With daylight we began to get a grip on ourselves a little. I felt strongly that I should see to Yank, and so announced. Johnny at once offered to accompany me. While we were talking over the future prospects, McNally came over to us, saying:

“The boys are pretty well agreed that we ought to divide up what gold is left, and let each man take care of his own share. Are you agreeable?”

We instantly assented. The scales were brought out, and the division began. It consumed most of the morning, and was productive of much squabbling, in which, however, we took no part. Our share, including Yank’s–with which we were intrusted–came to about thirty-one pounds: a value of about seven thousand dollars. We were impatient to be off, and now wanted nothing so much as to be done with the whole affair. Yank had ridden one of our horses; the other had been stolen in the Indian raid. We approached Don Gaspar, who had his own saddle horse and that of Vasquez, not to speak of the remaining pack-animals. To our surprise and delight he offered to accompany us; and Bagsby, too, decided to leave. McNally, Buck Barry, and Missouri Jones, however, could not be persuaded out of their intention of 256 remaining to dig fresh gold; nor, I am afraid, were we very cordial in our insistence. We considered them foolhardy; but in our then mood we did not greatly care.

By noon we had packed our goods, and by night we had broken the back of our return journey.

We found a full-grown town where we had left a few tents and miners’ cabins. Its main street ran either side the deep dust of the immigrant trail, and consisted of the usual shanties, canvas shacks, and log structures, with rather more than the customary allowance of tin cans, old clothes, worn-out boots, and empty barrels kicking around. The diggings were in the gulch below the road; but the streets of the town, and especially the shady sides of the buildings, were numerously furnished with lounging men. Some of these were employees or owners of the gambling halls, saloons, and boarding-houses; but most were plain “loafers”–a class never wholly absent from any mining camp, men who washed just enough gold to keep themselves fed and pickled in drink. Many of them were evil-looking customers, in fact about as tough a lot as a man would care to see, unshaven generally, but not always, dirty, truculent and rough, insolent in manner. In our passage of the main street I saw just three decent looking people–one was evidently a gambler, one a beefy, red-faced individual who had something to do with one of the hotels, and the third was a tall man, past middle age, with a clean shaven, hawk face, a piercing, haughty, black eye, and iron gray hair. He was carefully and flawlessly dressed in a gray furred “plug” hat, tailed blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, trousers of the 257 same shade, and a frilled shirt front. Immaculate down to within six inches or so of the ground, his nether garments and boots were coated thickly with the inevitable red dust. He strode slowly down the street, looking neither to right nor left.

Don Gaspar led the way for a short distance along the wagon road. On the outskirts of the settlement he turned aside to a small log cabin supplemented by a brush lean-to. A long string of bright red peppers hung down the face of it. To our knock came a very fat, rather dirty, but exceedingly pleasant-faced woman with glossy black hair, parted smoothly, and soft black eyes. She opened the door only the fraction of an inch at first, but instantly recognized Don Gaspar, and threw it wide.

To our great relief we found Yank very much alive. He greeted us rather feebly, but with satisfaction. We found that he had been kindly cared for, and that the surface wounds and bruises from the horses’ hoofs had been treated with some skill.

“But I reckon I’m hurt some inside,” he whispered with difficulty, “for I can’t breathe easy; and I can’t eat nothin’ but soup. And my leg is hell.”

The broken leg too had been bound up after a fashion, but it was badly swollen above and below the bandages.

“He ought to have a doctor,” said I positively. “There’s no doubt of that. There must be some among the miners–there generally is. I’m going to see if I can find one.”

I returned to town, and hunted up the beefy, red-faced hotel keeper, who had impressed me as being an honest man.

“Yes, there’s a doctor,” said he, “a mighty good one. 258 He went by here a little while ago. Name’s Dr. Rankin. I’ll rustle him out for you. Oh, you Pete!” he shouted into the interior of the building.

A moment’s shuffling about preceded the appearance of a negro boy of twelve or fourteen.

“Yes, sah.”

“Go find Dr. Rankin and bring him here right away. Tell him a gentleman wants him.”

“You’ve got a mighty sudden sort of camp here,” said I, as we settled ourselves to wait. “Three months ago I went through here, and there was practically nothing.”

“Looks to be a thousand years, though,” agreed the hotel man. “Where you been?”

“Oh, just prospecting,” I replied vaguely.

“Strike it?”

“Just fair,” I evaded; “not rich enough to keep me from coming back, you see. Any finds here?”

“The diggings are rich as mud,” replied the hotel man dispassionately. “It’s a prosperous camp all right.”

“You don’t ’wash’ yourself?” I asked.

“Not I! I make more than my ‘ounce a day’ right here.” He jerked his thumb at his hotel.

“A good many ‘loafers,’” I suggested.

He looked at me steadily, hesitated for a moment, then evidently changed his mind.

“Quite a few,” he agreed.

At this moment the negro boy appeared, closely followed by the man with the blue coat and white beaver hat whom I had taken for an eccentric gambler. This man walked slowly up to face me.

259“Well, sir?” he demanded. “I am told I can be of service. In what way?”

His piercing black eye held mine with a certain high arrogance.

“Professionally, doctor,” I replied. “A friend of mine is lying badly hurt in a nearby hut.”

For a barely appreciable instant his eye held mine after I had ceased speaking, as though he was appraising me. Then he bowed with old-fashioned courtesy.

“At your service, sir,” said he. “Pete, you black rascal, get my bag, and get it quick.”

The little negro, who had stood by obviously worshipping, broke into a grin and darted into the hotel, almost instantly reappearing with a regulation professional satchel.

“At your service, sir,” repeated Dr. Rankin.

We took our stately progress up the street, through the deep red dust. The hot sun glared down upon us, reflecting from the surface of the earth in suffocating heat. Hard as I was, I flushed and perspired. The doctor never turned a hair. As we passed one of the saloons a huge, hairy man lurched out, nearly colliding with us. He was not drunk, but he was well flushed with drink. His mood was evidently ugly, for he dropped his hand to the butt of his revolver, and growled something truculent at me, glaring through bloodshot eyes. Dr. Rankin, who had stepped back to avoid collision, spoke up:

“Malone,” said he, “I told you a week ago that you have to stop drinking or come to me. I repeat it.”

260He turned his keen black eyes upon the big man, and stepped forward. The big man muttered something and moved aside.

Arrived at the hut of the MoreÑas, for that it seemed was the name of our host and hostess, Dr. Rankin laid aside his furry beaver hat, walked directly to the side of the bunk on which Yank lay, and began his examination, without vouchsafing anything or anybody else the slightest glance. Nor did he seem to pay more attention to Yank as a human being, but prodded and pulled and hauled and manipulated him from top to toe, his gray, hawk face intent and absorbed. Occasionally, as he repeated some prod, he looked up keenly into Yank’s face, probably for some slight symptom of pain that escaped us, for Yank remained stoical. But he asked no questions. At the end of ten minutes he threw the blanket over our friend’s form and stood erect, carefully dusting the ends of his fingers against one another.

“Broken leg, badly set,” said he; “two broken ribs; severe surface bruises; and possibility of internal bruises in the region of the spleen. Neglected too long. Why wasn’t I sent for before?”

I explained. Dr. Rankin listened attentively, but made no comment. His eyes travelled slowly over us all–the fat, pleasant, brown California woman, her bearded husband, who had come in from the diggings, Bagsby’s tall, wiry old form, the worn remains of Don Gaspar’s finery, and lingered a moment on Johnny’s undisguisable air of high spirit and breeding.

“How many of you belong here?” he demanded. “I 261 can’t waste time on the rest of you. Those who are not directly concerned, kindly step outside.”

“Johnny and I will take care of this,” I told the others hastily, before they had time to say anything.

“Now,” cried Dr. Rankin, removing his blue coat, and turning back the frills of his shirt, “hot water!”

We assisted at the rather dreadful process of resetting a broken leg three days old. At the end of the operation we were all pretty limp.

“How long?” gasped Yank, opening his eyes.

“Three months; not a day less if you want that leg to be as good as ever,” stated Dr. Rankin uncompromisingly.

Yank closed his eyes and groaned.

The doctor resumed his coat and picked up his beaver hat.

“What treatment?” I ventured to ask.

“I will inform the woman,” replied the doctor. “These Californians are the best nurses in the world, once things are on a proper footing.”

“Your fee, sir?” asked Johnny very formally, for the doctor’s brusque manner had rubbed.

“One ounce,” stated Dr. Rankin. “I shall direct the woman, and I shall return one week from to-day unless conditions change. In that case, summon me.”

He pouched the gold dust that Johnny shook into the palm of his hand at a guess, bowed formally to each of us in turn, picked up his bag and departed, rigidly erect, the fine red dust crawling and eddying at his feet.

Then we held a council of war, all of us. Don Gaspar 262 announced his intention of returning to his rancho in the south.

“I have found the gold, and I have made fren’s, and I have now enough,” said he.

Bagsby, too, said he thought he would just ride down as far as Sutter’s Fort, there to lay in a supply of powder and ball for a trip in the mountains.

“I kind of want to git up another b’ar fight,” said he. “If I thought there was a ghost of a show to git them robbers for you boys, I’d stay and help you scout for them; but there ain’t a show in the world. They’ve had a good three days’ start.”

After shaking hands with us again and again, and obtaining promises that we should all surely meet in San Francisco or Monterey, they mounted and took their departure in order to get well clear of the settlement before nightfall.

When they had gone Yank opened his eyes from the apparent sleep into which he had fallen.

“You fellows don’t hang around here with me, I can tell you that,” he stated. “I’m fixed all right. I want you to make arrangements with these people yere to keep me; tuck my gold under my piller, stack old Betsey up yere in the corner by me, and go about your business. You come out yere to dig gold, not to take keer of cripples.”

“All right, Yank, we’ll fix it somehow,” I agreed. “Now if you’re all right, Johnny and I will just go and straighten out our camp things a little.”

We were now, it will be remembered, without horses. Don Gaspar had unpacked our few belongings before 263 departing. Johnny and I found a good camping place, then carried the stuff over on our backs. We cooked ourselves some food, lit pipes, and sat down to talk the situation over.

We got nowhere. As a matter of fact, we were both in the dead-water of reaction from hard, long-continued labour, and we could not bring ourselves to face with any enthusiasm the resuming of gold washing. Revulsion shook us at the mere thought of getting down in a hot, glaring ravine and moving heavy earth and rocks. Yet we had not made a fortune, nor much of a beginning at one, and neither of us was what is known as a quitter. We realized perfectly that we would go on gold mining.

“What we need is a recess,” Johnny ended, “and I move we take it. Just let’s camp here, and loaf for a few days or a week, and see how Yank gets along, and then we can go back to Porcupine.”

As though this decision lifted a great weight, we sat back on our shoulder blades with a sigh of relief, and blew tobacco smoke straight up in the air for at least fifteen minutes. By the end of that time we, being young and restless, felt thoroughly refreshed.

“Let’s go look this outfit over,” suggested Johnny.

We gravitated naturally to the diggings, which were very much like those at Hangman’s Gulch, except that they were rather more extensive, and branched out more into the tributary ravines. The men working there were, many of them, of a much better type than those we had seen in town; though even here was a large element of rough-looking, wild, reckless customers. We wandered 264 about here and there, our hands in our pockets, a vast leisure filling our souls. With some of the more pleasant-appearing miners we conversed. They told us that the diggings were rich, good “ounce a day” diggings. We saw a good many cradles in use. It was easy to tell the old-timers from the riffraff of newcomers. A great many of the latter seemed to lack the steadiness of purpose characteristic of nearly all the first rush. They worked haphazardly, spasmodically, pulling and hauling against each other. Some should not have been working at all, for their eyes were sunken in their heads from illness.

“We’ve got to hustle now,” they told us. “We can take a good rest when the rains stop work.”

We noticed especially a marked change in demeanour among some of the groups. In the early part of the summer every man answered every man good-naturedly, except he happened to have a next day’s head or some other sort of a personal grouch. Now many compact little groups of men worked quite apart. When addressed they merely scowled or looked sullen, evidently quite unwilling to fraternize with the chance-comer.

We loafed about here and there through the diggings, swapping remarks with the better disposed, until the men began to knock off work. Then we returned through the village.

Its street had begun to fill. Here, too, we could not but be struck by the subtle change that had come over the spirit of the people. All used to seem like the members of a big family, good-natured and approachable even when strangers. Now a slower acquaintance must precede familiarity. 265 We seemed out of it because we did not know anybody, something we had not felt before in a mining camp. There was no hostility in this, not an iota; only now it had evidently become necessary to hold a man off a little until one knew something about him. People seemed, somehow, watchful, in spite of the surface air of good-nature and of boisterous spirits. We did not quite understand this at the moment, but we learned more about it later.

We sauntered along peering into the various buildings. The saloons were here more elaborate than at Hangman’s, the gambling places larger, and with some slight attempt at San Francisco splendour. That is to say, there were large gilt-framed mirrors on the walls, nude pictures, and in some cases a stage for musical performers. One of the three stores was devoted entirely to clothing and “notions,” to us a new departure in specialization. We were sadly in need of garments, so we entered, and were at once met by a very oily, suave specimen of the chosen people. When we had escaped from this robber’s den we looked at each other in humorous dismay.

“Glad Yank don’t need clothes, anyway,” said Johnny.

We were, it will be remembered, out of provisions, so we entered also one of the general stores to lay in a small supply. The proprietor proved to be an old friend, Jones, the storekeeper at Hangman’s.

“Which,” said Johnny shrewdly, “is a sad commentary on the decline of the diggings at Hangman’s.”

Jones was evidently prosperous, and doing business on a much larger scale than at the old place; for in his 266 commodious building were quantities of goods displayed and many barrels and boxes still unopened. He did not recognize us, of course; and we had to await the completion of a tale he was telling a group perched on the counters and on the boxes.

“Got a consignment of mixed goods from Mellin,” he was saying, “and one of the barrels wasn’t marked with anything I could make out. I knocked the top in, and chucked her out behind for spoiled beef. Certainly stunk like it. Well, sir, that barrel lay there for a good ten days; and then one day up drifted a Dutchman with a brogue on him thick enough to plant flag-poles in. ‘How mooch,’ says he ‘is dot stoof?’ ‘What stuff?’ says I. ‘Dot stoof oudt behind.’ ‘I ain’t got no stuff out behind! What’s eating you?’ says I. Then he points out that spoiled beef. ‘Good Lord!’ says I, ‘help yourself. I got a lot of nerve, but not enough to charge a man for anything that stinks like that beef. But you better let it alone; you’ll get sick!’ Well, sir, you wouldn’t think there was any Dutchmen in the country, now would you? but they came to that stink like flies to molasses. Any time I’d look out the back door I’d see one or two nosing around that old spoiled beef. Then one day another old beer-belly sagged in. ‘Say, you got any more barrels of dot sauerkraut?’ he wants to know. ‘That what?’ I asks. ‘Dot sauerkraut,’ says he, ‘like dot in the backyard. I gif you goot price for a whole barrel,’ says he. And here I’d give away a whole barrel! I might’ve got a dollar a pound for the stuff. I don’t know what it might be worth to a Dutchman.”

267He turned away to wait on us.

“And you wouldn’t guess there was so many Dutchmen in the country!” he repeated.

We paid his terrible prices for our few necessities, and went out. The music was beginning to tune up from the gambling places and saloons. It reminded us of our Italian friend.

“Seems to me his place was right here where we are,” puzzled Johnny. “Hanged if I don’t believe this is the place; only they’ve stuck a veranda roof on it.”

We turned into the entrance of the hotel, to find ourselves in the well-remembered long, low room wherein we had spent the evening a few months before. It was now furnished with a bar, the flimsy partitions had been knocked out, and evidently additions had been constructed beyond the various closed doors. The most conspicuous single thing was a huge bulletin board occupying one whole end. It was written over closely with hundreds and hundreds of names. Several men were laboriously spelling them out. This, we were given to understand, was a sort of register of the overland immigrants; and by its means many parties obtained first news of scattered members.

The man behind the bar looked vaguely familiar to me, but I could not place him.

“Where’s the proprietor of this place?” I asked him.

He indicated a short, blowsy, truculent-looking individual who was, at the moment, staring out the window.

“There used to be an Italian-” I began.

The barkeeper uttered a short barking laugh as he turned to attend to a customer.

268“He found the climate bad for his heart–and sold out!” said he.

On the wall opposite was posted a number of printed and written handbills. We stopped idly to examine them. They had in general to do with lost property, stolen horses, and rewards for the apprehension of various individuals. One struck us in particular. It was issued by a citizens’ committee of San Francisco, and announced a general reward for the capture of any member of the “Hounds.”

“Looks as if they’d got tired of that gang down there,” Johnny observed. “They were ruling the roost when we left. Do you know, I saw one of those fellows this afternoon–perhaps you remember him–a man with a queer sort of blue scar over one cheekbone. I swear I saw him in San Francisco. There’s our chance to make some money, Jim.”

The proprietor of the hotel turned to look at Johnny curiously, and several of the loafers drinking at the bar glanced in the direction of his clear young voice. We went on reading and enjoying the notices, some of which were very quaint. Suddenly the door burst open to admit a big man followed closely by a motley rabble. The leader was a red-faced, burly, whiskered individual, with a red beard and matted hair. As he turned I saw a star-shaped blue scar above his cheekbone.

“Where’s the - - - that is going to make some money out of arresting me?” he roared, swinging his huge form ostentatiously toward the centre of the room.

I confessed I was aghast, and completely at a loss. 269 A row was evidently unavoidable, and the odds were against us. Almost at the instant the door came open, Johnny, without waiting for hostile demonstration, jerked his Colt’s revolvers from their holsters. With one bound he reached the centre of the room, and thrust the muzzles beneath the bully’s nose. His black eyes were snapping.

“Shut up, you hound!” he said in a low, even voice. “I wouldn’t condescend to make money out of your miserable carcass, except at a glue factory. And if you or your friends so much as wink an eyelid, I’ll put you in shape for it.”

Caught absolutely by surprise, the “Hound” stared fascinated into the pistol barrels, his jaw dropped, his face redder than ever, his eyes ridiculously protruding. I had recovered my wits and had backed against the bulletin board, a revolver in either hand, keeping an eye on the general company. Those who had burst in with the bully had stopped frozen in their tracks. The others were interested, but not particularly excited.

“I’m going to stay in this camp,” Johnny advised crisply, “and I’m not going to be bothered by big bluffs like you. I warn you, and all like you, to let me alone and keep away from me. You stay in camp, or you can leave camp, just as you please, but I warn you that I shoot you next time I lay eyes on you. Now, about face! March!”

Johnny’s voice had an edge of steel. The big man obeyed orders implicitly. He turned slowly, and sneaked out the door. His followers shambled toward the bar. Johnny passed them rather contemptuously under the review of 270 his snapping eyes, and they shambled a trifle faster. Then, with elaborate nonchalance, we sauntered out.

“My Lord, Johnny!” I cried when we had reached the street, “that was fine! I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“Damn the luck!” he cried, kicking a tin can. “Oh, damn!”

He muttered to himself a moment, then turned to me with humorous despair.

“What a stupid, useless mess!” he cried. “The minute that fellow came into the room I saw we were let in for a row; so I went at it quick before he had got organized. He didn’t expect that. He thought he’d have to work us into it.”

“It certainly got him,” said I.

“But it just starts us all wrong here,” complained Johnny. “We are marked men.”

“We’ll just have to look out for him a little. I don’t believe he’s really dangerous. He looks to me a lot like a bluffer.”

“Oh, him!” said Johnny contemputously, “he doesn’t worry me any. It’s all the rest of them. I’ve practically challenged all the hard cases in camp, don’t you see? I’m no longer an inconspicuous newcomer. Every tough character with any real nerve will want to tackle me now, just to try me out.”

From the impulsive and unanalytical Johnny this was surprising enough, and my face must have showed it.

“I’ve seen it worked out in my part of the country,” he explained sombrely. “I don’t want to bother with that sort of thing. I’m a peaceable citizen. Now I’ve 271 got to walk around on tiptoe all the time watching for trouble. Oh, damn!”

“If you’re afraid-” I began.

“I’m not afraid,” said Johnny so simply that I believed him at once. “But I’m annoyed. And of course you recognized that barkeeper.”

“I thought I’d seen him before, but I don’t remember just where.”

“He’s one of those fellows we fired out of our canoe down at Chagres. You can bet he doesn’t love us any!”

“You move along to Porcupine to-morrow,” I suggested. “I can look after Yank all right. They won’t bother me.”

Johnny walked for some steps in silence.

“No, they won’t bother you,” he repeated slowly.

He thought for a moment, then he threw back his head. “But look here, Jim,” he said briskly, “you forget. I told that fellow and his friends that I was going to live in this place. I can’t leave now.”

“Nonsense,” said I. “What do you care for that gang?”

“It would look like running away. No, I certainly don’t intend to leave now.”