bilious to be altogether pleasant. The cheek-bones were prominent,
and the black eyes sunken in their orbits. Straight black hair fell
slantwise off a high but narrow forehead, and swept part of a hollow
cheek. A long black mustache followed the perpendicular curves of his
mouth. It was on the whole a serious, even Quixotic face, but at
times it was relieved by a rare smile of such tender and even pathetic
sweetness, that Miss Jo is reported to have said that, if it would only
last through the ceremony, she would have married its possessor on the
spot. “I once told him so,” added that shameless young woman; “but the
man instantly fell into a settled melancholy, and hasn't smiled since.”
A half-mile below the Folinsbee Ranch the white road dipped and was
crossed by a trail that ran through Madrono hollow. Perhaps because it
was a near cut-off to the settlement, perhaps from some less practical
reason, Culpepper took this trail, and in a few moments stood among the
rarely beautiful trees that gave their name to the valley. Even in that
uncertain light the weird beauty of these harlequin masqueraders was
apparent; their red trunks--a blush in the moonlight, a deep blood-stain
in the shadow--stood out against the silvery green foliage. It was as
if Nature in some gracious moment had here caught and crystallized the
gypsy memories of the transplanted Spaniard, to cheer him in his lonely
exile.
As Culpepper entered the grove he heard loud voices. As he turned toward
a clump of trees, a figure so bizarre and characteristic that it might
have been a resident Daphne--a figure over-dressed in crimson silk
and lace, with bare brown arms and shoulders, and a wreath of
honeysuckle--stepped out of the shadow. It was followed by a man.
Culpepper started. To come to the point briefly, he recognized in the
man the features of his respected uncle, Colonel Starbottle; in the
female, a lady who may be briefly described as one possessing absolutely
no claim to an introduction to the polite reader. To hurry over equally
unpleasant details, both were evidently under the influence of liquor.
From the excited conversation that ensued, Culpepper gathered that
some insult had been put upon the lady at a public ball which she had
attended that evening; that the Colonel, her escort, had failed to
resent it with the sanguinary completeness that she desired. I regret
that, even in a liberal age, I may not record the exact and even
picturesque language in which this was conveyed to her hearers. Enough
that at the close of a fiery peroration, with feminine inconsistency
she flew at the gallant Colonel, and would have visited her delayed
vengeance upon his luckless head, but for the prompt interference of
Culpepper. Thwarted in this, she threw herself upon the ground, and then
into unpicturesque hysterics. There was a fine moral lesson, not only in
this grotesque performance of a sex which cannot afford to be grotesque,
but in the ludicrous concern with which it inspired the two men.
Culpepper, to whom woman was more or less angelic, was pained and
sympathetic; the Colonel, to whom she was more or less improper, was
exceedingly terrified and embarrassed. Howbeit the storm was soon over,
and after Mistress Dolores had returned a little dagger to its sheath
(her garter), she quietly took herself out of Madrono Hollow, and
happily out of these pages forever. The two men, left to themselves,
conversed in low tones. Dawn stole upon them before they separated:
the Colonel quite sobered and in full possession of his usual jaunty
self-assertion; Culpepper with a baleful glow in his hollow cheek, and
in his dark eyes a rising fire.
The next morning the general ear of Madrono Hollow was filled with
rumors of the Colonel's mishap. It was asserted that he had been invited
to withdraw his female companion from the floor of the Assembly Ball
at the Independence Hotel, and that, failing to do this, both were
expelled. It is to be regretted that in 1854 public opinion was divided
in regard to the propriety of this step, and that there was some
discussion as to the comparative virtue of the ladies who were not
expelled; but it was generally conceded that the real casus belli was
political. “Is this a dashed Puritan meeting?” had asked the
Colonel, savagely. “It's no Pike County shindig,” had responded the
floor-manager, cheerfully. “You're a Yank!” had screamed the Colonel,
profanely qualifying the noun. “Get! you border ruffian,” was the reply.
Such at least was the substance of the reports. As, at that sincere
epoch, expressions like the above were usually followed by prompt
action, a fracas was confidently looked for.
Nothing, however, occurred. Colonel Starbottle made his appearance next
day upon the streets with somewhat of his usual pomposity, a little
restrained by the presence of his nephew, who accompanied him, and who,
as a universal favorite, also exercised some restraint upon the curious
and impertinent. But Culpepper's face wore a look of anxiety quite at
variance with his usual grave repose. “The Don don't seem to take
the old man's set-back kindly,” observed the sympathizing blacksmith.
“P'r'aps he was sweet on Dolores himself,” suggested the sceptical
expressman.
It was a bright morning, a week after this occurrence, that Miss Jo
Folinsbee stepped from her garden into the road. This time the latch did
not click as she cautiously closed the gate behind her. After a moment's
irresolution, which would have been awkward but that it was charmingly
employed, after the manner of her sex, in adjusting a bow under a
dimpled but rather prominent chin, and in pulling down the fingers of
a neatly fitting glove, she tripped toward the settlement. Small wonder
that a passing teamster drove his six mules into the wayside ditch and
imperilled his load, to keep the dust from her spotless garments; small
wonder that the “Lightning Express” withheld its speed and flash to let
her pass, and that the expressman, who had never been known to exchange
more than rapid monosyllables with his fellow-man, gazed after her with
breathless admiration. For she was certainly attractive. In a country
where the ornamental sex followed the example of youthful Nature, and
were prone to overdress and glaring efflorescence, Miss Jo's simple
and tasteful raiment added much to the physical charm of, if it did
not actually suggest a sentiment to, her presence. It is said that
Euchre-deck Billy, working in the gulch at the crossing, never saw
Miss Folinsbee pass but that he always remarked apologetically to his
partner, that “he believed he MUST write a letter home.” Even Bill
Masters, who saw her in Paris presented to the favorable criticism of
that most fastidious man, the late Emperor, said that she was stunning,
but a big discount on what she was at Madrono Hollow.
It was still early morning, but the sun, with California extravagance,
had already begun to beat hotly on the little chip hat and blue ribbons,
and Miss Jo was obliged to seek the shade of a bypath. Here she
received the timid advances of a vagabond yellow dog graciously, until,
emboldened by his success, he insisted upon accompanying her, and,
becoming slobberingly demonstrative, threatened her spotless skirt with
his dusty paws, when she drove him from her with some slight acerbity,
and a stone which haply fell within fifty feet of its destined mark.
Having thus proved her ability to defend herself, with characteristic
inconsistency she took a small panic, and, gathering her white skirts in
one hand, and holding the brim of her hat over her eyes with the other,
she ran swiftly at least a hundred yards before she stopped. Then she
began picking some ferns and a few wild-flowers still spared to the
withered fields, and then a sudden distrust of her small ankles seized
her, and she inspected them narrowly for those burrs and bugs and snakes
which are supposed to lie in wait for helpless womanhood. Then she
plucked some golden heads of wild oats, and with a sudden inspiration
placed them in her black hair, and then came quite unconsciously upon
the trail leading to Madrono Hollow.
Here she hesitated. Before her ran the little trail, vanishing at last
into the bosky depths below. The sun was very hot. She must be very far
from home. Why should she not rest awhile under the shade of a madrono?
She answered these questions by going there at once. After thoroughly
exploring the grove, and satisfying herself that it contained no other
living human creature, she sat down under one of the largest trees, with
a satisfactory little sigh. Miss Jo loved the madrono. It was a cleanly
tree; no dust ever lay upon its varnished leaves; its immaculate shade
never was known to harbor grub or insect.
She looked up at the rosy arms interlocked and arched above her head.
She looked down at the delicate ferns and cryptogams at her feet.
Something glittered at the root of the tree. She picked it up; it was a
bracelet. She examined it carefully for cipher or inscription; there was
none. She could not resist a natural desire to clasp it on her arm,
and to survey it from that advantageous view-point. This absorbed her
attention for some moments; and when she looked up again she beheld at a
little distance Culpepper Starbottle.
He was standing where he had halted, with instinctive delicacy, on first
discovering her. Indeed, he had even deliberated whether he ought not
to go away without disturbing her. But some fascination held him to the
spot. Wonderful power of humanity! Far beyond jutted an outlying spur of
the Sierra, vast, compact, and silent. Scarcely a hundred yards away, a
league-long chasm dropped its sheer walls of granite a thousand feet. On
every side rose up the serried ranks of pine-trees, in whose close-set
files centuries of storm and change had wrought no breach. Yet all this
seemed to Culpepper to have been planned by an all-wise Providence as
the natural background to the figure of a pretty girl in a yellow dress.
Although Miss Jo had confidently expected to meet Culpepper somewhere
in her ramble, now that he came upon her suddenly, she felt disappointed
and embarrassed. His manner, too, was more than usually grave and
serious; and more than ever seemed to jar upon that audacious levity
which was this giddy girl's power and security in a society where all
feeling was dangerous. As he approached her she rose to her feet, but
almost before she knew it he had taken her hand and drawn her to a seat
beside him. This was not what Miss Jo had expected, but nothing is so
difficult to predicate as the exact preliminaries of a declaration of
love.
What did Culpepper say? Nothing, I fear, that will add anything to
the wisdom of the reader; nothing, I fear, that Miss Jo had not
heard substantially from other lips before. But there was a certain
conviction, fire-speed, and fury in the manner that was deliciously
novel to the young lady. It was certainly something to be courted in
the nineteenth century with all the passion and extravagance of the
sixteenth; it was something to hear, amid the slang of a frontier
society, the language of knight-errantry poured into her ear by this
lantern-jawed, dark-browed descendant of the Cavaliers.
I do not know that there was anything more in it. The facts, however, go
to show that at a certain point Miss Jo dropped her glove, and that in
recovering it Culpepper possessed himself first of her hand and then her
lips. When they stood up to go Culpepper had his arm around her waist,
and her black hair, with its sheaf of golden oats, rested against the
breast pocket of his coat. But even then I do not think her fancy was
entirely captive. She took a certain satisfaction in this demonstration
of Culpepper's splendid height, and mentally compared it with a former
flame, one lieutenant McMirk, an active, but under-sized Hector, who
subsequently fell a victim to the incautiously composed and monotonous
beverages of a frontier garrison. Nor was she so much preoccupied but
that her quick eyes, even while absorbing Culpepper's glances, were yet
able to detect, at a distance, the figure of a man approaching. In an
instant she slipped out of Culpepper's arm, and, whipping her hands
behind her, said, “There's that horrid man!”
Culpepper looked up and beheld his respected uncle panting and blowing
over the hill. His brow contracted as he turned to Miss Jo: “You don't
like my uncle!”
“I hate him!” Miss Jo was recovering her ready tongue.
Culpepper blushed. He would have liked to enter upon some details of the
Colonel's pedigree and exploits, but there was not time. He only smiled
sadly. The smile melted Miss Jo. She held out her hand quickly, and said
with even more than her usual effrontery, “Don't let that man get you
into any trouble. Take care of yourself, dear, and don't let anything
happen to you.”
Miss Jo intended this speech to be pathetic; the tenure of life among
her lovers had hitherto been very uncertain. Culpepper turned toward
her, but she had already vanished in the thicket.
The Colonel came up panting. “I've looked all over town for you, and be
dashed to you, sir. Who was that with you?”
“A lady.” (Culpepper never lied, but he was discreet.)
“D--m 'em all! Look yar, Culp, I've spotted the man who gave the order
to put me off the floor” (“flo” was what the Colonel said) “the other
night!”
“Who was it?” asked Culpepper, listlessly.
“Jack Folinsbee.”
“Who?”
“Why, the son of that dashed nigger-worshipping psalm-singing Puritan
Yankee. What's the matter, now? Look yar, Culp, you ain't goin' back on
your blood, ar' ye? You ain't goin' back on your word? Ye ain't going
down at the feet of this trash, like a whipped hound?”
Culpepper was silent. He was very white. Presently he looked up and said
quietly. “No.”
Culpepper Starbottle had challenged Jack Folinsbee, and the challenge
was accepted. The cause alleged was the expelling of Culpepper's uncle
from the floor of the Assembly Ball by the order of Folinsbee. This much
Madrono Hollow knew and could swear to; but there were other strange
rumors afloat, of which the blacksmith was an able expounder. “You see,
gentlemen,” he said to the crowd gathered around his anvil, “I ain't
got no theory of this affair, I only give a few facts as have come to
my knowledge. Culpepper and Jack meets quite accidental like in Bob's
saloon. Jack goes up to Culpepper and says, 'A word with you.' Culpepper
bows and steps aside in this way, Jack standing about HERE.” (The
blacksmith demonstrates the position of the parties with two old
horseshoes on the anvil.) “Jack pulls a bracelet from his pocket and
says, 'Do you know that bracelet?' Culpepper says, 'I do not,' quite
cool-like and easy. Jack says, 'You gave it to my sister.' Culpepper
says, still cool as you please, 'I did not.' Jack says, 'You lie, G-d
d-mn you,' and draws his derringer. Culpepper jumps forward about here”
(reference is made to the diagram) “and Jack fires. Nobody hit. It's
a mighty cur'o's thing, gentlemen,” continued the blacksmith,
dropping suddenly into the abstract, and leaning meditatively on his
anvil,--“it's a mighty cur'o's thing that nobody gets hit so often. You
and me empties our revolvers sociably at each other over a little game,
and the room full and nobody gets hit! That's what gets me.”
“Never mind, Thompson,” chimed in Bill Masters, “there's another and a
better world where we shall know all that and--become better shots. Go
on with your story.”
“Well, some grabs Culpepper and some grabs Jack, and so separates them.
Then Jack tells 'em as how he had seen his sister wear a bracelet which
he knew was one that had been given to Dolores by Colonel Starbottle.
That Miss Jo wouldn't say where she got it, but owned up to having seen
Culpepper that day. Then the most cur'o's thing of it yet, what does
Culpepper do but rise up and takes all back that he said, and allows
that he DID give her the bracelet. Now my opinion, gentlemen, is that he
lied; it ain't like that man to give a gal that he respects anything off
of that piece, Dolores. But it's all the same now, and there's but one
thing to be done.”
The way this one thing was done belongs to the record of Madrono Hollow.
The morning was bright and clear; the air was slightly chill, but that
was from the mist which arose along the banks of the river. As early
as six o'clock the designated ground--a little opening in the madrono
grove--was occupied by Culpepper Starbottle, Colonel Starbottle, his
second, and the surgeon. The Colonel was exalted and excited, albeit
in a rather imposing, dignified way, and pointed out to the surgeon the
excellence of the ground, which at that hour was wholly shaded from the
sun, whose steady stare is more or less discomposing to your duellist.
The surgeon threw himself on the grass and smoked his cigar. Culpepper,
quiet and thoughtful, leaned against a tree and gazed up the river.
There was a strange suggestion of a picnic about the group, which was
heightened when the Colonel drew a bottle from his coat-tails, and,
taking a preliminary draught, offered it to the others. “Cocktails,
sir,” he explained with dignified precision. “A gentleman, sir, should
never go out without 'em. Keeps off the morning chill. I remember going
out in '53 with Hank Boompirater. Good ged, sir, the man had to put on
his overcoat, and was shot in it. Fact.”
But the noise of wheels drowned the Colonel's reminiscences, and a
rapidly driven buggy, containing Jack Folinsbee, Calhoun Bungstarter,
his second, and Bill Masters, drew up on the ground. Jack Folinsbee
leaped out gayly. “I had the jolliest work to get away without the
governor's hearing,” he began, addressing the group before him with the
greatest volubility. Calhoun Bungstarter touched his arm, and the young
man blushed. It was his first duel.
“If you are ready, gentlemen,” said Mr. Bungstarter, “we had better
proceed to business. I believe it is understood that no apology will be
offered or accepted. We may as well settle preliminaries at once, or
I fear we shall be interrupted. There is a rumor in town that the
Vigilance Committee are seeking our friends the Starbottles, and I
believe, as their fellow-countryman, I have the honor to be included in
their warrant.”
At this probability of interruption, that gravity which had hitherto
been wanting fell upon the group. The preliminaries were soon arranged
and the principals placed in position. Then there was a silence.
To a spectator from the hill, impressed with the picnic suggestion, what
might have been the popping of two champagne corks broke the stillness.
Culpepper had fired in the air. Colonel Starbottle uttered a low curse.
Jack Folinsbee sulkily demanded another shot.
Again the parties stood opposed to each other. Again the word was given,
and what seemed to be the simultaneous report of both pistols rose upon
the air. But after an interval of a few seconds all were surprised to
see Culpepper slowly raise his unexploded weapon and fire it harmlessly
above his head. Then, throwing the pistol upon the ground, he walked to
a tree and leaned silently against it.
Jack Folinsbee flew into a paroxysm of fury. Colonel Starbottle raved
and swore. Mr. Bungstarter was properly shocked at their conduct.
“Really, gentlemen, if Mr. Culpepper Starbottle declines another shot, I
do not see how we can proceed.”
But the Colonel's blood was up, and Jack Folinsbee was equally
implacable. A hurried consultation ensued, which ended by Colonel
Starbottle taking his nephew's place as principal, Bill Masters acting
as second, vice Mr. Bungstarter, who declined all further connection
with the affair.
Two distinct reports rang through the Hollow. Jack Folinsbee dropped his
smoking pistol, took a step forward, and then dropped heavily upon his
face.
In a moment the surgeon was at his side. The confusion was heightened
by the trampling of hoofs, and the voice of the blacksmith bidding them
flee for their lives before the coming storm. A moment more and the
ground was cleared, and the surgeon, looking up, beheld only the white
face of Culpepper bending over him.
“Can you save him?”
“I cannot say. Hold up his head a moment, while I run to the buggy.”
Culpepper passed his arm tenderly around the neck of the insensible man.
Presently the surgeon returned with some stimulants.
“There, that will do, Mr. Starbottle, thank you. Now my advice is to get
away from here while you can. I'll look after Folinsbee. Do you hear?”
Culpepper's arm was still round the neck of his late foe, but his head
had drooped and fallen on the wounded man's shoulder. The surgeon looked
down, and, catching sight of his face, stooped and lifted him gently
in his arms. He opened his coat and waistcoat. There was blood upon his
shirt, and a bullet-hole in his breast. He had been shot unto death at
the first fire.
THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT.
As the enterprising editor of the “Sierra Flat Record” stood at his case
setting type for his next week's paper, he could not help hearing the
woodpeckers who were busy on the roof above his head. It occurred to
him that possibly the birds had not yet learned to recognize in the rude
structure any improvement on nature, and this idea pleased him so much
that he incorporated it in the editorial article which he was then
doubly composing. For the editor was also printer of the “Record”;
and although that remarkable journal was reputed to exert a power felt
through all Calaveras and a greater part of Tuolumne County, strict
economy was one of the conditions of its beneficent existence.
Thus preoccupied, he was startled by the sudden irruption of a small
roll of manuscript, which was thrown through the open door and fell at
his feet. He walked quickly to the threshold and looked down the tangled
trail which led to the high-road. But there was nothing to suggest the
presence of his mysterious contributor. A hare limped slowly away, a
green-and-gold lizard paused upon a pine stump, the woodpeckers ceased
their work. So complete had been his sylvan seclusion, that he found
it difficult to connect any human agency with the act; rather the hare
seemed to have an inexpressibly guilty look, the woodpeckers to maintain
a significant silence, and the lizard to be conscience-stricken into
stone.
An examination of the manuscript, however, corrected this injustice to
defenceless nature. It was evidently of human origin,--being verse,
and of exceeding bad quality. The editor laid it aside. As he did so he
thought he saw a face at the window. Sallying out in some indignation,
he penetrated the surrounding thicket in every direction, but his search
was as fruitless as before. The poet, if it were he, was gone.
A few days after this the editorial seclusion was invaded by voices of
alternate expostulation and entreaty. Stepping to the door, the editor
was amazed at beholding Mr. Morgan McCorkle, a well-known citizen of
Angelo, and a subscriber to the “Record,” in the act of urging, partly
by force and partly by argument, an awkward young man toward the
building. When he had finally effected his object, and, as it were,
safely landed his prize in a chair, Mr. McCorkle took off his hat,
carefully wiped the narrow isthmus of forehead which divided his black
brows from his stubby hair, and with an explanatory wave of his hand
toward his reluctant companion, said, “A borned poet, and the cussedest
fool you ever seed!”
Accepting the editor's smile as a recognition of the introduction, Mr.
McCorkle panted and went on: “Didn't want to come! 'Mister Editor don't
went to see me, Morg,' sez he. 'Milt,' sez I, 'he do; a borned poet like
you and a gifted genius like he oughter come together sociable!' And I
fetched him. Ah, will yer?” The born poet had, after exhibiting signs
of great distress, started to run. But Mr. McCorkle was down upon him
instantly, seizing him by his long linen coat, and settled him back in
his chair. “Tain't no use stampeding. Yer ye are and yer ye stays. For
yer a borned poet,--ef ye are as shy as a jackass rabbit. Look at 'im
now!”
He certainly was not an attractive picture. There was hardly a notable
feature in his weak face, except his eyes, which were moist and shy and
not unlike the animal to which Mr. McCorkle had compared him. It was the
face that the editor had seen at the window.