From “Luck of Roaring Camp,” copyright, 1915, by Houghton Mifflin
Company. By special permission from the publishers.
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker
Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was
conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding
night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he
approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath
lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath
influences, looked ominous.
Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these
indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause, was
another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected;
“likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with
which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his
neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further
conjecture.
In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.”
It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two
valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a
spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any
of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined
to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently
in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a
sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain
other objectionable characters. I regret to say that some of these
were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their
impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily
established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in
judgment.
Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his
pockets of the sums he had won from them. “It’s agin justice,” said
Jim Wheeler, “to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp--an entire
stranger--carry away our money.” But a crude sentiment of equity
residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to
win from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none
the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges.
He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was
at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in
favor of the dealer.
A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker
Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who
was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation
the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a
young woman familiarly known as “The Duchess”; another, who had won
the title of “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected
sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no
comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the
escort. Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of
Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point.
The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of their lives.
As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a
few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother
Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to
Mother Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated
statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the
alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he
rode forward. With the easy good-humor characteristic of his class,
he insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, “Five Spot,” for
the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not
draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted
her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother
Shipton eyed the possessor of “Five Spot” with malevolence, and
Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping anathema.
The road to Sandy Bar--a camp that, not having as yet experienced
the regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to
offer some invitation to the emigrants--lay over a steep mountain
range. It was distant a day’s severe travel. In that advanced
season, the party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of
the foothills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The
trail was narrow and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of
her saddle upon the ground, declared her intention of going no
farther, and the party halted.
The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheater,
surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite,
sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked
the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp,
had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half
the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not
equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his
companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of
“throwing up their hand before the game was played out.” But they
were furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in
place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his
remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less under
its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state
into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton
snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock,
calmly surveying them.
Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which
required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his
own language, he “couldn’t afford it.” As he gazed at his recumbent
fellow-exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah-trade, his
habits of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously
oppressed him. He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes,
washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic of his
studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The
thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never
perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of
that excitement which, singularly enough, was most conducive to that
calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy
walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling pines
around him; at the sky, ominously clouded; at the valley below,
already deepening into shadow. And, doing so, suddenly he heard his
own name called.
A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the
new-comer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as
“The Innocent” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over
a “little game,” and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire
fortune--amounting to some forty dollars--of that guileless youth.
After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful
speculator behind the door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you’re a
good little man, but you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it
over again.” He then handed him his money back, pushed him gently
from the room, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic
greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker
Flat to seek his fortune. “Alone?” No, not exactly alone; in fact (a
giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods. Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst
remember Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance
House? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had
objected, and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to
be married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how
lucky it was they had found a place to camp and company. All this
the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel
of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine tree, where she had been
blushing unseen, and rode to the side of her lover.
Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with
propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not
fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently
to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy
was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s kick a superior
power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade
Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out
the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp.
But, unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the
party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with
provisions, and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a loghouse
near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst,” said the
Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, “and I can shift for myself.”
Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from
bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to
retire up the cañon until he could recover his gravity. There he
confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his
leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he
returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire--for the air
had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast--in apparently
amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive,
girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest
and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was
holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and
Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. “Is this
yer a d--d picnic?” said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he
surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered
animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the
alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a
jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram
his fist into his mouth.
As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked
the tops of the pine-trees, and moaned through their long and gloomy
aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine-boughs, was
set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly
exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been
heard above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent
Mother Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last
evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The
fire was replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few
minutes were asleep.
Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed
and cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now
blowing strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood
to leave it,--snow!
He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers,
for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had
been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and a
curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been
tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly
disappearing in the snow.
The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with
his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent
slumbered peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled
face; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly
as though attended by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing
his blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustache and waited for
the dawn. It came slowly in a whirling mist of snow-flakes, that
dazzled and confused the eye. What could be seen of the landscape
appeared magically changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up
the present and future in two words,--“snowed in!”
A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the
party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious
fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and
prudence they might last ten days longer. “That is,” said Mr.
Oakhurst, sotto voce to the Innocent, “if you’re willing to board
us. If you ain’t--and perhaps you’d better not--you can wait till
Uncle Billy gets back with provisions.” For some occult reason, Mr.
Oakhurst could not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s
rascality, and so offered the hypothesis that he had wandered from
the camp and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He dropped a
warning to the Duchess and Mother Shipton, who of course knew the
facts of their associate’s defection. “They’ll find out the truth
about us all when they find out anything,” he added, significantly,
“and there’s no good frightening them now.”
Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr.
Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced
seclusion. “We’ll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll
melt, and we’ll all go back together.” The cheerful gayety of the
young man, and Mr. Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The Innocent
with the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless
cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the
interior with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that
provincial maiden to their fullest extent. “I reckon now you’re used
to fine things at Poker Flat,” said Piney. The Duchess turned away
sharply to conceal something that reddened her cheeks through their
professional tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to
“chatter.” But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a weary search for
the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the
rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally
reverted to the whiskey, which he had prudently cached. “And yet it
don’t somehow sound like whiskey,” said the gambler. It was not
until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still-blinding
storm and the group around it that he settled to the conviction that
it was “square fun.”
Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whiskey as
something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say.
It was certain that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he “didn’t say cards
once” during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an
accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his
pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation
of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant
melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a
pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening
was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining
hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a
certain defiant tone and Covenanter’s swing to its chorus, rather
than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to infect the
others, who at last joined in the refrain:--
“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I’m bound to die in His army.’”
The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heaven-ward, as if in
token of the vow.
At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the
stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson, somehow
managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He
excused himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had “often been a
week without sleep.” “Doing what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied
Oakhurst, sententiously; “when a man gets a streak of
luck,--nigger-luck,--he don’t get tired. The luck gives in first.
Luck,” continued the gambler, reflectively, “is a mighty queer
thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to
change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes
you. We’ve had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat,--you
come along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your
cards right along you’re all right. For,” added the gambler, with
cheerful irrelevance,--
“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I’m bound to die in His army.’”
The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained
valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of
provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of
that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over
the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past.
But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut,--a
hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky
shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously
clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles
away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky
fastness, hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her
last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested
with a certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately
informed the Duchess. “Just you go out there and cuss, and see.” She
then set herself to the task of amusing “the child,” as she and the
Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was
a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the
fact that she didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.
When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the
accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the
flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching
void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by
Piney,--story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female
companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan
would have failed, too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he
had chanced upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of
the “Iliad.” He now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of
that poem--having thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly
forgotten the words--in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so
for the rest of that night the Homeric demigods again walked the
earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the
great pines in the cañon seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of
Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet satisfaction. Most
especially was he interested in the fate of “Ash-heels,” as the
Innocent persisted in denominating the “swift-footed Achilles.”
So with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week
passed over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them,
and again from leaden skies the snow-flakes were sifted over the
land. Day by day closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at
last they looked from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling
white, that towered twenty feet above their heads. It became more
and more difficult to replenish their fires, even from the fallen
trees beside them, now half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one
complained. The lovers turned from the dreary prospect and looked
into each other’s eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself
coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess, more cheerful
than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother
Shipton--once the strongest of the party--seemed to sicken and fade.
At midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. “I’m
going,” she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, “but don’t say
anything about it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle from under
my head and open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother
Shipton’s rations for the last week, untouched. “Give ’em to the
child,” she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. “You’ve starved
yourself,” said the gambler. “That’s what they call it,” said the
woman, querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning her face to
the wall, passed quietly away.
The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was
forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the
snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of
snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle.
“There’s one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said, pointing
toward Poker Flat. “If you can reach there in two days she’s safe.”
“And you?” asked Tom Simson. “I’ll stay here,” was the curt reply.
The lovers parted with a long embrace. “You are not going, too?”
said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to
accompany him. “As far as the cañon,” he replied. He turned
suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame,
and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.
Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the
whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some
one had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days
longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each
other’s faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke; but Piney,
accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm
around the Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of
the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and,
rending asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut.
Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which
gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess
crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: “Piney,
can you pray?” “No, dear,” said Piney, simply. The Duchess, without
knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon
Piney’s shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and
purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin
breast, they fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of
snow, shaken from the long pineboughs, flew like white-winged birds,
and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted
clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain,
all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle
mercifully flung from above.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices
and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying
fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely
have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she
that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and
turned away, leaving them still locked in each other’s arms.
But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they
found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It
bore the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand:--
Beneath this tree
Lies the body
of
John Oakhurst,
Who struck a streak of bad luck
on the 23d of November, 1850,
and
Handed in his checks
on the 7th December, 1850.
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in
his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who
was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of
Poker Flat.