"San Francisco.
"Edward Sinton, Esquire, Little Creek Diggings.
"My Dear Sir,--I have just time before the post closes, to say that I
only learned a few days ago that you were at Little Creek, otherwise I
should have written sooner, to say that--"
Here the captain seemed puzzled. "Now, ain't that aggravatin'?" he
said; "the seal has torn away the most important bit o' the letter. I
wish I had the villains by the nose that opened it! Look here, Larry,
can you guess what it was?"
Larry took the letter, and, after scrutinising it with intense gravity
and earnestness, returned it, with the remark, that it was "beyant him
entirely."
"That--that--" said the captain, again attempting to read, "that--
somethin'--great success; so you and Captain Bunting had better come
down at once.
"Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours faithfully, John Thomson."
"Now," remarked the captain, with a look of chagrin, as he laid down the
letter, folded his hands together, and gazed into Larry's grave visage,
"nothin' half so tantalisin' as that has happened to me since the time
when my good ship, the _Roving Bess_, was cast ashore at San Francisco."
"It's purvokin'," replied Larry, "an' preplexin'."
"It's most unfortunate, too," continued the captain, knitting up his
visage, "that Sinton should be away just at this time, without rudder,
chart, or compass, an' bound for no port that any one knows of. Why,
the fellow may be deep in the heart o' the Rocky Mountains, for all I
can tell. I might start off at once without him, but maybe that would
be of no use. What can it be that old Thompson's so anxious about? Why
didn't the old figur'-head use his pen more freely--his tongue goes fast
enough to drive the engines of a seventy-four. What _is_ to be done?"
Although Captain Bunting asked the question with thorough earnestness
and much energy, looking first at Larry and then at Ah-wow, he received
no reply. The former shook his head, and the latter stared at him with
a steady, dead intensity, as if he wished to stare him through.
After a few minutes' pause, Larry suddenly asked the captain if he was
hungry, to which the latter replied that he was; whereupon the former
suggested that it was worth while "cookin' the haunch o' ven'son," and
offered to do it in a peculiar manner, that had been taught to him not
long ago by a hunter, who had passed that way, and fallen into the hole
in the tent and sprained his ankle, so that he, (Larry), was obliged to
"kape him for a week, an' trate him to the best all the time." The
proposal was agreed to, and Larry, seizing the haunch, which was still
covered with the mud contracted in "the hole," proceeded to exhibit his
powers as a cook.
The rain, which had been coming down as if a second flood were about to
deluge the earth, had ceased at this time, and the sun succeeded, for a
few hours, in struggling through the murky clouds and pouring a flood of
light and heat over hill and plain; the result of which was, that, along
the whole length of Little Creek, there was an eruption of blankets, and
shirts, and inexpressibles, and other garments, which stood much in need
of being dried, and which, as they fluttered and flapped their
many-coloured folds in the light breeze, gave the settlement the
appearance--as Captain Bunting expressed it--of being "dressed from stem
to stern." The steam that arose from these habiliments, and from the
soaking earth, and from the drenched forest, covered the face of nature
with a sort of luminous mist that was quite cheering, by contrast with
the leaden gloom that had preceded it, and filled with a romantic glow
the bosoms of such miners as had any romance left in their natures.
Larry O'Neil was one of these, and he went about his work whistling
violently. We will not take upon us to say how much of his romance was
due to the haunch of venison. We would not, if called on to do it,
undertake to say how much of the romance and enjoyment of a pic-nic
party would evaporate, if it were suddenly announced that "the hamper"
had been forgotten, or that it had fallen and the contents been smashed
and mixed. We turn from such ungenerous and gross contemplations to the
cooking of that haunch of venison, which, as it was done after a fashion
never known to Soyer, and may be useful in after-years to readers of
this chronicle, whose lot it may be, perchance, to stand in need of such
knowledge, we shall carefully describe.
It is not necessary to enlarge upon the preliminaries. We need hardly
say that Larry washed off the mud, and that he passed flattering remarks
upon his own abilities and prowess, and, in very irreverent tones and
terms, addressed Ah-wow, who smoked his pipe and looked at him. All
that, and a great deal more, we leave to our reader's well-known and
vivid imagination. Suffice it that the venison was duly washed, and a
huge fire, with much difficulty, kindled, and a number of large stones
put into it to heat. This done, Larry cut off a lump of meat from the
haunch--a good deal larger than his own head, which wasn't small--the
skin with the hair on being cut off along with the meat. A considerable
margin of flesh was then pared off from the lump, so as to leave an
edging of hide all round, which might overlap the remainder, and enclose
it, as it were, in a natural bag.
At this stage of the process Larry paused, looked admiringly at his
work, winked over the edge of it at Ah-wow, and went hastily into the
tent, whence he issued with two little tin canisters,--one containing
pepper, the other salt.
"Why, you beat the French all to nothing!" remarked the captain, who sat
on an upturned tea-box, smoking and watching the proceedings.
"Ah! thin, don't spake, capting; it'll spile yer appetite," said Larry,
sprinkling the seasoning into the bag and closing it up by means of a
piece of cord. He then drew the red-hot stones and ashes from the fire,
and, making a hot-bed thereof, placed the venison-dumpling--if we may be
allowed the term--on the centre of it. Before the green hide was quite
burned through, the dish was "cooked," as Yankees express it, "to a
curiosity," and the tasting thereof would have evoked from an alderman a
look, (he would have been past speaking!) of ecstasy, while a lady might
have exclaimed, "Delicious!" or a schoolboy have said, "Hlpluhplp," [see
note 1], or some such term which ought only to be used in reference to
intellectual treats, and should never be applied to such low matters as
meat and drink.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Hlpluhplp. As the reader may have some difficulty in
pronouncing the above word, we beg to inform him, (or her), that it is
easily done, by simply drawing in the breath, and, at the same time,
waggling the tongue between the lips.