and chill starlit nights began. There were still freshets from the snow
reservoirs piled high in the Sierran passes, and the Bar was flooded,
but that passed too, and only the sunshine remained. Monotonous as the
seasons were, there was a faint movement in the camp with the stirring
of the sap in the pines and cedars. And then, one day, there was a
strange excitement on the Bar. Men were seen running hither and thither,
but mainly gathering in a crowd on Uncle Billy's claim, that still
retained the old partners' names in “The Fall and Foster.” To add to the
excitement, there was the quickly repeated report of a revolver, to all
appearance aimlessly exploded in the air by some one on the outskirts
of the assemblage. As the crowd opened, Uncle Billy appeared, pale,
hysterical, breathless, and staggering a little under the back-slapping
and hand-shaking of the whole camp. For Uncle Billy had “struck it
rich”--had just discovered a “pocket,” roughly estimated to be worth
fifteen thousand dollars!
Although in that supreme moment he missed the face of his old partner,
he could not help seeing the unaffected delight and happiness shining
in the eyes of all who surrounded him. It was characteristic of that
sanguine but uncertain life that success and good fortune brought no
jealousy nor envy to the unfortunate, but was rather a promise
and prophecy of the fulfillment of their own hopes. The gold was
there--Nature but yielded up her secret. There was no prescribed limit
to her bounty. So strong was this conviction that a long-suffering but
still hopeful miner, in the enthusiasm of the moment, stooped down and
patted a large boulder with the apostrophic “Good old gal!”
Then followed a night of jubilee, a next morning of hurried consultation
with a mining expert and speculator lured to the camp by the good
tidings; and then the very next night--to the utter astonishment of
Cedar Camp--Uncle Billy, with a draft for twenty thousand dollars in his
pocket, started for San Francisco, and took leave of his claim and the
camp forever!
*****
When Uncle Billy landed at the wharves of San Francisco he was a little
bewildered. The Golden Gate beyond was obliterated by the incoming
sea-fog, which had also roofed in the whole city, and lights already
glittered along the gray streets that climbed the grayer sand-hills.
As a Western man, brought up by inland rivers, he was fascinated and
thrilled by the tall-masted seagoing ships, and he felt a strange sense
of the remoter mysterious ocean, which he had never seen. But he was
impressed and startled by smartly dressed men and women, the passing of
carriages, and a sudden conviction that he was strange and foreign to
what he saw. It had been his cherished intention to call upon his old
partner in his working clothes, and then clap down on the table before
him a draft for ten thousand dollars as HIS share of their old claim.
But in the face of these brilliant strangers a sudden and unexpected
timidity came upon him. He had heard of a cheap popular hotel, much
frequented by the returning gold-miner, who entered its hospitable
doors--which held an easy access to shops--and emerged in a few hours
a gorgeous butterfly of fashion, leaving his old chrysalis behind him.
Thence he inquired his way; hence he afterwards issued in garments
glaringly new and ill fitting. But he had not sacrificed his beard, and
there was still something fine and original in his handsome weak face
that overcame the cheap convention of his clothes. Making his way to the
post-office, he was again discomfited by the great size of the building,
and bewildered by the array of little square letter-boxes behind glass
which occupied one whole wall, and an equal number of opaque and locked
wooden ones legibly numbered. His heart leaped; he remembered the
number, and before him was a window with a clerk behind it. Uncle Billy
leaned forward.
“Kin you tell me if the man that box 690 b'longs to is in?”
The clerk stared, made him repeat the question, and then turned away.
But he returned almost instantly, with two or three grinning heads
besides his own, apparently set behind his shoulders. Uncle Billy was
again asked to repeat his question. He did so.
“Why don't you go and see if 690 is in his box?” said the first clerk,
turning with affected asperity to one of the others.
The clerk went away, returned, and said with singular gravity, “He was
there a moment ago, but he's gone out to stretch his legs. It's rather
crampin' at first; and he can't stand it more than ten hours at a time,
you know.”
But simplicity has its limits. Uncle Billy had already guessed his
real error in believing his partner was officially connected with the
building; his cheek had flushed and then paled again. The pupils of his
blue eyes had contracted into suggestive black points. “Ef you'll let
me in at that winder, young fellers,” he said, with equal gravity,
“I'll show yer how I kin make YOU small enough to go in a box without
crampin'! But I only wanted to know where Jim Foster LIVED.”
At which the first clerk became perfunctory again, but civil. “A letter
left in his box would get you that information,” he said, “and here's
paper and pencil to write it now.”
Uncle Billy took the paper and began to write, “Just got here. Come and
see me at”--He paused. A brilliant idea had struck him; He could impress
both his old partner and the upstarts at the window; he would put in the
name of the latest “swell” hotel in San Francisco, said to be a fairy
dream of opulence. He added “The Oriental,” and without folding the
paper shoved it in the window.
“Don't you want an envelope?” asked the clerk.
“Put a stamp on the corner of it,” responded Uncle Billy, laying down a
coin, “and she'll go through.” The clerk smiled, but affixed the stamp,
and Uncle Billy turned away.
But it was a short-lived triumph. The disappointment at finding Uncle
Jim's address conveyed no idea of his habitation seemed to remove him
farther away, and lose his identity in the great city. Besides, he must
now make good his own address, and seek rooms at the Oriental. He went
thither. The furniture and decorations, even in these early days of
hotel-building in San Francisco, were extravagant and over-strained,
and Uncle Billy felt lost and lonely in his strange surroundings. But
he took a handsome suite of rooms, paid for them in advance on the spot,
and then, half frightened, walked out of them to ramble vaguely through
the city in the feverish hope of meeting his old partner. At night his
inquietude increased; he could not face the long row of tables in the
pillared dining-room, filled with smartly dressed men and women;
he evaded his bedroom, with its brocaded satin chairs and its gilt
bedstead, and fled to his modest lodgings at the Good Cheer House, and
appeased his hunger at its cheap restaurant, in the company of retired
miners and freshly arrived Eastern emigrants. Two or three days passed
thus in this quaint double existence. Three or four times a day he would
enter the gorgeous Oriental with affected ease and carelessness, demand
his key from the hotel-clerk, ask for the letter that did not come, go
to his room, gaze vaguely from his window on the passing crowd below for
the partner he could not find, and then return to the Good Cheer House
for rest and sustenance. On the fourth day he received a short note
from Uncle Jim; it was couched in his usual sanguine but brief and
businesslike style. He was very sorry, but important and profitable
business took him out of town, but he trusted to return soon and welcome
his old partner. He was also, for the first time, jocose, and hoped
that Uncle Billy would not “see all the sights” before he, Uncle Jim,
returned. Disappointing as this procrastination was to Uncle Billy, a
gleam of hope irradiated it: the letter had bridged over that gulf which
seemed to yawn between them at the post-office. His old partner had
accepted his visit to San Francisco without question, and had alluded to
a renewal of their old intimacy. For Uncle Billy, with all his trustful
simplicity, had been tortured by two harrowing doubts: one, whether
Uncle Jim in his new-fledged smartness as a “city” man--such as he
saw in the streets--would care for his rough companionship; the other,
whether he, Uncle Billy, ought not to tell him at once of his changed
fortune. But, like all weak, unreasoning men, he clung desperately to
a detail--he could not forego his old idea of astounding Uncle Jim by
giving him his share of the “strike” as his first intimation of it, and
he doubted, with more reason perhaps, if Jim would see him after he
had heard of his good fortune. For Uncle Billy had still a frightened
recollection of Uncle Jim's sudden stroke for independence, and
that rigid punctiliousness which had made him doggedly accept the
responsibility of his extravagant stake at euchre.
With a view of educating himself for Uncle Jim's company, he “saw the
sights” of San Francisco--as an overgrown and somewhat stupid child
might have seen them--with great curiosity, but little contamination or
corruption. But I think he was chiefly pleased with watching the arrival
of the Sacramento and Stockton steamers at the wharves, in the hope
of discovering his old partner among the passengers on the gang-plank.
Here, with his old superstitious tendency and gambler's instinct, he
would augur great success in his search that day if any one of the
passengers bore the least resemblance to Uncle Jim, if a man or woman
stepped off first, or if he met a single person's questioning eye.
Indeed, this got to be the real occupation of the day, which he would on
no account have omitted, and to a certain extent revived each day in
his mind the morning's work of their old partnership. He would say to
himself, “It's time to go and look up Jim,” and put off what he
was pleased to think were his pleasures until this act of duty was
accomplished.
In this singleness of purpose he made very few and no entangling
acquaintances, nor did he impart to any one the secret of his fortune,
loyally reserving it for his partner's first knowledge. To a man of
his natural frankness and simplicity this was a great trial, and was,
perhaps, a crucial test of his devotion. When he gave up his rooms at
the Oriental--as not necessary after his partner's absence--he sent
a letter, with his humble address, to the mysterious lock-box of his
partner without fear or false shame. He would explain it all when they
met. But he sometimes treated unlucky and returning miners to a dinner
and a visit to the gallery of some theatre. Yet while he had an active
sympathy with and understanding of the humblest, Uncle Billy, who
for many years had done his own and his partner's washing, scrubbing,
mending, and cooking, and saw no degradation in it, was somewhat
inconsistently irritated by menial functions in men, and although
he gave extravagantly to waiters, and threw a dollar to the
crossing-sweeper, there was always a certain shy avoidance of them in
his manner. Coming from the theatre one night Uncle Billy was, however,
seriously concerned by one of these crossing-sweepers turning hastily
before them and being knocked down by a passing carriage. The man rose
and limped hurriedly away; but Uncle Billy was amazed and still more
irritated to hear from his companion that this kind of menial occupation
was often profitable, and that at some of the principal crossings the
sweepers were already rich men.
But a few days later brought a more notable event to Uncle Billy. One
afternoon in Montgomery Street he recognized in one of its smartly
dressed frequenters a man who had a few years before been a member of
Cedar Camp. Uncle Billy's childish delight at this meeting, which
seemed to bridge over his old partner's absence, was, however, only
half responded to by the ex-miner, and then somewhat satirically. In the
fullness of his emotion, Uncle Billy confided to him that he was seeking
his old partner, Jim Foster, and, reticent of his own good fortune,
spoke glowingly of his partner's brilliant expectations, but deplored
his inability to find him. And just now he was away on important
business. “I reckon he's got back,” said the man dryly. “I didn't know
he had a lock-box at the post-office, but I can give you his other
address. He lives at the Presidio, at Washerwoman's Bay.” He stopped and
looked with a satirical smile at Uncle Billy. But the latter, familiar
with Californian mining-camp nomenclature, saw nothing strange in it,
and merely repeated his companion's words.
“You'll find him there! Good-by! So long! Sorry I'm in a hurry,” said
the ex-miner, and hurried away.
Uncle Billy was too delighted with the prospect of a speedy meeting with
Uncle Jim to resent his former associate's supercilious haste, or even
to wonder why Uncle Jim had not informed him that he had returned. It
was not the first time that he had felt how wide was the gulf between
himself and these others, and the thought drew him closer to his old
partner, as well as his old idea, as it was now possible to surprise
him with the draft. But as he was going to surprise him in his own
boarding-house--probably a handsome one--Uncle Billy reflected that he
would do so in a certain style.
He accordingly went to a livery stable and ordered a landau and pair,
with a negro coachman. Seated in it, in his best and most ill-fitting
clothes, he asked the coachman to take him to the Presidio, and leaned
back in the cushions as they drove through the streets with such an
expression of beaming gratification on his good-humored face that the
passers-by smiled at the equipage and its extravagant occupant. To them
it seemed the not unusual sight of the successful miner “on a spree.” To
the unsophisticated Uncle Billy their smiling seemed only a natural and
kindly recognition of his happiness, and he nodded and smiled back
to them with unsuspecting candor and innocent playfulness. “These yer
'Frisco fellers ain't ALL slouches, you bet,” he added to himself half
aloud, at the back of the grinning coachman.
Their way led through well-built streets to the outskirts, or rather
to that portion of the city which seemed to have been overwhelmed by
shifting sand-dunes, from which half-submerged fences and even low
houses barely marked the line of highway. The resistless trade-winds
which had marked this change blew keenly in his face and slightly
chilled his ardor. At a turn in the road the sea came in sight, and
sloping towards it the great Cemetery of Lone Mountain, with white
shafts and marbles that glittered in the sunlight like the sails of
ships waiting to be launched down that slope into the Eternal Ocean.
Uncle Billy shuddered. What if it had been his fate to seek Uncle Jim
there!
“Dar's yar Presidio!” said the negro coachman a few moments later,
pointing with his whip, “and dar's yar Wash'woman's Bay!”
Uncle Billy stared. A huge quadrangular fort of stone with a flag flying
above its battlements stood at a little distance, pressed against the
rocks, as if beating back the encroaching surges; between him and the
fort but farther inland was a lagoon with a number of dilapidated,
rudely patched cabins or cottages, like stranded driftwood around its
shore. But there was no mansion, no block of houses, no street, not
another habitation or dwelling to be seen!
Uncle Billy's first shock of astonishment was succeeded by a feeling of
relief. He had secretly dreaded a meeting with his old partner in the
“haunts of fashion;” whatever was the cause that made Uncle Jim seek
this obscure retirement affected him but slightly; he even was thrilled
with a vague memory of the old shiftless camp they had both abandoned. A
certain instinct--he knew not why, or less still that it might be one of
delicacy--made him alight before they reached the first house. Bidding
the carriage wait, Uncle Billy entered, and was informed by a blowzy
Irish laundress at a tub that Jim Foster, or “Arkansaw Jim,” lived at
the fourth shanty “beyant.” He was at home, for “he'd shprained his
fut.” Uncle Billy hurried on, stopped before the door of a shanty
scarcely less rude than their old cabin, and half timidly pushed it
open. A growling voice from within, a figure that rose hurriedly,
leaning on a stick, with an attempt to fly, but in the same moment sank
back in a chair with an hysterical laugh--and Uncle Billy stood in the
presence of his old partner! But as Uncle Billy darted forward, Uncle
Jim rose again, and this time with outstretched hands. Uncle Billy
caught them, and in one supreme pressure seemed to pour out and
transfuse his whole simple soul into his partner's. There they swayed
each other backwards and forwards and sideways by their still clasped
hands, until Uncle Billy, with a glance at Uncle Jim's bandaged ankle,
shoved him by sheer force down into his chair.
Uncle Jim was first to speak. “Caught, b' gosh! I mighter known you'd be
as big a fool as me! Look you, Billy Fall, do you know what you've done?
You've druv me out er the streets whar I was makin' an honest livin', by
day, on three crossin's! Yes,” he laughed forgivingly, “you druv me out
er it, by day, jest because I reckoned that some time I might run into
your darned fool face,”--another laugh and a grasp of the hand,--“and
then, b'gosh! not content with ruinin' my business BY DAY, when I
took to it at night, YOU took to goin' out at nights too, and so put a
stopper on me there! Shall I tell you what else you did? Well, by the
holy poker! I owe this sprained foot to your darned foolishness and my
own, for it was getting away from YOU one night after the theatre that I
got run into and run over!
“Ye see,” he went on, unconscious of Uncle Billy's paling face, and with
a naivete, though perhaps not a delicacy, equal to Uncle Billy's own, “I
had to play roots on you with that lock-box business and these letters,
because I did not want you to know what I was up to, for you mightn't
like it, and might think it was lowerin' to the old firm, don't yer
see? I wouldn't hev gone into it, but I was played out, and I don't
mind tellin' you NOW, old man, that when I wrote you that first chipper
letter from the lock-box I hedn't eat anythin' for two days. But it's
all right NOW,” with a laugh. “Then I got into this business--thinkin'
it nothin'--jest the very last thing--and do you know, old pard, I
couldn't tell anybody but YOU--and, in fact, I kept it jest to tell
you--I've made nine hundred and fifty-six dollars! Yes, sir, NINE
HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX DOLLARS! solid money, in Adams and Co.'s Bank,
just out er my trade.”
“Wot trade?” asked Uncle Billy.
Uncle Jim pointed to the corner, where stood a large, heavy
crossing-sweeper's broom. “That trade.”
“Certingly,” said Uncle Billy, with a quick laugh.
“It's an outdoor trade,” said Uncle Jim gravely, but with no suggestion
of awkwardness or apology in his manner; “and thar ain't much difference
between sweepin' a crossin' with a broom and raking over tailing with a
rake, ONLY--WOT YE GET with a broom YOU HAVE HANDED TO YE, and ye don't
have to PICK IT UP AND FISH IT OUT ER the wet rocks and sluice-gushin';
and it's a heap less tiring to the back.”
“Certingly, you bet!” said Uncle Billy enthusiastically, yet with a
certain nervous abstraction.
“I'm glad ye say so; for yer see I didn't know at first how you'd tumble
to my doing it, until I'd made my pile. And ef I hadn't made it, I
wouldn't hev set eyes on ye agin, old pard--never!”
“Do you mind my runnin' out a minit,” said Uncle Billy, rising. “You
see, I've got a friend waitin' for me outside--and I reckon”--he
stammered--“I'll jest run out and send him off, so I kin talk comf'ble
to ye.”
“Ye ain't got anybody you're owin' money to,” said Uncle Jim earnestly,
“anybody follerin' you to get paid, eh? For I kin jest set down right
here and write ye off a check on the bank!”
“No,” said Uncle Billy. He slipped out of the door, and ran like a deer
to the waiting carriage. Thrusting a twenty-dollar gold-piece into the
coachman's hand, he said hoarsely, “I ain't wantin' that kerridge just
now; ye ken drive around and hev a private jamboree all by yourself the
rest of the afternoon, and then come and wait for me at the top o' the
hill yonder.”
Thus quit of his gorgeous equipage, he hurried back to Uncle Jim,
grasping his ten-thousand dollar draft in his pocket. He was nervous, he
was frightened, but he must get rid of the draft and his story, and have
it over. But before he could speak he was unexpectedly stopped by Uncle
Jim.
“Now, look yer, Billy boy!” said Uncle Jim; “I got suthin' to say to
ye--and I might as well clear it off my mind at once, and then we can
start fair agin. Now,” he went on, with a half laugh, “wasn't it enough
for ME to go on pretendin' I was rich and doing a big business, and
gettin' up that lock-box dodge so as ye couldn't find out whar I hung
out and what I was doin'--wasn't it enough for ME to go on with all this
play-actin', but YOU, you long-legged or nary cuss! must get up and go
to lyin' and play-actin', too!”
“ME play-actin'? ME lyin'?” gasped Uncle Billy.
Uncle Jim leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Do you think you could
fool ME? Do you think I didn't see through your little game o' going
to that swell Oriental, jest as if ye'd made a big strike--and all the
while ye wasn't sleepin' or eatin' there, but jest wrastlin' yer hash
and having a roll down at the Good Cheer! Do you think I didn't spy on
ye and find that out? Oh, you long-eared jackass-rabbit!”
He laughed until the tears came into his eyes, and Uncle Billy laughed
too, albeit until the laugh on his face became quite fixed, and he was
fain to bury his head in his handkerchief.
“And yet,” said Uncle Jim, with a deep breath, “gosh! I was
frighted--jest for a minit! I thought, mebbe, you HAD made a big
strike--when I got your first letter--and I made up my mind what I'd
do! And then I remembered you was jest that kind of an open sluice that
couldn't keep anythin' to yourself, and you'd have been sure to have
yelled it out to ME the first thing. So I waited. And I found you out,
you old sinner!” He reached forward and dug Uncle Billy in the ribs.
“What WOULD you hev done?” said Uncle Billy, after an hysterical
collapse.
Uncle Jim's face grew grave again. “I'd hev--I'd--hev cl'ared out! Out
er 'Frisco! out er Californy! out er Ameriky! I couldn't have stud it!
Don't think I would hev begrudged ye yer luck! No man would have been
gladder than me.” He leaned forward again, and laid his hand caressingly
upon his partner's arm--“Don't think I'd hev wanted to take a penny of
it--but I--thar! I COULDN'T hev stood up under it! To hev had YOU, you
that I left behind, comin' down here rollin' in wealth and new partners
and friends, and arrive upon me--and this shanty--and”--he threw towards
the corner of the room a terrible gesture, none the less terrible
that it was illogical and inconsequent to all that had gone
before--“and--and--THAT BROOM!”
There was a dead silence in the room. With it Uncle Billy seemed to feel
himself again transported to the homely cabin at Cedar Camp and that
fateful night, with his partner's strange, determined face before him
as then. He even fancied that he heard the roaring of the pines without,
and did not know that it was the distant sea.
But after a minute Uncle Jim resumed:--
“Of course you've made a little raise somehow, or you wouldn't be here?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Billy eagerly. “Yes! I've got”--He stopped and
stammered. “I've got--a--few hundreds.”
“Oh, oh!” said Uncle Jim cheerfully. He paused, and then added
earnestly, “I say! You ain't got left, over and above your d--d
foolishness at the Oriental, as much as five hundred dollars?”
“I've got,” said Uncle Billy, blushing a little over his first
deliberate and affected lie, “I've got at least five hundred and
seventy-two dollars. Yes,” he added tentatively, gazing anxiously at his
partner, “I've got at least that.”