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CHAPTER XVIII
BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT
Our visit to the town we postponed from day to day because we were either too busy or too tired. We thought we could about figure out what that crude sort of village would be like. Then on Saturday evening our neighbour with the twinkling eye–whom we called McNally, without conviction, because he told us to–informed us that there would be a miners’ meeting next day, and that we would be expected to attend.
Accordingly we visited the town. The street was full of men idling slowly to and fro. All the larger structures were wide open, and from within could be heard the sounds of hurdy-gurdies, loud laughter and noisy talk. At one end of the street a group was organizing a horse race; and toward this Don Gaspar took his immediate departure. A smaller group surrounded two wrestlers. At one side a jumping match was going on.
Among the usual incongruities we saw some that amused us more than ordinarily. The Indians, for example, were rather numerous, and remarkable. One wore as his sole garment an old dress coat: another had tied a pair of trousers around his waist; a third had piled a half dozen hats atop, one over the other; and many had on two or more coats. They were, to a man, well drunken. Their squaws, fat and unattractive, squatted outside the single store of the place. We saw also a dozen or so white men dressed very plainly and shabbily, tall, lank, and spindly, rather weakly in general appearance, their faces sallow, their eyes rather childish but crafty and treacherous, their hair thin and straight. The points in common were pointed, nearly brimless hats, like small extinguishers, and that they were the only men to use suspenders. They were from Pike County in Missouri; and in our experience with them we found their appearance a close indication of their character. They were exceedingly skilful with both axe and rifle, were expert backwoodsmen, but without physical strength, very childish and ignorant, vindictive, narrow, and so extremely clannish and tenacious of their own opinions that they were always an exasperating element to be reckoned with, in any public matter. We saw also a compact little group of dark small men, with bright eyes and quick manners. They held close together and chattered like a lot of magpies. McNally, who had spotted us from afar, informed us that these were “keskydees,” and that they always did stick close together.
“What are ‘keskydees’?” I asked him.
“That’s what everybody calls them,” said McNally. “I suppose it’s because they always say it, ‘Keskydee, keskydee,’ like a lot of chickadees.”
“French!” cried Johnny, suddenly enlightened. “Q’estce qu’il dit.”
“Yes, that’s it,” agreed McNally; “keskydee. What does it mean, anyway?”
“What is he saying,” translated Johnny.
At this time there were a great many French in California; and for a number of years I could not quite understand why. Then I learned that most of them were prize winners in a series of lotteries, called the Lotteries of the Golden Ingot. The prizes were passages to California, and the lotteries were very popular. The French, or keskydees, as they were universally called, always went about in gangs, while the other nationalities were more inclined to amalgamate with the rest of the community. We saw, also, several “Dutch Charleys” who had struck it rich. They were moon-faced, bland, chuckle-headed looking men, generally with walrus moustaches, squat and heavy, with fatuous, placid smiles. I suppose they had no real idea of values, but knew only the difference between having money and not having money. These prosperous individuals carried two or even more watches at the ends of long home-made chains constructed of gold nuggets fastened together with lengths of copper wire. The chains were looped around their necks, about their shoulders and waists, and hung down in long festoons. We had three apparently, of these Dutch Charleys, all deadly rivals in magnificence. They paraded slowly up and down the street, quite satisfied with themselves, and casting malevolent glances at each other when they passed.
The two gambling places and saloons were hard at it. The low rooms were full of smoke, and crowded with slowly jostling men. In contrast to the deadly quiet of such places in San Francisco, these were full of noise and hubbub. The men moved restlessly, threw down their little bags of dust impatiently, and accepted victory or defeat with very audible comments. The gamblers, dressed in black, pale, sat steady-eyed and silent behind their layouts. I suppose the life must already have developed, if not a type, at least a uniform mental attitude that showed itself in outward expression. That was, first of all, an intent, quiet watchfulness; and, secondly, an iron resolution to meet whatever offered. The gambler must be prepared instantly to shoot; and at the same time he must realize fully that shooting is going to get him in trouble. For the sympathy of a mining camp was generally strongly against him when it came to a question of this sort. We treated ourselves to a drink at the bar, and went outside.
Already the drift of miners was toward the end of the street where a good sized crowd had gathered. We fell in. Under a large oak tree had been placed a barrel and several boxes from the store, and on these latter our friend John Semple, the carpenter, was mounting.
“John’s the alcalde,” McNally explained to us. “He’s the most level-headed man in these diggings.”
Most of the miners sat down on the ground in front, though some remained afoot. Semple rapped sharply on the barrel with the muzzle of his revolver.
“This is a miners’ meeting,” he stated briefly. “And we have several things to talk about. Most important thing, ’cordin’ to my notion, is this row about that big nugget. Seems these yere three men, whose names I disremember, is partners and is panning down there in the lower diggings, and while one of them is grubbing around with a shovel getting ready to fill the company pan, he sees this yere nugget in the shovel, and annexes it. Now he claims it’s his nugget, and the rest of ’em claim it belongs to all of them as partners. How about it?”
Two men sprang to their feet and began to talk.
“You set down!” Semple ordered them. “You ain’t got nothing to do with decidin’ this. We’ll let you know what to do. If the facts ain’t right, as I stated ’em, say so; but we don’t want no theories out of you. Set down! I say.”
They subsided, and a silence fell which no one seemed inclined to break.
“Well,” said Semple impatiently, “come on! Speak up! Whar’s all this assorted lot of theories I been hearing in the say-loons ever since that nugget was turned up?”
A man with the most extraordinarily ragged garments got to his feet and began to speak in a pleasant and cultivated voice.
“I have no solution to offer this company,” said he, “but I am, or was, a New York lawyer; and if my knowledge of partnerships will help any, this is the New York law.” He sketched briefly the New York rulings on partnerships, and sat down.
“Much obliged, I’m sure,” said Semple cordially. “We’re glad to know how they’ve figgered it out down thar. Only trouble, as far as I see, is that they ain’t usually findin’ many nuggets down that neck of the woods; so they ain’t precisely fitted the case. Anybody know anything nearer to home?”
“I panned in Shirttail Bar last two months,” blurted a hoarse and embarrassed individual, without rising, “and down thar they had a reg’lation that airy nugget that weighs over a half ounce that is found before the dirt is thrown in the cradle belongs to the man that finds it, and not to the company. Of course this here is a pan, and not a cradle.”
“That’s more like business. Anybody know if anywhar they do it the other way around?”
Apparently nobody did.
“Anybody got any idees as to why we shouldn’t follow Shirttail in this matter? Dog-gone you! Set down! You ain’t got nothin’ to say here.”
The man appealed to the crowd.
“Ain’t I got a right to be heard in my own case?” he demanded.
“This ain’t your case,” persisted John Semple stoutly; “it’s decidin’ what the policy of this camp is goin’ to be regardin’ nuggets. Your dog-gone case is mighty unimportant and you’re a prejudiced party. And if you don’t set down, I’ll come down there and argue with you! If none of you other fellows has anything to say, we’ll vote on it.”
We then and there decided, almost unanimously, to follow Shirttail.
“Now,” resumed Semple, after this matter had been disposed of, “there’s a bunch of these yere keskydees around throwin’ assorted duckfits all this morning; and as near as I can make out they say somebody’s jumped their claim or their camp, or something. Jim, supposin’ you and your tin star saunter down and eject these jumpers.”
A very tall, quiet, slow moving man arose, aimed his tobacco juice at a small tree, drawled out the words, “All right, Jedge,” and departed, trailed by a half dozen jabbering keskydees, to whom he paid not the slightest attention.
“Now,” said Semple, “we got a couple of Greasers yere caught stealin’. Buck Barry and Missouri Jones caught them at it, so there ain’t much use hearin’ witnesses as to the fact. Question is: what do we want to do with them?”
“What did they steal?” demanded a voice.
“They just nat’rally didn’t steal nothin’,” said a heavy built, square-jawed, clean-shaven man whom I guessed to be Buck Barry. “Not while I was around.”
“Yes,” persisted the other, “but what was they after.”
“Oh, an extry pair of boots, and a shirt, and some tobacco, et cetery,” replied Buck Barry contemptuously.
“Let’s see them,” shouted several voices.
After a moment’s delay two ragged and furtive Mexicans were dragged before the assembly. A contemplative silence ensued. Then an elderly man with a square gray beard spoke up.
“Well,” said he deliberately, “airy man so low down and shif’less and miserable as to go to stealin’ boots and shirts and tobacco in this camp is shore outside my corral. He sure must be a miserable person. Why’n hell didn’t Buck and Missou give him a few lifts with the toes of their boots, and not come botherin’ us with them?”
Both Barry and Jones started to reply, but Semple cut them short.
“They was going to do just that,” he announced, “but I persuaded them to bring this matter up before this meetin’ because we got to begin to take some measures to stop this kind of a nuisance. There’s a lot of undesirables driftin’ into this camp lately. You boys all recall how last fall we kep’ our dust under our bunks or most anywhere, and felt perfectly safe about it; but that ain’t now. A man has to carry his dust right with him. Now, if we can’t leave our tents feeling our goods is safe, what do you expect to do about it? We got to throw the fear of God into the black hearts of these hounds.”
At this juncture Jim, the sheriff, returned and leaned nonchalantly against a tree, chewing a straw.
Accepting the point of view advanced by the chair, the miners decided that the two thieves should be whipped and banished from camp. A strong feeling prevailed that any man who, in this age of plenty, would descend to petty thieving, was a poor, miserable creature to be pitied. Some charitably inclined individual actually took up a small collection which was presented to the thieves after they had received their punishment.
“And now, vamos, git!” advised Semple. “And spread the glad tidings. We’ll do the same by any more of you. Well, Jim?” he inquired of the sheriff.
Jim shifted his straw from the right corner of his mouth to the left.
“That outfit don’t eject worth a cuss,” said he laconically.
“How many of them is there?” asked Semple.
“Two–and a shotgun,” stated Jim.
“I reckon we’ll eject them if we say ‘eject’!” cried some one truculently; and several others growled assent.
Jim cast a humorous eye in that direction.
“Oh, I reckon I’m ekal to the job,” said he, “and if you say ‘eject’ again, why out they go. Only when I looked that outfit over, and saw they was only two of them and six of these jabbering keskydees, why, I jest nat’rally wondered whether it was by and according to the peace and dignity of this camp to mix up in that kind of a muss. I should think they ought to be capable of doin’ their own ejecting.”
A discussion arose on this point. The sentiment seemed unanimous that the Frenchmen ought to have been able to protect themselves, but was divided on the opinion as to how far the camp was now committed to action.
“They’ll think they’ve bluffed us out, if we drop her now,” argued one side.
“It ought not to be the policy of this camp to mix up with private quarrels,” argued the other.
John Semple decided the question.
“It looks like we’re in the hole,” he admitted, “and have got to do something. Now, I tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to have Jim here give these keskydees blank warrants that they can serve themselves, and to suit themselves.”
This ingenious solution was very highly commended.
“Unless somebody else has something to bring up, I guess that’s about all,” announced Semple.
“No inquests?” some one asked.
“Nary an inquest. This camp is gettin’ healthy. Adjourned!” And the meeting was brought to a formal conclusion by a tap of the pistol on the empty barrel.
CHAPTER XIX
SUNDAY AT HANGMAN’S GULCH
It was now about four o’clock. The crowd dispersed slowly in different directions, and to its different occupations and amusements. We wandered about, all eyes and ears. As yet we had not many acquaintances, and could not enter into the intimate bantering life of the old-timers. There was enough to interest us, however. A good many were beginning to show the drink. After a long period of hard labour even the most respectable of the miners would have at times strange reactions. That is another tale, however; and on this Sunday the drinking was productive only of considerable noise and boasting. Two old codgers, head to head, were bragging laboriously of their prowess as cooks. A small but interested group egged them on.
“Flapjacks?” enunciated one laboriously; “flapjacks? Why, my fren’, you don’t know nothin’ about flapjacks. I grant you,” said he, laying one hand on the other’s arm, “I grant ye that maybe, maybe, mind you, you may know about mixin’ flapjacks, and even about cookin’ flapjacks. But wha’ do you know about flippin’ flapjacks?” He removed his hand from the other’s arm. “Nawthin!” said he. “Now I am an exper’; a real exper’! When I want to flip a flapjack I just whirl her up through the chimney and catch her by holdin’ the frying pan out’n the window!”
I found at another point a slender, beardless young chap, with bright black eyes, and hectic cheeks, engaged in sketching one of the miners who posed before him. His touch was swift and sure, and his faculty at catching a likeness remarkable. The sketch was completed and paid for in ten minutes; and he was immediately besieged by offers from men who wanted pictures of themselves or their camps. He told me, between strokes of the pencil, that he found this sort of thing more remunerative than the mining for which he had come to the country, as he could not stand the necessary hard work. Paper cost him two dollars and a half a sheet; but that was about all his expense. Alongside the street a very red-faced, bulbous-nosed and ancient ruin with a patriarchal white beard was preparing to give phrenological readings. I had seen him earlier in the day, and had been amused at his impressive glib patter. Now, however, he had become foolishly drunk. He mounted the same boxes that had served as the executive desk, and invited custom. After a moment’s hesitation a burly, red-faced miner shouldered his way through the group and sat down on the edge of the boxes.
In the earlier and soberer part of the afternoon the phrenologist had skilfully steered his way by the safe stars of flattery. Now, as he ran his hands uncertainly through the miner’s thick hair, a look of mystification crept into his bleary eyes. He felt again more carefully.
“Most ’xtraor’nary!” he muttered. “Fren’s,” said he, still feeling at the man’s head, “this person has the most extraor’nary bump of ’quisitiveness. Never felt one like it, ’xcept on th’ cranium of a very celebrated thief an’ robber. His bump of benev’lence ’s a reg’lar hole. Bump of truthfulness don’ somehow seem to be there at all. Bump of cowardice is ’s big ’s an egg. This man, fren’s,” said he, dropping the victim’s head and advancing impressively, “is a very dangerous character. Look out for ’m. He’s a liar, an’ a thief, an’ a coward, an’ a─”
“Well, you old son of a gun!” howled the miner, rising to his feet.
He seized the aged phrenologist, and flung him bodily straight through the sides of a large tent, and immediately dove after him in pursuit. There came from that tent a series of crashes, howls of rage and joy, the sounds of violent scuffling, and then there burst out through the doorway the thoroughly sobered phrenologist, his white beard streaming over one shoulder, his pop eyes bulging out, his bulbous nose quite purple, pursued by the angry miner and a score of the overjoyed populace interrupted in their gambling. Everybody but the two principals was gasping with laughter. It looked as though the miner might do his victim a serious injury, so I caught the pursuer, around the shoulders and held him fast. He struggled violently, but was no match for my bulk, and I restrained him until he had cooled down somewhat, and had ceased trying to bite and kick me. Then all at once he laughed, and I released him. Of the phrenologist nothing remained but a thin cloud of dust hanging in the still air.
Yank and I then thought of going back to camp, and began to look around after Johnny, who had disappeared, when McNally rolled up, inviting us to sup with him.
“You don’t want to go home yet,” he advised us. “Evening’s the time to have fun. Never mind your friend; he’s all right. Now you realize the disadvantage of living way off where you do. My hang-out is just down the street. Let’s have a drink.”
We accepted both his invitations. Then, after the supper, pipes alight, we sauntered down the street, a vast leisure expanding our horizons. At the street corner stood a tall, poetic-looking man, with dreamer’s eyes, a violin clasped under his chin. He was looking straight past us all out into the dusk of the piney mountains beyond, his soul in the music he was producing. They were simple melodies, full of sentiment, and he played as though he loved them. Within the sound of his bow a dead silence reigned. Men stood with eyes cast down, their faces sobered, their eyes adream. One burly, reckless, red-faced individual, who had been bullying it up and down the street, broke into a sob which he violently suppressed, and then looked about fiercely, as though challenging any one to have heard. The player finished, tucked his violin and bow under his arm, and turned away. For a moment the crowd remained motionless, then slowly dispersed. This was John Kelly, a famous wandering minstrel of the camps, a strange, shy, poetic man, who never lacked for dust nor for friends, and who apparently sought for neither.
Under the softening influence of the music the crowd led a better life for about ten minutes.
We entered the gambling rooms, of which there were two, and had a drink of what McNally called “42 calibre whiskey” at the bar of each. In one of them we found Johnny, rather flushed, bucking a faro bank. Yank suggested that he join us, but he shook his head impatiently, and we moved on. In a tremendous tent made by joining three or four ordinary tents together, a very lively fiddle and concertina were in full blast. We entered and were pounced upon by a boisterous group of laughing men, seized by the shoulders, whirled about, and examined from behind.
“Two gentlemen and a lady!” roared out one of them. “Gentlemen on that side; ladies on this. See-lect your pardners for the waltz!”
There was a great rushing to and fro in preparation. Men bowed to each other with burlesque dancing school formality, offered arms, or accepted them with bearlike coyness. We stood for a moment rather bewildered, not knowing precisely what to do.
“You belong over that side,” McNally instructed us. “I go over here; I’m a ‘lady.’”
“Why?” I asked.
“Ladies,” explained McNally, “are those who have patches on the seats of their pants.”
As in most social gatherings, we saw that here too the fair sex were in the majority.
Everybody danced very vigorously, with a tremendous amount of stamping. It seemed a strenuous occupation after a week of hard work, and yet it was great fun. Yank pirouetted and balanced and “sasshayed” and tom-fooled in a manner wonderful to behold. We ended flushed and uproarious; and all trooped to the bar, which, it seemed, was the real reason for the existence of this dance hall.
The crowd was rough and good natured, full of high spirits, and inclined to practical jokes of a pretty stiff character. Of course there was the inevitable bully, swaggering fiercely and truculently back and forth, his belt full of weapons. Nobody took him very seriously; but, on the other hand, everybody seemed to take mighty good care not to run definitely counter to him. In the course of his wanderings he came to our end of the bar, and jostled McNally aside. McNally was at the moment lighting his pipe, so that in his one hand he held a burning match and in the other a glass of whiskey. Without the slightest hurry or excitement, his blue eyes twinkling as humorously as ever, McNally dumped the whiskey over the bully’s shock head with his left hand and touched the match to it with his right. The alcohol sizzled up in a momentary blue flame, without damage save for a very singed head of hair.
“Man on fire! Man on fire!” yelled McNally. “Put him out!”
The miners rose to the occasion joyously, and “put him out” in the most literal fashion; so that no more was seen of that bully.
About ten o’clock we were getting tired; and probably the reaction from the “42 calibre whiskey” was making us drowsy. We hunted up Johnny, still at his faro game; but he positively and impatiently declined to accompany us. He said he was ahead–or behind–I forget which. I notice both conditions have the same effect of keeping a man from quitting. We therefore left him, and wandered home through the soft night, wherein were twinkling stars, gentle breezes, little voices, and the silhouettes of great trees.
