running by. Drylyn realized that he ought to be running too, of course,
and so he ran. All the men were running from their various scattered
claims, and Salvation Gap grew noisy and full of people at once. There
was the sheriff also, come up last evening on the track of some
stage-robbers, and quite opportune for this, he thought. He liked things
to be done legally. The turmoil of execration and fierce curiosity
thrashed about for the right man to pitch on for this crime. The
murdered woman had been so good company, so hearty a wit, such a robust
songstress, so tireless a dancer, so thoroughly everybody's friend, that
it was inconceivable to the mind of Salvation Gap that anybody there had
done it. The women were crying and wringing their hands--the Gazelle had
been good to them too; the men were talking and cursing, all but Drylyn
there among them, serious and strange-looking; so silent that the
sheriff eyed him once or twice, though he knew nothing of the miner's
infatuation. And then some woman shrieked out the name of Drylyn, and
the crowd had him gripped in a second, to let him go the next, laughing
at the preposterous idea. Saying nothing? Of course he didn't feel like
talking. To be sure he looked dazed. It was hard luck on him. They told
the sheriff about him and the Gazelle. They explained that Drylyn was
"sort of loony, anyway," and the sheriff said, "Oh!" and began to wonder
and surmise in this half-minute they had been now gathered, when
suddenly the inevitable boot-prints behind the tent down the hill were
found. The shout of discovery startled Drylyn as genuinely as if he had
never known, and he joined the wild rush of people to the hill. Nor was
this acting. The violence he had set going, and in which he swam like a
straw, made him forget, or for the moment drift away from, his arranged
thoughts, and the tracks on the hill had gone clean out of his head. He
was become a mere blank spectator in the storm, incapable of
calculation. His own handiwork had stunned him, for he had not foreseen
that consequences were going to rise and burst like this. The next thing
he knew he was in a pursuit, with pine-trees passing, and the hurrying
sheriff remarking to the band that he proposed to maintain order. Drylyn
heard his neighbor, a true Californian, whose words were lightest when
his purpose was most serious, telling the sheriff that order was
certainly Heaven's first law, and an elegant thing anywhere. But the
anxious officer made no retort in kind, and only said that
irregularities were damaging to the county's good name, and would keep
settlers from moving in. So the neighbor turned to Drylyn and asked him
when he was intending to wake up, as sleep-walking was considered to be
unhealthy. Drylyn gave a queer, almost wistful, smile, and so they went
along; the chatty neighbor spoke low to another man, and said he had
never sized up the true state of Drylyn's feeling for the Gazelle, and
that the sheriff might persuade some people to keep regular, when they
found the man they were hunting, but he doubted if the sheriff would be
persuading enough for Drylyn. They came out on a road, and the
sleep-walker recognized a rock and knew how far they had gone, and that
this was the stage-road between Folsom and Surprise Springs. They
followed the road, and round a bend came on the man. He had been taking
it easily, being in no hurry. He had come to this point by the stage the
night before, and now he was waiting for its return to take him back to
Folsom. He had been lunching, and was seated on a stone by a small
creek. He looked up and saw them, and their gait, and ominous
compactness. What he did was not the thing for him to do. He leaped into
cover and drew his revolver. This attempt at defence and escape was
really for the sake of the gold-dust he had in his pocket. But when he
recognized the sheriff's voice, telling him it would go better with him
if he did not try to kill any more people, he was greatly relieved that
it was not highwaymen after him and his little gold, and he put up his
pistol and waited for them, smiling, secure in his identity; and when
they drew nearer he asked them how many people he had killed already.
They came up and caught him and found the gold in a moment, ripping it
from his pocket; and the yell they gave at that stopped his smiling
entirely. When he found himself in irons and hurried along, he began to
explain that there was some mistake, and was told by the chatty neighbor
that maybe killing a woman was always a mistake, certainly one this
time. As they walked him among them they gave small notice to his
growing fright and bewilderment, but when he appealed to the sheriff on
the score of old acquaintanceship, and pitifully begged to know what
they supposed he had done, the miners laughed curiously. That brought
his entreating back to them, and he assured them, looking in their
faces, that he truly did need to be told why they wanted him. So they
held up the gold and asked him whose that had been, and he made a
wretched hesitation in answering. If anything was needed to clinch their
certainty, that did. They could not know that the young successful lover
had recognized Drylyn's strange face, and did not want to tell the truth
before him, and hence was telling an unskilful lie instead. A rattle of
wheels sounded among the pines ahead, and the stage came up and stopped.
Only the driver and a friend were on it, and both of them knew the
shot-gun messenger and the sheriff, and they asked in some astonishment
what the trouble was. It had been stage-robbers the sheriff had started
after, the driver thought. And--as he commented in friendly tones--to
turn up with Wells and Fargo's messenger was the neatest practical joke
that had occurred in the county for some time. The always serious and
anxious sheriff told the driver the accusation, and it was a genuine cry
of horror that the young lover gave at hearing the truth at last, and at
feeling the ghastly chain of probability that had wound itself about
him.
The sheriff wondered if there were a true ring in the man's voice. It
certainly sounded so. He was talking with rapid agony, and it was the
whole true story that was coming out now. But the chatty neighbor nudged
another neighbor at the new explanation about the gold-dust. That there
was no great quantity of it, after all, weighed little against this
double accounting for one simple fact; moreover, the new version did not
do the messenger credit in the estimation of the miners, but gave them a
still worse opinion of him. It is scarcely fair to disbelieve what a man
says he did, and at the same time despise him for having done it.
Miners, however, are rational rather than logical; while the listening
sheriff grew more determined there should be a proper trial, the
deputation from the Gap made up its mind more inexorably the other way.
It had even been in the miners' heads to finish the business here on the
Folsom road, and get home for supper; pine-trees were handy, and there
was rope in the stage. They were not much moved by the sheriff's plea
that something further might have turned up at the Gap; but at the
driver's more forcible suggestion that the Gap would feel disappointed
at being left out, they consented to take the man back there. Drylyn
never offered any opinion, or spoke at all. It was not necessary that he
should, and they forgot about him. It was time to be getting along, they
said. What was the good in standing in the road here? They nodded
good-day to the stage-driver, and took themselves and the prisoner into
the pines. Once the sheriff had looked at the driver and his friend
perched on the halted stage, but he immediately saw too much risk in his
half-formed notion of an alliance with them to gallop off with the
prisoner; his part must come later, if at all.
But the driver had perfectly understood the sheriff's glance, and
he was on the sheriff's side, though he showed no sign. As he drove
along he began thinking about the way the prisoner had cried out just
now, and the inconsiderable value of the dust, and it became clear in
his mind that this was a matter for a court and twelve quiet men. The
friend beside him was also intent upon his own thoughts, and neither
said a word to the other upon the lonely road. The horses soon knew
that they were not being driven any more, and they slackened their
pace, and finding no reproof came for this, they fell to a comfortable
walk. Presently several had snatched a branch in passing, and it waved
from their mouths as they nibbled. After that they gave up all
pretence at being stage-horses, and the driver noticed them. From
habit he whipped them up into shape and gait, and the next moment
pulled them in short, at the thought that had come to him. The
prisoner must be got away from the Gap. The sheriff was too
single-handed among such a crowd as that, and the driver put a
question to his friend. It could be managed by taking a slight liberty
with other people's horses; but Wells and Fargo would not find fault
with this when the case was one of their own servants, hitherto so
well thought of. The stage, being empty and light, could spare two
horses and go on, while those two horses, handled with discretion and
timeliness, might be very useful at the Gap. The driver had best not
depart from rule so far as to leave his post and duty; one man would
be enough. The friend thought well of this plan, and they climbed down
into the road from opposite sides and took out the wheelers. To be
sure these animals were heavy, and not of the best sort for escaping
on, but better than walking; and timeliness and discretion can do a
great deal. So in a little while the driver and his stage were gone
on their way, the friend with the two horses had disappeared in the
wood, and the road was altogether lonely.
[Illustration: THE SHOT-GUN MESSENGER]
The sheriff's brain was hard at work, and he made no protest now as he
walked along, passive in the company of the miners and their prisoner.
The prisoner had said all that he had to say, and his man's firmness,
which the first shock and amazement had wrenched from him, had come to
his help again, bringing a certain shame at having let his reserve and
bearing fall to pieces, and at having made himself a show; so he spoke
no more than his grim captors did, as they took him swiftly through the
wood. The sheriff was glad it was some miles they had to go; for though
they went very fast, the distance and the time, and even the becoming
tired in body, might incline their minds to more deliberation. He could
think yet of nothing new to urge. He had seen and heard only the same
things that all had, and his present hopes lay upon the Gap and what
more might have come to light there since his departure. He looked at
Drylyn, but the miner's serious and massive face gave him no suggestion;
and the sheriff's reason again destroyed the germ of suspicion that
something plainly against reason had several times put in his thoughts.
Yet it stuck with him that they had hold of the wrong man.
When they reached the Gap, and he found the people there as he had left
them, and things the same way, with nothing new turned up to help his
theory, the sheriff once more looked round; but Drylyn was not in the
crowd. He had gone, they told him, to look at _her_; he had set a heap
of store by her, they repeated.
"A heap of store," said the sheriff, thinking. "Where is she now?"
"On her bed," said a woman, "same as ever, only we've fixed her up
some."
"Then I'll take a look at her--and him. You boys won't do anything till
I come back, will you?"
"Why, if ye're so anxious to see us do it, sheriff," said the chatty
neighbor, "I guess we can wait that long fer ye."
The officer walked to the tent. Drylyn was standing over the body, quiet
and dumb. He was safe for the present, the sheriff knew, and so he left
him without speaking and returned to the prisoner and his guard in front
of the dance-hall. He found them duly waiting; the only change was that
they had a rope there.
"Once upon a time," said the sheriff, "there was a man in Arkansaw that
had no judgment."
"They raise 'em that way in Arkansaw," said the chatty neighbor, as the
company made a circle to hear the story--a tight, cautious circle--with
the prisoner and the officer beside him standing in the centre.
"The man's wife had good judgment," continued the narrator, "but she
went and died on him."
"Well, I guess that _was_ good judgment," said the neighbor.
"So the man, he had to run the farm alone. Now they raised poultry,
which his wife had always attended to. And he knew she had a habit of
setting hens on duck eggs. He had never inquired her reasons, being
shiftless, but that fact he knew. Well, come to investigate the
hen-house, there was duck eggs, and hens on 'em, and also a heap of
hens' eggs, but no more hens wishing to set. So the man, having no
judgment, persuaded a duck to stay with those eggs. Now it's her I'm
chiefly interested in. She was a good enough duck, but hasty. When the
eggs hatched out, she didn't stop to notice, but up and takes them down
to the pond, and gets mad with them, and shoves them in, and they
drowns. Next day or two a lot of the young ducks, they hatched out and
come down with the hen and got in the water all right, and the duck
figured out she'd made some mistake, and she felt distressed. But the
chickens were in heaven."
The sheriff studied his audience, and saw that he had lulled their rage
a little. "Now," said he, "ain't you boys just a trifle like that duck?
I don't know as I can say much to you more than what I have said, and I
don't know as I can do anything, fixed as I am. This thing looks bad for
him we've got here. Why, I can see that as well as you. But, boys! it's
an awful thing to kill an innocent man! I saw that done once, and--God
forgive me!--I was one of them. I'll tell you how that was. He looked
enough like the man we wanted. We were certainly on the right trail. We
came on a cabin we'd never known of before, pretty far up in the
hills--a strange cabin, you see. That seemed just right; just where a
man would hide. We were mad at the crime committed, and took no thought.
We knew we had caught him--that's the way we felt. So we got our guns
ready, and crept up close through the trees, and surrounded that cabin.
We called him to come out, and he came with a book in his hands he'd
been reading. He did look like the man, and boys!--we gave him no time!
He never knew why we fired. He was a harmless old prospector who had got
tired of poor luck and knocking around, and over his door he had painted
some words: 'Where the wicked cease from troubling.' He had figured
that up there by that mountain stream the world would let him alone. And
ever since then I have thought my life belonged to him first, and me
second. Now this afternoon I'm alone here. You know I can't do much. And
I'm going to ask you to help me respect the law. I don't say that in
this big country there may not be places, and there may not be times,
when the law is too young or else too rotten to take care of itself, and
when the American citizen must go back to bed-rock principles. But is
that so in our valley? Why, if this prisoner is guilty, you can't name
me one man of your acquaintance who would want him to live. And that
being so, don't we owe him the chance to clear himself if he can? I can
see that prospector now at his door, old, harmless, coming fearless at
our call, because he had no guilt upon his conscience--and we shot him
down without a word. Boys! he has the call on me now; and if you
insist--"
The sheriff paused, satisfied with what he saw on the faces around him.
Some of the men knew the story of the prospector--it had been in the
papers--but of his part in it they had not known. They understood quite
well the sacrifice he stood ready to make now in defending the prisoner.
The favorable silence was broken by the sound of horses. Timeliness and
discretion were coming up the hill. Drylyn at the same moment came out
of the dead woman's tent, and, looking down, realized the intended
rescue. With his mind waked suddenly from its dull dream and opened with
a human impulse, he ran to help; but the sheriff saw him, and thought he
was trying to escape.
"That's the man!" he shouted savagely to the ring.
Some of the Gap ran to the edge of the hill, and, seeing the hurrying
Drylyn and the horses below, also realized the rescue. Putting the wrong
two and two together, they instantly saw in all this a well-devised
scheme of delay and collusion. They came back, running through the
dance-hall to the front, and the sheriff was pinioned from behind,
thrown down, and held.
"So ye were alone, were ye?" said the chatty neighbor. "Well, ye made a
good talk. Keep quiet--we don't want to hurt ye."
At this supposed perfidy the Gap's rage was at white-heat again; the men
massed together, and fierce and quick as lightning the messenger's fate
was wrought. The work of adjusting the rope and noose was complete and
death going on in the air when Drylyn, meaning to look the ground over
for the rescue, came cautiously back up the hill and saw the body, black
against the clear sunset sky. At his outcry they made ready for him, and
when he blindly rushed among them they held him, and paid no attention
to his ravings. Then, when the rope had finished its work, they let him
go, and the sheriff too. The driver's friend had left his horses among
the pines, and had come up to see what was going on at the Gap. He now
joined the crowd.
"You meant well," the sheriff said to him. "I wish you would tell the
boys how you come to be here. They're thinking I lied to them."
"Maybe I can change their minds." It was Drylyn's deep voice. "I am the
man you were hunting," he said.
[Illustration: "'I'D LIKE TO HAVE IT OVER'"]
They looked at him seriously, as one looks at a friend whom an illness
has seized. The storm of feeling had spent itself, the mood of the Gap
was relaxed and torpid, and the serenity of coming dusk began to fill
the mountain air.
"You boys think I'm touched in the head," said Drylyn, and paused. "This
knife done it," said he. "This one I'm showing you."
They looked at the knife in his hand.
"He come between me and her," Drylyn pursued. "I was aiming to give him
his punishment myself. That would have been square." He turned the knife
over in his hand, and, glancing up from it, caught the look in their
eyes. "You don't believe me!" he exclaimed, savagely. "Well, I'm going
to make you. Sheriff, I'll bring you some evidence."
He walked to the creek, and they stood idle and dull till he returned.
Then they fell back from him and his evidence, leaving him standing
beneath the dead man.
"Does them look like being touched in the head?" inquired Drylyn, and he
threw down the overalls, which fell with a damp slap on the ground. "I
don't seem to mind telling you," he said. "I feel as quiet--as quiet as
them tall pines the sun's just quittin' for the night." He looked at the
men expectantly, but none of them stirred. "I'd like to have it over,"
said he.
Still no one moved.
"I have a right to ask it shall be quick," he repeated. "You were quick
enough with him." And Drylyn lifted his hand towards the messenger.
They followed his gesture, staring up at the wrong man, then down at the
right one. The chatty neighbor shook his head. "Seems curious," he
said, slowly. "It ought to be done. But I couldn't no more do it--gosh!
how _can_ a man fire his gun right after it's been discharged?"
The heavy Drylyn looked at his comrades of the Gap. "You won't?" he
said.
"You better quit us," suggested the neighbor. "Go somewheres else."
Drylyn's eyes ran painfully over ditch and diggings, the near cabins and
the distant hills, then returned to the messenger. "Him and me," he
muttered. "It ain't square. Him and me--" Suddenly he broke out, "I
don't choose him to think I was that kind of man!"
Before they could catch him he fell, and the wet knife slid from his
fingers. "Sheriff," he began, but his tone changed. "I'm overtakin'
him!" he said. "He's going to know now. Lay me alongside--"
And so they did.
THE SECOND MISSOURI COMPROMISE
I
The Legislature had sat up all night, much absorbed, having taken off
its coat because of the stove. This was the fortieth and final day of
its first session under an order of things not new only, but novel. It
sat with the retrospect of forty days' duty done, and the prospect of
forty days' consequent pay to come. Sleepy it was not, but wide and
wider awake over a progressing crisis. Hungry it had been until after a
breakfast fetched to it from the Overland at seven, three hours ago. It
had taken no intermission to wash its face, nor was there just now any
apparatus for this, as the tin pitcher commonly used stood not in the
basin in the corner, but on the floor by the Governor's chair; so the
eyes of the Legislature, though earnest, were dilapidated. Last night
the pressure of public business had seemed over, and no turning back the
hands of the clock likely to be necessary. Besides Governor Ballard, Mr.
Hewley, Secretary and Treasurer, was sitting up too, small, iron-gray,
in feature and bearing every inch the capable, dignified official, but
his necktie had slipped off during the night. The bearded Councillors
had the best of it, seeming after their vigil less stale in the face
than the member from Silver City, for instance, whose day-old black
growth blurred his dingy chin, or the member from Big Camas, whose
scantier red crop bristled on his cheeks in sparse wandering
arrangements, like spikes on the barrel of a musical box. For comfort,
most of the pistols were on the table with the Statutes of the United
States. Secretary and Treasurer Hewley's lay on his strong-box
immediately behind him. The Governor's was a light one, and always hung
in the arm hole of his waistcoat. The graveyard of Boise City this year
had twenty-seven tenants, two brought there by meningitis, and
twenty-five by difference of opinion. Many denizens of the Territory
were miners, and the unsettling element of gold-dust hung in the air,
breeding argument. The early, thin, bright morning steadily mellowed
against the windows distant from the stove; the panes melted clear until
they ran, steamed faintly, and dried, this fresh May day, after the
night's untimely cold; while still the Legislature sat in its
shirt-sleeves, and several statesmen had removed their boots. Even had
appearances counted, the session was invisible from the street. Unlike a
good number of houses in the town, the State-House (as they called it
from old habit) was not all on the ground-floor for outsiders to stare
into, but up a flight of wood steps to a wood gallery. From this, to be
sure, the interior could be watched from several windows on both sides;
but the journey up the steps was precisely enough to disincline the
idle, and this was counted a sensible thing by the law-makers. They took
the ground that shaping any government for a raw wilderness community
needed seclusion, and they set a high value upon unworried privacy.
The sun had set upon a concentrated Council, but it rose upon faces that
looked momentous. Only the Governor's and Treasurer's were impassive,
and they concealed something even graver than the matter in hand.
"I'll take a hun'red mo', Gove'nuh," said the member from Silver City,
softly, his eyes on space. His name was Powhattan Wingo.
The Governor counted out the blue, white, and red chips to Wingo,
pencilled some figures on a thickly ciphered and cancelled paper that
bore in print the words "Territory of Idaho, Council Chamber," and then
filled up his glass from the tin pitcher, adding a little sugar.
"And I'll trouble you fo' the toddy," Wingo added, always softly, and
his eyes always on space. "Raise you ten, suh." This was to the
Treasurer. Only the two were playing at present. The Governor was kindly
acting as bank; the others were looking on.
"And ten," said the Treasurer.
"And ten," said Wingo.
"And twenty," said the Treasurer.
"And fifty," said Wingo, gently bestowing his chips in the middle of the
table.
The Treasurer called.
The member from Silver City showed down five high hearts, and a light
rustle went over the Legislature when the Treasurer displayed three twos
and a pair of threes, and gathered in his harvest. He had drawn two
cards, Wingo one; and losing to the lowest hand that could have beaten
you is under such circumstances truly hard luck. Moreover, it was almost
the only sort of luck that had attended Wingo since about half after
three that morning. Seven hours of cards just a little lower than your
neighbor's is searching to the nerves.
"Gove'nuh, I'll take a hun'red mo'," said Wingo; and once again the
Legislature rustled lightly, and the new deal began.
Treasurer Hewley's winnings flanked his right, a pillared fortress on
the table, built chiefly of Wingo's misfortunes. Hewley had not counted
them, and his architecture was for neatness and not ostentation; yet the
Legislature watched him arrange his gains with sullen eyes. It would
have pleased him now to lose; it would have more than pleased him to be
able to go to bed quite a long time ago. But winners cannot easily go to
bed. The thoughtful Treasurer bet his money and deplored this luck. It
seemed likely to trap himself and the Governor in a predicament they had
not foreseen. All had taken a hand at first, and played for several
hours, until Fortune's wheel ran into a rut deeper than usual. Wingo
slowly became the loser to several, then Hewley had forged ahead, winner
from everybody. One by one they had dropped out, each meaning to go
home, and all lingering to see the luck turn. It was an extraordinary
run, a rare specimen, a breaker of records, something to refer to in the
future as a standard of measure and an embellishment of reminiscence;
quite enough to keep the Idaho Legislature up all night. And then it was
their friend who was losing. The only speaking in the room was the brief
card talk of the two players.
"Five better," said Hewley, winner again four times in the last five.
"Ten," said Wingo.
"And twenty," said the Secretary and Treasurer.
"Call you."
"Three kings."
"They are good, suh. Gove'nuh, I'll take a hun'red mo'."
Upon this the wealthy and weary Treasurer made a try for liberty and
bed. How would it do, he suggested, to have a round of jack-pots, say
ten--or twenty, if the member from Silver City preferred--and then stop?
It would do excellently, the member said, so softly that the Governor
looked at him. But Wingo's large countenance remained inexpressive, his
black eyes still impersonally fixed on space. He sat thus till his chips
were counted to him, and then the eyes moved to watch the cards fall.
The Governor hoped he might win now, under the jack-pot system. At noon
he should have a disclosure to make; something that would need the most
cheerful and contented feelings in Wingo and the Legislature to be
received with any sort of calm. Wingo was behind the game to the tune
of--the Governor gave up adding as he ran his eye over the figures of
the bank's erased and tormented record, and he shook his head to
himself. This was inadvertent.
"May I inquah who yo're shakin' yoh head at, suh?" said Wingo, wheeling
upon the surprised Governor.
"Certainly," answered that official. "You." He was never surprised for
very long. In 1867 it did not do to remain surprised in Idaho.
"And have I done anything which meets yoh disapprobation?" pursued the
member from Silver City, enunciating with care.
"You have met my disapprobation."
Wingo's eye was on the Governor, and now his friends drew a little
together, and as a unit sent a glance of suspicion at the lone bank.
"You will gratify me by being explicit, suh," said Wingo to the bank.
"Well, you've emptied the toddy."
"Ha-ha, Gove'nuh! I rose, suh, to yoh little fly. We'll awduh some mo'."
"Time enough when he comes for the breakfast things," said Governor
Ballard, easily.
"As you say, suh. I'll open for five dolluhs." Wingo turned back to his
game. He was winning, and as his luck continued his voice ceased to be
soft, and became a shade truculent. The Governor's ears caught this
change, and he also noted the lurking triumph in the faces of Wingo's
fellow-statesmen. Cheerfulness and content were scarcely reigning yet in
the Council Chamber of Idaho as Ballard sat watching the friendly game.
He was beginning to fear that he must leave the Treasurer alone and take
some precautions outside. But he would have to be separated for some
time from his ally, cut off from giving him any hints. Once the
Treasurer looked at him, and he immediately winked reassuringly, but the
Treasurer failed to respond. Hewley might be able to wink after
everything was over, but he could not find it in his serious heart to do
so now. He was wondering what would happen if this game should last till
noon with the company in its present mood. Noon was the time fixed for
paying the Legislative Assembly the compensation due for its services
during this session; and the Governor and the Treasurer had put their
heads together and arranged a surprise for the Legislative Assembly.
They were not going to pay them.
A knock sounded at the door, and on seeing the waiter from the Overland
enter, the Governor was seized with an idea. Perhaps precaution could
be taken from the inside. "Take this pitcher," said he, "and have it
refilled with the same. Joseph knows my mixture." But Joseph was night
bar-tender, and now long in his happy bed, with a day successor in the
saloon, and this one did not know the mixture. Ballard had foreseen this
when he spoke, and that his writing a note of directions would seem
quite natural.
"The receipt is as long as the drink," said a legislator, watching the
Governor's pencil fly.