The “opening” suggested by Bill was not a fortunate one. Possibly views
of business openings in the public-house line taken from the tops of
stage-coaches are not as judicious as those taken from less exalted
levels. Certain it is that the “goodwill” of the “Lone Star House”
promised little more pecuniary value than a conventional blessing. It
was in an older and more thickly settled locality than the “Half-way
House;” indeed, it was but half a mile away from Campville, famous in
'49--a place with a history and a disaster. But young communities are
impatient of settlements that through any accident fail to fulfil the
extravagant promise of their youth, and the wounded hamlet of Campville
had crept into the woods and died. The “Lone Star House” was an attempt
to woo the passing travelers from another point; but its road led to
Campville, and was already touched by its dry-rot. Bill, who honestly
conceived that the infusion of fresh young blood like Jeff's into the
stagnant current would quicken it, had to confess his disappointment.
“I thought ye could put some go into the shanty, Jeff,” said Bill, “and
make it lively and invitin'!” But the lack of vitality was not in the
landlord, but in the guests. The regular customers were disappointed,
vacant, hopeless men, who gathered listlessly on the veranda, and talked
vaguely of the past. Their hollow-eyed, feeble impotency affected the
stranger, even as it checked all ambition among themselves. Do what Jeff
might, the habits of the locality were stronger than his individuality;
the dead ghosts of the past Campville held their property by invisible
mortmain.
In the midst of this struggle the “Half-way House” was sold. Spite of
Bill's prediction, the proceeds barely paid Jeff's debts. Aunt Sally
prevented any troublesome consideration of HER future, by applying
a small surplus of profit to the expenses of a journey back to her
relatives in Kentucky. She wrote Jeff a letter of cheerless instruction,
reminded him of the fulfillment of her worst prophecies regarding him,
but begged him, in her absence, to rely solely upon the “Word.” “For the
sperrit killeth,” she added vaguely. Whether this referred figuratively
to Jeff's business, he did not stop to consider. He was more interested
in the information that the Mayfields had removed to the “Summit Hotel”
two days after he had left. “She allowed it was for her health's sake,”
continued Aunt Sally, “but I reckon it's another name for one of them
city fellers who j'ined their party and is keepin' company with her now.
They talk o' property and stocks and sich worldly trifles all the time,
and it's easy to see their idees is set together. It's allowed at the
Forks that Mr. Mayfield paid Parker's bill for you. I said it wasn't so,
fur ye'd hev told me; but if it is so, Jeff, and ye didn't tell me, it
was for only one puppos, and that wos that Mayfield bribed ye to break
off with his darter! That was WHY you went off so suddent, 'like a thief
in the night,' and why Miss Mayfield never let on a word about you after
you left--not even your name!”
Jeff crushed the letter between his fingers, and, going behind the bar,
poured out half a glass of stimulant and drank it. It was not the first
time since he came to the “Lone Star House” that he had found this easy
relief from his present thought; it was not the first time that he had
found this dangerous ally of sure and swift service in bringing him up
or down to that level of his dreary, sodden guests, so necessary to his
trade. Jeff had not the excuse of the inborn drunkard's taste. He was
impulsive and extreme. At the end of the four weeks he came out on
the porch one night as Bill drew up. “You must take me from this place
to-night,” he said, in a broken voice scarce like his own. “When we're
on the road we can arrange matters, but I must go to-night.”
“But where?” asked Bill.
“Anywhere! Only I must go from here. I shall go if I have to walk.”
Bill looked hard at the young man. His face was flushed, his eyes
blood-shot, and his hands trembled, not with excitement, but with a
vacant, purposeless impotence. Bill looked a little relieved. “You've
been drinking too hard. Jeff, I thought better of ye than that!”
“I think better of MYSELF than that,” said Jeff, with a certain wild,
half-hysterical laugh, “and that is why I want to go. Don't be alarmed,
Bill,” he added; “I have strength enough to save myself, and I shall!
But it isn't worth the struggle HERE.”
He left the “Lone Star House” that night. He would, he said to Bill, go
on to Sacramento, and try to get a situation as clerk or porter there;
he was too old to learn a trade. He said little more. When, after
forty-eight hours' inability to eat, drink, or sleep, Bill, looking at
his haggard face and staring eyes, pressed him to partake, medicinally,
from a certain black bottle, Jeff gently put it aside, and saying, with
a sad smile, “I can get along without it; I've gone through more than
this,” left his mentor in a state of mingled admiration and perplexity.
At Sacramento he found a commercial “opening.” But certain habits
of personal independence, combined with a direct truthfulness and
simplicity, were not conducive to business advancement. He was frank,
and in his habits impulsive and selfishly outspoken. His employer,
a good-natured man, successful in his way, anxious to serve his own
interest and Jeff's equally, strove and labored with him, but in vain.
His employer's wife, a still more good-natured woman, successful in her
way, and equally anxious to serve Jeff's interests and her own, also
strove with him as unsuccessfully. At the end of a month he discharged
his employer, after a simple, boyish, utterly unbusiness-like interview,
and secretly tore up his wife's letter. “I don't know what to make of
that chap,” said the husband to his wife; “he's about as civilized as an
Injun.” “And as conceited,” added the lady.
Howbeit he took his conceit, his sorrows, his curls, mustaches, broad
shoulders, and fifty dollars into humble lodgings in a back street. The
days succeeding this were the most restful he had passed since he left
the “Half-way House.” To wander through the town, half conscious of its
strangeness and novel bustling life, and to dream of a higher and
nobler future with Miss Mayfield--to feel no responsibility but that
of waiting--was, I regret to say, a pleasure to him. He made no
acquaintances except among the poorer people and the children. He was
sometimes hungry, he was always poorly clad, but these facts carried
no degradation with them now. He read much, and in his way--Jeff's
way--tried to improve his mind; his recent commercial experience had
shown him various infelicities in his speech and accent. He learned to
correct certain provincialisms. He was conscious that Miss Mayfield
must have noticed them, yet his odd irrational pride kept him from ever
regretting them, if they had offered a possible excuse for her treatment
of him.
On one of these nights his steps chanced to lead him into a
gambling-saloon. The place had offered no temptation to him; his
dealings with the goddess Chance had been of less active nature.
Nevertheless he placed his last five dollars on the turn of a card. He
won. He won repeatedly; his gains had reached a considerable sum when,
flushed, excited, and absorbed, he was suddenly conscious that he had
become the centre of observation at the table. Looking up, he saw that
the dealer had paused, and, with the cards in his motionless fingers,
was gazing at him with fixed eyes and a white face.
Jeff rose and passed hurriedly to his side. “What's the matter?”
The gambler shrunk slightly as he approached. “What's your name?”
“Briggs.”
“God! I knew it! How much have you got there?” he continued, in a quick
whisper, pointing to Jeff's winnings.
“Five hundred dollars.”
“I'll give you double if you'll get up and quit the board!”
“Why?” asked Jeff haughtily.
“Why?” repeated the man fiercely; “why? Well, your father shot himself
thar, where you're sittin', at this table;” and he added, with a
half-forced, half-hysterical laugh, “HE'S PLAYIN' AT ME OVER YOUR
SHOULDERS!”
Jeff lifted a face as colorless as the gambler's own, went back to his
seat, and placed his entire gains on a single card. The gambler looked
at him nervously, but dealt. There was a pause, a slight movement where
Jeff stood, and then a simultaneous cry from the players as they turned
towards him. But his seat was vacant. “Run after him! Call him back!
HE'S WON AGAIN!” But he had vanished utterly.
HOW he left, or what indeed followed, he never clearly remembered. His
movements must have been automatic, for when, two hours later, he found
himself at the “Pioneer” coach office, with his carpet-bag and blankets
by his side, he could not recall how or why he had come! He had a dumb
impression that he had barely escaped some dire calamity,--rather that
he had only temporarily averted it,--and that he was still in the shadow
of some impending catastrophe of destiny. He must go somewhere, he must
do something to be saved! He had no money, he had no friends; even Yuba
Bill had been transferred to another route, miles away. Yet, in
the midst of this stupefaction, it was a part of his strange mental
condition that trivial details of Miss Mayfield's face and figure,
and even apparel, were constantly before him, to the exclusion of
consecutive thought. A collar she used to wear, a ribbon she had once
tied around her waist, a blue vein in her dropped eyelid, a curve in
her soft, full, bird-like throat, the arch of her in-step in her small
boots--all these were plainer to him than the future, or even the
present. But a voice in his ear, a figure before his abstracted eyes, at
last broke upon his reverie.
“Jeff Briggs!”
Jeff mechanically took the outstretched hand of a young clerk of the
Pioneer Coach Company, who had once accompanied Yuba Bill and stopped at
the “Half-way House.” He endeavored to collect his thoughts; here seemed
to be an opportunity to go somewhere!
“What are you doing now?” said the young man briskly.
“Nothing,” said Jeff simply.
“Oh, I see--going home!”
Home! the word stung sharply through Jeff's benumbed consciousness.
“No,” he stammered, “that is--”
“Look here, Jeff,” broke in the young man, “I've got a chance for you
that don't fall in a man's way every day. Wells, Fargo & Co.'s treasure
messenger from Robinson's Ferry to Mempheys has slipped out. The place
is vacant. I reckon I can get it for you.”
“When?”
“Now--to-night.”
“I'm ready.”
“Come, then.”
In ten minutes they were in the company's office, where its manager, a
man famous in those days for his boldness and shrewdness, still lingered
in the dispatch of business.
The young clerk briefly but deferentially stated certain facts. A few
questions and answers followed, of which Jeff heard only the words
“Tuolumne” and “Yuba Bill.”
“Sit down, Mr. Briggs. Good-night, Roberts.”
The young clerk, with an encouraging smile at Jeff, bowed himself out as
the manager seated himself at his desk and began to write.
“You know the country pretty well between the Fork and the Summit, Mr.
Briggs?” he said, without looking up.
“I lived there,” said Jeff.
“That was some months ago, wasn't it?”
“Six months,” said Jeff, with a sigh.
“It's changed for the worse since your house was shut up. There's a long
stretch of unsettled country infested by bad characters.”
Jeff sat silent. “Briggs.”
“Sir?”
“The last man but one who preceded you was shot by road agents.” *
* Highway robbers.
“Yes, sir.”
“We lost sixty thousand dollars up there.”
“Yes?”
“Your father was Briggs of Tuolumne?”
“Yes, sir.” Jeff's head dropped, but, glancing shyly up, he saw a
pleasant smile on his questioner's face. He was still writing rapidly,
but was apparently enjoying at the same time some pleasant recollection.
“Your father and I lost nearly sixty thousand dollars together one
night, ten years ago, when we were both younger.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jeff dubiously.
“But it was OUR OWN MONEY, Jeff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here's your appointment,” he said briefly, throwing away his pen,
folding what he had written, and handing it to Jeff. It was the first
time that he had looked at him since he entered. He now held out his
hand, grasped Jeff's, and said, “Good-night!”