It was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil's Ford. The half a
dozen cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if by some
overflow of that capricious river, had become augmented during a week of
fierce excitement by twenty or thirty others, that were huddled together
on the narrow gorge of Devil's Spur, or cast up on its steep sides. So
sudden and violent had been the change of fortune, that the dwellers
in the older cabins had not had time to change with it, but still kept
their old habits, customs, and even their old clothes. The flour pan in
which their daily bread was mixed stood on the rude table side by side
with the “prospecting pans,” half full of gold washed up from their
morning's work; the front windows of the newer tenements looked upon
the one single thoroughfare, but the back door opened upon the uncleared
wilderness, still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear or the nightly
gliding of catamount.
Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the
frankness of old frontier habits; they played with their new-found
riches with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their glowing
future with the importance and triviality of school-boys.
“I've bin kalklatin',” said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-handled
shovel with lazy gravity, “that when I go to Rome this winter, I'll get
one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o' some kind to set up
on the spot where we made our big strike. Suthin' to remember it by, you
know.”
“What kind o' statoo--Washington or Webster?” asked one of the Kearney
brothers, without looking up from his work.
“No--I reckon one o' them fancy groups--one o' them Latin goddesses that
Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin' and bossin'
us where to dig.”
“You'd make a healthy-lookin' figger in a group,” responded Kearney,
critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. “Why
don't you have a fountain instead?”
“Where'll you get the water?” demanded the first speaker, in return.
“You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing
for the camp--to say nothin' of its color.”
“Leave that to me,” said Kearney, with self-possession. “When I've built
that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water over the ridge
from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that.”
“Better mix it up, I reckon--have suthin' half statoo, half fountain,”
interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as “Maryland Joe,” “and set
it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library I'm kalklatin' to give. Do
THAT, and you can count on me.”
After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney
should furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles away,
at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial fountain
erected by Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as a crowning
finish to public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe, to the extent
of half a million more. The disposition of these vast sums by gentlemen
wearing patched breeches awakened no sense of the ludicrous, nor did any
doubt, reservation, or contingency enter into the plans of the charming
enthusiasts themselves. The foundation of their airy castles lay already
before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the
North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for
centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canyon. They had barely
crossed the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich
men; what possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully
exploited their possessions? So confident were they of that ultimate
prospect, that the wealth already thus obtained was religiously expended
in engines and machinery for the boring of wells and the conveyance of
that precious water which the exhausted river had long since ceased to
yield. It seemed as if the gold they had taken out was by some ironical
compensation gradually making its way back to the soil again through
ditch and flume and reservoir.
Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on the 13th of August,
1860. It was noon of a hot day. Whatever movement there was in the
stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous, quivering,
upward-moving dust along the flank of the mountain, through which the
spires of the pines were faintly visible. There was no water in the
bared and burning bars of the river to reflect the vertical sun, but
under its direct rays one or two tinned roofs and corrugated zinc cabins
struck fire, a few canvas tents became dazzling to the eye, and the
white wooded corral of the stage office and hotel insupportable. For
two hours no one ventured in the glare of the open, or even to cross the
narrow, unshadowed street, whose dull red dust seemed to glow between
the lines of straggling houses. The heated shells of these green
unseasoned tenements gave out a pungent odor of scorching wood and
resin. The usual hurried, feverish toil in the claim was suspended;
the pick and shovel were left sticking in the richest “pay gravel;”
the toiling millionaires themselves, ragged, dirty, and perspiring, lay
panting under the nearest shade, where the pipes went out listlessly,
and conversation sank to monosyllables.
“There's Fairfax,” said Dick Mattingly, at last, with a lazy effort. His
face was turned to the hillside, where a man had just emerged from
the woods, and was halting irresolutely before the glaring expanse of
upheaved gravel and glistening boulders that stretched between him and
the shaded group. “He's going to make a break for it,” he added, as the
stranger, throwing his linen coat over his head, suddenly started into
an Indian trot through the pelting sunbeams toward them. This strange
act was perfectly understood by the group, who knew that in that
intensely dry heat the danger of exposure was lessened by active
exercise and the profuse perspiration that followed it. In another
moment the stranger had reached their side, dripping as if rained upon,
mopping his damp curls and handsome bearded face with his linen coat, as
he threw himself pantingly on the ground.
“I struck out over here first, boys, to give you a little warning,” he
said, as soon as he had gained breath. “That engineer will be down here
to take charge as soon as the six o'clock stage comes in. He's an oldish
chap, has got a family of two daughters, and--I--am--d----d if he is not
bringing them down here with him.”
“Oh, go long!” exclaimed the five men in one voice, raising themselves
on their hands and elbows, and glaring at the speaker.
“Fact, boys! Soon as I found it out I just waltzed into that Jew shop at
the Crossing and bought up all the clothes that would be likely to suit
you fellows, before anybody else got a show. I reckon I cleared out the
shop. The duds are a little mixed in style, but I reckon they're clean
and whole, and a man might face a lady in 'em. I left them round at the
old Buckeye Spring, where they're handy without attracting attention.
You boys can go there for a general wash-up, rig yourselves up without
saying anything, and then meander back careless and easy in your store
clothes, just as the stage is coming in, sabe?”
“Why didn't you let us know earlier?” asked Mattingly aggrievedly;
“you've been back here at least an hour.”
“I've been getting some place ready for THEM,” returned the new-comer.
“We might have managed to put the man somewhere, if he'd been alone, but
these women want family accommodation. There was nothing left for me to
do but to buy up Thompson's saloon.”
“No?” interrupted his audience, half in incredulity, half in
protestation.
“Fact! You boys will have to take your drinks under canvas again, I
reckon! But I made Thompson let those gold-framed mirrors that used to
stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of furnish the
room. You know the saloon is one of them patent houses you can take to
pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have to pitch in and help
me to take the whole shanty over to the laurel bushes, and put it up
agin Kearney's cabin.”
“What's all that?” said the younger Kearney, with an odd mingling of
astonishment and bashful gratification.
“Yes, I reckon yours is the cleanest house, because it's the newest, so
you'll just step out and let us knock in one o' the gables, and clap it
on to the saloon, and make ONE house of it, don't you see? There'll be
two rooms, one for the girls and the other for the old man.”
The astonishment and bewilderment of the party had gradually given way
to a boyish and impatient interest.
“Hadn't we better do the job at once?” suggested Dick Mattingly.
“Or throw ourselves into those new clothes, so as to be ready,” added
the younger Kearney, looking down at his ragged trousers. “I say,
Fairfax, what are the girls like, eh?”
All the others had been dying to ask the question, yet one and all
laughed at the conscious manner and blushing cheek of the questioner.
“You'll find out quick enough,” returned Fairfax, whose curt
carelessness did not, however, prevent a slight increase of color on his
own cheek. “We'd better get that job off our hands before doing anything
else. So, if you're ready, boys, we'll just waltz down to Thompson's and
pack up the shanty. He's out of it by this time, I reckon. You might
as well be perspiring to some purpose over there as gaspin' under this
tree. We won't go back to work this afternoon, but knock off now, and
call it half a day. Come! Hump yourselves, gentlemen. Are you ready?
One, two, three, and away!”
In another instant the tree was deserted; the figures of the five
millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open
space, with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then
disappeared in the nearest fringe of thickets.