AN EPISODE OF NUGGET BAR.By H. L. Wilson.
By H. L. Wilson.
The mining camp of Nugget Bar, with its twenty or thirty tents and cabins, did not present a particularly inviting scene to the anxious gaze of Julius Anderly, as he urged his tired beast, with its conglomerate burden of camping utensils and mining implements, over the last half mile of his journey. The mountains seemed to cower down as low as possible before the blaze of the setting sun, and their rugged sides and bald tops were marked with shadows and sun pictures, quaint, curious, and fantastic.
The scene was wildly picturesque, after its own primitive style, and Julius Anderly was rather disconcerted by the novelty of its rough grandeur; but he was more disconcerted by the group of some half dozen men he discerned lounging in front of what he rightly supposed was the only hotel in the camp.
As he drew nearer he was quite positive that the big burly man with the bushy beard would prove anything but an agreeable companion; he was probably one of those men he had been told about who always carried a loaded pistol in a convenient pocket, and who regarded a refusal to drink whisky with him as an insult sufficiently deadly to justify said pistol’s immediate and destructive discharge upon and against the person of the audacious abstainer.
And the portly gentleman, who wore a battered “plug” hat, and was seated upon an empty claret case, had a marked magisterial bearing, more autocratic than reassuring.
The landlord, tall, thin and lazy, who occupied the doorway, was the least ferocious in appearance. The other members of the group seemed to Julius to be only passively dangerous—safe as long as they were let alone.
The big burly man who formed one of the group in front of the “Golden Nugget,” and whomweknow to be Hank Purdy (designated by certain envious and despicable residents of Nugget Bar as “Windy Purdy”), paused in the narration of the details of a sanguinary combat between himself and six stalwart Apaches, alleged to have occurred in some remote section of the West at some remote period, and interjected the word, “Tenderfut!”
As the term fell from his lips at the instant his eyes fell upon Julius, who had now approached quite near, we cannot do otherwise than consider the term as applied to the latter.
Yes, Julius was undeniably a tenderfoot steeped in all the infamy that the term implies. The newness of his outfit, his awkward manner of strapping the same to the animal’s back, and his own genial and unsuspecting countenance, all united to insult every acclimated Californian, and particularly the group before which he now paused.
Julius was short, rather fat, and benevolent looking; with a big head, slightly bald, and a smooth, round face and blue eyes, expressive of utter and perfect confidence in all mankind.
He stood irresolute a moment, and then, with an appealing look upon his face, said, tentatively, “How do you do, gentlemen? I presume this is Nugget Bar.”
Now according to all preconceived notions of Julius, the tall, thin landlord, who was apparently very lazy, and whose name, by the way, was Sam Turner, should have been bluff and hearty looking, and should have at once replied in the bluff, hearty manner of landlords (in the books Julius had read), “Right ye air, stranger, and who mout ye be?”
But the owner in fee simple of Nugget Bar’s sole hostelry was shamefully ignorant of the social requirements of a man in his position; indeed he was distinctly permeated by an air of social irresponsibility, and he only said, in a very deliberate way, without evincing the slightest curiosity regarding a possible patron:
“Ya-a-s, I presume ’tis; leastwise what’s left uv it.”
Again spoke Julius, with the unuttered appeal for comradeship still his predominant facial expression:
“Well, I’m Julius Anderly. ‘Jule’ mother always calls me at home, and that’s way back in Ohio, you know.”
The company remained unmoved by this piece of family intelligence, with the exception of a little dark man, lacking, physically, an eyebrow, and mentally, a happy disposition, who volunteered the remark that he “wunst had a cousin die in Ohio.” Julius ventured to lean against one of the supports of the wooden awning and continued:
“Things have been going pretty bad with our folks back there for some time. Pa died—let me see, this is July—three years ago last March, and after that the support of ma and the girls fell to me, which was about all pa had to leave, except the home. I guess we’d pulled through all right enough if the firm I had been keeping books for for over ten years hadn’t up and failed—went clean under and hadn’t a cent left.”
The various members of the group here expressed to each other, ocularly, their contempt for any man who “kept books,” all except the little dark man, whose face plainly expressed an inward conviction to the effect that the failure of that firm was due solely to Julius’s defective method of keeping said books.
It was rather discouraging, but Julius continued: “And there I was out of a job, which was pretty bad, I call it. Times were hard all round there and I couldn’t seem to get in anywhere else.
“We heard a good deal of talk about Californy, how so many were striking it rich here—I b’lieve that’s what you call it when a man finds a lot of gold—and we thought, that is ma and the girls and I did, that perhaps I’d better come out here, even if it was a long ways off, and see if I could find a gold mine or buy an interest in one or something. We sat up nights and talked it over and read a whole lot about how to come and what to do, and finally ma mortgaged the house for twelve hundred dollars, and I started out here with a thousand—round by the isthmus, you know.”
Another ocular expression of contempt from all parties for a man who would make the trip from the States in a boat instead of pushing straight across the continent as they had done; the little dark man showing by the same means his belief that there was some secret and cogent reason for that route being chosen.
“Well, I got to San Francisco, and the first person I got acquainted with there was a very kind gentleman named Walker Smith, who had known of my folks back in Ohio. He knew all about mines and owned a great many himself. I told him what I was after, that I’d come out to make a little money, and as a friend of his up at Sacramento had a valuable mine that Mr. Smith thought he could buy, I gave him five hundred dollars to go and buy it for me.”
Julius was visibly affected at this point, and in a most gentle manner, intended to be brutal in the extreme, called to his burro that had strayed a few yards away and was leisurely cropping the scanty vegetation, to “come up there.”
Thus having given vent to his pent up emotion (though the animal was utterly deaf to the command), Julius went on:
“Well, that was over six months ago, and I’ve never seen anything of Mr. Smith since that day I gave him my money—all in gold, too.”
This time the expressions of contempt were not confined to looks, but broke forth audibly from all sides. Only the little dark man remained silent, and he nodded his head in a very knowing manner, thereby suggestingthat he attributed to Julius a voluminous catalogue of atrocities, which he could specify if it became necessary; and furthermore that he caviled at the others for their deplorable lack of insight into character.
Apprehending that he had placed Mr. Walker Smith in a bad light before these gentlemen, Julius made haste to defend him.
“Yes, and there were some men in San Francisco that I’m sure were enemies of Mr. Smith, andtheytried to make me believe he was dishonest and was lying about the mine; but I didn’t mind them, because he had told me just where the mine was and everything about it; why, he even showed me a piece of gold that had been taken from it. At last I made up my mind that he had been murdered and robbed of my money, so I’ve come up this way to find some gold for myself. But you can’t tell me,” he added, after a second’s reflection, “that Smith was dishonest. He knew of ’most all our folks.”
Having thus disposed of the matter of Mr. Smith’s probity, Julius began unstrapping his outfit, and by his general demeanor gave the others to understand that he had at last found a home and friends.
This time the limited vocabulary of the group would not admit of any adequate expression of their contempt, so they were obliged to resort to looks again, the little dark man intimating, by a peculiar expression of mingled horror and distrust, that this was positively the most insinuating villain he had ever met.
“An so yu think this yur’s ’bout the place whur yu kin make yer pile, do yu?” queried Hank Purdy, as he emptied the ashes from his pipe by rapping it against the palm of his left hand.
“Well, they told me down below that there was gold up here and that I was to be careful and not be taken in. And perhaps you gentlemen will tell me where to dig—kind of advise me, you know.
“I’m very anxious to find some gold in a little while—I don’t care for so very much, only a few thousand dollars—and I don’t want to dig very deep for it, ’cause I’m not used to hard work. And besides I’ve got to get it quick, for I must start back home before fall, or ma and the girls will think I’m sick or something.
“Just tell me some place where I can get it quick; some place close around here, if you know any.”
Mr. Purdy was the first of the party to recover his mental equilibrium after the preferment of this extraordinary request, and lost no time in stating emphatically that he would be something which could only be expressed here by a long dash, in the event of Mr. Anderly not being about the freshest thing he had ever seen.
“An’ so yu hain’t got no more’n a couple a days to spare, an’ yu’d like to make a snug little pile and git out a here by ’bout day arfter tomorrow, would yu?” again queried Mr. Purdy.
“Why, isn’t that a little soon?” asked Julius.
“Not a bit uv it. People air comin’ in an’ goin’ out a here every day er so. All they hav’ to do is to jes scratch eroun’ a little mite, ’n they’re sure to turn up a whole pile a nuggets.”
“No? You don’t mean to tell me so!” exclaimed the now radiant and delighted Julius.
“Fact; you betchu!” asseverated Mr. Purdy. “Leave ’t the jedge there if ’taint.”
The “jedge,” he of the damaged head gear, claret nose and judicial bearing, confirmed Mr. Purdy’s statement with regard to the abundant natural resources of Nugget Bar, in a manner admitting no doubt of his sincerity, so that Julius did not require the concurrent statements of the other members of the party, which were nevertheless given.
Julius now felt his troubles to be at an end. A few days more and he would be a comparatively rich man. He expressed his astonishment that fortunes were picked up so easily.
“Ya-a-h, minin’ ain’t what ’t chused to be,” went on Mr. Purdy. “Why, when I was first out, ther was four uv us a prospectin’ up onthe divide one time, ’n she set in to snow fer all git out, ’n we got lost ’n wandered eround ther fer ’leven days, all uv us on foot, ’n not a blamed horse in the crowd. The on’y thing we had to eat was snow and stewed saddle, yessir, fact. We cut up that (dashed) saddle ’n biled ’er ’n used to chew on’t fer hours ’t a time, ’n she saved all our (dashed) lives too. Nowadays these yur people kim in yur ’n git it jest fer pickin’ it up.”
This tradition of Mr. Purdy’s had come to be looked upon as apocryphal, inasmuch as he had never been able to explain satisfactorily how the party had obtained the saddle, since they were all on foot and had no horse. His reply to any question touching upon the source of that appetizing article was always conceived in a spirit of the profoundest irritation, and delivered with vehemence, disgust, scorn and contempt. But the present recital being solely for the delectation of Julius Anderly, this defect was not touched upon.
Julius was duly impressed by the incident and said as much, and again expressed a willingness to be directed to some spot close at hand where untold gold, easy to access, was waiting to be put to good use by deserving mortals.
“Wal,” said Mr. Purdy, “I s’pose the jedge there knows a more good places to find gold eround yur than a’most any ether man. I ekspects he’s prob’ly the best man fer yu.”
The judge, who was usually drunk, and commonly thought to be incompetent on that account, had got himself elected as Justice of the Peace by keeping the coming election and his candidacy a secret from all save his most intimate friends, and so long as he had nothing to do he was permitted to do it.
With the worried air of a man who controlled the affairs of the universe, and withal, a look of pretended sagacity, the judge opined that there was a “splen’d place to dig out there,” with a sweep of his right hand comprehending most of the western hemisphere.
Mr. Purdy, at this striking proof of the soundness of his judgment, assumed a triumphant expression and said, “Ther! wha’d I tell yu?”
Julius gazed blankly out over the bar and up the gulch, and down over the trail he had traveled, and then with the utmost delicacy, and with all due deference to the dignity of the bench, suggested that perhaps the direction given by the judge was not sufficiently definite to be of any practical utility; but he was none the less hopeful for all that.
Mr. Purdy was on the point of requesting the judge to confine himself to some given spot, when the face of Mr. Turner lighted up with the fire of inspiration. He said: “Now look a here, Anderly, they’s a spot right out back a this here shanty where I think you’d find whuchu want. I been a goin’ to dig there myself fer a long time now, but I’ll jest turn ’er over to you, an’ by gun, you can have whuchu find there.”
Mr. Turner did not state that the spot he referred to was where he had projected a cellar in which to store surplus provisions; that, if there had existed any means of getting said cellar there otherwise than by hard work, he would have had it there long ago; and that there was about as much likelihood of finding elephants’ teeth there as gold. But, nevertheless, this all passed through his mind.
“But, my dear sir,” said Julius, “you are not laboring under the delusion that I want to take any man’s mine and use it to my own advantage, I hope. I couldn’t think of taking what another man had found. I just thought some of you could kind of advise me.”
The absurdity of supposing that Mr. Turner would labor under any circumstances, not even excepting a delusion, was so apparent to the judge that he was moved to smile knowingly; but at an indignant look from Hank Purdy he straightened himself up and stared hard at the mountains, as if he were possessed of some recondite knowledge concerning their origin and manner of construction.
“Wal, I admit it’s mighty gen’rous in me,” said Mr. Turner, with a sublime look of self abnegation upon his honest face, “but I tell you we’r’ none uv us mean around these here diggin’s, not if we know it; and ’sides thet, I got a dozen or so places jest as good as thet ’t I kin go to any time, so I guess you jest better go to work there t’morrow an’ git whuchu kin out uv it.”
Julius was profuse in his earnest expressions of gratitude, but Mr. Turner waved him off and magnanimously said it was nothing—which was quite true.
Then Julius had his supper and was shown to the back room, where he was to pass the night.
Upon Mr. Turner’s explaining his object in inducing Julius to dig back of the hotel, whereby he was to be a new cellar the gainer, he was unsparingly praised for bringing about his object by this poetical idealization of a cold, hard reality, in the mind of Julius, and then the gentlemen drank something, the little dark man, as he ordered his without any water, wishing every one to remember, when Julius Anderly’s true character became known, that he had warned them against him from the first.
As they drank to the completion of the new cellar, Julius was heard in his room, musically entreating some person, evidently a female, to lay her brown head upon his breast, which vocal effort was not favorably received, especially by the little dark man, who muttered, as he ambled off toward his tent, that they “didn’t want no layin’ of heads on breasts around there.”
The next morning found Julius digging laboriously in the hard ground back of the hotel, within the space marked off by Mr. Turner, with a song upon his lips and the firm conviction in his breast that in a few days he would be on his way to Ohio with the money that was to make ma and the girls comfortable.
All day long he worked assiduously, never pausing to note the looks of contempt and ridicule that were cast upon him by the passing miners who were working up the gulch with pick, shovel and pan.
That night Mr. Turner’s cellar was half done, and Julius was as hopeful as ever, confidently remarking to Mr. Purdy that he would surely find the gold tomorrow, as he was getting the space narrowed down now. He jubilantly dilated upon the manner in which he would apply his fortune, not forgetting to mention that the whole party were to have a big supper at his expense—which caused the judge to regret, momentarily, that the whole thing was a practical joke upon the Easterner.
Julius rose betimes the following morning, and again proceeded to work, as confident that the sun would set upon him a rich man that night as he was that a temperance movement was the one thing needful in Nugget Bar.
That afternoon about four o’clock, as the usual group were gathered in front of the “Golden Nugget,” indolently discussing various abstract moral and social problems, of which this story does not take cognizance, and Mr. Turner was inwardly congratulating himself on the imminent completion of his cellar, Julius Anderly suddenly appeared around the corner of the house, his pick and shovel on his shoulder. He had the air of a man who had finished his day’s work.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to leave you in the morning,” he said. “There’s a party of miners from up the gulch going down, and I can go with them; I found the gold all right enough, thanks to you, Mr. Turner, and my other friends here.”
“You wha-a-t?” screamed Mr. Turner, evidencing more energy than had ever before characterized any remark of his made within the hearing of any of the assembled residents of Nugget Bar. “You foundwha-a-t?”
“Why, I’ve found the gold, you know,” answered Julius, slightly bewildered by the general paralytic attitude of the group, and by this unexpected and unprecedented display of energy on Mr. Turner’s part.“I’ve got a whole pile of gold round here—found it just as you said—and a man that saw me says I may go down with his party tomorrow.”
Consternation was written upon the faces of all the group. Consternation? Yes, and wild alarm, terrified surprise, and incredulity and anger and sheepishness, and many other emotions too numerous and heterogeneous to admit of specification. With one accord they dashed off to the scene of Julius’s labors.
Yes, there was a pile of golden nuggets, just as they had been taken from their strange, unthought of hiding place, where some fanciful freak of nature had stowed them—a most convincing proof of nature’s whimsicality.
There was no doubt but what a rich pocket had been struck, and yet the good citizens of Nugget Bar, and especially those who had lately served Julius in an advisory capacity, seemed prone to discredit the evidence of their sight and touch, and handled the precious fragments as if they were something intangible.
And in the midst of all the flurry and excitement stood Julius, radiant and joyful, his cherubic face wreathed in a quiet smile of contentment, and not one bit excited or surprised, because had not these rough but honest men told him he would find a lot of gold there, and he had found it as a matter of course?
Resuscitative measures were now in order, and were inaugurated at Julius’s expense. Nugget Bar ate and drank late and deeply that night, but as Julius left next morning with the party “down below,” most of it was up with its aching head and bitter tasting mouth to see him off, and the little dark man was heard to remark that he had told them so from the first, and now he supposed they were satisfied—which they were not.
The landscape in the rear of the “Golden Nugget” was soon terribly disfigured by Nugget Bar picks and shovels, and Sam Turner’s cellar was enlarged to proportions that no self respecting cellar would be guilty of assuming; but I never heard that Nugget Bar found another pocket there.