Trail Tales Part 9

--_Shakespeare_.

ARGONAUT SAM'S TALE

"I panned him out over and over ag'in, But found nary sign of color,"

Said Argonaut Sam one evening, when, As sitting atop of a box, to some men He was spinning a yarn of the gold-trail.

And then, With arms set akimbo, he straightened his back And said: "'Twuz one night in the fifties I know; Ther' kem up the trail frum the gulch jist below A youngish-like feller; but steppin' so slow I heartily pitied him even before I saw his pale brow and heerd the sharp hack Of his troublesome cough, and plain enough lack Of more'n enough power to bring to my door That tremblin' young body.

"He hed a small pack-- A blanket an' buckskin--but that wa'nt no lack In them days when notions an' fas.h.i.+ons wuz slack; When all a man needed, besides pick an' pan, Wuz a wallet o' leather to tie up his dust--'R a place to git grub-staked (that means to git trust Till he found a good prospeck); an' then he'd put in His very best licks; fur in them days 'twuz sin Fer a man strong o' body, o' wind an' o' limb T' hang erround loafin' all day, 'twuz too thin.

"Well, this puny feller hed grin'-stunlike grit, But wuz clean tuckered out when my cabin he hit; 'N fell down a-faintin' jist inside my door-- His eyes set 'n' gla.s.sy--he seemed done fer, sh.o.r.e.

So I straightened him out, couldn't do nothin' more

Than to put back his hair an' t' dampen his brow, An' to feel fer his pulse--joy! I found it--slow An' flickery though, stoppin' and startin', an' now Gone ag'in; then it revived, but so faint, don't you know, That minute by minute I couldn't hev said Whether the feller wuz livin' or dead.

"All night I watched by him; an' 'long a-to'rds light I seed that a change hed come: so, honor bright!

I made up my mind that I'd save that young life If it took me all summer. I'd fight With grim death to a finish fer him.

"An' so I begun.

I quit workin' my claim Where I'd git on an average ('pon my good name) An ounce or more daily of number one gold.

An' in them days we thought nothin', you see, Of layin' by stuff fer a rainy day; we Hed plenty; the diggins wuz rich, an' wuz thick Scattered over the kentry. Most every crick Hed plenty o' gold in nuggets or dust-- An' the man who wuz stingy hed ort to be cussed.

So I shouldered my task.

"It wuz wonderful how The new life appeared to come back to my boy; (Fer that's what I called him--'my boy') an' the joy O' perviden fer suthin' besides my lone self Made me happy. Y' see, th' experunce wuz new; Fer I'd lived all alone ever since forty-two, When, back in Ohio, I'd buried my wife An' baby. Since then I'd looked on my life As a weary, onfriendly, detestable load.

So that's why I lived all alone, don't you see?

I didn't love nothin' and nothin' loved me.

"But now of young Josh--his name wuz Josh Clark-- He'd come frum ol' York State--could sing like a lark-- Wuz finely brung up, an' that mother o' his, A sister he tol' me, an' a girl he called Liz.

'D a give the hull earth if they only could know If he wuz alive; but so hard-hearted, he Would never be grateful to them nur to me.

Though I had no claim on him, yet it would seem After all I hed done fer him, sh.o.r.ely some gleam O' thankfulness somewhere might some time be seen.

'Sides spendin' my all I hed broken down too, Wuz a shattered ol' man, though but then fifty-two; Fer I'd give up my health an' my strength to pull through My boy--fer I loved him, if ever men do.

But, no; it appeared that he hedn't no heart.

Not once did he thank me, and never asked why I nussed him to life, 'stid o' lettin' him die.

"His wants wuz demands, his wishes commands, An' once in the dusk, as we set on the sands Of a stream that run by, he reached with his hands So quick an' so blamed unexpected, you see, Grabbed me by the hair an' out with a knife, An' demanded my gold. I thought fer my life He wuz jokin'; but no, when I seed that fierce look Of murder an' pillage, I knowed what I'd done; I'd thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun An' now wuz becomin' its prey.

"But, I'd none: I'd spent all the surplus I hed to save him.

I'd missed all the summer an' fall to nuss him Who now like a tiger wuz takin' my life.

'Hol' on, my dear Jos.h.!.+ Hol' on, my dear boy!'

No further I got, fer his hands clutched my throat-- I squirmed myself loose, but grapplin' my coat He throwed me ag'in, now a madman, indeed.

His dirk-knife wuz raised. I said, 'Do yer best.

I've give you now all that I ever possessed But life. Take it now if you like!' An' he struck.

"How long I laid there in the dark, I don't know; But when I kem to I wuz layin' in bed, An' the people wuz talkin' so easy an' low, An' I knowed by the bandages too on my head That I hed been nigh to the gates o' the dead.

"An' 'Where wuz Josh Clark?' did you say? I don't know.

He never wuz seen in the diggins below, Ner heerd of in them parts ag'in, fer I know He'd a-swung to the limb that come fust in the way; Fer the boys in them days hed little to say, But wuz mighty in doin'. So he got away.

"So it seems that some people is jist so depraved There ain't a thing in 'em that ort to be saved.

'Twuz jist so with Josh, who I loved as a son; He lived fer hisself an' fer hisself alone.

'N' 'at's why I remarked at the fust of this yarn, The thing 'at it's cost me so dearly to larn--'I panned him out over an' over ag'in, But found nary sign of a color.'"

THE WRAITH OF THE BLIZZARD

The night it was gloomy, the wind it was high; And hollowly howling it swept through the sky.

--_Southey_.

What matter how the night behaved?

What matter how the north wind raved?

--_Whittier_.

THE WRAITH OF THE BLIZZARD

We dread the unseen. Fear is always enervating; sometimes even deadly.

Who has not fearsomely antic.i.p.ated that which never came and wasted valuable energy and time in building bridges none are ever to cross?

The surgical patient actually suffers more at sight of somber white-clad nurses, and the thought of the operation, than he does from the ordeal itself. It may be that we subconsciously dread the helpless state of unconsciousness into which the anaesthetic plunges us, and hesitate at a trip, no matter how short, into death's borderland, preferring to keep our own hands as long as possible on the helm of the s.h.i.+p of life.

I wonder why we become terror-stricken at the thought of ghosts. The untutored child needs only a hint to make him shy at the dark; and a lad has to be pretty large before he can walk far at night without once in a while looking behind him, just to be certain there is nothing following.

Thus spirits, spooks, bogies, wraiths, and other uncanny apparitions are unintentional inheritances of the race; a race that knows little more about the impending and impinging unseen than did the Saxon fathers who gave us our spooky speech.

I once had an experience which grows in interest as the years pa.s.s by.

I had no fear or thought of fear that night, and the scenes of the evening were absolutely unannounced; they entered upon the sleety stage for whose violent acts I held no program.

One afternoon I was to go to one of my appointments, a mining town in Utah. In order to relieve home cares I took with me my four-year-old son, who thus would get some novel entertainment as well. To the buggy I hitched Jenny, the strawberry-roan cayuse, and started for the distant point. It was a little stormy all the way, and by the time we had well begun the service it had thickened so that a hard snow was setting in. It was dead in the north and continued with such strength that soon there appeared no slant to the falling columns. By the time church was dismissed the blizzard was on in full force, and the roads were already so filled with the new drifts that to return with the buggy was hardly thinkable. I borrowed a saddle, and leaving the little lad with friends, started for home, where I was under appointment to preach that evening. My way lay in the north, in the very teeth of the raging storm. With head tucked down, I trusted the reins to Jenny, who had never disappointed me in many a mountain trip, but I had not gone far until I found the storm was at my back. Peering sharply through the fast falling darkness, I discovered that the mountains were on my left instead of on my right, as they should have been. Jenny had turned tail to the storm. Feeling herself unwilling to face the arctic onset, she was retreating.

Only the dire necessity of the occasion made me compel her to face the torturing attack of the icy shafts that were hurling themselves on us like steel points.

We were forced, Jenny and I, to abandon the only road, now drift-filled, and take an unbroken way through the sagebrush, junipers, buckbrush, and other tangled chaparral, where there was no trail at all, and farther to the right, that I might keep an eye on the mountains and not get turned around again. I felt the force of Cardinal Newman's immortal hymn,

... amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on!

The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on!

We had not gone far until I began to hear the sweetest music. I could not imagine from whence it fell, as I knew there was not a human home in all that plain between the two settlements. Then I heard personal conversation; in fact, the night was full of pleasant travelers. The awful storm seemed not to affect them in the least. They seemed to have an open road too, while we were plunging through deep snowdrifts, my feet already dragging along their tops.

When the first carriage load came up I saw it was only a desert juniper. The boreal gale sweeping through its s.h.i.+vering branches made converse in the music of the wild, Jenny and I being the only seat-holders in that grand opera. Soon another caravan of belated folks drove up; but it was only a load of hay that had been over-tipped. Others came, but they were only bushes or some inanimate object. There was little life out on that peris.h.i.+ng night.