Tales of the Argonauts

B >> Bret Harte >> Tales of the Argonauts


It was a lovely afternoon in July that a party of Eastern tourists rode
into Five Forks. They had just "done" the Valley of Big Things; and,
there being one or two Eastern capitalists among the party, it
was deemed advisable that a proper knowledge of the practical
mining-resources of California should be added to their experience
of the merely picturesque in Nature. Thus far every thing had been
satisfactory; the amount of water which passed over the Fall was large,
owing to a backward season; some snow still remained in the canyons near
the highest peaks; they had ridden round one of the biggest trees, and
through the prostrate trunk of another. To say that they were delighted
is to express feebly the enthusiasm of these ladies and gentlemen, drunk
with the champagny hospitality of their entertainers, the utter novelty
of scene, and the dry, exhilarating air of the valley. One or two had
already expressed themselves ready to live and die there; another had
written a glowing account to the Eastern press, depreciating all other
scenery in Europe and America; and, under these circumstances, it was
reasonably expected that Five Forks would do its duty, and equally
impress the stranger after its own fashion.

Letters to this effect were sent from San Francisco by prominent
capitalists there; and, under the able superintendence of one of their
agents, the visitors were taken in hand, shown "what was to be seen,"
carefully restrained from observing what ought not to be visible, and so
kept in a blissful and enthusiastic condition. And so the graveyard of
Five Forks, in which but two of the occupants had died natural deaths;
the dreary, ragged cabins on the hillsides, with their sad-eyed,
cynical, broken-spirited occupants, toiling on day by day for a
miserable pittance, and a fare that a self-respecting Eastern mechanic
would have scornfully rejected,--were not a part of the Eastern
visitors' recollection. But the hoisting works and machinery of the
"Blazing Star Tunnel Company" was,--the Blazing Star Tunnel Company,
whose "gentlemanly superintendent" had received private information
from San Francisco to do the "proper thing" for the party. Wherefore the
valuable heaps of ore in the company's works were shown; the oblong bars
of gold, ready for shipment, were playfully offered to the ladies who
could lift and carry them away unaided; and even the tunnel itself,
gloomy, fateful, and peculiar, was shown as part of the experience; and,
in the noble language of one correspondent, "The wealth of Five Forks,
and the peculiar inducements that it offered to Eastern capitalists,"
were established beyond a doubt. And then occurred a little incident,
which, as an unbiassed spectator, I am free to say offered no
inducements to anybody whatever, but which, for its bearing upon the
central figure of this veracious chronicle, I cannot pass over.

It had become apparent to one or two more practical and sober-minded in
the party, that certain portions of the "Blazing Star" tunnel (owing,
perhaps, to the exigencies of a flattering annual dividend) were
economically and imperfectly "shored" and supported, and were,
consequently, unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided. Nevertheless, at a
time when champagne corks were popping in dark corners, and enthusiastic
voices and happy laughter rang through the half-lighted levels and
galleries, there came a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights
dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery,
and then there was a sudden sharp issuing of orders, and a dull, ominous
rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale: one woman fainted.

Something had happened. What? "Nothing" (the speaker is fluent, but
uneasy)--"one of the gentlemen, in trying to dislodge a 'specimen'
from the wall, had knocked away a support. There had been a 'cave'--the
gentleman was caught, and buried below his shoulders. It was all right,
they'd get him out in a moment--only it required great care to keep from
extending the 'cave.' Didn't know his name. It was that little man, the
husband of that lively lady with the black eyes. Eh! Hullo, there! Stop
her! For God's sake! Not that way! She'll fall from that shaft. She'll
be killed!"

But the lively lady was already gone. With staring black eyes,
imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with hands and feet that sought
to batter and break down the thick darkness, with incoherent cries and
supplications following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she
ran, and ran swiftly!--ran over treacherous foundations, ran by
yawning gulfs, ran past branching galleries and arches, ran wildly, ran
despairingly, ran blindly, and at last ran into the arms of the "Fool of
Five Forks."

In an instant she caught at his hand. "Oh, save him!" she cried. "You
belong here; you know this dreadful place: bring me to him. Tell me
where to go, and what to do, I implore you! Quick, he is dying! Come!"

He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a sudden cry, dropped the
rope and crowbar he was carrying, and reeled against the wall.

"Annie!" he gasped slowly. "Is it you?"

She caught at both his hands, brought her face to his with staring eyes,
murmured, "Good God, Cyrus!" and sank upon her knees before him.

He tried to disengage the hand that she wrung with passionate entreaty.

"No, no! Cyrus, you will forgive me--you will forget the past! God has
sent you here to-day. You will come with me. You will--you must--save
him!"

"Save who?" cried Cyrus hoarsely.

"My husband!"

The blow was so direct, so strong and overwhelming, that, even through
her own stronger and more selfish absorption, she saw it in the face of
the man, and pitied him.

"I thought--you--knew--it," she faltered.

He did not speak, but looked at her with fixed, dumb eyes. And then
the sound of distant voices and hurrying feet started her again into
passionate life. She once more caught his hand.

"O Cyrus, hear me! If you have loved me through all these years, you
will not fail me now. You must save him! You can! You are brave and
strong--you always were, Cyrus. You will save him, Cyrus, for my sake,
for the sake of your love for me! You will--I know it. God bless you!"

She rose as if to follow him, but, at a gesture of command, she stood
still. He picked up the rope and crowbar slowly, and in a dazed, blinded
way, that, in her agony of impatience and alarm, seemed protracted
to cruel infinity. Then he turned, and, raising her hand to his lips,
kissed it slowly, looked at her again, and the next moment was gone.

He did not return; for at the end of the next half-hour, when they laid
before her the half-conscious, breathing body of her husband, safe and
unharmed, but for exhaustion and some slight bruises, she learned that
the worst fears of the workmen had been realized. In releasing him, a
second cave had taken place. They had barely time to snatch away the
helpless body of her husband, before the strong frame of his rescuer,
Cyrus Hawkins, was struck and smitten down in his place.

For two hours he lay there, crushed and broken-limbed, with a heavy beam
lying across his breast, in sight of all, conscious and patient. For two
hours they had labored around him, wildly, despairingly, hopefully, with
the wills of gods and the strength of giants; and at the end of that
time they came to an upright timber, which rested its base upon the
beam. There was a cry for axes, and one was already swinging in the air,
when the dying man called to them feebly,--

"Don't cut that upright!"

"Why?"

"It will bring down the whole gallery with it."

"How?"

"It's one of the foundations of my house."

The axe fell from the workman's hand, and with a blanched face he turned
to his fellows. It was too true. They were in the uppermost gallery; and
the "cave" had taken place directly below the new house. After a pause,
the "Fool" spoke again more feebly.

"The lady--quick!"

They brought her,--a wretched, fainting creature, with pallid face and
streaming eyes,--and fell back as she bent her face above him.

"It was built for you, Annie darling," he said in a hurried whisper,
"and has been waiting up there for you and me all these long days. It's
deeded to you, Annie; and you must--live there--with HIM! He will not
mind that I shall be always near you; for it stands above--my grave."

And he was right. In a few minutes later, when he had passed away, they
did not move him, but sat by his body all night with a torch at his feet
and head. And the next day they walled up the gallery as a vault; but
they put no mark or any sign thereon, trusting, rather, to the monument,
that, bright and cheerful, rose above him in the sunlight of the hill.
And those who heard the story said, "This is not an evidence of death
and gloom and sorrow, as are other monuments, but is a sign of life and
light and hope, wherefore shall all know that he who lies under it is
what men call--'a fool'."




BABY SYLVESTER.


It was at a little mining-camp in the California Sierras that he first
dawned upon me in all his grotesque sweetness.

I had arrived early in the morning, but not in time to intercept the
friend who was the object of my visit. He had gone "prospecting,"--so
they told me on the river,--and would not probably return until late
in the afternoon. They could not say what direction he had taken; they
could not suggest that I would be likely to find him if I followed. But
it was the general opinion that I had better wait.

I looked around me. I was standing upon the bank of the river;
and apparently the only other human beings in the world were my
interlocutors, who were even then just disappearing from my horizon,
down the steep bank, toward the river's dry bed. I approached the edge
of the bank.

Where could I wait?

Oh! anywhere,--down with them on the river-bar, where they were working,
if I liked. Or I could make myself at home in any of those cabins that
I found lying round loose. Or perhaps it would be cooler and pleasanter
for me in my friend's cabin on the hill. Did I see those three large
sugar-pines, and, a little to the right, a canvas roof and chimney,
over the bushes? Well, that was my friend's,--that was Dick Sylvester's
cabin. I could stake my horse in that little hollow, and just hang round
there till he came. I would find some books in the shanty. I could amuse
myself with them or I could play with the baby.

Do what?

But they had already gone. I leaned over the bank, and called after
their vanishing figures,--"What did you say I could do?" The answer
floated slowly up on the hot, sluggish air,--

"Pla-a-y with the ba-by."

The lazy echoes took it up, and tossed it languidly from hill to hill,
until Bald Mountain opposite made some incoherent remark about the baby;
and then all was still.

I must have been mistaken. My friend was not a man of family; there
was not a woman within forty miles of the river camp; he never was so
passionately devoted to children as to import a luxury so expensive. I
must have been mistaken.

I turned my horse's head toward the hill. As we slowly climbed the
narrow trail, the little settlement might have been some exhumed
Pompeiian suburb, so deserted and silent were its habitations. The open
doors plainly disclosed each rudely-furnished interior,--the rough pine
table, with the scant equipage of the morning meal still standing; the
wooden bunk, with its tumbled and dishevelled blankets. A golden lizard,
the very genius of desolate stillness, had stopped breathless upon the
threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped impudently into the window
of another; a woodpecker, with the general flavor of undertaking
which distinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer from the
coffin-lid of the roof on which he was professionally engaged, as
we passed. For a moment I half regretted that I had not accepted the
invitation to the river-bed; but, the next moment, a breeze swept up the
long, dark canyon, and the waiting files of the pines beyond bent toward
me in salutation. I think my horse understood, as well as myself,
that it was the cabins that made the solitude human, and therefore
unbearable; for he quickened his pace, and with a gentle trot brought
me to the edge of the wood, and the three pines that stood like vedettes
before the Sylvester outpost.

Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, I unslung the long riata from
the saddle-bow, and, tethering him to a young sapling, turned toward the
cabin. But I had gone only a few steps, when I heard a quick trot behind
me; and poor Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with fear, was at my
heels. I looked hurriedly around. The breeze had died away; and only
an occasional breath from the deep-chested woods, more like a long sigh
than any articulate sound, or the dry singing of a cicala in the
heated canyon, were to be heard. I examined the ground carefully for
rattlesnakes, but in vain. Yet here was Pomposo shivering from his
arched neck to his sensitive haunches, his very flanks pulsating with
terror. I soothed him as well as I could, and then walked to the edge
of the wood, and peered into its dark recesses. The bright flash of a
bird's wing, or the quick dart of a squirrel, was all I saw. I confess
it was with something of superstitious expectation that I again turned
towards the cabin. A fairy-child, attended by Titania and her train,
lying in an expensive cradle, would not have surprised me: a Sleeping
Beauty, whose awakening would have repeopled these solitudes with life
and energy, I am afraid I began to confidently look for, and would have
kissed without hesitation.

But I found none of these. Here was the evidence of my friend's
taste and refinement, in the hearth swept scrupulously clean, in the
picturesque arrangement of the fur-skins that covered the floor and
furniture, and the striped serape lying on the wooden couch. Here were
the walls fancifully papered with illustrations from "The London News;"
here was the woodcut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the chimney, quaintly
framed with blue-jays' wings; here were his few favorite books on the
swinging-shelf; and here, lying upon the couch, the latest copy of
"Punch." Dear Dick! The flour-sack was sometimes empty; but the gentle
satirist seldom missed his weekly visit.

I threw myself on the couch, and tried to read. But I soon exhausted my
interest in my friend's library, and lay there staring through the open
door on the green hillside beyond. The breeze again sprang up; and a
delicious coolness, mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole
through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of bumblebees outside the
canvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the opposite mountain, and
the fatigue of my morning ride, began to droop my eyelids. I pulled the
serape over me, as a precaution against the freshening mountain breeze,
and in a few moments was asleep.

I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been conscious, however,
during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape;
for I awoke once or twice, clutching it with a despairing hand as it was
disappearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly aroused
to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally
persistent force; and, letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it
swiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake;
for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to
emerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging the
serape after it. There was no mistaking it now: it was a baby-bear,--a
mere suckling, it was true, a helpless roll of fat and fur, but
unmistakably a grizzly cub!

I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspect
as it slowly raised its small, wondering eyes to mine. It was so
much taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its forelegs were so
disproportionately small, that, in walking, its hind-feet invariably
took precedence. It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed,
inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary
somersaults with the gravest astonishment. To add to its preposterous
appearance, one of its hind-feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's,
into which it had accidentally and inextricably stepped. As this
somewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and then,
possibly recognizing in the stranger the same species as its master, it
paused. Presently it slowly raised itself on its hind-legs, and vaguely
and deprecatingly waved a baby-paw, fringed with little hooks of steel.
I took the paw, and shook it gravely. From that moment we were friends.
The little affair of the serape was forgotten.

Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship by an act
of delicate courtesy. Following the direction of his eyes, I had no
difficulty in finding on a shelf near the ridge-pole the sugar-box and
the square lumps of white sugar that even the poorest miner is never
without. While he was eating them, I had time to examine him more
closely. His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely-modulated gray,
deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was excessively long,
thick, and soft as eider-down; the cushions of flesh beneath perfectly
infantine in their texture and contour. He was so very young, that the
palms of his half-human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except for
the bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, there
was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He was as
free from angles as one of Leda's offspring. Your caressing hand
sank away in his fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long was an
intoxication of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to embrace
him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties.

When he had finished the sugar, he rolled out of the door with a
half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eyes as if he expected me
to follow. I did so; but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented
Pomposo in the hollow not only revealed the cause of his former terror,
but decided me to take another direction. After a moment's hesitation,
he concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a certain
impish look in his eye, that he fully understood and rather enjoyed the
fright of Pomposo. As he rolled along at my side, with a gait not unlike
a drunken sailor, I discovered that his long hair concealed a leather
collar around his neck, which bore for its legend the single word
"Baby!" I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners. This,
then, was the "baby" with whom I was to "play."

How we "played;" how Baby allowed me to roll him down hill, crawling
and puffing up again each time with perfect good-humor; how he climbed
a young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had "shied" into one of the
topmost branches; how, after getting it, he refused to descend until it
suited his pleasure; how, when he did come down, he persisted in walking
about on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass,
clasped to his breast with the remaining one; how I missed him at last,
and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the tenantless
cabins, with a bottle of sirup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to
extract its contents,--these and other details of that eventful day I
shall not weary the reader with now. Enough that, when Dick Sylvester
returned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an
immense bolster, at the foot of the couch, asleep. Sylvester's first
words after our greeting were,--

"Isn't he delicious?"

"Perfectly. Where did you get him?"

"Lying under his dead mother, five miles from here," said Dick, lighting
his pipe. "Knocked her over at fifty yards: perfectly clean shot; never
moved afterwards. Baby crawled out, scared, but unhurt. She must have
been carrying him in her mouth, and dropped him when she faced me; for
he wasn't more than three days old, and not steady on his pins. He takes
the only milk that comes to the settlement, brought up by Adams Express
at seven o'clock every morning. They say he looks like me. Do you
think so?" asked Dick with perfect gravity, stroking his hay-colored
mustachios, and evidently assuming his best expression.

I took leave of the baby early the next morning in Sylvester's
cabin, and, out of respect to Pomposo's feelings, rode by without any
postscript of expression. But the night before I had made Sylvester
solemnly swear, that, in the event of any separation between himself and
Baby, it should revert to me. "At the same time," he had added, "it's
only fair to say that I don't think of dying just yet, old fellow; and I
don't know of any thing else that would part the cub and me."

Two months after this conversation, as I was turning over the morning's
mail at my office in San Francisco, I noticed a letter bearing
Sylvester's familiar hand. But it was post-marked "Stockton," and I
opened it with some anxiety at once. Its contents were as follows:--


"O FRANK!--Don't you remember what we agreed upon anent the baby? Well,
consider me as dead for the next six months, or gone where cubs can't
follow me,--East. I know you love the baby; but do you think, dear
boy,--now, really, do you think you COULD be a father to it? Consider
this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough; but dare you
take upon yourself the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so
young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus? Think
of the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question well, and
let me know speedily; for I've got him as far as this place, and he's
kicking up an awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like a
maniac. Let me know by telegraph at once.

"SYLVESTER.

"P.S.--Of course he's grown a little, and doesn't take things always as
quietly as he did. He dropped rather heavily on two of Watson's 'purps'
last week, and snatched old Watson himself bald headed, for interfering.
You remember Watson? For an intelligent man, he knows very little of
California fauna. How are you fixed for bears on Montgomery Street, I
mean in regard to corrals and things? S.

"P.P.S.--He's got some new tricks. The boys have been teaching him to
put up his hands with them. He slings an ugly left. S."


I am afraid that my desire to possess myself of Baby overcame all other
considerations; and I telegraphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester.
When I reached my lodgings late that afternoon, my landlady was awaiting
me with a telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester,--


"All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a father to him. S."


It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For a moment I was
staggered at my own precipitation. I had as yet made no preparations,
had said nothing to my landlady about her new guest. I expected to
arrange every thing in time; and now, through Sylvester's indecent
haste, that time had been shortened twelve hours.

Something, however, must be done at once. I turned to Mrs. Brown. I
had great reliance in her maternal instincts: I had that still greater
reliance common to our sex in the general tender-heartedness of pretty
women. But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a feeble smile, I tried
to introduce the subject with classical ease and lightness. I even said,
"If Shakspeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. Brown, believed that a lion among
ladies was a dreadful thing, what must"--But here I broke down; for
Mrs. Brown, with the awful intuition of her sex, I saw at once was
more occupied with my manner than my speech. So I tried a business
brusquerie, and, placing the telegram in her hand, said hurriedly, "We
must do something about this at once. It's perfectly absurd; but he will
be here at one to-night. Beg thousand pardons; but business prevented my
speaking before"--and paused out of breath and courage.

Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted her pretty eyebrows, turned
the paper over, and looked on the other side, and then, in a remote and
chilling voice, asked me if she understood me to say that the mother was
coming also.

"Oh, dear no!" I exclaimed with considerable relief. "The mother is
dead, you know. Sylvester, that is my friend who sent this, shot her
when the baby was only three days old." But the expression of Mrs.
Brown's face at this moment was so alarming, that I saw that nothing
but the fullest explanation would save me. Hastily, and I fear not very
coherently, I told her all.

She relaxed sweetly. She said I had frightened her with my talk about
lions. Indeed, I think my picture of poor Baby, albeit a trifle highly
colored, touched her motherly heart. She was even a little vexed at what
she called Sylvester's "hard-heartedness." Still I was not without some
apprehension. It was two months since I had seen him; and Sylvester's
vague allusion to his "slinging an ugly left" pained me. I looked at
sympathetic little Mrs. Brown; and the thought of Watson's pups covered
me with guilty confusion.

Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me until he arrived. One o'clock
came, but no Baby. Two o'clock, three o'clock, passed. It was almost
four when there was a wild clatter of horses' hoofs outside, and with
a jerk a wagon stopped at the door. In an instant I had opened it, and
confronted a stranger. Almost at the same moment, the horses attempted
to run away with the wagon.