First Fam'lies of the Sierras Part 26

Once more the man arose, lifted the candle, contemplated the beads in the bottle, as before, and returned. He did not sit down, but took up and pulled back the blankets at the end of the bunk.

"I thought as much," said the stranger to himself. "The gold is hidden in the straw."

"Look at them," said he; and he threw down a bundle of papers, and held down the dim candle.

There were hundreds of letters, all written in a fine steel-plate lady's hand. Some addressed to G.o.dfrey, and some to Wilson. Now and then was one with a border of black, telling that some one at home no longer waited the return. "Come home, come home," was at the bottom of them all. One addressed to Wilson, of a recent date, thanked him with all a mother's and sister's tenderness for the money he had so constantly sent them through all the weary years.

"That was it, you see; that was it. As G.o.dfrey, that's the Gopher, is dead, and can send them no more money, and as you was a-going to the States, I thought best that you should drop in and tell the two families gently, somehow, that they both are dead. Say that they died together.

He sent them the last ounce he had the week before he died, and made me take these letters to keep them away from the Coroner, so that he might not know his address, and so that they might not know at home that Curly had died long ago, and died a gambler. Take one of the letters along, and that will tell you where they are."

Again Old Baboon resumed the tow-string. He looked toward the door, and when the man had stepped across the sill he put out the light, and the two stood together.

The old dog knew there was but the one place for his master outside his cabin at such a time, and, blind leading the blind, thither he led him through the dark to the saloon.

And whither went the Parson that cold bl.u.s.tering morning? He set his face against the snow and started out alone up the corkscrew trail to try to reach, no one knew where. Or did he try to reach any place at all? Did he not take this course so that he might leave the mind of the woman he had loved, free and careless of his fate?

Sandy had promised, and so he had led his new wife to the Parsonage, and taken possession as he had agreed. But rough as he was he often wished he had not done so. He could see the hand of his great rival the Parson in all things around him. Sometimes he almost fancied he could see his face, mournful, sad, looking in at the window out of the storm at the happy pair by his hearth-stone.

Early one Autumn some prospectors pushed far up the Fork running parallel with the trail leading out of camp; and there, in the leaves, they found a skull. There was a hole in the temple, and the marks of sharp teeth on the smooth white surface. They also found a small silver-mounted pistol.

The party came down to the Forks one night, where friends were enjoying themselves at the saloon. The leader told what they had found, and laid the pistol on the counter.

It was one of the Parson's little "bull-pups."

The pistol was empty.

One final word of the once genteel Deboon, and we prepare to descend from the Sierras. Buffeted, beaten down, and blown about, still he lingered near his old haunts in the Forks.

At last, the broken man, who was now only known as Old Baboon, because he was so ugly, and twisted, and bent, and crooked, when he had no home, no mine, no mind, nothing at all, and did not want any thing at all but a grave, stumbled on to a mine that made him almost a prince in fortune.

He would not leave the Sierras now. He settled there. Here is an extract from a letter in which he invites a distinguished traveling Yankee philanthropist and missionary to come to him and make his house his home. After describing the house and lands, he says:

"The house stands in this wood of pine. We have two California grizzlies, and a pair of bull-dogs. Sandy keeps the dogs chained, but I let the grizzlies go free. We are not troubled with visitors."

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE CARAVAN OF DEATH.

The little poet had no place in the heart of the camp at the first. And now at the last when he was about to go away, he held even a less place than when he came.

n.o.body knew when he came, n.o.body cared. Now that he was pa.s.sing away at last, n.o.body, save the Widow, knew of it. n.o.body cared to know of it.

Truly, this singular creature did not "fit in" anywhere in the Sierras.

The Widow had been seen to enter the little hermitage alone, and very regularly of late, but no one made inquiry or interfered now. The case was peculiar. The guilt of the Widow was an accepted fact. No one under the circ.u.mstances could speak to her of him. They left this all to her, a sort of monopoly of death.

We leave her at this bedside and turn for the last time to the little Chinaman.

And what became of the little brown man with the meek almond eyes and the peaceful smile that for ever hovered about the corner of his mouth?

Poor little Washee-Washee! When the Widow got married he had to go. He could not embark in business again, and he would not go away. The Widow always gave him all he asked when he came to her, but that was very little. She even tried to persuade him to accept little gifts, and to take some delicacies for his stomach's sake, but the little pagan would only shake his head, smile the least bit out of one corner of his mouth, and then go away as if half offended.

Every five years there is a curious sort of mule caravan seen meandering up and down the mining streams of California, where Chinamen are to be found. It is a quiet train, and quite unlike those to be found there driven by Mexicans, and bearing whisky and dry goods. In this train or caravan the drivers do not shout or scream. The mules, it always seemed to me, do not even bray. This caravan travels almost always by night, and it is driven and managed almost altogether by Chinamen. These Chinamen are civil, very respectful, very quiet, very mournful both in their dress and manner.

These mules, both in coming in and in going out of a camp, are loaded with little beech-wood boxes of about three feet in length and one foot square.

When the train arrives in a camp these boxes are taken from off the backs of the mules, stored in some Chinaman's cabin close to the trail, and there they lie, so far as the world knows, undisturbed for two or three days. Then some midnight, the mules are quietly drawn up to the cabin-door, the boxes are brought out, and the mules are loaded, and the line winds away up the hill and out on the mountain to where their freight can be taken down to the sea on wheels.

The only apparent difference in these boxes now is the lead label at either end, which was not there when they entered the camp.

This is the caravan of the dead. No Chinaman will consent to let his bones lie in the land of the barbarian. The bones of every Chinaman, even to the beggar--if there ever was such a thing as a Chinese beggar in California--are taken back to the land of his fathers.

Washee-Washee stood watching the train climb the corkscrew trail in the gray dawn one morning, and then shaking his head he went to the Widow and said--

"By'ee, by'ee. Washee-Washee allee samee."

And it was so. His first great commercial enterprise had been a disastrous failure, and the brown little fellow never recovered. Other Chinamen poured into camp, and he certainly had friends among them all, but he went to none in his griefs as he did to the Widow; she who had been his friend in his first great trouble.

The little brown man took to opium, and gradually grew almost black. His little bright black eyes grew brighter, his thin face grew thinner, and he became a little more than a shadow. Still he would smile a bit out of that corner of his mouth. Would smile as if he was smiling at Death, and was trying to cheat him into the idea that he felt perfectly well.

The caravan came in due time; as before, it rested, loaded, climbed the hill, and as the train led up against the morning star, you might have read on one little box, wherein a skeleton lay doubled up like a jack knife, this name:

"WASHEE-WASHEE."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE END.

People began to remember that they had not seen their silent and singular little poet since the death and burial of the Gopher.

Surely he was ill. At all events, the Widow went boldly and regularly now to his cabin. And to the credit of the camp, be it said, it at last began to look with toleration on these missions to the humble vine-clad hermitage of the sad and lonesome little poet.

Only once more he came out and sat by the door, pale and dreamy and full of mystery.

The schoolmaster, not an unkindly man, stopped a moment with his book and slate under his arm, as he led a little girl by the hand, and looking into the palid face before him, said:

"It is a hard old world, Billie. A hard old world. At best we have to belabor the old earth; beat her to make her give us bread."

"Beat her!" The little thin hands clasped and lifted as if in prayer.

"Belabor my dear mother Earth? Why, she gave us birth, she gives us all our bread, she gives us all that is beautiful and good. She will take us again to her bosom. I will pray to Earth, that I may have rest on her tranquil breast."