Kitabı oku: «The Comstock Club», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XII

With the lighting of the pipes one evening, the conversation of the Club turned upon what constituted courage and a high sense of honor; whether they were native or acquired gifts. A good deal of talk ensued, until at last Wright's opinion was asked:

"You are all right," said he, "and all wrong. Some men are born insensible to fear, and some have a high sense of honor through instinct. But this, I take it, is not the rule and comes, I think, mostly as an hereditary gift, through long generations of proud ancestors. In my judgment, no gift to mortals is as noble as a lofty, honest pride. I do not mean that spurious article which we see so much of, but the pride which will not permit a man or woman to have an unworthy thought, because of the sense of degradation which it brings to the breast that entertains it. This, I believe, is more common in women than in men, and I suppose that it was this divine trait, manifesting itself in a brutal age, which gave birth to the chivalry of the Middle Ages.

"I have known a few men who, I believe, were born without the instinct of fear. Charley Fairfax was one of these. He was a dead shot with a pistol. He had some words with a man one day on the street in Sacramento, and the man being very threatening, Fairfax drew and cocked his Derringer. At the same moment the man drove the blade of a sword cane through one of the lungs of Fairfax, making a wound which eventually proved fatal. Fairfax raised his Derringer and took a quick aim at the heart of the murderer, but suddenly dropped the weapon and said: 'You have killed me, but you have a wife and children; for their sakes I give you your life,' and sank fainting and, as he thought, dying, into the arms of a friend who caught him as he was falling.

"There are other men as generous as Fairfax was, but to do what he did, when smarting under a fatal wound, requires the coolness and the nerve of absolute self-possession.

"Not one man in a million under such circumstances could command himself enough to think to be generous. Many a man has, for his courage, had a statue raised to his memory who never did and never could have given any such proof of a manhood absolutely self-contained as did Fairfax on that occasion.

"But, as a rule, we are all mere creatures of education. A friend of mine came 'round the Horn in a clipper ship. He told me that when off the cape they encountered a gale which drove the ship far to the southward; that the weather was so dreadfully cold that the ship's rigging was sheeted with ice from sleet and frozen spray.

"One evening the gale slackened a little and some sails were bent on, but toward the turn of the night the wind came on again and the sails had to be taken in. Said my friend: 'The men went up those swaying masts and out upon those icy yards apparently without a thought of danger, while I stood upon the deck fairly trembling with terror merely watching them.' After awhile the storm was weathered, the cape was rounded and the ship put into Valparaiso for fresh supplies.

"The sailors were given a holiday. They went ashore and hired saddle horses to visit some resort a few miles out of town. They mounted and started away, but within three minutes half of them returned leading their horses, and one spoke for all when he said: 'The brute is crank; I am afraid he will broach to and capsize.'

"The men who rode the icy spars off Cape Horn on that inky midnight were afraid to ride those gentle mustangs.

"There are, I suppose, in this city to-night one hundred men who, with knife or pistol, would fight anybody and not think much about it. But what would they do were they placed where I saw Corrigan unconcernedly working to-day?

"He was sitting on a narrow plank which had been laid across a shaft at the eight hundred-foot level, repairing a pump column. He was eight hundred feet from the surface, and there was only that plank between him and the bottom of that shaft nine hundred feet below. Put the ordinary ruffian who cuts and shoots on that plank and he would faint and fall off through sheer fright."

"I guess you are right," interposed Carlin. "There is the Mexican who lives across the street from us. If I were to take a revolver and go over there in the morning and attack him, the chances are I would scare him to death; were I to try the same experiment with a bowie knife the chances are more than even that he would give me more of a game than I would want, and simply because he is accustomed to a knife and not to a pistol.

"So the mountain trapper will attack a grizzly bear with perfect coolness, or cross the swiftest stream in a canoe without any fear, but bring the same man for the first time here to the mine and ask him to get on a cage with you and go down a shaft, and he will grow pale and tremble like a girl."

"An Indian," suggested the Professor, "at the side of a white man will go into a desperate battle and never flinch; so long as the white man lives he will fight even unto death. But let a white man engage in a hand to hand fight with two or three Indians, and if he has the nerve to hold him up to the fight for two or three minutes he will conquer, because an hereditary fear overcomes the savage that the pale face will conquer in the end. That is really the cowardice which Falstaff assumed to feel, the cowardice of instinct in the presence of the true prince, and is the mark which the Indian mothers have impressed upon their babes for ten generations.

"The rule is that we follow our trades!"

"Then some men are brave at one time and cowardly at another," said the Colonel. "Men who will fight without shrinking, by day, are often completely demoralized by a night attack. With such men the trouble is, they cannot see to estimate their danger, and their imaginations multiply and magnify it a hundred fold. I know a man in this city who has been in a hundred fights, many of them most desperate encounters. He told me once that he believed it would frighten him to death to be awakened at night by a burglar in his room.

"This is the fear, too, which paralyzes men in the presence of an earthquake. The sky may be clear and the air still, but the thought that in a moment chaos may come is too much for the ordinary nerves of mortals."

"The bravest act I ever witnessed was on C street in this city," responded Strong. "It was a little Hebrew dunning a desperado for the balance due on a pair of pantaloons. The amount was six dollars and fifty cents. I would not have asked the fighter for the money for six times the sum, but the little chap not only asked for it, but when the fighter tried to evade him, he seized him by the arm with one hand and putting the forefinger of his other hand alongside his own nose, in the most insulting tone possible said: 'You does not get avay. Der man vot does not bay for his glose is, vots yer call him? one d – d loafer. I vants my monish.'

"The fighter could no more escape from that eye than a chicken hawk can from the spell of the eye of the black snake, and so he settled.

"That was the courage which it required the hardships and persecutions of one hundred generations of suffering men to acquire, and I tell you there was something thrilling in the way it was manifested."

"So, too, men's ideas of honor are often warped strangely by education," Miller said. "Do you remember there was a Frenchman hanged in this city a few years ago? On the scaffold, with a grandiloquent air, just before the cap was drawn over his face, he said: 'Zey can hang me, but zey cannot hang Frawnce.' He had from childhood entertained the belief that there was but one entirely invincible nation on this earth, and that was France; and the thought that to the last France must be honored possessed him.

"That man had murdered a poor woman of the town for her money."

"I should say there were some queer ideas of honor in this country," chipped in the Colonel. "I believe the rule among some or all sporting men is, that it is entirely legitimate to practice any advantage on an opponent in a game, so long as the same idea controls the opponent. Still those men have most tenacious ideas of honor. Indeed they have a code of their own. If one borrows money of another he pays it if he has to rob someone to do it. If one stakes another – that is gives him money to play – and a winning is made, the profits are scrupulously divided. If one loses more at night than he has money to pay, he must have it early next morning or go into disgrace.

"A friend of mine who lived on Treasure Hill during that first fearful winter, told me that during that season a faro game was running, and the owners of the bank had won some thirty-five hundred dollars. The dealer's habit was to lock up his place in the forenoon and not return until evening. The interval was his only time for sleep, as the game frequently ran all night.

"Three or four 'sports' who lived together in a house, had lost heavily at this game. One morning, one of them said that if he could only get that dealer's cards for half an hour he believed he could 'fix' them so that the luck of the boys would change.

"They had for a cook and servant a young man who had confessed that he left the East without any extensive or extended preparations, and that he did it to avoid paying a penalty for picking a lock and robbing a till.

"He was called up, it was explained to him what was wanted and for what reason, and asked if it was not possible for him to procure those cards.

"The youth took kindly to the proposition, went away, and in a few minutes returned – not with the cards – but with the dealer's sack of coin, saying as he laid down the sack: 'As I picked the lock of the drawer I found the sack and the cards lying side by side. I thought it would be easier to take the coin than to fool with the cards, and here it is.'

"Instantly there was a commotion, and a perfect storm of imprecations was poured out upon the thief. On every side were shouts of: 'Take back that money! you miserable New York thief! What do you take us for? Take back that sack or we will sell you for headcheese before night!'

"The youth carried back the coin and brought the cards. They were found to be 'fixed'; they were 'fixed' over and returned, and that night 'on the dead square,' the bank was broken. The boys had the sack for the second time, but this time the transaction, according to their code, was entirely legitimate.

"By the operation the professional thief obtained new ideas of the nice distinctions which are made in the gamblers' code of honor."

"I once in Idaho knew a most conscientious judge," said Miller. "In his court a suit involving the title of some mining ground was pending between two companies. In another part of the district the Judge had some claims which were looked upon as mere 'wild cat.'

"He had for a year been trying to raise money to open his claims, but without avail. He had incorporated with 40,000 shares and held his shares at one dollar, with the understanding that twenty per cent. of the stock should be set aside as a working capital. But no one could see the ground with the sanguine eyes of the Judge, so he still had all his stock.

"But one night quite late the Judge heard a soft knock on the door. In answer to his 'come in,' the president of the company that was plaintiff in the mining suit entered, when this conversation ensued:

"'I was looking at your claims over on the east side to-day,' said the President, 'and I believe they are good and would like some of the stock.'

"There is some of it for sale at one dollar,' was the reply.

"'I will take ten thousand shares,' said the President. 'If you please, have the stock ready and I will call at nine o'clock to-morrow morning with the money.'

"'I suppose this transaction had better be kept secret at present,' suggested the Judge.

"'Oh, yes. It is a private speculation of my own and I would rather my company would not hear of it.'

"'Very well, the stock will be ready.'

"The money was promptly paid and the stock delivered.

"The day of trial drew near, when one day the Judge met the superintendent of the company which was defendant in the suit. The Judge told the superintendent that he had some promising claims, and added impressively that if he could afford to purchase about 10,000 shares he felt sure that he would do well. The superintendent admitted that he had examined the claims with considerable care, and believed with the Judge, that there was promise in them. The result was that the next day another ten thousand dollars was paid to the Judge and ten thousand more shares delivered. The Judge deposited sixteen thousand dollars to his own account and four thousand dollars to the credit of the company. With the four thousand dollars he let a contract for work on the mine.

"In due time the case in court came on and was decided in favor of the plaintiff and an appeal provided for. The plaintiff kept still about the stock transaction, but the superintendent of the defendant company did not hesitate to declare that the Judge was a thief. So matters ran along for some months, when one day the aforesaid president and superintendent each received a note asking them to call at the office of the Judge at a certain hour. Both responded, and each was greatly surprised to see the other.

"The Judge opened the business by saying that a grand deposit of ore had been struck on one of the claims from which enough ore had already been taken to enable the company to pay a dollar per share dividend on the capital stock, upon which he pushed a check for ten thousand dollars to each of the men. He then went on to say that he had that morning received an offer of two hundred thousand dollars for the property, which he thought was a fair price, and asked the opinion of the others. They thought so too, and in a few days the money was paid over and each of the two received fifty thousand dollars.

"'Now,' said the Judge, 'let me give you some advice. Settle up that foolish lawsuit outside of court. The claim is not worth what either one of you will pay out in attorneys' fees if you fight it out in the courts.'

"By this time the three men had grown familiar, so the superintendent ventured to say:

"'Judge, will you tell me what caused you to urge me to buy those shares?'

"'I thought it was a good investment,' was the reply.

"'But was not there something else?' asked the superintendent.

"'To tell you the truth,' replied the Judge, 'I had received ten thousand dollars from the President here, and I was afraid if the matter went that way into the court I might be prejudiced, so I sold you a like amount that I might go upon the bench, to try the case, entirely unbiased.'"

"He was a good judge, no doubt, but he ividently had a leaning toward the east side," said Corrigan.

"That was one case where the only justification was success," said Brewster.

"He took his chances, that was all," Miller remarked, "and that is the corner-stone on which every fortune on the coast has been builded. I mean every fortune in mining."

"That is so," chimed in Carlin. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."

"Oh, no, Carlin," said Strong. "You have picked up the idea that is popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets. That is not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing. But what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth, and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade everywhere; that is not gambling. Of course there are mistakes, of course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this world men have to pay for their educations. Twenty years ago there was not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented; so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling mining a lottery. In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the country.

"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the Miller platform are part of the same education.

"By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."

CHAPTER XIII

At length the first sorrow fell upon the Club. The mail brought to Corrigan one day the news of the death of his mother in New York. It was a terrible blow to him. It had been his dream all through the years that he had been absent from his home that some time he would accumulate money enough to provide her with a home, where around her life every comfort would be drawn, and from her life every heart-breaking care would be driven away. But time would not wait for him, and the letter, which only in gentle words told him of his mother's death, kindled in his heart such bitter self-reproaches that for awhile the warm-hearted man's grief was inconsolable.

The Club heartily sympathized with him, but there was little said. The men who face death daily in a deep mine either come to think, after awhile, that this life hangs on too tender a thread to be grieved over so very much when that thread is broken, or, because of the nature of their occupation, which is necessarily carried on mostly in silence, they lose the faculty to say the words which in society circles are intruded upon people who are in deep sorrow.

On this evening the supper was eaten in silence, Corrigan hardly tasting anything.

As the Club took their seats Ashley found opportunity to covertly whisper to Yap Sing that Corrigan had received bad news and he must prepare something especially tempting for him to eat. When the meal was nearly finished Yap Sing brought a mammoth dish of strawberries, a bowl of sugar and pitcher of cream, and after the noiseless manner of his race, set them in front of Corrigan's plate. No one else at the table seemed to notice the act of the Chinaman. Corrigan gave a quick glance around the table and when he saw that no one else was to be served with the berries – that it was meant as a special act of sympathy for him – his eyes filled with tears and he hastily withdrew from the room.

At his leisure during the evening Yap Sing ate the berries and the cream, remarking to himself as he did so:

"Me heap slory Meester Clorigan; me likee be heap slory ebbly day."

For an hour after supper the Club did little but smoke. At length, however, Harding, who usually spent his evenings absorbed in reading, laid aside his book and in his low and kindly voice, began to talk.

"Often when a boy I heard my father tell a story of a woman, a Sister of Charity, which, I think, may be, it will be good to tell to-night. In one of the mountain towns of Northern California a good many years ago, while yet good women, compared to the number of the men, were so disproportionately few, suddenly one day, upon the street, clad in the unattractive garb of a Sister of Charity, appeared a woman whose marvelous loveliness the coarse garments and uncouth hood peculiar to the order could not conceal.

"There was a Sisters' Hospital in the place and this nun was one of the devoted women who had come to minister to the sick in that hospital.

"She was of medium size and height, and despite her shapeless garments it was easy to see that her form was beautiful. The hand that carried a basket was a delicate one; under her unsightly hood glimpses of a brow as white as a planet's light could be caught; the coarse shoes upon her feet were three sizes too large. When she raised her eyes from the inner depths a light like that of kindly stars shone out, and though a Sister of Charity, there was something about her lips which seemed to say that of all famines a famine of kisses was hardest to endure. There was a stately, kindly dignity in her mien, but in all her ways there was a dainty grace which, upon the hungry eyes of the miners of that mountain town, seemed like enchantment. She could not have been more than twenty years of age.

"It was told that she was known as 'Sister Celeste,' that she had recently come to the Western Coast, it was believed, from France, and that was all that was known of her. When the Mother Superior at the hospital was questioned about the new sister, she simply answered: 'Sister Celeste is a sister now; she will be a glorified saint by and by.'

"The first public appearance of Sister Celeste in the town was one Sunday afternoon. She emerged from her hospital and started to carry some delicacy to a poor, sick woman, a Mrs. De Lacy, who lived on the opposite side of the town from the hospital; so to visit her the nun was obliged to walk almost the whole length of the one long, crooked street which, in the narrow canon, included all the business portion of the town.

"When the nun started out from the hospital the town was full of miners, as was the habit in those days on Sunday afternoons, and as the Sister passed along the street hundreds of eyes were bent upon her. She seemed unconscious of the attention she was attracting; had she been walking in her sleep she could not have been more composed.

"Many were the comments made as she passed out of the hearing of different groups of men. One big, rough miner, who had just accepted an invitation to drink, caught sight of the vision, watched the Sister as she passed and then said to the companion who had asked him:

"'Excuse me, Bob, I have a feeling as though my soul had just partaken of the sacrament. No more gin for me to-day.'

"Said another: 'It is a fearful pity. That woman was born to be loved, and to love somebody better than nine hundred and ninety out of every thousand could. Her occupation is, in her case, a sin against nature. Every hour her heart must protest against the starvation which it feels; every day she must feel upon her robes the clasp of little hands which are not to be.'

"One boisterous miner, a little in his cups, watched until the Sister disappeared around a bend in the crooked street, and then cried out: 'Did you see her, boys? That is the style of a woman that a man could die for and smile while dying. Oh! Oh!' Then drawing from his belt a buckskin purse, he held it aloft and shouted: 'Here are eighty ounces of the cleanest dust ever mined in Bear Gulch; it's all I have in the world, but I will give the last grain to any bruiser in this camp who will look crooked at that Sister when she comes back this way, and let me see him do it. In just a minute and a half – but no matter, I'm better that I have seen her.'

"After that, daily, for all the following week, Sister Celeste was seen going to and returning from the sick woman's house. It suddenly grew to be a habit with everybody to uncover their heads as Sister Celeste came by.

"Sunday came around again, and it was noticed that on that morning the nun went early to visit her charge and remained longer than usual. On her return, when just about opposite the main saloon of the place, a kindly, elderly gentleman, who was universally known and respected, ventured to cross the path of the Sister, and address her as follows:

"'I beg pardon, good Sister, but you are attending upon a sick person. We understand that it is a woman. May I not ask if we can not in some way assist you and the woman?'

"A faint flush swept over the glorious face of Sister Celeste as she raised her eyes, but simply and frankly, and with a slight French accent, she answered:

"'The lady, kind sir, is very ill. Unless, in some way, we can manage to remove her to the hospital, where she can have an evenly warmed room and close nursing, I fear she will not live; but she is penniless and we are very poor, and, moreover, I do not see how she can be moved, for there are no carriages.'

"She spoke with perfect distinctness, notwithstanding the slight foreign accent. The accent was no impediment; rather from her lips it gave her words a rhythm like music.

"The man raised his voice: 'Boys,' he shouted, 'there is a suffering woman up the street. She is very destitute and very ill, and must be removed to the hospital. The first thing required is some money.' Then, taking off his hat with one hand, with the other he took from his pocket a twenty-dollar piece, put the money in the hat, then sprang upon a low stump that was standing by the trail and added: 'I start the subscription, those who have a trifle that they can spare will please pass around this way and drop the trifle into the hat.'

"Then Sister Celeste had a new experience. In an instant she was surrounded by a shouting, surging, struggling crowd, all eager to contribute. There was a Babel of voices, but for once a California crowd were awakened to full roar without an oath being heard. The boys could not swear in the presence of Sister Celeste.

"In a few minutes between seven and eight hundred dollars was raised. It was poured out of the hat into a buckskin purse, the purse was tied, and handed, by the man who first addressed her, to Sister Celeste, with the remark that it was for her poor and that when she needed more the boys would stand in.

"Again the nun raised her eyes and in a low voice which trembled a little, she said:

"'Please salute the gentlemen and say to them that God will keep the account.'

"The man turned around and with an awkward laugh said: 'Boys! I am authorized, by one of His angels, to say that for your contribution, God has taken down your names, and given you credit.'

"Then a wild fellow cried out from the crowd:

"'Three cheers for the Angel!'

"The cheers rang out like the braying of a thousand trumpets in accord. Then in a hoarse under-tone a voice shouted 'Tiger!' and the deep-toned old-day California 'Tiger' rolled up the hillsides like an ocean roar. It would have startled an ordinary woman, but Sister Celeste was looking at the purse, and it is doubtful if she heard it at all.

"Then the first speaker called from the crowd eight men, by name, and said:

"'You were all married men in the States and for all that I know to the contrary, were decent, respectable gentlemen. As master of ceremonies I delegate you, as there are no carriages in this camp, to go to the sick woman's house, and carry her to the hospital, while the good Sister proceeds in advance and makes a place for her.'

"This was agreed to, and the Sister was told that in half an hour she might expect her patient.

"Then she hurried away, the crowd watching her and remarking that her usual stately step seemed greatly quickened.

"Long afterward, the Mother Superior related that, when Sister Celeste reached the hospital on that day, she fell sobbing into the Mother's arms, and when she could command her voice, said: 'Those shaggy men that I thought were all tigers are all angels disguised. O, Mother, I have seen them as Moses and Elias were, transfigured.'

"The eight men held a brief consultation in the street, then going to a store they bought a pair of heavy white blankets, an umbrella and four pick handles. Borrowing a packer's needle and some twine they began to sew the pick handles into the sides of the blanket, first rolling the handles around once or twice in the edges of the blanket. They then proceeded to the sick woman's house; one went in first and told the sick woman, gently, what they had come to do, and bade her have no fears, that she was to be moved so gently that if she would close her eyes she would not know anything about it. The others were called in; the blanket was laid upon the floor; the bed was lifted with its burden from the bedstead and laid on the blanket; the covers were neatly tucked under the mattress; four men seized the pickhandles at the sides, lifted the bed, woman and all from the floor, a fifth man stepped outside, raised the umbrella and held it above the woman's face, and so, as gently as ever mother rocked her babe to sleep, the sick woman was carried the whole length of the street to the hospital, where Sister Celeste and the Mother Superior received her.

"Then all hands went up town and talked the matter over, and I am afraid that some of them drank a little, but the burden of all the talk and all the toasts, was Sister Celeste.

"After that the nun was often seen, going on her errands of mercy, and it is true that some men who had been rough and who had drank hard for months previous to the coming of the Sister, grew quiet in their lives and ceased to go to the saloons.

"One day a most laughable event transpired. Two men got quarrelling in the street which in a moment culminated in a fight. The friends of the respective men joined and soon there was a general fight in which perhaps thirty men were engaged. When it was at its height (and such a fight meant something) Sister Celeste suddenly turned the sharp bend of the street and came into full view not sixty yards from where the melee was raging in full fury.