And then, I must confess, to our disbelief in the tale, Don Gaspar told us that the miners, their curiosity satisfied, calmly prepared to return to their diggings, quite deaf to all appeals for further help.
"They say to us," narrated Don Gaspar evenly, "that they wash much gold, and that they cannot take the time; and when I tell them our friend is dying, they laugh, and essay that we ought to be glad they come and essave _our_ lives; and that we get along all right."
We did not believe this, though we could see no object in Don Gaspar"s deceiving us on the point. Three months had pa.s.sed while we had been isolated in the valley of the Porcupine; and we had not yet been taught what a difference three months can make in a young country. In that time thousands had landed, and the diggings had filled. All the world had turned to California; its riffraff and offscourings as well as its true men. Australia had unloaded its ex-convicts, so that the term "Sydney duck" had become only too well known. The idyllic time of order and honesty and pleasant living with one"s fellow-men was over. But we were unaware of that; and, knowing the average generous-hearted miner, we listened to Don Gaspar with a certain surprised skepticism.
"But I follow them," said Don Gaspar, "and I offer them to pay; and after a while two of them come back with me, and we make a litter of branches with many blanket; and we carry Senor Yank down to the town.
There is a town there now. And by good chance," concluded Don Gaspar with a little show of quiet racial pride, "we find a California man and his wife, and they do their bes" for Senor Yank, who is very essick, and I think he is now dead from the tramp of the horses. And we borrow the fresh horse and come back."
It was indeed, as I think of it, a wonderful ride in the darkness; but at the time my mind was full of our poor friend. The others, however, thought only of the gold.
"We have left," replied Don Gaspar to the rudely expressed shower of questions, "just the one half. It is well known to all that Senor Yank carried the most of the gold."
"Yes, and we have Munroe to thank for that," snarled Missouri Jones.
"As far at that is concerned, I was against sending out the gold from the very start," I retorted. "If you"d listened to me, it would have all been safe right here."
"If we"d had a decently strong guard, we"d have been all right," growled McNally.
We all saw the futility of our first instinctive flare of suspicion. It was obvious that if Don Gaspar and Buck Barry had intended treachery they would never have returned to us. I think that, curiously enough, we were unreasonably a little sorry for this. It would have been satisfactory to have had something definite to antagonize. As it was, we sat humped around our fire until morning. For a long period we remained sullenly silent; then we would break into recriminations or into expressions of bitter or sarcastic dissatisfaction with the way things had been planned and carried out. Bagsby alone had the sense to turn in.
We chewed the cud of bitter disappointment. Our work had been hard and continuous; we were, as I have pointed out, just ready for a reaction; and now this catastrophe arrived in the exact moment to throw us into the depths of genuine revulsion. We hated each other, and the work, and the valley of the Porcupine, and gold diggings, and California with a fine impartiality. The gray morning light found us sitting haggard, dejected, disgusted, and vindictive around the dying embers of our fire.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BULLY
With daylight we began to get a grip on ourselves a little. I felt strongly that I should see to Yank, and so announced. Johnny at once offered to accompany me. While we were talking over the future prospects, McNally came over to us, saying:
"The boys are pretty well agreed that we ought to divide up what gold is left, and let each man take care of his own share. Are you agreeable?"
We instantly a.s.sented. The scales were brought out, and the division began. It consumed most of the morning, and was productive of much squabbling, in which, however, we took no part. Our share, including Yank"s--with which we were intrusted--came to about thirty-one pounds: a value of about seven thousand dollars. We were impatient to be off, and now wanted nothing so much as to be done with the whole affair. Yank had ridden one of our horses; the other had been stolen in the Indian raid.
We approached Don Gaspar, who had his own saddle horse and that of Vasquez, not to speak of the remaining pack-animals. To our surprise and delight he offered to accompany us; and Bagsby, too, decided to leave.
McNally, Buck Barry, and Missouri Jones, however, could not be persuaded out of their intention of remaining to dig fresh gold; nor, I am afraid, were we very cordial in our insistence. We considered them foolhardy; but in our then mood we did not greatly care.
By noon we had packed our goods, and by night we had broken the back of our return journey.
We found a full-grown town where we had left a few tents and miners"
cabins. Its main street ran either side the deep dust of the immigrant trail, and consisted of the usual shanties, canvas shacks, and log structures, with rather more than the customary allowance of tin cans, old clothes, worn-out boots, and empty barrels kicking around. The diggings were in the gulch below the road; but the streets of the town, and especially the shady sides of the buildings, were numerously furnished with lounging men. Some of these were employees or owners of the gambling halls, saloons, and boarding-houses; but most were plain "loafers"--a cla.s.s never wholly absent from any mining camp, men who washed just enough gold to keep themselves fed and pickled in drink.
Many of them were evil-looking customers, in fact about as tough a lot as a man would care to see, unshaven generally, but not always, dirty, truculent and rough, insolent in manner. In our pa.s.sage of the main street I saw just three decent looking people--one was evidently a gambler, one a beefy, red-faced individual who had something to do with one of the hotels, and the third was a tall man, past middle age, with a clean shaven, hawk face, a piercing, haughty, black eye, and iron gray hair. He was carefully and flawlessly dressed in a gray furred "plug"
hat, tailed blue coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, a buff waistcoat, trousers of the same shade, and a frilled shirt front. Immaculate down to within six inches or so of the ground, his nether garments and boots were coated thickly with the inevitable red dust. He strode slowly down the street, looking neither to right nor left.
Don Gaspar led the way for a short distance along the wagon road. On the outskirts of the settlement he turned aside to a small log cabin supplemented by a brush lean-to. A long string of bright red peppers hung down the face of it. To our knock came a very fat, rather dirty, but exceedingly pleasant-faced woman with glossy black hair, parted smoothly, and soft black eyes. She opened the door only the fraction of an inch at first, but instantly recognized Don Gaspar, and threw it wide.
To our great relief we found Yank very much alive. He greeted us rather feebly, but with satisfaction. We found that he had been kindly cared for, and that the surface wounds and bruises from the horses" hoofs had been treated with some skill.
"But I reckon I"m hurt some inside," he whispered with difficulty, "for I can"t breathe easy; and I can"t eat nothin" but soup. And my leg is h.e.l.l."
The broken leg too had been bound up after a fashion, but it was badly swollen above and below the bandages.
"He ought to have a doctor," said I positively. "There"s no doubt of that. There must be some among the miners--there generally is. I"m going to see if I can find one."
I returned to town, and hunted up the beefy, red-faced hotel keeper, who had impressed me as being an honest man.
"Yes, there"s a doctor," said he, "a mighty good one. He went by here a little while ago. Name"s Dr. Rankin. I"ll rustle him out for you. Oh, you Pete!" he shouted into the interior of the building.
A moment"s shuffling about preceded the appearance of a negro boy of twelve or fourteen.
"Yes, sah."
"Go find Dr. Rankin and bring him here right away. Tell him a gentleman wants him."
"You"ve got a mighty sudden sort of camp here," said I, as we settled ourselves to wait. "Three months ago I went through here, and there was practically nothing."
"Looks to be a thousand years, though," agreed the hotel man. "Where you been?"
"Oh, just prospecting," I replied vaguely.
"Strike it?"
"Just fair," I evaded; "not rich enough to keep me from coming back, you see. Any finds here?"
"The diggings are rich as mud," replied the hotel man dispa.s.sionately.
"It"s a prosperous camp all right."
"You don"t "wash" yourself?" I asked.
"Not I! I make more than my "ounce a day" right here." He jerked his thumb at his hotel.
"A good many "loafers,"" I suggested.
He looked at me steadily, hesitated for a moment, then evidently changed his mind.
"Quite a few," he agreed.
At this moment the negro boy appeared, closely followed by the man with the blue coat and white beaver hat whom I had taken for an eccentric gambler. This man walked slowly up to face me.
"Well, sir?" he demanded. "I am told I can be of service. In what way?"
His piercing black eye held mine with a certain high arrogance.
"Professionally, doctor," I replied. "A friend of mine is lying badly hurt in a nearby hut."
For a barely appreciable instant his eye held mine after I had ceased speaking, as though he was appraising me. Then he bowed with old-fashioned courtesy.
"At your service, sir," said he. "Pete, you black rascal, get my bag, and get it quick."