I
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
Charley Adams was trudging up to his knees in snow, on his way home from down town. It was Washington"s Birthday, 1849, and winter had sent St. Louis a late valentine in shape of a big snowstorm. As this occurred seventy-five years ago, there were no street-cars in St. Louis (or in any other American city, for that matter); and even had there been street-cars they doubtless would have been tied up. At all events, Charley had walked down, and now he was trudging back with the mail.
His father was very anxious to see that mail. It contained the Eastern papers, and these probably would add to the tidings printed in the St.
Louis papers, from the marvelous gold fields of California.
Since January, when President Polk"s annual message to Congress had been read in St. Louis, in the papers, St. Louis people, like the whole population of the United States, had been crazy over the California gold. It was claimed that as far back as January, 1848, a man named Marshall, while digging a mill-race somewhere in interior Upper California, for a Captain Sutter of Sutter"s Fort ranch, on the emigrant trail over the Sierra Nevada mountain-range down to Sacramento, had washed into plain sight an unlimited supply of gold flakes.
However, when the news first had reached Washington and New York and had filtered back to St. Louis, it was several months old and seemed scarcely worth attention, California being such a long way off. But now the President himself was authority for the fact that gold actually was lying around loose, for anybody to pick up, in this fair new land of California, and that thousands of people already were gathering it!
The President offered as proof letters from Colonel Richard B. Mason, the military governor of California, and from the Honorable Thomas O.
Larkin, who had been the United States consul in California. The letters said not only that gold had been found, as before stated, but that 10,000 people (nearly all the able-bodied population of California) were out looking for more, and finding it, too! Sailors were deserting the ships and soldiers the ranks; servants were leaving the houses and merchants the stores, and the whole territory was wild.
Congressmen at Washington a.s.serted so much gold would be put on the market that gold money would lose its value, it would be so common.
These reports sounded like fairy-tales come true. Think of it! Gold, lying around on the surface of the ground, to be pocketed by the first finders! In spite of the fact that California had been a part of the United States only two years, or since the war with Mexico, and was distant 2000 miles across uninhabited desert and mountains, as soon as the word about gold was guaranteed to be really the truth a tremendous number of people here in the "States" set about dropping everything else and starting right away, to seek their fortunes.
Hundreds of St. Louis people had left, in parties large and small, a few to travel clear around Cape Horn of South America, or to cross the Isthmus of Panama and to sail up the Pacific Coast, but the majority to ride and walk, with wagon and team, across the deserts and mountains from the Missouri River 2000 miles to California. A number of neighbors and other friends of the Adamses had gone. Even Mr. Walker, Billy Walker"s father, was going as soon as he could provide so that his family would not suffer in his absence; and he was talking of taking Billy. As Billy was Charley"s best chum, this seemed pretty mean--for Charley, not for Billy, of course. To Charley there seemed no chance of _his_ going, traveling across those wild plains and ranges, sleeping out of doors, and fighting Indians, perhaps, and then gathering gold in far California itself. His father was laid up, still recovering from wounds received in the war with Mexico. Charley was proud of his soldier father, who had served under General Scott all through the war, until disabled in the capture of Mexico City; but he did wish that there was some way for them to go to those gold fields.
The snow-storm had about ceased. The snow was two feet deep, in the streets, and the air was nipping chill. The streets were deserted, as evening settled down and Charley neared home. Now when he pa.s.sed an open stairway, leading up into a building, he saw a huddled figure just inside the entrance.
He hurried on, but suddenly he stopped short. The figure had not stirred, as he pa.s.sed--it looked odd--maybe it was only crouching there for shelter from the wind and snow--or maybe it was asleep--or maybe frozen. Jiminy! He ought not to go and leave it. Boy Scouts of America had not been organized, in 1849; but Charley was a Boy Scout at heart, so he turned back, anxious to do a good turn if possible.
When he peered into the entrance to the stairway, the huddled figure was there, just as first seen. It was that of a man, in ragged clothing, with worn boots, slouch hat, and unkempt beard visible where the face was bent forward upon the chest and folded arms. The figure did not move, and Charley spoke to it.
"h.e.l.lo."
There was no response.
"h.e.l.lo, there! What are you doing?"
Still no answer of any kind.
"Hey! Wake up!" bade Charley, more boldly. "You"ll freeze."
Into Charley"s throat welled a little tinge of fear; the figure remained so quiet and motionless. He reached in and shook the man by the shoulder. It was cold and stiff.
"Wake up! Wake up!"
Hurrah! The man was alive, anyway, for now he did stir drowsily, and mumbled as if objecting. Charley noticed that his hands were clenched tightly over the side-pockets of his old jacket, where the corners were drawn into his lap.
"Wake up! You"d better get out of here. You"ll freeze. Want me to help you?"
Charley tried to lift the man, and to force him to move; but the man sat as a dead weight, and only mumbled crossly, and held back.
"Oh, crickity!" despaired Charley. "I"ll have to get somebody to help.
He"s half frozen already. That"s what"s the matter with him."
Charley bolted out, to peer up and down the dusky white street. He had a notion to run to a little store about a block away, when he saw a man walking hastily along on the opposite side of the street. Out into the middle of the street floundered Charley, and hailed him.
"h.e.l.lo! Can you please come over here a minute?"
"Sure, sonny." And he turned off, curiously approaching. "What is it you want, now?"
"There"s a man freezing to death in the doorway, yonder," said Charley, excited. "He ought to be taken out."
"Who is he?"
"I don"t know."
"What doorway, sonny?"
"That one. I"ll show you." And Charley led off, the other man following him. He was a dark complexioned, sharp-faced man, with a little black moustache and a long drooping nose. He had bright black, narrow eyes, piercing but rather shifty. He wore a round fur cap and an overcoat with a cape.
The figure in the stairway entrance sat exactly as Charley had left him, except that he appeared to have gathered his coat pockets tighter.
"See?" directed Charley.
"Humph!" The long-nosed man peered in keenly. "Drunk, isn"t he?" And he ordered roughly: "Come! get out o" here! Stir your stumps. This is no place to sleep."
The figure mumbled and swayed.
"I don"t think he"s drunk," ventured Charley. "He doesn"t act like it, does he?"
"I dunno," grunted the long-nosed man, as if irritated. He reached in and, as Charley had done, but more rudely, grasped the figure by the shoulder; shook him and attempted to drag him forward; raised him a few inches and let him drop back again.
"We can"t do anything. He looks like a beggar, anyhow. I"ll see if I can find a watchman, on my way down town, and send him up."
That sounded inhuman, and Charley, for one, could not think of letting the figure huddle there, in the cold and the night, until the watchman should arrive. He did not like the long-nosed man.
"If you"ll help, I"ll take him home," volunteered Charley. ""Tisn"t far."
"How far?" demanded the long-nosed man.
"Just a block and a half."
"What"ll you do with him there?"
"Get him warm. My mother and father"ll tend to him. They won"t mind."
"Humph!" grunted the long-nosed man. "Well, let"s see. But I don"t intend to break my back for some no-"count trash such as this is.
Come," he ordered, to the figure. "Get out o" here."
He grasped the figure by the arms and pulled him forward. Charley tried to get behind and boost. The tramp (if that was his kind) mumbled and actually resisted--hanging back and fighting feebly. His arms were wrenched from their position across his chest, and his coat corners fell back, with a thud, against the sides of the stairway.
"This fellow must be carrying a brick in each pocket," grumbled the long-nosed man. And halting his operations, despite the other man"s resistance he roughly felt of the coat corners. But when he would have thrust in his hand, to investigate further, the other clutched the pockets so tightly and moaned "No! No!" so imploringly, that much to Charley"s relief the long-nosed man quit.