His guests were sitting there sociably enough, and there were a few
silver coins in a lean buckskin purse on the table.
“Bettin’ on suthin’,—some little game or ’nother. They’re all right,” he
replied to Johnny, and recommenced his rubbing.
“I’d like to take a hand and win some money,” said Johnny, reflectively,
after a pause.
The Old Man glibly repeated what was evidently a familiar formula, that
if Johnny would wait until he struck it rich in the tunnel he’d have
lots of money, etc., etc.
“Yes,” said Johnny, “but you don’t. And whether you strike it or I win
it, it’s about the same. It’s all luck. But it’s mighty cur’o’s about
Chrismiss—ain’t it? Why do they call it Chrismiss?”
Perhaps from some instinctive deference to the overhearing of his
guests, or from some vague sense of incongruity, the Old Man’s reply was
so low as to be inaudible beyond the room.
“Yes,” said Johnny, with some slight abatement of interest, “I’ve heard
o’ him before. Thar, that’ll do, dad. I don’t ache near so bad as I did.
Now wrap me tight in this yer blanket. So. Now,” he added in a muffled
whisper, “sit down yer by me till I go asleep.”
To assure himself of obedience, he disengaged one hand from the blanket,
and grasping his father’s sleeve, again composed himself to rest.
For some moments the Old Man waited patiently.
Then the unwonted stillness of the house excited his curiosity, and
without moving from the bed, he cautiously opened the door with his
disengaged hand, and looked into the main room.
To his infinite surprise it was dark and deserted.
But even then a smouldering log on the hearth broke, and by the
upspringing blaze he saw the figure of Dick Bullen sitting by the dying
embers.
“Hello!”
Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily towards him.
“Whar’s the boys?” said the Old Man.
“Gone up the cañon on a little _pasear_. They’re coming back for me in a
minit. I’m waitin’ round for ’em. What are you starin’ at, Old Man?” he
added with a forced laugh; “do you think I’m drunk?”
The old man might have been pardoned the supposition, for Dick’s eyes
were humid and his face flushed.
He loitered and lounged back to the chimney, yawned, shook himself,
buttoned up his coat and laughed.
“Liquor ain’t so plenty as that, Old Man. Now don’t you git up,” he
continued, as the Old Man made a movement to release his sleeve from
Johnny’s hand. “Don’ you mind manners. Sit jist whar you be; I’m goin’
in a jiffy. Thar, that’s them now.”
There was a low tap at the door.
Dick Bullen opened it quickly, nodded “good night” to his host, and
disappeared.
The Old Man would have followed him but for the hand that still
unconsciously grasped his sleeve. He could have easily disengaged it; it
was small, weak, and emaciated. But perhaps because it was small, weak,
and emaciated, he changed his mind, and drawing his chair closer to the
bed, rested his head upon it. In this defenceless attitude the potency
of his earlier potations surprised him. The room flickered and faded
before his eyes, reappeared, faded again, went out, and left him—asleep.
Meantime, Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted his companions.
“Are you ready?” said Staples.
“Ready!” said Dick; “what’s the time?”
“Past twelve,” was the reply; “can you make it?—it’s nigh on fifty
miles, the round trip hither and yon.”
“I reckon,” returned Dick, shortly. “Whar’s the mare?”
“Bill and Jack’s holdin’ her at the crossin’.”
“Let ’em hold on a minit longer,” said Dick.
He turned and re-entered the house softly.
By the light of the guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the door
of the little room was open.
He stepped toward it on tiptoe and looked in.
The Old Man had fallen back in his chair, snoring, his helpless feet
thrust out in a line with his collapsed shoulders, and his hat pulled
over his eyes.
Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny, muffled tightly in
a blanket that hid all save a strip of forehead and a few curls damp
with perspiration.
Dick Bullen made a step forward, hesitated, and glanced over his
shoulder into the deserted room.
Everything was quiet.
With a sudden resolution he parted his huge moustaches with both hands,
and stooped over the sleeping boy.
But even as he did so a mischievous blast, lying in wait, swooped down
the chimney, rekindling the hearth, and lit up the room with a shameless
glow, from which Dick fled in bashful terror.
His companions were already waiting for him at the crossing.
Two of them were struggling in the darkness with some strange misshapen
bulk, which, as Dick came nearer, took the semblance of a great yellow
horse.
It was the mare.
She was not a pretty picture.
From her Roman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched spine,
hidden by the stiff _machillas_ of a Mexican saddle, to her thick,
straight, bony legs, there was not a line of equine grace.
In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in her protruding under
lip, in her monstrous colour, there was nothing but ugliness and vice.
“Now then,” said Staples, “stand cl’ar of her heels, boys, and up with
you. Don’t miss your first holt of her mane, and mind ye get your off
stirrup quick. Ready!”
There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild retreat of the
crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless leaps that jarred the
earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, a plunge, and then the voice of
Dick somewhere in the darkness.
“All right!”
“Don’t take the lower road back onless you’re hard pushed for time!
Don’t hold her in down hill! We’ll be at the ford at five. G’lang!
Hoopa! Mula! Go!”
A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the road, a clatter in the
rocky cut beyond, and Dick was gone.
* * * * *
Sing, O Muse, the ride of Richard Bullen! Sing, O Muse, of chivalrous
men! the sacred quest, the doughty deeds, the battery of low churls, the
fearsome ride and gruesome perils of the flower of Simpson’s Bar! Alack!
she is dainty, this Muse! She will have none of this bucking brute and
swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow him, in prose, afoot!
It was one o’clock; and yet he had only gained Rattlesnake Hill. For in
that time Jovita had rehearsed to him all her imperfections and
practised all her vices.
Thrice had she stumbled.
Twice had she thrown up her Roman nose in a straight line with the
reins, and resisting bit and spur, struck out madly across country.
Twice had she reared, and, rearing, fallen backward; and twice had the
agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found her vicious
legs again.
And a mile beyond them, at the foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake
Creek.
Dick knew that here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his
enterprise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her flanks,
and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression.
Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill.
Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with ostentatious
objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm.
It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away.
Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it is written in the
chronicles of Simpson’s Bar.
Enough that in another moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing
on the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek.
As Dick expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the
point of balking; and holding her well together for a mighty leap, they
dashed into the middle of the swiftly-flowing current.
A few moments of kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a long
breath on the opposite bank.
The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was tolerably level.
Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire, or
the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of her
rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton
conceits.
Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she shied, but it
was from a new freshly-painted meeting-house at the crossing of the
county road.
Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly-springing
grasses flew from beneath her rattling hoofs.
She began to smell unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but
there was no abatement of her strength or speed.
By two o’clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to the
plain.
Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and
passed by a “man on a Pinto hoss”—an event sufficiently notable for
remark.
At half-past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout.
Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him, out of
the plain, rose two spires, a flag-staff, and a straggling line of black
objects.
Dick jingled his spurs and swung his _riata_, Jovita bounded forward,
and in another moment they swept into Tuttleville, and drew up before
the wooden piazza of “The Hotel of All Nations.”
What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a part of this
record.
Briefly I may state, however, that after Jovita had been handed over to
a sleepy hostler, whom she at once kicked into unpleasant consciousness,
Dick sallied out with the bar-keeper for a tour of the sleeping town.
Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and gambling-houses; but,
avoiding these, they stopped before several closed shops, and by
persistent tapping and judicious outcry roused the proprietors from
their beds, and made them unbar the doors of their magazines and expose
their wares.
Sometimes they were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some
concern in their needs, and the interview was invariably concluded by a
drink.
It was three o’clock before this pleasantry was given over, and with a
small water-proof bag of india-rubber strapped on his shoulders, Dick
returned to the hotel.
But here he was waylaid by Beauty—Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in
dress, persuasive in speech, and Spanish in accent!
In vain she repeated the invitation in “Excelsior,” happily scorned by
all Alpine-climbing youth, and rejected by this child of the Sierras—a
rejection softened in this instance by a laugh and his last gold coin.
And then he sprang to the saddle and dashed down the lonely street and
out into the lonelier plain, where presently the lights, the black line
of houses, the spires and the flag-staff sank into the earth behind him
again and were lost in the distance.
The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, the outlines of
adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was half-past four before Dick
reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the country road.
To avoid the rising grade he had taken a longer and more circuitous
road, in whose viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound.
It was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles more; but
Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it with her usual blind,
unreasoning fury, and a half-hour later reached the long level that led
to Rattlesnake Creek.
Another half-hour would bring him to the creek.
He threw the reins lightly upon the neck of the mare, chirruped to her
and began to sing.
Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have unseated a less
practised rider.
Hanging to her rein was a figure that had leaped from the bank, and at
the same time from the road before her arose a shadowy horse and rider.
“Throw up your hands,” commanded this second apparition with an oath.
Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink under him.
He knew what it meant, and was prepared.
“Stand aside, Jack Simpson, I know you, you d—d thief. Let me pass,
or——”
He did not finish the sentence.
Jovita rose straight in the air with a terrific bound, throwing the
figure from her bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged
her deadly malevolence down on the impediment before her.
An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled over in the road,
and the next moment Jovita was a hundred yards away.
But the good right arm of her rider, shattered by a bullet, dropped
helplessly at his side.
Without slackening his speed he shifted the reins to his left hand.
But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and tighten the
saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset.
This in his crippled condition took some time.
He had no fear of pursuit, but looking up he saw that the eastern stars
were already paling, and that the distant peaks had lost their ghostly
whiteness, and now stood out blackly against a lighter sky.
Day was upon him.
Then completely absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his
wound, and mounting again dashed on towards Rattlesnake Creek.
But now Jovita’s breath came broken by gasps, Dick reeled in his saddle,
and brighter and brighter grew the sky.
Ride, Richard; run, Jovita; linger, O day!
For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears.
Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or what?
He was dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill, and did not recognise
his surroundings.
Had he taken the wrong road, or was this Rattlesnake Creek?
[Illustration: “WAS THIS RATTLESNAKE CREEK?”]
It was.
But the brawling creek he had swum a few hours before had risen, more
than doubled its volume, and now rolled a swift and resistless river
between him and Rattlesnake Hill.
For the first time that night Richard’s heart sank within him.
The river, the mountain, the quickening east swam before his eyes.
He shut them to recover his self-control.
In that brief interval, by some fantastic mental process, the little
room at Simpson’s Bar, and the figures of the sleeping father and son,
rose upon him.
He opened his eyes widely, cast off his coat, pistol, boots, and saddle,
bound his precious pack tightly to his shoulders, grasped the bare
flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and, with a shout, dashed into
the yellow water.
A cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of a man and horse
struggled for a few moments against the battling current, and then were
swept away, amid uprooted trees and whirling driftwood.
* * * * *
The Old Man started and awoke.
The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering
in its socket, and somebody was rapping at the door.
He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping half-naked
figure that reeled against the door-post.
“Dick?”
“Hush! Is he awake yet?”
“No,—but Dick——?”
“Dry up, you old fool! Get me some whisky _quick_!”
The Old Man flew and returned with—an empty bottle!
Dick would have sworn, but his strength was not equal to the occasion.
He staggered, caught at the handle of the door, and motioned to the Old
Man.
“Thar’s suthin’ in my pack yer for Johnny. Take it off. I can’t.”
The Old Man unstrapped the pack and laid it before the exhausted man.
“Open it, quick!”
He did so with trembling fingers.
It contained only a few poor toys—cheap and barbaric enough, goodness
knows, but bright with paint and tinsel.
One of them was broken; another, I fear, was irretrievably ruined by
water; and on the other, ah me! there was a cruel spot.
“It don’t look like much, that’s a fact,” said Dick ruefully.... “But
it’s the best we could do.... Take ’em, Old Man, and put ’em in his
stocking, and tell him—tell him, you know—hold me, Old Man.”
The Old Man caught at his sinking figure.
“Tell him,” said Dick, with a weak little laugh—“tell him Sandy Claus
has come.”
And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, with one arm
hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Claus came to Simpson’s Bar and
fell fainting on the first threshold.
The Christmas dawn came slowly after, touching the remoter peaks with
the rosy warmth of ineffable love.
And it looked so tenderly on Simpson’s Bar that the whole mountain, as
it caught in a generous action, blushed to the skies.
_Bret Harte._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE BREACH OF PROMISE CASE._
AMOS DIXON had not been long gone from the elegant house when Miss
Sophia Garr, caparisoned in a jaunty hat and a ready-made cloak, sallied
forth on a little business of her own.
She took the nearest way to Montgomery Street, and proceeded almost to
the head of that thoroughfare. Ascending a very wide flight of steps,
she turned to the right, and went up a narrower flight; turning again to
the left, she went up a narrower flight still. Without pausing to take
breath, Miss Sophia proceeded, by the help of the skylight, to read the
names on a whole army of doors. Making nearly the whole circuit of the
long hall, she arrived finally at a door which seemed to meet with her
approval, for she nodded her head, knocked, and walked briskly in.
“What a horrid-looking man!” she said, as she threw herself upon a
well-worn lounge, and breathed heavily.
“What an ugly old vixen!” replied the gentleman thus apostrophised,
looking up from the desk at which he sat writing.
“Hem!” rejoined Miss Sophia, eyeing him wickedly, and still labouring
for her breath, after her unwonted exertion.
“Well, madam?”
“How dare you, sir—but this is Mr. Beanson, no doubt?”
“Yes, madam.”
“I called, sir,” pronounced Miss Garr, in an angry tone, “to have you
explain to me explicitly, and without reservation, what constitutes a
breach of promise.”
Now two different persons had been harassing Mr. Beanson that very
morning with unpaid bills. Yet it was a characteristic of this
remarkable man that all his greatest troubles were in the future—that
undiscovered country of his first brief, and the presidency. He was
possessed of a wonderful talent at apprehending evil; and he had not
heard Miss Sophia this long without exerting it. He thought instantly of
the snares laid for unsuspecting young men by designing females, and did
not grow calmer as his visitor repeated—
“Come, sir; you profess to be a lawyer, if you are not. Can you tell me,
sir?”
“M—madam, I don’t know you!” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, feeling very much
confused, but looking, as he always did, very aggressive.
“I found your card in my card-case, and I want to know, sir, what
constitutes a breach of promise.”
“Madam, I tell you I don’t know you _at all_!”
“But did you not leave your card in my card-case at Mrs. Clayton’s?”
“I did, madam, but that does not constitute a breach of promise; and I
warn you now,” said Mr. Beanson, raising his voice and his forefinger,
and shaking both at her simultaneously, “I warn you now, madam, that you
cannot ground an action for breach of promise on a little skilful
advertising!”
“What do you mean, sir?”
Mr. Beanson observed a sudden and marked change coming over the features
of his visitor, and took it for the herald of her discomfiture and his
own triumph.
“What do I mean?” iterated Mr. Beanson. “I mean, madam, that in this
latter stage of juridical enlightenment a man cannot be held for breach
of promise, or prosecuted for breach of promise, by a woman whom he
never saw before in his life—and, for that matter, never wishes to see
again—just because he put his business card in her card-case.” Here the
speaker, seeing the remarkable effect of his philippic, launched himself
upon his feet, the better to enjoy the ovation he was preparing for
himself. As he undoubled his exceeding length before Sophia, he had the
satisfaction of seeing the additional effect he was producing, even
apart from his oratory. It was the very yellow jaundice of tones in
which Mr. Beanson concluded—
“No, madam, you would not get any intelligent court in the land, in
these premises, to find cause of action. It was nothing but a skilful
advertisement—in short, an act of commercial and legal genius. You, I
suppose, would make it a crime punishable by marriage with such as you.
The thing is simply ridiculous! Madam, I have done. Have you?”
Mr. Beanson resumed his seat triumphantly, and eyed the astonished Garr
with an expression that made his head look older than common.
Miss Sophia could not have interrupted the foregoing forensic display if
she had tried. In her bewilderment she was mutely deciding whether she,
Sophia Garr, or all the men were going stark mad. George Lang had
offered himself to Amelia, after being accepted by herself. Then this
impudent red-headed wretch—whom she had never attempted to marry—either
he or she was certainly crazy. The question was too complicated for a
prompt decision.
The two had sat for some moments, glaring at each other, in profound
silence, when Miss Garr suddenly exclaimed, “You long-waisted vagabond,
shut up!”
This might have been effectual in a contest with a person of her own
sex; since it might have shocked into silence or proved an _Ultima
Thule_ of feminine virulence. When, however, Mr. Beanson, having taken
some time to consider, remembered that he was not talking at all when he
was requested to “shut up,” the thing struck him as laughable.
Accordingly Mr. Beanson laughed—laughed loud and long, till Mr. Beanson
had laughed out all the fun there was in the occurrence, and some of his
own anger to boot.
“Now, madam,” said he facetiously, “I am prepared to part with you.”
Miss Garr was more angry than ever.
“I say, madam, I am prepared to part with you. I will not detain you
further.”
“You ugly, hateful, impudent wretch!” remarked Sophia, finding speech at
last. “You may insult me here as much as you please, since I am without
a protector; but you shall not drive me away till you have answered my
question. I would as soon marry a keg of nails as you, sir; so you may
set your mind at rest! It is somebody else that my outraged feelings are
interested in—somebody else of more consequence than you, though I
verily believe he is as big a villain——”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, as any other drowning man might have done
before he was swallowed up by any other flood.
“Do you suppose, sir, I would walk all the way here from Folsome Street,
and up these interminable stairs, and then go away, without knowing what
constitutes a breach of promise? I would have you know, sir, that my
case is urgent.”
“Then you did not intend to prosecute me at all?” asked Mr. Beanson,
opening his eyes very wide.
“Have I not told you once? Would I prosecute a keg of nails, you ninny?”
As strange as it may seem, a bland smile, which spread over the entire
face of Mr. Beanson, was the result of this last poisoned arrow of Miss
Garr. The _ignis fatuus_ of his first brief was again rising over the
marshes of his present embarrassments. “Well, well, madam,” rejoined Mr.
Beanson, “I will do anything in the world to serve you. Who is it, by
the way, that you wish to prosecute?”
“I don’t know as that is any of your business at present, sir; I first
want an answer to the question I have asked about forty times: What
constitutes a breach of promise?”
“To tell the truth, madam, there are so many conditions to a breach of
promise that an abstract definition of it would not do the least good in
the world; and I could not give one without consulting my books—but do
you absolutely insist on mentioning no names?”
“I do, sir.”
“Will you state the case, then, without names?”
“You must see, sir, that my natural delicacy revolts against any
revelations to strangers.”
“Why, madam, counsellor and client should never be strangers. Besides,
you must be aware that a breach of promise depends on so many things. As
I have said before, there are so many conditions that we cannot proceed
at all unless you answer certain questions; such as, for instance,
whether you—I mean the lady, the plaintiff, in fact—has any proof of a
promise, express or implied.”
Miss Garr looked about the room in silent uncertainty.
“Have you—I mean, has the lady—for example, any witnesses—any one who
has heard the defendant that is to be,” pursued Mr. Beanson, in the
language of the future, “express or imply a promise?”
She could not say that the lady had.
“Had she any letters to show which contained a promise either expressed
or implied?”
“The lady,” responded Miss Garr mysteriously; “the lady has not.”
“Has the plaintiff been injured in any way by the defendant?”
“Yes, grossly.”
“Ah, then, I begin to see a case. Set the damages heavy—set the damages
heavy. By-the-bye, is the defendant rich?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Mr. Beanson, rubbing his hands. “We will make the villain
suffer.”
“Thank you, Mr. Beanson. Fifty thousand dollars will be little enough.
Thank you, Mr. Beanson.” And Miss Garr actually shook hands with Mr.
Beanson on the spot.