This is a chapter I hate to write; and therefore I shall get it over with as soon as possible.

Yank had progressed from his bunk to the bench outside, and from that to a slow hobbling about near the MoreÑa cabin. Two of the three months demanded by Dr. Rankin had passed. Yank’s leg had been taken from the splint, and, by invoking the aid of stout canes, he succeeded in shifting around. But the trail to town was as yet too rough for him. Therefore a number of us were in the habit of spending our early evenings with him. We sat around the door, and smoked innumerable pipes, and talked sixty to the minute. MoreÑa had a guitar to the accompaniment of which he sang a number of plaintive and sweet-toned songs. Three or four of his countrymen occasionally came up from below. Then they, too, sang more plaintive songs; or played a strange game with especial cards which none of us “gringos” could ever fathom; or perhaps stepped a grave, formal sort of dance. SeÑora MoreÑa, the only woman, would sometimes join in this. She was a large woman, but extraordinarily light on her feet. In fact, as she swayed and balanced opposite her partner she reminded me of nothing so much as a balloon tugging gently at its string.

343“But it ees good, the dance, eh, seÑores?” she always ended, her broad, kind face shining with pleasure.

We Americans reciprocated with a hoe-down or so, to jigging strains blasphemously evoked by one of our number from that gentle guitar; and perhaps a song or two. Oh, Susannah! was revived; and other old favourites; and we had also the innumerable verses of a brand-new favourite, local to the country. It had to do with the exploits and death of one Lame Jesse. I can recall only two of the many verses:

When the evening chill descended, which now was quite early, we scattered to our various occupations, leaving Yank to his rest.

One Sunday in the middle of October two men trudged into town leading each a pack-horse.

I was at the time talking to Barnes at his hotel, and saw them from a distance hitching their animals outside Morton’s. They stayed there for some time, then came out, unhitched their horses, led them as far as the Empire, hesitated, finally again tied the beasts, and disappeared. In this manner they gradually worked along to the Bella 344 Union, where at last I recognized them as McNally and Buck Barry, our comrades of the Porcupine. Of course I at once rushed over to see them.

I found them surrounded by a crowd to whom they were offering drinks free-handed. Both were already pretty drunk, but they knew me as soon as I entered the door, and surged toward me hands out.

“Well! well! well!” cried McNally delightedly. “And here’s himself! And who’d have thought of seeing you here! I made sure you were in the valley and out of the country long since. And you’re just in time! Make a name for it? Better call it whiskey straight. Drink to us, my boy! Come, join my friends! We’re all friends here! Come on, and here’s to luck, the best luck ever! We’ve got two horse-loads of gold out there–nothing but gold–and it all came from our old diggings. You ought to have stayed. We had no trouble. Bagsby was an old fool!” All the time he was dragging me along by the arm toward the crowd at the bar. Barry maintained an air of owlish gravity.

“Where’s Missouri Jones?” I inquired; but I might as well have asked the stone mountains. McNally chattered on, excited, his blue eyes dancing, bragging over and over about his two horse-loads of gold.

The crowd took his whiskey, laughed with him, and tried shrewdly to pump him as to the location of his diggings. McNally gave them no satisfaction there; but even when most hilarious retained enough sense to put them off the track.

As will be imagined, I was most uneasy about the 345 whole proceeding, and tried quietly to draw the two men off.

“No, sir!” cried McNally, “not any! Jes’ struck town, and am goin’ to have a time!” in which determination he was cheered by all the bystanders. I did not know where to turn; Johnny was away on one of his trips, and Danny Randall was not to be found. Finally inspiration served me.

“Come down first and see Yank,” I urged. “Poor old Yank is crippled and can’t move.”

That melted them at once. They untied their long-suffering animals, and we staggered off down the trail.

On the way down I tried, but in vain, to arouse them to a sense of danger.

“You’ve let everybody in town know you have a lot of dust,” I pointed out.

McNally merely laughed recklessly.

“Good boys!” he cried; “wouldn’t harm a fly!” and I could veer him to no other point of view. Barry agreed to everything, very solemn and very owlish.

We descended on Yank like a storm. I will say that McNally at any time was irresistible and irrepressible, but especially so in his cups. We laughed ourselves sick that afternoon. The MoreÑas were enchanted. Under instructions, and amply supplied with dust, MoreÑa went to town and returned with various bottles. SeÑora MoreÑa cooked a fine supper. In the meantime, I, as apparently the only responsible member of the party, unsaddled the animals, and brought their burdens into the cabin. Although McNally’s statement as to the loads consisting 346 exclusively of gold was somewhat of an exaggeration, nevertheless the cantinas were very heavy. Not knowing what else to do with them, I thrust them under Yank’s bunk.

The evening was lively, I will confess it, and under the influence of it my caution became hazy. Finally, when I at last made my way back to my own camp, I found myself vastly surprised to discover Yank hobbling along by my side. I don’t know why he came with me, and I do not think he knew either. Probably force of habit. At any rate, we left the other four to sleep where they would. I remember we had some difficulty in finding places to lie.

The sun was high when we awoke. We were not feeling very fresh, to say the least; and we took some little time to get straightened around. Then we went down to the MoreÑa cabin.

I am not going to dwell on what we found there. All four of its inmates had been killed with buckshot, and the place ransacked from end to end. Apparently the first volley had killed our former partners and SeÑora MoreÑa as they lay. MoreÑa had staggered to his feet and halfway across the room.

The excitement caused by this frightful crime was intense. Every man quit work. A great crowd assembled. Morton as sheriff was very busy, and loud threats were uttered by his satellites as to the apprehension of the murderers. The temper of the crowd, however, was sullen. No man dared trust his neighbour, and yet every honest breast swelled with impotent indignation at this wholesale and unprovoked massacre. No clue was possible. Everybody 347 remembered, of course, how broadcast and publicly the fact of the gold had been scattered. Nobody dared utter his suspicions, if he had any.

The victims were buried by a large concourse, that eddied and hesitated and muttered long after the graves had been filled in. Vaguely it was felt that the condition of affairs was intolerable; but no one knew how it was to be remedied. Nothing definite could be proved against any one, and yet I believe that every honest man knew to a moral certainty at least the captains and instigators of the various outrages. A leader could have raised an avenging mob–provided he could have survived the necessary ten minutes!

We scattered at last to our various occupations. I was too much upset to work, so I returned to where Yank was smoking over the fire. He had, as near as I can remember, said not one word since the discovery of the tragedy. On my approach he took his pipe from his mouth.

“Nothing done?” he inquired.

“Nothing,” I replied. “What is there to be done?”

“Don’t know,” said he, replacing his pipe; then around the stem of it, “I was fond of those people.”

“So was I,” I agreed sincerely. “Have you thought what a lucky escape you yourself had?”

Yank nodded. We sat for a long time in silence. My thoughts turned slowly and sullenly in a heavy, impotent anger. A small bird chirped plaintively from the thicket near at hand. Except for the tinkle of our little stream and the muffled roar of the distant river, this was the only sound to strike across the dead black silence of the autumn night. So persistently did the bird utter its single call 348 that at last it aroused even my downcast attention, so that I remarked on it carelessly to Yank. He came out of his brown study and raised his head.

“It’s no bird, it’s a human,” he said, after listening a moment. “That’s a signal. Go see what it is. Just wander out carelessly.”

In the depths of the thicket I found a human figure crouched. It glided to me, and I made out dimly the squat form of Pete, Barnes’s negro slave, from the hotel.

“Lo’dee, massa,” whispered he, “done thought you nevah would come.”

“What is it, Pete?” I asked in the same guarded tones.

“I done got somefin’ to tell you. While I ketchin’ a lil’ bit of sleep ’longside that white trash Mo’ton’s place, I done heah dey all plannin’ to git out warrant for to arres’ Massa Fairfax and Massa Pine and Massa Ma’sh for a-killin’ dem men las’ week; and I heah dem say dey gwine fer to gib dem trial, and if dey fight dey gwine done shoot ’em.”

“That is serious news, Pete,” said I. “Who were talking?” But Pete, who was already frightened half to death, grew suddenly cautious.

“I don’ jest rightly know, sah,” he said sullenly. “I couldn’t tell. Jes’ Massa Mo’ton. He say he gwine sw’ar in good big posse.”

“I can believe that,” said I thoughtfully. “Pete,” I turned on him suddenly, “don’t you know they’d skin you alive if they found out you’d been here?”

Pete was shaking violently, and at my words a strong 349 shudder went through his frame, and his teeth struck faintly together.

“Why did you do it?”

“Massa Fairfax is quality, sah,” he replied with a certain dignity. “I jest a pore nigger, but I knows quality when I sees it, and I don’t aim to have no pore white truck kill none of my folks if I can help it.”

“Pete,” said I, fully satisfied, “you are a good fellow. Now get along back.”

He disappeared before the words were fairly out of my mouth.

“Yank,” I announced, returning to the fire, “I’ve got to go uptown. That was Pete, Barnes’s nigger, to say that they’ve got out a legal warrant for the express messengers’ arrest for that killing last week. Neat little scheme.”

I found Danny Randall in his accustomed place. At a hint he sent for Dr. Rankin. To the two I unfolded the plot. Both listened in silence until I had quite finished. Then Danny leaped to his feet and hit the table with his closed fist.

“The fools!” he cried. “I gave them credit for more sense. Hit at Danny Randall’s men, will they? Well, they’ll find that Danny Randall can protect his own! Forgotten that little point, have they?”

The cool, impassive, mild little man had changed utterly. His teeth bared, the muscles of his cheeks tightened, two deep furrows appeared between his eyes, which sparkled and danced. From the most inoffensive looking creature possible to imagine he had become suddenly menacing and dangerous.

350“What do you intend, Randall?” asked Dr. Rankin. He was leaning slightly forward, and he spoke in a gentle voice, but his hand was clenched on the table, and his figure was rigid.

“Do?” repeated Randall fiercely; “why, run that gang out of town, of course!”

“I thought you said the time was not ripe?”

“We’ll ripen it!” said Danny Randall.