A RACE FOR IT
Royal Thatcher worked hard. That the boyish little painter who shared
his hospitality at the “Blue Mass” mine should afterward have little
part in his active life seemed not inconsistent with his habits. At
present the mine was his only mistress, claiming his entire time,
exasperating him with fickleness, but still requiring that supreme
devotion of which his nature was capable. It is possible that Miss
Carmen saw this too, and so set about with feminine tact, if not to
supplement, at least to make her rival less pertinacious and absorbing.
Apart from this object, she zealously labored in her profession, yet
with small pecuniary result, I fear. Local art was at a discount in
California. The scenery of the country had not yet become famous; rather
it was reserved for a certain Eastern artist, already famous, to make
it so; and people cared little for the reproduction, under their very
noses, of that which they saw continually with their own eyes, and
valued not. So that little Mistress Carmen was fain to divert her
artist soul to support her plump little material body; and made
divers excursions into the regions of ceramic art, painting on velvet,
illuminating missals, decorating china, and the like. I have in my
possession some wax flowers--a startling fuchsia and a bewildering
dahlia--sold for a mere pittance by this little lady, whose pictures
lately took the prize at a foreign exhibition, shortly after she had
been half starved by a California public, and claimed by a California
press as its fostered child of genius.
Of these struggles and triumphs Thatcher had no knowledge; yet he was
perhaps more startled than he would own to himself when, one December
day, he received this despatch: “Come to Washington at once.--Carmen de
Haro.”
“Carmen de Haro!” I grieve to state that such was the preoccupation of
this man, elected by fate to be the hero of the solitary amatory episode
of his story, that for a moment he could not recall her. When the honest
little figure that had so manfully stood up against him, and had proved
her sex by afterwards running away from him, came back at last to his
memory, he was at first mystified and then self-reproachful. He had
been, he felt vaguely, untrue to himself. He had been remiss to the
self-confessed daughter of his enemy. Yet why should she telegraph to
him, and what was she doing in Washington? To all these speculations
it is to be said to his credit that he looked for no sentimental
or romantic answer. Royal Thatcher was naturally modest and
self-depreciating in his relations to the other sex, as indeed most men
who are apt to be successful with women generally are, despite a vast
degree of superannuated bosh to the contrary. To the half dozen women
who are startled by sheer audacity into submission there are scores who
are piqued by a self-respectful patience; and where a women has to do
half the wooing, she generally makes a pretty sure thing of it.
In his bewilderment Thatcher had overlooked a letter lying on his table.
It was from his Washington lawyer. The concluding paragraph caught his
eye,--“Perhaps it would be well if you came here yourself. Roscommon is
here; and they say there is a niece of Garcia's, lately appeared, who is
likely to get up a strong social sympathy for the old Mexican. I don't
know that they expect to prove anything by her; but I'm told she
is attractive and clever, and has enlisted the sympathies of the
delegation.” Thatcher laid the letter down a little indignantly. Strong
men are quite as liable as weak women are to sudden inconsistencies on
any question they may have in common. What right had this poor little
bud he had cherished,--he was quite satisfied now that he had cherished
her, and really had suffered from her absence,--what right had she to
suddenly blossom in the sunshine of power to be, perhaps, plucked and
worn by one of his enemies? He did not agree with his lawyer that she
was in any way connected with his enemies: he trusted to her masculine
loyalty that far. But here was something vaguely dangerous to the
feminine mind,--position, flattery, power. He was almost as firmly
satisfied now that he had been wronged and neglected as he had been
positive a few moments before that he had been remiss in his attention.
The irritation, although momentary, was enough to decide this strong
man. He telegraphed to San Francisco; and, having missed the steamer,
secured an overland passage to Washington; thought better of it, and
partly changed his mind an hour after the ticket was purchased; but,
manlike, having once made a practical step in a wrong direction, he
kept on rather than admit an inconsistency to himself. Yet he was not
entirely satisfied that his journey was a business one. The impulsive,
weak little Mistress Carmen had prudently scored one against the strong
man.
Only a small part of the present great trans-continental railway at this
time had been built, and was but piers at either end of a desolate and
wild expanse as yet unbridged. When the overland traveller left the
rail at Reno, he left, as it were, civilization with it; and, until he
reached the Nebraska frontier, the rest of his road was only the
old emigrant trail traversed by the coaches of the Overland Company.
Excepting a part of “Devil's Canyon,” the way was unpicturesque and
flat; and the passage of the Rocky Mountains, far from suggesting the
alleged poetry of that region, was only a reminder of those sterile
distances of a level New England landscape.
The journey was a dreary monotony that was scarcely enlivened by its
discomforts, never amounting to actual accident or incident, but utterly
destructive to all nervous tissue. Insanity often supervened. “On the
third day out,” said Hank Monk, driver, speaking casually but charitably
of a “fare,”--“on the third day out, after axing no end of questions and
getting no answers, he took to chewing straws that he picked outer the
cushion, and kussin' to hisself. From that very day I knew it was
all over with him, and I handed him over to his friends at 'Shy Ann,'
strapped to the back seat, and ravin' and cussin' at Ben Holliday, the
gent'manly proprietor.” It is presumed that the unfortunate tourist's
indignation was excited at the late Mr. Benjamin Holliday, then the
proprietor of the line,--an evidence of his insanity that no one who
knew that large-hearted, fastidious, and elegantly-cultured Californian,
since allied to foreign nobility, will for a moment doubt.
Mr. Royal Thatcher was too old and experienced a mountaineer to do aught
but accept patiently and cynically his brother Californian's method of
increasing his profits. As it was generally understood that any one
who came from California by that route had some dark design, the victim
received little sympathy. Thatcher's equable temperament and indomitable
will stood him in good stead, and helped him cheerfully in this
emergency. He ate his scant meals, and otherwise took care of the
functions of his weak human nature, when and where he could, without
grumbling, and at times earned even the praise of his driver by his
ability to “rough it.” Which “roughing it,” by the way, meant the
ability of the passengers to accept the incompetency of the Company.
It is true there were times when he regretted that he had not taken the
steamer; but then he reflected that he was one of a Vigilance Committee,
sworn to hang that admirable man, the late Commodore Cornelius
Vanderbilt, for certain practices and cruelties done upon the bodies of
certain steerage passengers by his line, and for divers irregularities
in their transportation. I mention this fact merely to show how so
practical and stout a voyager as Thatcher might have confounded the
perplexities attending the administration of a great steamship company
with selfish greed and brutality; and that he, with other Californians,
may not have known the fact, since recorded by the Commodore's family
clergyman, that the great millionaire was always true to the hymns of
his childhood.
Nevertheless, Thatcher found time to be cheerful and helpful to his
fellow passengers, and even to be so far interesting to “Yuba Bill,”
the driver, as to have the box seat placed at his disposal. “But,” said
Thatcher, in some concern, “the box seat was purchased by that other
gentleman in Sacramento. He paid extra for it, and his name's on your
way-bill!” “That,” said Yuba Bill, scornfully, “don't fetch me even ef
he'd chartered the whole shebang. Look yar, do you reckon I'm goin' to
spile my temper by setting next to a man with a game eye? And such an
eye! Gewhillikins! Why, darn my skin, the other day when we war watering
at Webster's, he got down and passed in front of the off-leader,--that
yer pinto colt that's bin accustomed to injins, grizzlies, and buffalo,
and I'm bless ef, when her eye tackled his, ef she didn't jist git up
and rar round that I reckoned I'd hev to go down and take them blinders
off from HER eyes and clap on HIS.” “But he paid the money, and is
entitled to his seat,” persisted Thatcher. “Mebbe he is--in the office
of the Kempeny,” growled Yuba Bill; “but it's time some folks knowed
that out in the plains I run this yer team myself.”--A fact which was
self-evident to most of the passengers. “I suppose his authority is
as absolute on this dreary waste as a ship captain's in mid ocean,”
exclaimed Thatcher to the baleful-eyed stranger. Mr. Wiles--whom the
reader has recognized--assented with the public side of his face, but
looked vengeance at Yuba Bill with the other, while Thatcher, innocent
of the presence of one of his worst enemies, placated Bill so far as
to restore Wiles to his rights. Wiles thanked him. “Shall I have
the pleasure of your company far?” Wiles asked insinuatingly. “To
Washington,” replied Thatcher frankly. “Washington is a gay city during
the session,” again suggested the stranger. “I'm going on business,”
said Thatcher bluntly.
A trifling incident occurred at Pine-Tree Crossing which did not
heighten Yuba Bill's admiration of the stranger. As Bill opened the
double-locked box in the “boot” of the coach--sacred to Wells, Fargo &
Co.'s Express and the Overland Company's treasures--Mr. Wiles perceived
a small, black morocco portemanteau among the parcels. “Ah, you carry
baggage there too?” he said sweetly. “Not often,” responded Yuba Bill
shortly. “Ah, this then contains valuables?” “It belongs to that man
whose seat you've got,” said Yuba Bill, who, for insulting purposes
of his own, preferred to establish the fiction that Wiles was an
interloper; “and ef he reckons, in a sorter mixed kempeny like this,
to lock up his portmantle, I don't know who's business it is. Who?”
continued Bill, lashing himself into a simulated rage, “who, in blank,
is running this yer team? Hey? Mebbe you think, sittin' up thar on the
box seat, you are. Mebbe you think you kin see round corners with that
thar eye, and kin pull up for teams round corners, on down grades,
a mile ahead?” But here Thatcher, who, with something of Lancelot's
concern for Modred, had a noble pity for all infirmities, interfered so
sternly that Yuba Bill stopped.
On the fourth day they struck a blinding snow-storm, while ascending the
dreary plateau that henceforward for six hundred miles was to be their
roadbed. The horses, after floundering through the drift, gave out
completely on reaching the next station, and the prospects ahead, to
all but the experienced eye, looked doubtful. A few passengers advised
taking to sledges, others a postponement of the journey until the
weather changed. Yuba Bill alone was for pressing forward as they were.
“Two miles more and we're on the high grade, whar the wind is strong
enough to blow you through the windy, and jist peart enough to pack away
over them cliffs every inch of snow that falls. I'll jist skirmish round
in and out o' them drifts on these four wheels whar ye can't drag one
o' them flat-bottomed dry-goods boxes through a drift.” Bill had a
California whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was warmly seconded by
Thatcher, who had the next best thing to experience, the instinct
that taught him to read character, and take advantage of another
man's experience. “Them that wants to stop kin do so,” said Bill
authoritatively, cutting the Gordian knot; “them as wants to take a
sledge can do so,--thar's one in the barn. Them as wants to go on with
me and the relay will come on.” Mr. Wiles selected the sledge and
a driver, a few remained for the next stage, and Thatcher, with two
others, decided to accompany Yuba Bill. These changes took up some
valuable time; and the storm continuing, the stage was run under the
shed, the passengers gathering around the station fire; and not until
after midnight did Yuba Bill put in the relays. “I wish you a good
journey,” said Wiles, as he drove from the shed as Bill entered. Bill
vouchsafed no reply, but, addressing himself to the driver, said curtly,
as if giving an order for the delivery of goods, “Shove him out at
Rawlings,” and passed contemptuously around to the tail board of the
sled, and returned to the harnessing of his relay.
The moon came out and shone high as Yuba Bill once more took the reins
in his hands. The wind, which instantly attacked them as they reached
the level, seemed to make the driver's theory plausible, and for half a
mile the roadbed was swept clean, and frozen hard. Further on a tongue
of snow, extending from a boulder to the right, reached across their
path to the height of two or three feet. But Yuba Bill dashed through a
part of it, and by skillful maneuvering circumvented the rest. But even
as the obstacle was passed, the coach dropped with an ominous lurch on
one side, and the off fore wheel flew off in the darkness. Bill threw
the horses back on their haunches; but, before their momentum could be
checked, the near hind wheel slipped away, the vehicle rocked violently,
plunged backwards and forwards, and stopped.
Yuba Bill was on the road in an instant with his lantern. Then followed
an outbreak of profanity which I regret, for artistic purposes, exceeds
that generous limit which a sympathizing public has already extended to
me in the explication of character. Let me state, therefore, that in
a very few moments he succeeded in disparaging the characters of his
employers, their male and female relatives, the coach builder, the
station keeper, the road on which he travelled, and the travellers
themselves, with occasional broad expletives addressed to himself and
his own relatives. For the spirit of this and a more cultivated poetry
of expression, I beg to refer the temperate reader to the 3d chapter of
Job.
The passengers knew Bill, and sat, conservative, patient, and expectant.
As yet the cause of the catastrophe was not known. At last Thatcher's
voice came from the box seat:
“What's up, Bill?”
“Not a blank lynch pin in the whole blank coach,” was the answer.
There was a dead silence. Yuba Bill executed a wild war dance of
helpless rage.
“Blank the blank ENCHANTED thing to blank!”
(I beg here to refer the fastidious and cultivated reader to the only
adjective I have dared transcribe of this actual oath which I once had
the honor of hearing. He will I trust not fail to recognize the old
classic daemon in this wild western objurgation.)
“Who did it?” asked Thatcher.
Yuba Bill did not reply, but dashed up again to the box, unlocked the
“boot,” and screamed out:
“The man that stole your portmantle,--Wiles!”
Thatcher laughed:
“Don't worry about that, Bill. A 'biled' shirt, an extra collar, and a
few papers. Nothing more.”
Yuba Bill slowly descended. When he reached the ground, he plucked
Thatcher aside by his coat sleeve:
“Ye don't mean to say ye had nothing in that bag ye was trying to get
away with?”
“No,” said the laughing Thatcher frankly.
“And that Wiles warn't one o' them detectives?”
“Not to my knowledge, certainly.”
Yuba Bill sighed sadly, and returned to assist in the replacing of the
coach on its wheels again.
“Never mind, Bill,” said one of the passengers sympathizingly, “we'll
catch that man Wiles at Rawlings sure;” and he looked around at the
inchoate vigilance committee, already “rounding into form” about him.
“Ketch him!” returned Yuba Bill, derisively, “why we've got to go back
to the station; and afore we're off agin he's pinted fur Clarmont on the
relay we lose. Ketch him! H-ll's full of such ketches!”
There was clearly nothing to do but to go back to the station to await
the repairing of the coach. While this was being done Yuba Bill again
drew Thatcher aside:
“I allers suspected that chap's game eye, but I didn't somehow allow
for anything like this. I reckoned it was only the square thing to
look arter things gen'rally, and 'specially your traps. So, to purvent
troubil, and keep things about ekal, ez he was goin' away, I sorter
lifted this yer bag of hiz outer the tail board of his sleigh. I don't
know as it is any exchange or compensation, but it may give ye a chance
to spot him agin, or him you. It strikes me as bein' far-minded and
squar';” and with these words he deposited at the feet of the astounded
Thatcher the black travelling bag of Mr. Wiles.
“But, Bill,--see here! I can't take this!” interrupted Thatcher hastily.
“You can't swear that he's taken my bag,--and--and,--blank it all,--this
won't do, you know. I've no right to this man's things, even if--”
“Hold your hosses,” said Bill gravely; “I ondertook to take charge
o' your traps. I didn't--at least that d----d wall-eyed--Thar's a
portmantle! I don't know who's it is. Take it.”
Half amused, half embarrassed, yet still protesting, Thatcher took the
bag in his hands.
“Ye might open it in my presence,” suggested Yuba Bill gravely.
Thatcher, half laughingly, did so. It was full of papers and
semi-legal-looking documents. Thatcher's own name on one of them caught
his eye; he opened the paper hastily and perused it. The smile faded
from his lips.
“Well,” said Yuba Bill, “suppose we call it a fair exchange at present.”
Thatcher was still examining the papers. Suddenly this cautious,
strong-minded man looked up into Yuba Bill's waiting face, and said
quietly, in the despicable slang of the epoch and region:
“It's a go! Suppose we do.”