Chapter III: Part 3

If Mr. M'Ginnis had fondly conceived that he would make Billy “useful,” as well as companionable, he was singularly mistaken. Horses and mules were scarce in Rocky Canyon, and he attempted to utilize Billy by making him draw a small cart, laden with auriferous earth, from his claim to the river. Billy, rapidly gaining strength, was quite equal to the task, but alas! not his inborn propensity. An incautious gesture from the first passing miner Billy chose to construe into the usual challenge. Lowering his head, from which his budding horns had been already pruned by his master, he instantly went for his challenger, cart and all. Again the scientific law already pointed out prevailed. With the shock of the onset the entire contents of the cart arose and poured over the astonished miner, burying him from sight. In any other but a Californian mining-camp such a propensity in a draught animal would have been condemned, on account of the damage and suffering it entailed, but in Rocky Canyon it proved unprofitable to the owner from the very amusement and interest it excited. Miners lay in wait for Billy with a “greenhorn,” or new-comer, whom they would put up to challenge the animal by some indiscreet gesture. In this way hardly a cartload of “pay-gravel” ever arrived safely at its destination, and the unfortunate M'Ginnis was compelled to withdraw Billy as a beast of burden. It was whispered that so great had his propensity become, under repeated provocation, that M'Ginnis himself was no longer safe. Going ahead of his cart one day to remove a fallen bough from the trail, Billy construed the act of stooping into a playful challenge from his master,--with the inevitable result.

The next day M'Ginnis appeared with a wheelbarrow, but without Billy. From that day he was relegated to the rocky crags above the camp, from whence he was only lured occasionally by the mischievous miners, who wished to exhibit his peculiar performances. For although Billy had ample food and sustenance among the crags, he had still a civilized longing for posters; and whenever a circus, a concert, or a political meeting was “billed” in the settlement, he was on hand while the paste was yet fresh and succulent. In this way it was averred that he once removed a gigantic theatre bill setting forth the charms of the “Sacramento Pet,” and being caught in the act by the advance agent, was pursued through the main street, carrying the damp bill on his horns, eventually affixing it, after his own peculiar fashion, on the back of Judge Boompointer, who was standing in front of his own court-house.

In connection with the visits of this young lady another story concerning Billy survives in the legends of Rocky Canyon. Colonel Starbottle was at that time passing through the settlement on election business, and it was part of his chivalrous admiration for the sex to pay a visit to the pretty actress. The single waiting-room of the little hotel gave upon the veranda, which was also level with the street. After a brief yet gallant interview, in which he oratorically expressed the gratitude of the settlement with old-fashioned Southern courtesy, Colonel Starbottle lifted the chubby little hand of the “Pet” to his lips, and, with a low bow, backed out upon the veranda. But the Pet was astounded by his instant reappearance, and by his apparently casting himself passionately and hurriedly at her feet! It is needless to say that he was followed closely by Billy, who from the street had casually noticed him, and construed his novel exit into an ungentlemanly challenge.

Billy's visits, however, became less frequent, and as Rocky Canyon underwent the changes incidental to mining settlements, he was presently forgotten in the invasion of a few Southwestern families, and the adoption of amusements less practical and turbulent than he had afforded. It was alleged that he was still seen in the more secluded fastnesses of the mountains, having reverted to a wild state, and it was suggested by one or two of the more adventurous that he might yet become edible, and a fair object of chase. A traveler through the Upper Pass of the canyon related how he had seen a savage-looking, hairy animal like a small elk perched upon inaccessible rocks, but always out of gunshot. But these and other legends were set at naught and overthrown by an unexpected incident.

The Pioneer Coach was toiling up the long grade towards Skinners Pass when Yuba Bill suddenly pulled up, with his feet on the brake.

“Jimminy!” he ejaculated, drawing a deep breath.

The startled passenger beside him on the box followed the direction of his eyes. Through an opening in the wayside pines he could see, a few hundred yards away, a cuplike hollow in the hillside of the vividest green. In the centre a young girl of fifteen or sixteen was dancing and keeping step to the castanet “click” of a pair of “bones,” such as negro minstrels use, held in her hands above her head. But, more singular still, a few paces before her a large goat, with its neck roughly wreathed with flowers and vines, was taking ungainly bounds and leaps in imitation of its companion. The wild background of the Sierras, the pastoral hollow, the incongruousness of the figures, and the vivid color of the girl's red flannel petticoat showing beneath her calico skirt, that had been pinned around her waist, made a striking picture, which by this time had attracted all eyes. Perhaps the dancing of the girl suggested a negro “break-down” rather than any known sylvan measure; but all this, and even the clatter of the bones, was made gracious by the distance.

“Esmeralda! by the living Harry!” shouted the excited passenger on the box.

Yuba Bill took his feet off the brake, and turned a look of deep scorn upon his companion as he gathered the reins again.

“It's that blanked goat, outer Rocky Canyon beyond, and Polly Harkness! How did she ever come to take up with HIM?”

Nevertheless, as soon as the coach reached Rocky Canyon, the story was quickly told by the passengers, corroborated by Yuba Bill, and highly colored by the observer on the box-seat. Harkness was known to be a new-comer who lived with his wife and only daughter on the other side of Skinners Pass. He was a “logger” and charcoal-burner, who had eaten his way into the serried ranks of pines below the pass, and established in these efforts an almost insurmountable cordon of fallen trees, stripped bark, and charcoal pits around the clearing where his rude log hut stood,--which kept his seclusion unbroken. He was said to be a half-savage mountaineer from Georgia, in whose rude fastnesses he had distilled unlawful whiskey, and that his tastes and habits unfitted him for civilization. His wife chewed and smoked; he was believed to make a fiery brew of his own from acorns and pine nuts; he seldom came to Rocky Canyon except for provisions; his logs were slipped down a “shoot” or slide to the river, where they voyaged once a month to a distant mill, but HE did not accompany them. The daughter, seldom seen at Rocky Canyon, was a half-grown girl, brown as autumn fern, wild-eyed, disheveled, in a homespun skirt, sunbonnet, and boy's brogans. Such were the plain facts which skeptical Rocky Canyon opposed to the passengers' legends. Nevertheless, some of the younger miners found it not out of their way to go over Skinners Pass on the journey to the river, but with what success was not told. It was said, however, that a celebrated New York artist, making a tour of California, was on the coach one day going through the pass, and preserved the memory of what he saw there in a well-known picture entitled “Dancing Nymph and Satyr,” said by competent critics to be “replete with the study of Greek life.” This did not affect Rocky Canyon, where the study of mythology was presumably displaced by an experience of more wonderful flesh-and-blood people, but later it was remembered with some significance.

Among the improvements already noted, a zinc and wooden chapel had been erected in the main street, where a certain popular revivalist preacher of a peculiar Southwestern sect regularly held exhortatory services. His rude emotional power over his ignorant fellow-sectarians was well known, while curiosity drew others. His effect upon the females of his flock was hysterical and sensational. Women prematurely aged by frontier drudgery and child-bearing, girls who had known only the rigors and pains of a half-equipped, ill-nourished youth in their battling with the hard realities of nature around them, all found a strange fascination in the extravagant glories and privileges of the unseen world he pictured to them, which they might have found in the fairy tales and nursery legends of civilized children, had they known them. Personally he was not attractive; his thin pointed face, and bushy hair rising on either side of his square forehead in two rounded knots, and his long, straggling, wiry beard dropping from a strong neck and shoulders, were indeed of a common Southwestern type; yet in him they suggested something more. This was voiced by a miner who attended his first service, and as the Reverend Mr. Withholder rose in the pulpit, the former was heard to audibly ejaculate, “Dod blasted!--if it ain't Billy!” But when on the following Sunday, to everybody's astonishment, Polly Harkness, in a new white muslin frock and broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, appeared before the church door with the real Billy, and exchanged conversation with the preacher, the likeness was appalling.

I grieve to say that the goat was at once christened by Rocky Canyon as “The Reverend Billy,” and the minister himself was Billy's “brother.” More than that, when an attempt was made by outsiders, during the service, to inveigle the tethered goat into his old butting performances, and he took not the least notice of their insults and challenges, the epithet “blanked hypocrite” was added to his title.

Had he really reformed? Had his pastoral life with his nymph-like mistress completely cured him of his pugnacious propensity, or had he simply found it was inconsistent with his dancing, and seriously interfered with his “fancy steps”? Had he found tracts and hymn-books were as edible as theatre posters? These were questions that Rocky canyon discussed lightly, although there was always the more serious mystery of the relations of the Reverend Mr. Withholder, Polly Harkness, and the goat towards each other. The appearance of Polly at church was no doubt due to the minister's active canvass of the districts. But had he ever heard of Polly's dancing with the goat? And where in this plain, angular, badly dressed Polly was hidden that beautiful vision of the dancing nymph which had enthralled so many? And when had Billy ever given any suggestion of his Terpsichorean abilities--before or since? Were there any “points” of the kind to be discerned in him now? None! Was it not more probable that the Reverend Mr. Withholder had himself been dancing with Polly, and been mistaken for the goat? Passengers who could have been so deceived with regard to Polly's beauty might have as easily mistaken the minister for Billy. About this time another incident occurred which increased the mystery.

The only male in the settlement who apparently dissented from the popular opinion regarding Polly was a new-comer, Jack Filgee. While discrediting her performance with the goat,--which he had never seen,--he was evidently greatly prepossessed with the girl herself. Unfortunately, he was equally addicted to drinking, and as he was exceedingly shy and timid when sober, and quite unpresentable at other times, his wooing, if it could be so called, progressed but slowly. Yet when he found that Polly went to church, he listened so far to the exhortations of the Reverend Mr. Withholder as to promise to come to “Bible class” immediately after the Sunday service. It was a hot afternoon, and Jack, who had kept sober for two days, incautiously fortified himself for the ordeal by taking a drink before arriving. He was nervously early, and immediately took a seat in the empty church near the open door. The quiet of the building, the drowsy buzzing of flies, and perhaps the soporific effect of the liquor caused his eyes to close and his head to fall forward on his breast repeatedly. He was recovering himself for the fourth time when he suddenly received a violent cuff on the ear, and was knocked backward off the bench on which he was sitting. That was all he knew.

He picked himself up with a certain dignity, partly new to him, and partly the result of his condition, and staggered, somewhat bruised and disheveled, to the nearest saloon. Here a few frequenters who had seen him pass, who knew his errand and the devotion to Polly which had induced it, exhibited a natural concern.

“How's things down at the gospel shop?” said one. “Look as ef you'd been wrastlin' with the Sperit, Jack!”

“Old man must hev exhorted pow'ful,” said another, glancing at his disordered Sunday attire.

“Ain't be'n hevin' a row with Polly? I'm told she slings an awful left.”

Jack, instead of replying, poured out a dram of whiskey, drank it, and putting down his glass, leaned heavily against the counter as he surveyed his questioners with a sorrow chastened by reproachful dignity.

“I'm a stranger here, gentlemen,” he said slowly “ye've known me only a little; but ez ye've seen me both blind drunk and sober, I reckon ye've caught on to my gin'ral gait! Now I wanter put it to you, ez fair-minded men, ef you ever saw me strike a parson?”

“No,” said a chorus of sympathetic voices. The barkeeper, however, with a swift recollection of Polly and the Reverend Withholder, and some possible contingent jealousy in Jack, added prudently, “Not yet.”

The chorus instantly added reflectively, “Well, no not yet.”

“Did ye ever,” continued Jack solemnly, “know me to cuss, sass, bully-rag, or say anything agin parsons, or the church?”

“No,” said the crowd, overthrowing prudence in curiosity, “ye never did,--we swear it! And now, what's up?”

“I ain't what you call 'a member in good standin','” he went on, artistically protracting his climax. “I ain't be'n convicted o' sin; I ain't 'a meek an' lowly follower;' I ain't be'n exactly what I orter be'n; I hevn't lived anywhere up to my lights; but is thet a reason why a parson should strike me?”

“Why? What? When did he? Who did?” asked the eager crowd, with one voice.

Jack then painfully related how he had been invited by the Reverend Mr. Withholder to attend the Bible class. How he had arrived early, and found the church empty. How he had taken a seat near the door to be handy when the parson came. How he just felt “kinder kam and good,” listenin' to the flies buzzing, and must have fallen asleep,--only he pulled himself up every time,--though, after all, it warn't no crime to fall asleep in an empty church! How “all of a suddent” the parson came in, “give him a clip side o' the head,” and knocked him off the bench, and left him there!

“But what did he SAY?” queried the crowd.

“Nuthin'. Afore I could get up, he got away.”

“Are you sure it was him?” they asked. “You know you SAY you was asleep.”

“Am I sure?” repeated Jack scornfully. “Don't I know thet face and beard? Didn't I feel it hangin' over me?”

“What are you going to do about it?” continued the crowd eagerly.

“Wait till he comes out--and you'll see,” said Jack, with dignity.

This was enough for the crowd; they gathered excitedly at the door, where Jack was already standing, looking towards the church. The moments dragged slowly; it might be a long meeting. Suddenly the church door opened and a figure appeared, looking up and down the street. Jack colored--he recognized Polly--and stepped out into the road. The crowd delicately, but somewhat disappointedly, drew back in the saloon. They did not care to interfere in THAT sort of thing.

Polly saw him, and came hurriedly towards him. She was holding something in her hand.

“I picked this up on the church floor,” she said shyly, “so I reckoned you HAD be'n there,--though the parson said you hadn't,--and I just excused myself and ran out to give it ye. It's yourn, ain't it?” She held up a gold specimen pin, which he had put on in honor of the occasion. “I had a harder time, though, to git this yer,--it's yourn too,--for Billy was laying down in the yard, back o' the church, and just comf'bly swallerin' it.”

“Who?” said Jack quickly.

“Billy,--my goat.”

Jack drew a long breath, and glanced back at the saloon. “Ye ain't goin' back to class now, are ye?” he said hurriedly. “Ef you ain't, I'll--I'll see ye home.”

“I don't mind,” said Polly demurely, “if it ain't takin' ye outer y'ur way.”

Jack offered his arm, and hurrying past the saloon, the happy pair were soon on the road to Skinners Pass.

Jack did not, I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could hit out straight from the shoulder had, in the language of the critics, “suthin' in him.” Oddly enough, the crowd that had at first sympathized with Jack now began to admit provocations. His subsequent silence, a disposition when questioned on the subject to smile inanely, and, later, when insidiously asked if he had ever seen Polly dancing with the goat, his bursting into uproarious laughter completely turned the current of opinion against him. The public mind, however, soon became engrossed by a more interesting incident.

The Reverend Mr. Withholder had organized a series of Biblical tableaux at Skinnerstown for the benefit of his church. Illustrations were to be given of “Rebecca at the Well,” “The Finding of Moses,” “Joseph and his Brethren;” but Rocky Canyon was more particularly excited by the announcement that Polly Harkness would personate “Jephthah's Daughter.” On the evening of the performance, however, it was found that this tableau had been withdrawn and another substituted, for reasons not given. Rocky Canyon, naturally indignant at this omission to represent native talent, indulged in a hundred wild surmises. But it was generally believed that Jack Filgee's revengeful animosity to the Reverend Mr. Withholder was at the bottom of it. Jack, as usual, smiled inanely, but nothing was to be got from him. It was not until a few days later, when another incident crowned the climax of these mysteries, that a full disclosure came from his lips.

One morning a flaming poster was displayed at Rocky Canyon, with a charming picture of the “Sacramento Pet” in the briefest of skirts, disporting with a tambourine before a goat garlanded with flowers, who bore, however, an undoubted likeness to Billy. The text in enormous letters, and bristling with points of admiration, stated that the “Pet” would appear as “Esmeralda,” assisted by a performing goat, especially trained by the gifted actress. The goat would dance, play cards, and perform those tricks of magic familiar to the readers of Victor Hugo's beautiful story of the “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and finally knock down and overthrow the designing seducer, Captain Phoebus. The marvelous spectacle would be produced under the patronage of the Hon. Colonel Starbottle and the Mayor of Skinnerstown.

As all Rocky Canyon gathered open-mouthed around the poster, Jack demurely joined the group. Every eye was turned upon him.

“It don't look as if yer Polly was in THIS show, any more than she was in the tablows,” said one, trying to conceal his curiosity under a slight sneer. “She don't seem to be doin' any dancin'!”

“She never DID any dancin',” said Jack, with a smile.

“Never DID! Then what was all these yarns about her dancin' up at the pass?”

“It was the Sacramento Pet who did all the dancin'; Polly only LENT the goat. Ye see, the Pet kinder took a shine to Billy arter he bowled Starbottle over thet day at the hotel, and she thought she might teach him tricks. So she DID, doing all her teachin' and stage-rehearsin' up there at the pass, so's to be outer sight, and keep this thing dark. She bribed Polly to lend her the goat and keep her secret, and Polly never let on a word to anybody but me.”

“Then it was the Pet that Yuba Bill saw dancin' from the coach?”

“Yes.”

“And that yer artist from New York painted as an 'Imp and Satire'?”

“Yes.”

“Then that's how Polly didn't show up in them tablows at Skinnerstown? It was Withholder who kinder smelt a rat, eh? and found out it was only a theayter gal all along that did the dancin'?”

“Well, you see,” said Jack, with affected hesitation, “thet's another yarn. I don't know mebbe ez I oughter tell it. Et ain't got anything to do with this advertisement o' the Pet, and might be rough on old man Withholder! Ye mustn't ask me, boys.”

But there was that in his eye, and above all in this lazy procrastination of the true humorist when he is approaching his climax, which rendered the crowd clamorous and unappeasable. They WOULD have the story!

Seeing which, Jack leaned back against a rock with great gravity, put his hands in his pockets, looked discontentedly at the ground, and began: “You see, boys, old Parson Withholder had heard all these yarns about Polly and thet trick-goat, and he kinder reckoned that she might do for some one of his tablows. So he axed her if she'd mind standin' with the goat and a tambourine for Jephthah's Daughter, at about the time when old Jeph comes home, sailin' in and vowin' he'll kill the first thing he sees,--jest as it is in the Bible story. Well, Polly didn't like to say it wasn't HER that performed with the goat, but the Pet, for thet would give the Pet dead away; so Polly agrees to come thar with the goat and rehearse the tablow. Well, Polly's thar, a little shy; and Billy,--you bet HE'S all there, and ready for the fun; but the darned fool who plays Jephthah ain't worth shucks, and when HE comes in he does nothin' but grin at Polly and seem skeert at the goat. This makes old Withholder jest wild, and at last he goes on the platform hisself to show them how the thing oughter be done. So he comes bustlin' and prancin' in, and ketches sight o' Polly dancin' in with the goat to welcome him; and then he clasps his hands--so--and drops on his knees, and hangs down his head--so--and sez, 'Me chyld! me vow! Oh, heavens!' But jest then Billy--who's gettin' rather tired o' all this foolishness--kinder slues round on his hind legs, and ketches sight o' the parson!” Jack paused a moment, and thrusting his hands still deeper in his pockets, said lazily, “I don't know if you fellers have noticed how much old Withholder looks like Billy?”

There was a rapid and impatient chorus of “Yes! yes!” and “Go on!”

“Well,” continued Jack, “when Billy sees Withholder kneelin' thar with his head down, he gives a kind o' joyous leap and claps his hoofs together, ez much ez to say, 'I'm on in this scene,' drops his own head, and jest lights out for the parson!”

“And butts him clean through the side scenes into the street,” interrupted a delighted auditor.

But Jack's face never changed. “Ye think so?” he said gravely. “But thet's jest whar ye slip up; and thet's jest whar Billy slipped up!” he added slowly. “Mebbe ye've noticed, too, thet the parson's built kinder solid about the head and shoulders. It mought hev be'n thet, or thet Billy didn't get a fair start, but thet goat went down on his fore legs like a shot, and the parson gave one heave, and jest scooted him off the platform! Then the parson reckoned thet this yer 'tablow' had better be left out, as thar didn't seem to be any other man who could play Jephthah, and it wasn't dignified for HIM to take the part. But the parson allowed thet it might be a great moral lesson to Billy!”

And it WAS, for from that moment Billy never attempted to butt again. He performed with great docility later on in the Pet's engagement at Skinnerstown; he played a distinguished role throughout the provinces; he had had the advantages of Art from “the Pet,” and of Simplicity from Polly, but only Rocky Canyon knew that his real education had come with his first rehearsal with the Reverend Mr. Withholder.

DICK SPINDLER'S FAMILY CHRISTMAS

There was surprise and sometimes disappointment in Rough and Ready, when it was known that Dick Spindler intended to give a “family” Christmas party at his own house. That he should take an early opportunity to celebrate his good fortune and show hospitality was only expected from the man who had just made a handsome “strike” on his claim; but that it should assume so conservative, old-fashioned, and respectable a form was quite unlooked-for by Rough and Ready, and was thought by some a trifle pretentious. There were not half-a-dozen families in Rough and Ready; nobody ever knew before that Spindler had any relations, and this “ringing in” of strangers to the settlement seemed to indicate at least a lack of public spirit. “He might,” urged one of his critics, “hev given the boys,--that had worked alongside o' him in the ditches by day, and slung lies with him around the camp-fire by night,--he might hev given them a square 'blow out,' and kep' the leavin's for his old Spindler crew, just as other families do. Why, when old man Scudder had his house-raisin' last year, his family lived for a week on what was left over, arter the boys had waltzed through the house that night,--and the Scudders warn't strangers, either.” It was also evident that there was an uneasy feeling that Spindler's action indicated an unhallowed leaning towards the minority of respectability and exclusiveness, and a desertion--without the excuse of matrimony--of the convivial and independent bachelor majority of Rough and Ready.

“Ef he was stuck after some gal and was kinder looking ahead, I'd hev understood it,” argued another critic.

“Don't ye be too sure he ain't,” said Uncle Jim Starbuck gloomily. “Ye'll find that some blamed woman is at the bottom of this yer 'family' gathering. That and trouble ez almost all they're made for!”

There happened to be some truth in this dark prophecy, but none of the kind that the misogynist supposed. In fact, Spindler had called a few evenings before at the house of the Rev. Mr. Saltover, and Mrs. Saltover, having one of her “Saleratus headaches,” had turned him over to her widow sister, Mrs. Huldy Price, who obediently bestowed upon him that practical and critical attention which she divided with the stocking she was darning. She was a woman of thirty-five, of singular nerve and practical wisdom, who had once smuggled her wounded husband home from a border affray, calmly made coffee for his deceived pursuers while he lay hidden in the loft, walked four miles for that medical assistance which arrived too late to save him, buried him secretly in his own “quarter section,” with only one other witness and mourner, and so saved her position and property in that wild community, who believed he had fled. There was very little of this experience to be traced in her round, fresh-colored brunette cheek, her calm black eyes, set in a prickly hedge of stiff lashes, her plump figure, or her frank, courageous laugh. The latter appeared as a smile when she welcomed Mr. Spindler. “She hadn't seen him for a coon's age,” but “reckoned he was busy fixin' up his new house.”

“Well, yes,” said Spindler, with a slight hesitation, “ye see, I'm reckonin' to hev a kinder Christmas gatherin' of my”--he was about to say “folks,” but dismissed it for “relations,” and finally settled upon “relatives” as being more correct in a preacher's house.

Mrs. Price thought it a very good idea. Christmas was the natural season for the family to gather to “see who's here and who's there, who's gettin' on and who isn't, and who's dead and buried. It was lucky for them who were so placed that they could do so and be joyful.” Her invincible philosophy probably carried her past any dangerous recollections of the lonely grave in Kansas, and holding up the stocking to the light, she glanced cheerfully along its level to Mr. Spindler's embarrassed face by the fire.

“Well, I can't say much ez to that,” responded Spindler, still awkwardly, “for you see I don't know much about it anyway.”

“How long since you've seen 'em?” asked Mrs. Price, apparently addressing herself to the stocking.

Spindler gave a weak laugh. “Well, you see, ef it comes to that, I've never seen 'em!”

Mrs. Price put the stocking in her lap and opened her direct eyes on Spindler. “Never seen 'em?” she repeated. “Then, they're not near relations?”

“There are three cousins,” said Spindler, checking them off on his fingers, “a half-uncle, a kind of brother-in-law,--that is, the brother of my sister-in-law's second husband,--and a niece. That's six.”

“But if you've not seen them, I suppose they've corresponded with you?” said Mrs. Price.

“They've nearly all of 'em written to me for money, seeing my name in the paper ez hevin' made a strike,” returned Spindler simply; “and hevin' sent it, I jest know their addresses.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Price, returning to the stocking.

Something in the tone of her ejaculation increased Spindler's embarrassment, but it also made him desperate. “You see, Mrs. Price,” he blurted out, “I oughter tell ye that I reckon they are the folks that 'hevn't got on,' don't you see, and so it seemed only the square thing for me, ez had 'got on,' to give them a sort o' Christmas festival. Suthin', don't ye know, like what your brother-in-law was sayin' last Sunday in the pulpit about this yer peace and goodwill 'twixt man and man.”

Mrs. Price looked again at the man before her. His sallow, perplexed face exhibited some doubt, yet a certain determination, regarding the prospect the quotation had opened to him. “A very good idea, Mr. Spindler, and one that does you great credit,” she said gravely.

“I'm mighty glad to hear you say so, Mrs. Price,” he said, with an accent of great relief, “for I reckoned to ask you a great favor! You see,” he fell into his former hesitation, “that is--the fact is--that this sort o' thing is rather suddent to me,--a little outer my line, don't you see, and I was goin' to ask ye ef you'd mind takin' the hull thing in hand and runnin it for me.”

“Running it for you,” said Mrs. Price, with a quick eye-shot from under the edge of her lashes. “Man alive! What are you thinking of?”

“Bossin' the whole job for me,” hurried on Spindler, with nervous desperation. “Gettin' together all the things and makin' ready for 'em,--orderin' in everythin' that's wanted, and fixin' up the rooms,--I kin step out while you're doin' it,--and then helpin' me receivin' 'em, and sittin' at the head o' the table, you know,--like ez ef you was the mistress.”

“But,” said Mrs. Price, with her frank laugh, “that's the duty of one of your relations,--your niece, for instance,--or cousin, if one of them is a woman.”

“But,” persisted Spindler, “you see, they're strangers to me; I don't know 'em, and I do you. You'd make it easy for 'em,--and for me,--don't you see? Kinder introduce 'em,--don't you know? A woman of your gin'ral experience would smooth down all them little difficulties,” continued Spindler, with a vague recollection of the Kansas story, “and put everybody on velvet. Don't say 'No,' Mrs. Price! I'm just kalkilatin' on you.”

Sincerity and persistency in a man goes a great way with even the best of women. Mrs. Price, who had at first received Spindler's request as an amusing originality, now began to incline secretly towards it. And, of course, began to suggest objections.

“I'm afraid it won't do,” she said thoughtfully, awakening to the fact that it would do and could be done. “You see, I've promised to spend Christmas at Sacramento with my nieces from Baltimore. And then there's Mrs. Saltover and my sister to consult.”

But here Spindler's simple face showed such signs of distress that the widow declared she would “think it over,”--a process which the sanguine Spindler seemed to consider so nearly akin to talking it over that Mrs. Price began to believe it herself, as he hopefully departed.

She “thought it over” sufficiently to go to Sacramento and excuse herself to her nieces. But here she permitted herself to “talk it over,” to the infinite delight of those Baltimore girls, who thought this extravaganza of Spindler's “so Californian and eccentric!” So that it was not strange that presently the news came back to Rough and Ready, and his old associates learned for the first time that he had never seen his relatives, and that they would be doubly strangers. This did not increase his popularity; neither, I grieve to say, did the intelligence that his relatives were probably poor, and that the Reverend Mr. Saltover had approved of his course, and had likened it to the rich man's feast, to which the halt and blind were invited. Indeed, the allusion was supposed to add hypocrisy and a bid for popularity to Spindler's defection, for it was argued that he might have feasted “Wall-eyed Joe” or “Tangle-foot Billy,”--who had once been “chawed” by a bear while prospecting,--if he had been sincere. Howbeit, Spindler's faith was oblivious to these criticisms, in his joy at Mr. Saltover's adhesion to his plans and the loan of Mrs. Price as a hostess. In fact, he proposed to her that the invitation should also convey that information in the expression, “by the kind permission of the Rev. Mr. Saltover,” as a guarantee of good faith, but the widow would have none of it. The invitations were duly written and dispatched.

“Suppose,” suggested Spindler, with a sudden lugubrious apprehension,--“suppose they shouldn't come?”

“Have no fear of that,” said Mrs. Price, with a frank laugh.

“Or ef they was dead,” continued Spindler.

“They couldn't all be dead,” said the widow cheerfully.

“I've written to another cousin by marriage,” said Spindler dubiously, “in case of accident; I didn't think of him before, because he was rich.”

“And have you ever seen him either, Mr. Spindler?” asked the widow, with a slight mischievousness.

“Lordy! No!” he responded, with unaffected concern.

Only one mistake was made by Mrs. Price in her arrangements for the party. She had noticed what the simple-minded Spindler could never have conceived,--the feeling towards him held by his old associates, and had tactfully suggested that a general invitation should be extended to them in the evening.

“You can have refreshments, you know, too, after the dinner, and games and music.”

“But,” said the unsophisticated host, “won't the boys think I'm playing it rather low down on them, so to speak, givin' 'em a kind o' second table, as ef it was the tailings after a strike?”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Price, with decision. “It's quite fashionable in San Francisco, and just the thing to do.”

To this decision Spindler, in his blind faith in the widow's management, weakly yielded. An announcement in the “Weekly Banner” that, “On Christmas evening Richard Spindler, Esq., proposed to entertain his friends and fellow citizens at an 'at home,' in his own residence,” not only widened the breach between him and the “boys,” but awakened an active resentment that only waited for an outlet. It was understood that they were all coming; but that they should have “some fun out of it” which might not coincide with Spindler's nor his relatives' sense of humor seemed a foregone conclusion.

Unfortunately, too, subsequent events lent themselves to this irony of the situation.

He was so obviously sincere in his intent, and, above all, seemed to place such a pathetic reliance on her judgment, that she hesitated to let him know the shock his revelation had given her. And what might his other relations prove to be? Good Lord! Yet, oddly enough, she was so prepossessed by him, and so fascinated by his very Quixotism, that it was perhaps for these complex reasons that she said a little stiffly:--

“One of these cousins, I see, is a lady, and then there is your niece. Do you know anything about them, Mr. Spindler?”

His face grew serious. “No more than I know of the others,” he said apologetically. After a moment's hesitation he went on: “Now you speak of it, it seems to me I've heard that my niece was di-vorced. But,” he added, brightening up, “I've heard that she was popular.”

Mrs. Price gave a short laugh, and was silent for a few minutes. Then this sublime little woman looked up at him. What he might have seen in her eyes was more than he expected, or, I fear, deserved. “Cheer up, Mr. Spindler,” she said manfully. “I'll see you through this thing, don't you mind! But don't you say anything about--about--this Vigilance Committee business to anybody. Nor about your niece--it was your niece, wasn't it?--being divorced. Charley (the late Mr. Price) had a queer sort of sister, who--but that's neither here nor there! And your niece mayn't come, you know; or if she does, you ain't bound to bring her out to the general company.”

At parting, Spindler, in sheer gratefulness, pressed her hand, and lingered so long over it that a little color sprang into the widow's brown cheek. Perhaps a fresh courage sprang into her heart, too, for she went to Sacramento the next day, previously enjoining Spindler on no account to show any answers he might receive. At Sacramento her nieces flew to her with confidences.

“We so wanted to see you, Aunt Huldy, for we've heard something so delightful about your funny Christmas Party!” Mrs. Price's heart sank, but her eyes snapped. “Only think of it! One of Mr. Spindler's long-lost relatives--a Mr. Wragg--lives in this hotel, and papa knows him. He's a sort of half-uncle, I believe, and he's just furious that Spindler should have invited him. He showed papa the letter; said it was the greatest piece of insolence in the world; that Spindler was an ostentatious fool, who had made a little money and wanted to use him to get into society; and the fun of the whole thing was that this half-uncle and whole brute is himself a parvenu,--a vulgar, ostentatious creature, who was only a”--

“Never mind what he was, Kate,” interrupted Mrs. Price hastily. “I call his conduct a shame.”

“So do we,” said both girls eagerly. After a pause Kate clasped her knees with her locked fingers, and rocking backwards and forwards, said, “Milly and I have got an idea, and don't you say 'No' to it. We've had it ever since that brute talked in that way. Now, through him, we know more about this Mr. Spindler's family connections than you do; and we know all the trouble you and he'll have in getting up this party. You understand? Now, we first want to know what Spindler's like. Is he a savage, bearded creature, like the miners we saw on the boat?”

Mrs. Price said that, on the contrary, he was very gentle, soft-spoken, and rather good-looking.

“Young or old?”

“Young,--in fact, a mere boy, as you may judge from his actions,” returned Mrs. Price, with a suggestive matronly air.

Kate here put up a long-handled eyeglass to her fine gray eyes, fitted it ostentatiously over her aquiline nose, and then said, in a voice of simulated horror, “Aunt Huldy,--this revelation is shocking!”

Mrs. Price laughed her usual frank laugh, albeit her brown cheek took upon it a faint tint of Indian red. “If that's the wonderful idea you girls have got, I don't see how it's going to help matters,” she said dryly.

“No, that's not it? We really have an idea. Now look here.”

Mrs. Price “looked here.” This process seemed to the superficial observer to be merely submitting her waist and shoulders to the arms of her nieces, and her ears to their confidential and coaxing voices.

Twice she said “it couldn't be thought of,” and “it was impossible;” once addressed Kate as “You limb!” and finally said that she “wouldn't promise, but might write!”

*****

It was two days before Christmas. There was nothing in the air, sky, or landscape of that Sierran slope to suggest the season to the Eastern stranger. A soft rain had been dropping for a week on laurel, pine, and buckeye, and the blades of springing grasses and shyly opening flowers. Sedate and silent hillsides that had grown dumb and parched towards the end of the dry season became gently articulate again; there were murmurs in hushed and forgotten canyons, the leap and laugh of water among the dry bones of dusty creeks, and the full song of the larger forks and rivers. Southwest winds brought the warm odor of the pine sap swelling in the forest, or the faint, far-off spice of wild mustard springing in the lower valleys. But, as if by some irony of Nature, this gentle invasion of spring in the wild wood brought only disturbance and discomfort to the haunts and works of man. The ditches were overflowed, the fords of the Fork impassable, the sluicing adrift, and the trails and wagon roads to Rough and Ready knee-deep in mud. The stage-coach from Sacramento, entering the settlement by the mountain highway, its wheels and panels clogged and crusted with an unctuous pigment like mud and blood, passed out of it through the overflowed and dangerous ford, and emerged in spotless purity, leaving its stains behind with Rough and Ready. A week of enforced idleness on the river “Bar” had driven the miners to the more comfortable recreation of the saloon bar, its mirrors, its florid paintings, its armchairs, and its stove. The steam of their wet boots and the smoke of their pipes hung over the latter like the sacrificial incense from an altar. But the attitude of the men was more critical and censorious than contented, and showed little of the gentleness of the weather or season.

“Did you hear if the stage brought down any more relations of Spindler's?”

The barkeeper, to whom this question was addressed, shifted his lounging position against the bar and said, “I reckon not, ez far ez I know.”

“And that old bloat of a second cousin--that crimson beak--what kem down yesterday,--he ain't bin hangin' round here today for his reg'lar pizon?”

“No,” said the barkeeper thoughtfully, “I reckon Spindler's got him locked up, and is settin' on him to keep him sober till after Christmas, and prevent you boys gettin' at him.”

“He'll have the jimjams before that,” returned the first speaker; “and how about that dead beat of a half-nephew who borrowed twenty dollars of Yuba Bill on the way down, and then wanted to get off at Shootersvilie, but Bill wouldn't let him, and scooted him down to Spindler's and collected the money from Spindler himself afore he'd give him up?”

“He's up thar with the rest of the menagerie,” said the barkeeper, “but I reckon that Mrs. Price hez bin feedin' him up. And ye know the old woman--that fifty-fifth cousin by marriage--whom Joe Chandler swears he remembers ez an old cook for a Chinese restaurant in Stockton,--darn my skin ef that Mrs. Price hasn't rigged her out in some fancy duds of her own, and made her look quite decent.”

A deep groan here broke from Uncle Jim Starbuck.

“Didn't I tell ye?” he said, turning appealingly to the others. “It's that darned widow that's at the bottom of it all! She first put Spindler up to givin' the party, and now, darn my skin, ef she ain't goin to fix up these ragamuffins and drill 'em so we can't get any fun outer 'em after all! And it's bein' a woman that's bossin' the job, and not Spindler, we've got to draw things mighty fine and not cut up too rough, or some of the boys will kick.”

“You bet,” said a surly but decided voice in the crowd.

“And,” said another voice, “Mrs. Price didn't live in 'Bleeding Kansas' for nothing.”

“Wot's the programme you've settled on, Uncle Jim?” said the barkeeper lightly, to check what seemed to promise a dangerous discussion.

“Well,” said Starbuck, “we kalkilate to gather early Christmas night in Hooper's Hollow and rig ourselves up Injun fashion, and then start for Spindler's with pitch-pine torches, and have a 'torchlight dance' around the house; them who does the dancin' and yellin' outside takin' their turn at goin' in and hevin' refreshment. Jake Cooledge, of Boston, sez if anybody objects to it, we've only got to say we're 'Mummers of the Olden Times,' sabe? Then, later, we'll have 'Them Sabbath Evening Bells' performed on prospectin' pans by the band. Then, at the finish, Jake Cooledge is goin' to give one of his surkastic speeches,--kinder welcomin' Spindler's family to the Free Openin' o' Spindler's Almshouse and Reformatory.” He paused, possibly for that approbation which, however, did not seem to come spontaneously. “It ain't much,” he added apologetically, “for we're hampered by women; but we'll add to the programme ez we see how things pan out. Ye see, from what we can hear, all of Spindler's relations ain't on hand yet! We've got to wait, like in elckshun times, for 'returns from the back counties.' Hello! What's that?”

It was the swish and splutter of hoofs on the road before the door. The Sacramento coach! In an instant every man was expectant, and Starbuck darted outside on the platform. Then there was the usual greeting and bustle, the hurried ingress of thirsty passengers into the saloon, and a pause. Uncle Jim returned, excitedly and pantingly. “Look yer, boys! Ef this ain't the richest thing out! They say there's two more relations o' Spindler's on the coach, come down as express freight, consigned,--d'ye hear?--consigned to Spindler!”

“Stiffs, in coffins?” suggested an eager voice.

“I didn't get to hear more. But here they are.”

There was the sudden irruption of a laughing, curious crowd into the bar-room, led by Yuba Bill, the driver. Then the crowd parted, and out of their midst stepped two children, a boy and a girl, the oldest apparently of not more than six years, holding each other's hands. They were coarsely yet cleanly dressed, and with a certain uniform precision that suggested formal charity. But more remarkable than all, around the neck of each was a little steel chain, from which depended the regular check and label of the powerful Express Company, Wells; Fargo & Co., and the words: “To Richard Spindler.” “Fragile.” “With great care.” “Collect on delivery.” Occasionally their little hands went up automatically and touched their labels, as if to show them. They surveyed the crowd, the floor, the gilded bar, and Yuba Bill without fear and without wonder. There was a pathetic suggestion that they were accustomed to this observation.

“Now, Bobby,” said Yuba Bill, leaning back against the bar, with an air half-paternal, half-managerial, “tell these gents how you came here.”

“By Wellth, Fargoth Expreth,” lisped Bobby.

“Whar from?”

“Wed Hill, Owegon.”

“Red Hill, Oregon? Why, it's a thousand miles from here,” said a bystander.

“I reckon,” said Yuba Bill coolly, “they kem by stage to Portland, by steamer to 'Frisco, steamer again to Stockton, and then by stage over the whole line. Allers by Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express, from agent to agent, and from messenger to messenger. Fact! They ain't bin tetched or handled by any one but the Kempany's agents; they ain't had a line or direction except them checks around their necks! And they've wanted for nothin' else. Why, I've carried heaps o' treasure before, gentlemen, and once a hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks, but I never carried anythin' that was watched and guarded as them kids! Why, the division inspector at Stockton wanted to go with 'em over the line; but Jim Bracy, the messenger, said he'd call it a reflection on himself and resign, ef they didn't give 'em to him with the other packages! Ye had a pretty good time, Bobby, didn't ye? Plenty to eat and drink, eh?”

The two children laughed a little weak laugh, turned each other bashfully around, and then looked up shyly at Yuba Bill and said, “Yeth.”

“Do you know where you are goin'?” asked Starbuck, in a constrained voice.

It was the little girl who answered quickly and eagerly:--

“Yes, to Krissmass and Sandy Claus.”

“To what?” asked Starbuck.

Here the boy interposed with a superior air:--

“Thee meanth Couthin Dick. He'th got Krithmath.”

“Where's your mother?”

“Dead.”

“And your father?”

“In orthpittal.”

There was a laugh somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd. Every one faced angrily in that direction, but the laugher had disappeared. Yuba Bill, however, sent his voice after him. “Yes, in hospital! Funny, ain't it?--amoosin' place! Try it. Step over here, and in five minutes, by the living Hoky, I'll qualify you for admission, and not charge you a cent!” He stopped, gave a sweeping glance of dissatisfaction around him, and then, leaning back against the bar, beckoned to some one near the door, and said in a disgusted tone, “You tell these galoots how it happened, Bracy. They make me sick!”

Thus appealed to, Bracy, the express messenger, stepped forward in Yuba Bill's place.

“It's nothing particular, gentlemen,” he said, with a laugh, “only it seems that some man called Spindler, who lives about here, sent an invitation to the father of these children to bring his family to a Christmas party. It wasn't a bad sort of thing for Spindler to do, considering that they were his poor relations, though they didn't know him from Adam,--was it?” He paused; several of the bystanders cleared their throats, but said nothing. “At least,” resumed Bracy, “that's what the boys up at Red Hill, Oregon, thought, when they heard of it. Well, as the father was in hospital with a broken leg, and the mother only a few weeks dead, the boys thought it mighty rough on these poor kids if they were done out of their fun because they had no one to bring them. The boys couldn't afford to go themselves, but they got a little money together, and then got the idea of sendin' 'em by express. Our agent at Red Hill tumbled to the idea at once; but he wouldn't take any money in advance, and said he would send 'em 'C. O. D.' like any other package. And he did, and here they are! That's all! And now, gentlemen, as I've got to deliver them personally to this Spindler, and get his receipt and take off their checks, I reckon we must toddle. Come, Bill, help take 'em up!”

“Hold on!” said a dozen voices. A dozen hands were thrust into a dozen pockets; I grieve to say some were regretfully withdrawn empty, for it was a hard season in Rough and Ready. But the expressman stepped before them, with warning, uplifted hand.

“Not a cent, boys,--not a cent! Wells, Fargo's Express Company don't undertake to carry bullion with those kids, at least on the same contract!” He laughed, and then looking around him, said confidentially in a lower voice, which, however, was quite audible to the children, “There's as much as three bags of silver in quarter and half dollars in my treasure box in the coach that has been poured, yes, just showered upon them, ever since they started, and have been passed over from agent to agent and messenger to messenger,--enough to pay their passage from here to China! It's time to say quits now. But bet your life, they are not going to that Christmas party poor!”

He caught up the boy, as Yuba Bill lifted the little girl to his shoulder, and both passed out. Then one by one the loungers in the bar-room silently and awkwardly followed, and when the barkeeper turned back from putting away his decanters and glasses, to his astonishment the room was empty.

*****