SUNDAY AT HANGMAN'S GULCH
It was now about four o'clock. The crowd dispersed slowly in different
directions, and to its different occupations and amusements. We wandered
about, all eyes and ears. As yet we had not many acquaintances, and
could not enter into the intimate bantering life of the old-timers.
There was enough to interest us, however. A good many were beginning to
show the drink. After a long period of hard labour even the most
respectable of the miners would have at times strange reactions. That is
another tale, however; and on this Sunday the drinking was productive
only of considerable noise and boasting. Two old codgers, head to head,
were bragging laboriously of their prowess as cooks. A small but
interested group egged them on.
"Flapjacks?" enunciated one laboriously; "flapjacks? Why, my fren',
_you_ don't know nothin' about flapjacks. I grant you," said he,
laying one hand on the other's arm, "I grant ye that maybe,
_maybe_, mind you, you may know about mixin' flapjacks, and even
about cookin' flapjacks. But wha' do you know about _flippin'
flapjacks_?" He removed his hand from the other's arm. "Nawthin!"
said he. "Now _I_ am an exper'; a real exper'! When I want to flip
a flapjack I just whirl her up through the chimney and catch her by
holdin' the frying pan out'n the window!"
I found at another point a slender, beardless young chap, with bright
black eyes, and hectic cheeks, engaged in sketching one of the miners
who posed before him. His touch was swift and sure, and his faculty at
catching a likeness remarkable. The sketch was completed and paid for in
ten minutes; and he was immediately besieged by offers from men who
wanted pictures of themselves or their camps. He told me, between
strokes of the pencil, that he found this sort of thing more
remunerative than the mining for which he had come to the country, as he
could not stand the necessary hard work. Paper cost him two dollars and
a half a sheet; but that was about all his expense. Alongside the street
a very red-faced, bulbous-nosed and ancient ruin with a patriarchal
white beard was preparing to give phrenological readings. I had seen him
earlier in the day, and had been amused at his impressive glib patter.
Now, however, he had become foolishly drunk. He mounted the same boxes
that had served as the executive desk, and invited custom. After a
moment's hesitation a burly, red-faced miner shouldered his way through
the group and sat down on the edge of the boxes.
In the earlier and soberer part of the afternoon the phrenologist had
skilfully steered his way by the safe stars of flattery. Now, as he ran
his hands uncertainly through the miner's thick hair, a look of
mystification crept into his bleary eyes. He felt again more carefully.
"Most 'xtraor'nary!" he muttered. "Fren's," said he, still feeling at
the man's head, "this person has the most extraor'nary bump of
'quisitiveness. Never felt one like it, 'xcept on th' cranium of a very
celebrated thief an' robber. His bump of benev'lence 's a reg'lar hole.
Bump of truthfulness don' somehow seem to be there at all. Bump of
cowardice is 's big 's an egg. This man, fren's," said he, dropping the
victim's head and advancing impressively, "is a very dangerous
character. Look out for 'm. He's a liar, an' a thief, an' a coward, an'
a----"
"Well, you old son of a gun!" howled the miner, rising to his feet.
He seized the aged phrenologist, and flung him bodily straight through
the sides of a large tent, and immediately dove after him in pursuit.
There came from that tent a series of crashes, howls of rage and joy,
the sounds of violent scuffling, and then there burst out through the
doorway the thoroughly sobered phrenologist, his white beard streaming
over one shoulder, his pop eyes bulging out, his bulbous nose quite
purple, pursued by the angry miner and a score of the overjoyed populace
interrupted in their gambling. Everybody but the two principals was
gasping with laughter. It looked as though the miner might do his victim
a serious injury, so I caught the pursuer, around the shoulders and held
him fast. He struggled violently, but was no match for my bulk, and I
restrained him until he had cooled down somewhat, and had ceased trying
to bite and kick me. Then all at once he laughed, and I released him. Of
the phrenologist nothing remained but a thin cloud of dust hanging in
the still air.
Yank and I then thought of going back to camp, and began to look around
after Johnny, who had disappeared, when McNally rolled up, inviting us
to sup with him.
"You don't want to go home yet," he advised us. "Evening's the time to
have fun. Never mind your friend; he's all right. Now you realize the
disadvantage of living way off where you do. My hang-out is just down
the street. Let's have a drink."
We accepted both his invitations. Then, after the supper, pipes alight,
we sauntered down the street, a vast leisure expanding our horizons. At
the street corner stood a tall, poetic-looking man, with dreamer's eyes,
a violin clasped under his chin. He was looking straight past us all out
into the dusk of the piney mountains beyond, his soul in the music he
was producing. They were simple melodies, full of sentiment, and he
played as though he loved them. Within the sound of his bow a dead
silence reigned. Men stood with eyes cast down, their faces sobered,
their eyes adream. One burly, reckless, red-faced individual, who had
been bullying it up and down the street, broke into a sob which he
violently suppressed, and then looked about fiercely, as though
challenging any one to have heard. The player finished, tucked his
violin and bow under his arm, and turned away. For a moment the crowd
remained motionless, then slowly dispersed. This was John Kelly, a
famous wandering minstrel of the camps, a strange, shy, poetic man, who
never lacked for dust nor for friends, and who apparently sought for
neither.
Under the softening influence of the music the crowd led a better life
for about ten minutes.
We entered the gambling rooms, of which there were two, and had a drink
of what McNally called "42 calibre whiskey" at the bar of each. In one
of them we found Johnny, rather flushed, bucking a faro bank. Yank
suggested that he join us, but he shook his head impatiently, and we
moved on. In a tremendous tent made by joining three or four ordinary
tents together, a very lively fiddle and concertina were in full blast.
We entered and were pounced upon by a boisterous group of laughing men,
seized by the shoulders, whirled about, and examined from behind.
"Two gentlemen and a lady!" roared out one of them. "Gentlemen on that
side; ladies on this. See-lect your pardners for the waltz!"
There was a great rushing to and fro in preparation. Men bowed to each
other with burlesque dancing school formality, offered arms, or accepted
them with bearlike coyness. We stood for a moment rather bewildered, not
knowing precisely what to do.
"You belong over that side," McNally instructed us. "I go over here; I'm
a 'lady.'"
"Why?" I asked.
"Ladies," explained McNally, "are those who have patches on the seats of
their pants."
As in most social gatherings, we saw that here too the fair sex were in
the majority.
Everybody danced very vigorously, with a tremendous amount of stamping.
It seemed a strenuous occupation after a week of hard work, and yet it
was great fun. Yank pirouetted and balanced and "sasshayed" and
tom-fooled in a manner wonderful to behold. We ended flushed and
uproarious; and all trooped to the bar, which, it seemed, was the real
reason for the existence of this dance hall.
The crowd was rough and good natured, full of high spirits, and inclined
to practical jokes of a pretty stiff character. Of course there was the
inevitable bully, swaggering fiercely and truculently back and forth,
his belt full of weapons. Nobody took him very seriously; but, on the
other hand, everybody seemed to take mighty good care not to run
definitely counter to him. In the course of his wanderings he came to
our end of the bar, and jostled McNally aside. McNally was at the moment
lighting his pipe, so that in his one hand he held a burning match and
in the other a glass of whiskey. Without the slightest hurry or
excitement, his blue eyes twinkling as humorously as ever, McNally
dumped the whiskey over the bully's shock head with his left hand and
touched the match to it with his right. The alcohol sizzled up in a
momentary blue flame, without damage save for a very singed head of
hair.
"Man on fire! Man on fire!" yelled McNally. "Put him out!"
The miners rose to the occasion joyously, and "put him out" in the most
literal fashion; so that no more was seen of that bully.
About ten o'clock we were getting tired; and probably the reaction from
the "42 calibre whiskey" was making us drowsy. We hunted up Johnny,
still at his faro game; but he positively and impatiently declined to
accompany us. He said he was ahead--or behind--I forget which. I notice
both conditions have the same effect of keeping a man from quitting. We
therefore left him, and wandered home through the soft night, wherein
were twinkling stars, gentle breezes, little voices, and the silhouettes
of great trees.