sat alone in his hut. The fire was dying unheeded on the hearth, for
he had been sitting there for a long time, completely absorbed in the
blurred pages of an old newspaper. Presently he arose, and, refolding
it,--an operation of great care and delicacy in its tattered
condition,--placed it under the blankets of his bed. He resumed his seat
by the fire, but soon began drumming with his fingers on the arm of his
chair. Eventually this assumed the time and accent of some air. Then
he began to whistle softly and hesitatingly, as if trying to recall
a forgotten tune. Finally this took shape in a rude resemblance, not
unlike that which his flag bore to the national standard, to Yankee
Doodle. Suddenly he stopped.
There was an unmistakable rapping at the door. The blood which had at
first rushed to his face now forsook it and settled slowly around his
heart. He tried to rise, but could not. Then the door was flung open,
and a figure with a scarlet-lined hood and fur mantle stood on the
threshold. With a mighty effort he took one stride to the door. The next
moment he saw the wide mouth and white teeth of the Princess, and was
greeted by a kiss that felt like a baptism.
To tear the hood and mantle from her figure in the sudden fury that
seized him, and to fiercely demand the reason of this masquerade, was
his only return to her greeting. “Why are you here? did you steal these
garments?” he again demanded in her guttural language, as he shook her
roughly by the arm. The Princess hung her head. “Did you?” he screamed,
as he reached wildly for his rifle.
“I did?”
His hold relaxed, and he staggered back against the wall. The Princess
began to whimper. Between her sobs, she was trying to explain that the
Major and his daughter were going away, and that they wanted to send her
to the Reservation; but he cut her short. “Take off those things!” The
Princess tremblingly obeyed. He rolled them up, placed them in the canoe
she had just left, and then leaped into the frail craft. She would have
followed, but with a great oath he threw her from him, and with one
stroke of his paddle swept out into the fog, and was gone.
“Jessamy,” said the Major, a few days after, as he sat at dinner with
his daughter, “I think I can tell you something to match the mysterious
disappearance and return of your wardrobe. Your crazy friend, the
recluse, has enlisted this morning in the Fourth Artillery. He's a
splendid-looking animal, and there's the right stuff for a soldier in
him, if I'm not mistaken. He's in earnest too, for he enlists in the
regiment ordered back to Washington. Bless me, child, another goblet
broken; you'll ruin the mess in glassware, at this rate!”
“Have you heard anything more of the Princess, papa?”
“Nothing, but perhaps it's as well that she has gone. These cursed
settlers are at their old complaints again about what they call 'Indian
depredations,' and I have just received orders from head-quarters to
keep the settlement clear of all vagabond aborigines. I am afraid,
my dear, that a strict construction of the term would include your
protegee.”
The time for the departure of the Fourth Artillery had come. The night
before was thick and foggy. At one o'clock, a shot on the ramparts
called out the guard and roused the sleeping garrison. The new sentry,
Private Grey, had challenged a dusky figure creeping on the glacis, and,
receiving no answer, had fired. The guard sent out presently returned,
bearing a lifeless figure in their arms. The new sentry's zeal, joined
with an ex-frontiersman's aim, was fatal.
They laid the helpless, ragged form before the guard-house door, and
then saw for the first time that it was the Princess. Presently she
opened her eyes. They fell upon the agonized face of her innocent
slayer, but haply without intelligence or reproach.
“Georgy!” she whispered.
“Bob!”
“All's same now. Me get plenty well soon. Me make no more fuss. Me go to
Reservation.”
Then she stopped, a tremor ran through her limbs, and she lay still. She
had gone to the Reservation. Not that devised by the wisdom of man, but
that one set apart from the foundation of the world for the wisest as
well as the meanest of His creatures.
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR.
Before nine o'clock it was pretty well known all along the river that
the two partners of the “Amity Claim” had quarrelled and separated at
daybreak. At that time the attention of their nearest neighbor had
been attracted by the sounds of altercations and two consecutive
pistol-shots. Running out, he had seen, dimly, in the gray mist that
rose from the river, the tall form of Scott, one of the partners,
descending the hill toward the canyon; a moment later, York, the
other partner, had appeared from the cabin, and walked in an opposite
direction toward the river, passing within a few feet of the curious
watcher. Later it was discovered that a serious Chinaman, cutting
wood before the cabin, had witnessed part of the quarrel. But John was
stolid, indifferent, and reticent. “Me choppee wood, me no fightee,”
was his serene response to all anxious queries. “But what did they SAY,
John?” John did not sabe. Colonel Starbottle deftly ran over the various
popular epithets which a generous public sentiment might accept as
reasonable provocation for an assault. But John did not recognize them.
“And this yer's the cattle,” said the Colonel, with some severity, “that
some thinks oughter be allowed to testify ag'in' a White Man! Git--you
heathen!”
Still the quarrel remained inexplicable. That two men, whose amiability
and grave tact had earned for them the title of “The Peacemakers,” in
a community not greatly given to the passive virtues,--that these men,
singularly devoted to each other, should suddenly and violently
quarrel, might well excite the curiosity of the camp. A few of the more
inquisitive visited the late scene of conflict, now deserted by its
former occupants. There was no trace of disorder or confusion in the
neat cabin. The rude table was arranged as if for breakfast; the pan of
yellow biscuit still sat upon that hearth whose dead embers might have
typified the evil passions that had raged there but an hour before. But
Colonel Starbottle's eye--albeit somewhat bloodshot and rheumy--was more
intent on practical details. On examination, a bullet-hole was found in
the doorpost, and another, nearly opposite, in the casing of the window.
The Colonel called attention to the fact that the one “agreed with” the
bore of Scott's revolver, and the other with that of York's derringer.
“They must hev stood about yer,” said the Colonel, taking position; “not
mor'n three feet apart, and--missed!” There was a fine touch of pathos
in the falling inflection of the Colonel's voice, which was not without
effect. A delicate perception of wasted opportunity thrilled his
auditors.
But the Bar was destined to experience a greater disappointment. The two
antagonists had not met since the quarrel, and it was vaguely rumored
that, on the occasion of a second meeting, each had determined to kill
the other “on sight.” There was, consequently, some excitement--and,
it is to be feared, no little gratification--when, at ten o'clock, York
stepped from the Magnolia Saloon into the one long straggling street of
the camp, at the same moment that Scott left the blacksmith's shop at
the forks of the road. It was evident, at a glance, that a meeting could
only be avoided by the actual retreat of one or the other.
In an instant the doors and windows of the adjacent saloons were filled
with faces. Heads unaccountably appeared above the river-banks and from
behind bowlders. An empty wagon at the cross-road was suddenly crowded
with people, who seemed to have sprung from the earth. There was much
running and confusion on the hillside. On the mountain-road, Mr. Jack
Hamlin had reined up his horse, and was standing upright on the seat of
his buggy. And the two objects of this absorbing attention approached
each other.
“York's got the sun,” “Scott'll line him on that tree,” “He's waitin'
to draw his fire,” came from the cart; and then it was silent. But
above this human breathlessness the river rushed and sang, and the
wind rustled the tree-tops with an indifference that seemed obtrusive.
Colonel Starbottle felt it, and in a moment of sublime preoccupation,
without looking around, waved his cane behind him, warningly to all
nature, and said, “Shu!”
The men were now within a few feet of each other. A hen ran across the
road before one of them. A feathery seed-vessel, wafted from a wayside
tree, fell at the feet of the other. And, unheeding this irony of
nature, the two opponents came nearer, erect and rigid, looked in each
other's eyes, and--passed!
Colonel Starbottle had to be lifted from the cart. “This yer camp is
played out,” he said, gloomily, as he affected to be supported into
the Magnolia. With what further expression he might have indicated his
feelings it was impossible to say, for at that moment Scott joined the
group. “Did you speak to me?” he asked of the Colonel, dropping his
hand, as if with accidental familiarity, on that gentleman's shoulder.
The Colonel, recognizing some occult quality in the touch, and some
unknown quantity in the glance of his questioner, contented himself by
replying, “No, sir,” with dignity. A few rods away, York's conduct
was as characteristic and peculiar. “You had a mighty fine chance; why
didn't you plump him?” said Jack Hamlin, as York drew near the buggy.
“Because I hate him,” was the reply, heard only by Jack. Contrary
to popular belief, this reply was not hissed between the lips of the
speaker, but was said in an ordinary tone. But Jack Hamlin, who was an
observer of mankind, noticed that the speaker's hands were cold, and
his lips dry, as he helped him into the buggy, and accepted the seeming
paradox with a smile.
When Sandy Bar became convinced that the quarrel between York and Scott
could not be settled after the usual local methods, it gave no further
concern thereto. But presently it was rumored that the “Amity Claim” was
in litigation, and that its possession would be expensively disputed by
each of the partners. As it was well known that the claim in question
was “worked out” and worthless, and that the partners, whom it had
already enriched, had talked of abandoning it but a day or two before
the quarrel, this proceeding could only be accounted for as gratuitous
spite. Later, two San Francisco lawyers made their appearance in this
guileless Arcadia, and were eventually taken into the saloons, and--what
was pretty much the same thing--the confidences of the inhabitants. The
results of this unhallowed intimacy were many subpoenas; and, indeed,
when the “Amity Claim” came to trial, all of Sandy Bar that was not in
compulsory attendance at the county seat came there from curiosity. The
gulches and ditches for miles around were deserted. I do not propose to
describe that already famous trial. Enough that, in the language of the
plaintiff's counsel, “it was one of no ordinary significance, involving
the inherent rights of that untiring industry which had developed the
Pactolian resources of this golden land”; and, in the homelier phrase
of Colonel Starbottle, “A fuss that gentlemen might hev settled in ten
minutes over a social glass, ef they meant business; or in ten seconds
with a revolver, ef they meant fun.” Scott got a verdict, from which
York instantly appealed. It was said that he had sworn to spend his last
dollar in the struggle.
In this way Sandy Bar began to accept the enmity of the former partners
as a lifelong feud, and the fact that they had ever been friends was
forgotten. The few who expected to learn from the trial the origin of
the quarrel were disappointed. Among the various conjectures, that
which ascribed some occult feminine influence as the cause was naturally
popular, in a camp given to dubious compliment of the sex. “My word
for it, gentlemen,” said Colonel Starbottle, who had been known in
Sacramento as a Gentleman of the Old School, “there's some lovely
creature at the bottom of this.” The gallant Colonel then proceeded to
illustrate his theory, by divers sprightly stories, such as Gentlemen of
the Old School are in the habit of repeating, but which, from deference
to the prejudices of gentlemen of a more recent school, I refrain from
transcribing here. But it would appear that even the Colonel's theory
was fallacious. The only woman who personally might have exercised
any influence over the partners was the pretty daughter of “old man
Folinsbee,” of Poverty Flat, at whose hospitable house--which exhibited
some comforts and refinements rare in that crude civilization--both York
and Scott were frequent visitors. Yet into this charming retreat York
strode one evening, a month after the quarrel, and, beholding Scott
sitting there, turned to the fair hostess with the abrupt query, “Do you
love this man?” The young woman thus addressed returned that answer--at
once spirited and evasive--which would occur to most of my fair readers
in such an exigency. Without another word, York left the house. “Miss
Jo” heaved the least possible sigh as the door closed on York's curls
and square shoulders, and then, like a good girl, turned to her insulted
guest “But would you believe it, dear?” she afterward related to an
intimate friend, “the other creature, after glowering at me for a
moment, got upon its hind legs, took its hat, and left, too; and that's
the last I've seen of either.”
The same hard disregard of all other interests or feelings in the
gratification of their blind rancor characterized all their actions.
When York purchased the land below Scott's new claim, and obliged the
latter, at a great expense, to make a long detour to carry a “tail-race”
around it, Scott retaliated by building a dam that overflowed York's
claim on the river. It was Scott, who, in conjunction with Colonel
Starbottle, first organized that active opposition to the Chinamen,
which resulted in the driving off of York's Mongolian laborers; it was
York who built the wagon-road and established the express which rendered
Scott's mules and pack-trains obsolete; it was Scott who called into
life the Vigilance Committee which expatriated York's friend,
Jack Hamlin; it was York who created the “Sandy Bar Herald,” which
characterized the act as “a lawless outrage,” and Scott as a “Border
Ruffian”; it was Scott, at the head of twenty masked men, who, one
moonlight night, threw the offending “forms” into the yellow river, and
scattered the types in the dusty road. These proceedings were received
in the distant and more civilized outlying towns as vague indications
of progress and vitality. I have before me a copy of the “Poverty Flat
Pioneer,” for the week ending August 12, 1856, in which the editor,
under the head of “County Improvements,” says: “The new Presbyterian
Church on C Street, at Sandy Bar, is completed. It stands upon the lot
formerly occupied by the Magnolia Saloon, which was so mysteriously
burnt last month. The temple, which now rises like a Phoenix from the
ashes of the Magnolia, is virtually the free gift of H. J. York, Esq.,
of Sandy Bar, who purchased the lot and donated the lumber. Other
buildings are going up in the vicinity, but the most noticeable is the
'Sunny South Saloon,' erected by Captain Mat. Scott, nearly opposite the
church. Captain Scott has spared no expense in the furnishing of this
saloon, which promises to be one of the most agreeable places of
resort in old Tuolumne. He has recently imported two new, first-class
billiard-tables, with cork cushions. Our old friend, 'Mountain
Jimmy,' will dispense liquors at the bar. We refer our readers to the
advertisement in another column. Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do better
than give 'Jimmy' a call.” Among the local items occurred the following:
“H. J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, has offered a reward of $100 for
the detection of the parties who hauled away the steps of the new
Presbyterian Church, C Street, Sandy Bar, during divine service on
Sabbath evening last. Captain Scott adds another hundred for the capture
of the miscreants who broke the magnificent plate-glass windows of the
new saloon on the following evening. There is some talk of reorganizing
the old Vigilance Committee at Sandy Bar.”
When, for many months of cloudless weather, the hard, unwinking sun of
Sandy Bar had regularly gone down on the unpacified wrath of these
men, there was some talk of mediation. In particular, the pastor of the
church to which I have just referred--a sincere, fearless, but perhaps
not fully enlightened man--seized gladly upon the occasion of York's
liberality to attempt to reunite the former partners. He preached an
earnest sermon on the abstract sinfulness of discord and rancor. But
the excellent sermons of the Rev. Mr. Daws were directed to an ideal
congregation that did not exist at Sandy Bar,--a congregation of beings
of unmixed vices and virtues, of single impulses, and perfectly logical
motives, of preternatural simplicity, of childlike faith, and grown-up
responsibilities. As, unfortunately, the people who actually attended
Mr. Daws's church were mainly very human, somewhat artful, more
self-excusing than self-accusing, rather good-natured, and decidedly
weak, they quietly shed that portion of the sermon which referred to
themselves, and, accepting York and Scott--who were both in defiant
attendance--as curious examples of those ideal beings above referred
to, felt a certain satisfaction--which, I fear, was not altogether
Christian-like--in their “raking-down.” If Mr. Daws expected York and
Scott to shake hands after the sermon, he was disappointed. But he did
not relax his purpose. With that quiet fearlessness and determination
which had won for him the respect of men who were too apt to regard
piety as synonymous with effeminacy, he attacked Scott in his own house.
What he said has not been recorded, but it is to be feared that it was
part of his sermon. When he had concluded, Scott looked at him, not
unkindly, over the glasses of his bar, and said, less irreverently than
the words might convey, “Young man, I rather like your style; but when
you know York and me as well as you do God Almighty, it'll be time to
talk.”
And so the feud progressed; and so, as in more illustrious examples, the
private and personal enmity of two representative men led gradually to
the evolution of some crude, half-expressed principle or belief. It was
not long before it was made evident that those beliefs were identical
with certain broad principles laid down by the founders of the American
Constitution, as expounded by the statesmanlike A; or were the fatal
quicksands, on which the ship of state might be wrecked, warningly
pointed out by the eloquent B. The practical result of all which was the
nomination of York and Scott to represent the opposite factions of Sandy
Bar in legislative councils.
For some weeks past, the voters of Sandy Bar and the adjacent camps had
been called upon, in large type, to “RALLY!” In vain the great pines
at the cross-roads--whose trunks were compelled to bear this and other
legends--moaned and protested from their windy watch-towers. But one
day, with fife and drum, and flaming transparency, a procession filed
into the triangular grove at the head of the gulch. The meeting
was called to order by Colonel Starbottle, who, having once enjoyed
legislative functions, and being vaguely known as a “war-horse,” was
considered to be a valuable partisan of York. He concluded an appeal for
his friend, with an enunciation of principles, interspersed with one or
two anecdotes so gratuitously coarse that the very pines might have been
moved to pelt him with their cast-off cones, as he stood there. But he
created a laugh, on which his candidate rode into popular notice; and
when York rose to speak, he was greeted with cheers. But, to the general
astonishment, the new speaker at once launched into bitter denunciation
of his rival. He not only dwelt upon Scott's deeds and example, as known
to Sandy Bar, but spoke of facts connected with his previous career,
hitherto unknown to his auditors. To great precision of epithet and
directness of statement, the speaker added the fascination of revelation
and exposure. The crowd cheered, yelled, and were delighted, but when
this astounding philippic was concluded, there was a unanimous call
for “Scott!” Colonel Starbottle would have resisted this manifest
impropriety, but in vain. Partly from a crude sense of justice, partly
from a meaner craving for excitement, the assemblage was inflexible; and
Scott was dragged, pushed, and pulled upon the platform.
As his frowsy head and unkempt beard appeared above the railing, it was
evident that he was drunk. But it was also evident, before he opened his
lips, that the orator of Sandy Bar--the one man who could touch their
vagabond sympathies (perhaps because he was not above appealing to
them)--stood before them. A consciousness of this power lent a certain
dignity to his figure, and I am not sure but that his very physical
condition impressed them as a kind of regal unbending and large
condescension. Howbeit, when this unexpected Hector arose from the
ditch, York's myrmidons trembled.
“There's naught, gentlemen,” said Scott, leaning forward on the
railing,--“there's naught as that man hez said as isn't true. I was run
outer Cairo; I did belong to the Regulators; I did desert from the army;
I did leave a wife in Kansas. But thar's one thing he didn't charge me
with, and, maybe, he's forgotten. For three years, gentlemen, I was
that man's pardner!--” Whether he intended to say more, I cannot tell;
a burst of applause artistically rounded and enforced the climax, and
virtually elected the speaker. That fall he went to Sacramento, York
went abroad; and for the first time in many years, distance and a new
atmosphere isolated the old antagonists.
With little of change in the green wood, gray rock, and yellow river,
but with much shifting of human landmarks, and new faces in its
habitations, three years passed over Sandy Bar. The two men, once so
identified with its character, seemed to have been quite forgotten.
“You will never return to Sandy Bar,” said Miss Folinsbee, the “Lily of
Poverty Flat,” on meeting York in Paris, “for Sandy Bar is no more.
They call it Riverside now; and the new town is built higher up on the
river-bank. By the by, 'Jo' says that Scott has won his suit about the
'Amity Claim,' and that he lives in the old cabin, and is drunk half his
time. O, I beg your pardon,” added the lively lady, as a flush crossed
York's sallow cheek; “but, bless me, I really thought that old grudge
was made up. I'm sure it ought to be.”
It was three months after this conversation, and a pleasant summer
evening, that the Poverty Flat coach drew up before the veranda of the
Union Hotel at Sandy Bar. Among its passengers was one, apparently a
stranger, in the local distinction of well-fitting clothes and closely
shaven face, who demanded a private room and retired early to rest. But
before sunrise next morning he arose, and, drawing some clothes from his
carpet-bag, proceeded to array himself in a pair of white duck trousers,
a white duck overshirt, and straw hat. When his toilet was completed, he
tied a red bandanna handkerchief in a loop and threw it loosely over his
shoulders. The transformation was complete. As he crept softly down the
stairs and stepped into the road, no one would have detected in him the
elegant stranger of the previous night, and but few have recognized the
face and figure of Henry York of Sandy Bar.