saloon, to be sure, an’ I never seed one of ’em a-waterin’ his liquor; but when you’ve sed that, you’ve sed ev’rythin’.”
“Our distinguished friend speaks truthfully,” remarked Nappy Boney, the only Frenchman in camp, and possessing a nickname playfully contracted from the name of the first emperor. “La gloire is nothing to them. Comprehends any one that they know not even of France’s most illustrious son, le petit caporal?”
“That’s bad, to be sure,” said Texas, cutting an enormous chew of tobacco, and passing both plug and knife; “but that might be overlooked; mebbe the schools down in Mexico ain’t up with the times. What I’m down on is, they hain’t got none of the eddication that comes nateral to a gentleman, even ef he never seed the outside of a schoolhouse. Who ever heerd of one of ’em hevin’ a difficulty with any gentleman, at the saloon or on the crick? They drar a good deal of blood, but it’s allers from some of their own kind, an’ up there by ’emselves. Ef they hed a grain of public spirit, not to say liberality, they’d do some of their amusements before the rest of us, instead of gougin’ the camp out of its constitutional amusements. Why, I’ve knowed the time when I’ve held in fur six hours on a stretch, till there could be fellers enough around to git a good deal of enjoyment out of it.”
“They wash out a sight of dust!” growled Lynn Taps, from the Massachusetts shoe district; “but I never could git one of ’em to put up an ounce on a game—they jest play by ’emselves, an’ keep all their washin’s to home.”
“Blarst ’em hall! let’s give ’em tickets-o’-leave, an’ show ’em the trail!” roared Bracelets, a stout Englishman, who had on each wrist a red scar, which had suggested his name and unpleasant situations. “I believe in fair play, but I darsn’t keep my eyes hoff of ’em sleepy-lookin’ tops, when their flippers is anywheres near their knives, you know.”
“Well, what’s to be done to ’em?” demanded Lynn Taps. “All this jawin’s well enough, but jaw never cleared out anybody ‘xcep’ that time Samson tried, an’ then it came from an individual that wasn’t related to any of this crowd.”
“Let ’em alone till next time they git into a muss, an’ then clean ’em all out of camp,” said Chagres Charley. “Let’s hev it onderstood that while this camp cheerfully recognizes the right of a gentleman to shoot at sight an’ lay out his man, that it considers stabbin’ in the dark’s the same thing as murder. Them’s our principles, and folks might’s well know ’em fust as last. Good Lord! what’s that?”
All the men started to their feet at the sound of a long, loud yell.
“That’s one of ’em now!” ejaculated Mississip, with a huge oath. “Nobody but a Greaser ken holler that way—sounds like the last despairin’ cry of a dyin’ mule. There’s only eight or nine of ’em, an’ each of us is good fur two Greasers apiece—let’s make ’em git this minnit.”
And Mississip dashed out of the door, followed by the other five, revolvers in hand.
The Mexicans lived together, in a hut made of raw hides, one of which constituted the door.
The devoted six reached the hut, Texas snatched aside the hide, and each man presented his pistol at full cock.
But no one fired; on the contrary, each man slowly dropped his pistol, and opened his eyes.
There was no newly-made corpse visible, nor did any Greasers savagely wave a bloody stiletto.
But on the ground, insensible, lay a Mexican woman, and about her stood seven or eight Greasers, each looking even more dumb, incapable, and solemn than usual.
The city fathers felt themselves in an awkward position, and Mississip finally asked, in the meekest of tones:
“What’s the matter?”
“She Codago’s wife,” softly replied a Mexican. “They fight in Chihuahua—he run away—she follow. She come here now—this minute—she fall on Codago—she say something, we know not—he scream an’ run.”
“He’s a low-lived scoundrel!” said Chagres Charley, between his teeth. “Ef my wife thort enough of me to follow me to the diggin’s, I wouldn’t do much runnin’ away. He’s a reg’lar black-hearted, white-livered——”
“Sh—h—h!” whispered Nappy, the Frenchman. “The lady is recovering, and she may have a heart.”
“Maria, Madre purissima!” low wailed the woman. “Mi nino—mi nino perdido!”
“What’s she a-sayin’?” asked Lynn Taps, in a whisper.
“She talk about little boy lost,” said the Mexican.
“An’ her husband gone, too, poor woman!” said Chagres Charley, in the most sympathizing tones ever heard at Flatfoot Bar. “But a doctor’d be more good to her jes’ now than forty sich husbands as her’n. Where’s the nearest doctor, fellers?” continued Chagres Charley.
“Up to Dutch Hill,” said Texas; “an’ I’ll see he’s fetched inside of two hours.”
Saying which, Texas dropped the raw-hide door, and hurried off.
The remaining five strolled slowly back to Chagres Charley’s hut.
“Them Greasers hain’t never got nothin’,” said Mississip, suddenly; “an’ that woman’ll lay thar on the bare ground all night ’fore they think of makin’ her comfortable. Who’s got an extra blanket?”
“I!” said each of the four others; and Nappy Boney expressed the feeling of the whole party by exclaiming:
“The blue sky is enough good to cover man when woman needs blankets.”
Hastily Mississip collected the four extra blankets and both of his own, and, as he sped toward the Mexican hut, he stopped several times by the way to dexterously snatch blankets from sleeping forms.
“Here you be,” said he, suddenly entering the Mexican hut, and startling the inmates into crossing themselves violently. “Make the poor thing a decent bed, an’ we’ll hev a doctor here pretty soon.”
Mississip had barely vanished, when a light scratching was heard on the door.
A Mexican opened it, and saw Nappy Boney, with extended hand and bottle.
SUDDENLY, BY THE GLARE OF A FRESH LIGHT, THE BOYS SAW THE FACE OF A
RATHER DIRTY, LARGE-EYED, BROWN-SKINNED MEXICAN BABY.
“It is the eau-de-vie of la belle France,” he whispered. “Tenderly I have cherished, but it is at the lady’s service.”
Chagres Charley, Lynn Taps and Bracelets were composing their nerves with pipes about the fire they had surrounded early in the morning. Lynn Taps had just declared his disbelief of a soul inside of the Mexican frame, when the door was thrown open and an excited Mexican appeared.
“Her tongue come back!” he cried. “She say she come over mountain—she bring little boy—she no eat, it was long time. Soon she must die, boy must die. What she do? She put round boy her cloak, an’ leave him by rock, an’ hurry to tell. Maybe coyote get him. What can do?”
“What can we do?” echoed Lynn Taps; “turn out every galoot in camp, and foller her tracks till we find it. Souls or no souls, don’t make no diff’rence. I’ll tramp my legs off, ’fore that child shall be left out in the snow in them mountains.”
Within five minutes every man in camp had been aroused.
Each man swore frightfully at being prematurely turned out—each man hated the Greasers with all his heart and soul and strength; but each man, as he learned what was the matter, made all possible haste, and fluently cursed all who were slower than himself.
In fact, two or three irrepressible spirits, consuming with delay, started alone on independent lines of search.
Chagres Charley appeared promptly, and assumed command.
“Boys,” said he, “we’ll sprinkle out into a line a couple of miles long, and march up the mountain till we reach the snow. When I think it’s time, I’ll fire three times, an’ then each feller’ll face an’ tramp to the right, keepin’ a keerful lookout for a woman’s tracks p’intin’ t’ward camp. Ther can’t be no mistakin’ ’em, for them sennyritas hez the littlest kind o’ feet. When any feller finds her tracks, he’ll fire, an’ then we’ll rally on him. I wish them other fellers, instid of goin’ off half-cocked, hed tracked Codago, the low-lived skunk. To think of him runnin’ away from wife, an’ young one, too! Forward, git!”
“They hain’t got no souls—that’s what made him do it, Charley,” said Lynn Taps, as the men deployed.
Steadily the miners ascended the rugged slope; rocks, trees, fallen trunks and treacherous holes impeded their progress, but did not stop them.
A steady wind cut them to the bone, and grew more keen and fierce as they neared the snow.
Suddenly Chagres Charley fired, and the boys faced to the right—a moment later another shot rallied the party; those nearest it found Nappy Boney in a high state of excitement, and leaning over a foot-print.
“Mon Dieu!” he cried; “they have not the esprit, those Mexicans; but her footprints might have been made by the adorable feet of one of my countrywomen, it is so small.”
“Yes,” said Mississip; “an’ one of them fellers that started ahead hez found it fust, fur here’s a man’s track a-goin’ up.”
Rapidly the excited miners followed the tracks through the snow, and found them gradually leading to the regular trail across the mountain, which trail few men ventured upon at that season. Suddenly the men in advance stopped.
“Here ’tis, I reckon!” cried Mississip, springing across a small cleft in the rocks, and running toward a dark object lying on the sheltered side of a small cliff. “Good God!” he continued, as he stooped down; “it’s Codago! An’ he’s froze stiff.”
“Serve him right, cuss him,” growled Lynn Taps. “I almost wish he had a soul, so he could catch it good an’ hot, now he’s gone!”
“He’s got his pack with him,” shouted Mississip, “and a huggin’ it ez tight ez ef he could take it to—to wherever he’s gone to.”
“No man with a soul could hev ben cool enough to pack up his traps after seein’ that poor woman’s face,” argued Lynn Taps.
Mississip tore off a piece of his trowsers, struck fire with flint and steel, poured on whisky, and blew it into a flame.
Rapidly the miners straggled up the trail, and halted opposite Mississip.
“Well, I’ll be durned!” shouted the latter; “he ain’t got no shirt on, an’ there’s an ugly cut in his arm. It beats anything I ever seed!”
One by one the miners leaped the cleft, and crowded about Mississip and stared.
It was certainly Codago, and there was certainly his pack, made up in his poncho, in the usual Greaser manner, and held tightly in his arms.
But while they stared, there was a sudden movement of the pack itself.
Lynn Taps gave a mighty tug at it, extricated it from the dead man’s grasp, and rapidly undid it.
Suddenly, by the glare of a fresh light, the boys saw the face of a rather dirty, large-eyed, brown-skinned Mexican baby; and the baby, probably by way of recognition, raised high a voice such as the boys never heard before on that side of the Rocky Mountains.
“Here’s what that cut in his arm means,” shouted a miner who had struck a light on the trail; “there’s a finger-mark, done in blood on the snow, by the side of the trail, an’ a-pintin’ right to that ledge; an’ here’s his shirt a-flappin’ on a stick stuck in a snow-bank lookin’ t’ward camp.”
“There ain’t no doubt ’bout what the woman said to him, or what made him yell an’ git, boys,” said Chagres Charley, solemnly, as he took a blanket from his shoulders and spread it on the ground.
Mississip took off his hat, and lifting the poor Mexican from the snow, laid him in the blanket. Lynn Taps hid the baby, rewrapped, under his own blanket, and hurried down the mountain, while four men picked up Codago and followed.
Lynn Taps scratched on the raw-hide door; the doctor opened it.
Lynn Taps unrolled the bundle, and its occupant again raised its voice.
The woman, who was lying motionless and with closed eyes, sprang to her feet in an instant, and as Lynn Taps laid his burden on the blankets, the woman, her every dull feature softened and lighted with motherly tenderness, threw her arms about the astonished Yankee, and then fell sobbing at his feet.
“You’ve brought her the only medicine that’ll do her any good,” said the doctor, giving the baby a gentle dig under the ribs as he picked up his saddle-bags.
Lynn Taps made a hasty escape, and reached the saloon, which had been hurriedly opened as the crowd was heard approaching.
The bearers of the body deposited it gently on the floor, and the crowd filed in quietly.
Lynn Taps walked up to the bar, and rapped upon it.
“Walk up, boys,” said he; “fill high; hats off. Here’s Codago. Maybe he didn’t have a soul, but if he didn’t, souls ain’t needed in this world. Bottoms up, every man.”
The toast was drunk quietly and reverently, and when it was suggested that the Greasers themselves should have participated, they were all summoned, and the same toast was drank again.
The next day, as the body of Codago was being carried to a newly dug grave, on the high ground overlooking the creek, and the Mexicans stood about, as if dumb staring and incessant smoking were the only proprieties to be observed on such occasions, Lynn Taps thoughtfully offered his arm to the weeping widow, and so sorrowful was she throughout the performance of the sad rites, that Lynn Taps was heard to remark that, however it might be with the men, there could be no doubt about Mexican women’s possessing souls. As a few weeks later the widow became Mrs. Lynn Taps, there can be no doubt that her second husband’s final convictions were genuine.