PERHAPS Mr. Darwin can tell inquirers why, out of very common origin,
there occasionally spring beings who are very decided improvements on
their progenitors; but we are only able to state that Jim Hockson was
one of these superior beings, and was himself fully aware of the fact.
Not that he was conceited at all, for he was not, but he could not help
seeing what every one else saw and acknowledged.
Every one liked him, for he was always kind in word and action, and
every one was glad to be Jim Hockson’s friend; but somehow Jim seemed to
consider himself his best company.
His mackerel lines were worked as briskly as any others when the fish
were biting; but when the fish were gone, he would lean idly on the
rail, and stare at the waves and clouds; he could work a cranberry-bog
so beautifully that the people for miles around came to look on and take
lessons; yet, when the sun tried to hide in the evening behind a ragged
row of trees on a ridge beyond Jim’s cranberry-patch, he would lean on
his spade, and gaze until everything about him seemed yellow.
He read the Bible incessantly, yet offended alike the pious saints and
critical sinners by never preaching or exhorting. And out of everything
Jim Hockson seemed to extract what it contained of the ideal and the
beautiful; and when he saw Millicent Botayne, he straightway adored the
first woman he had met who was alike beautiful, intelligent and refined.
Miss Millie, being human, was pleased by the admiration of the handsome,
manly fellow who seemed so far the superior of the men of his class; but
when, in his honest simplicity, he told her that he loved her, she
declined his further attentions in a manner which, though very delicate
and kind, opened Jim’s blue eyes to some sad things he had never seen
before.
He neither got drunk, nor threatened to kill himself, nor married the
first silly girl he met; but he sensibly left the place where he had
suffered so greatly, and, in a sort of sad daze, he hurried off to hide
himself in the newly discovered gold-fields of California. Perhaps he
had suddenly learned certain properties of gold which were heretofore
unknown to him; at any rate, it was soon understood at Spanish Stake,
where he had located himself, that Jim Hockson got out more gold per
week than any man in camp, and that it all went to San Francisco.
“Kind of a mean cuss, I reckon,” remarked a newcomer, one day at the
saloon, when Jim alone, of the crowd present, declined to drink with
him.
“Not any!” replied Colonel Two, so called because he had two eyes, while
another colonel in the camp had but one. “An’ it’s good for _you_,
stranger,” continued the colonel, “that you ain’t been long in camp,
else some of the boys ’ud put a hole through you for sayin’ anything
’gainst Jim; for we all swear by him, _we_ do. He don’t carry
shootin’-irons, but no feller in camp dares to tackle him; he don’t cuss
nobody, but ev’rybody does just as he asks ’em to. As to drinkin’, why,
I’d swear off myself, ef ’twud make me hold a candle to him. Went to old
Bermuda t’other day, when he was ravin’ tight and layin’ for Butcher
Pete with a shootin’-iron, an’ he actilly talked Bermuda into soakin’
his head an’ turnin’ in—ev’rybody else was afeard to go nigh old Bermuda
that day.”
The newcomer seemed gratified to learn that Jim was so peaceable a
man—that was the natural supposition, at least—for he forthwith
cultivated Jim with considerable assiduity, and being, it was evident, a
man of considerable taste and experience, Jim soon found his
companionship very agreeable, and he lavished upon his new acquaintance,
who had been nicknamed Tarpaulin, the many kind and thoughtful
attentions which had endeared Jim to the other miners.
The two men lived in the same hut, staked claims adjoining each other,
and Tarpaulin, who had been thin and nervous-looking when he first came
to camp, began to grow peaceable and plump under Jim’s influence.
One night, as Jim and Tarpaulin lay chatting before a fire in their hut,
they heard a thin, wiry voice in the next hut inquiring:
“Anybody in this camp look like this?”
Tarpaulin started.
“That’s a funny question,” said he; “let’s see who and what the fellow
is.”
And then Tarpaulin started for the next hut. Jim waited some time, and
hearing low voices in earnest conversation, went next door himself.
Tarpaulin was not there, but two small, thin, sharp-eyed men were there,
displaying an old-fashioned daguerreotype of a handsome-looking young
man, dressed in the latest New York style; and more than this Jim did
not notice.
“Don’t know him, mister,” said Colonel Two, who happened to be the owner
of the hut. “Besides ef, as is most likely, he’s growed long hair an’ a
beard since he left the States, his own mother wouldn’t know him from
George Washington. Brother o’ yourn?”
“No,” said one of the thin men; “he’s—well, the fact is, we’ll give a
thousand dollars to any one who’ll find him for us in twenty-four
hours.”
“Deppity sheriffs?” asked the colonel, retiring somewhat hastily under
his blankets.
“About the same thing,” said one of the thin men, with a sickly smile.
“Git!” roared the colonel, suddenly springing from his bed, and cocking
his revolver. “I b’lieve in the Golden Rule, _I_ do!”
The detectives, with the fine instinct peculiar to their profession,
rightly construed the colonel’s action as a hint, and withdrew, and Jim
retired to his own hut, and fell asleep while waiting for his partner.
Morning came, but no Tarpaulin; dinner-time arrived, but Jim ate alone,
and was rather blue. He loved a sociable chat, and of late Tarpaulin had
been almost his sole companion.
Evening came, but Tarpaulin came not.
Jim couldn’t abide the saloon for a whole evening, so he lit a candle in
his own hut, and attempted to read.
Tarpaulin was a lover of newspapers—it seemed to Jim he received more
papers than all the remaining miners put together.
Jim thought he would read some of these same papers, and unrolled
Tarpaulin’s blankets to find them, when out fell a picture-case, opening
as it fell. Jim was about to close it again, when he suddenly started,
and exclaimed:
“Millicent Botayne!”
He held it under the light, and examined it closely.
There could be no doubt as to identity—there were the same exquisite
features which, a few months before, had opened to Jim Hockson a new
world of beauty, and had then, with a sweet yet sad smile, knocked down
all his fair castles, and destroyed all his exquisite pictures.
Strange that it should appear to him now, and so unexpectedly, but
stranger did it seem to Jim that on the opposite side of the case should
be a portrait which was a duplicate of the one shown by the detectives!
“That rascal Brown!” exclaimed Jim. “So he succeeded in getting her, did
he? But I shouldn’t call him names; he had as much right to make love to
her as I. God grant he may make her happy! And he is probably a very
fine fellow—_must_ be, by his looks.”
Suddenly Jim started, as if shocked by an electric battery. Hiding all
the hair and beard of the portrait, he stared at it a moment, and
exclaimed:
“_Tarpaulin!_”