"'I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord, And I'm bound to die in His army.'"
The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtainedvalley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store ofprovisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of thatmountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintrylandscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But itrevealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut,--a hopeless,uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to whichthe castaways still clung. Through the marvelously clear air the smokeof the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shiptonsaw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness hurled in thatdirection a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, andperhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity.It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess. "Just you go outthere and cuss, and see." She then set herself to the task of amusing"the child," as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Pineywas no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pairthus to account for the fact that she didn't swear and wasn't improper.
When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of theaccordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by theflickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the achingvoid left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed byPiney,--story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companionscaring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failedtoo, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon astray copy of Mr. Pope's ingenious translation of the Iliad. He nowproposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem--havingthoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words--in thecurrent vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night theHomeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greekwrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the canon seemed to bowto the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quietsatisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of"Ash-heels," as the Innocent persisted in denominating the "swift-footedAchilles."
So, with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week passedover the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and againfrom leaden skies the snowflakes were sifted over the land. Day by daycloser around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked fromtheir prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered twentyfeet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to replenishtheir fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now half hidden inthe drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers turned from the drearyprospect and looked into each other's eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurstsettled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess,more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only MotherShipton--once the strongest of the party--seemed to sicken and fade. Atmidnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. "I'm going,"she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, "but don't say anythingabout it. Don't waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head, andopen it." Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton's rations forthe last week, untouched. "Give 'em to the child," she said, pointing tothe sleeping Piney. "You've starved yourself," said the gambler. "That'swhat they call it," said the woman querulously, as she lay down again,and, turning her face to the wall, passed quietly away.
The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer wasforgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to thesnow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair ofsnow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle.
"There's one chance in a hundred to save her yet," he said, pointing toPiney; "but it's there," he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. "If youcan reach there in two days she's safe."
"And you?" asked Tom Simson. "I'll stay here," was the curt reply.The lovers parted with a long embrace.
"You are not going, too?" said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurstapparently waiting to accompany him. "As far as the canon," hereplied. He turned suddenly and kissed the Duchess, leaving herpallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.
Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and thewhirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some onehad quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days longer.The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other'sfaces, they read their fate. Neither spoke, but Piney, accepting theposition of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around theDuchess's waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. Thatnight the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder theprotecting vines, invaded the very hut.
Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, whichgradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess creptcloser to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: "Piney, can youpray?" "No, dear," said Piney simply. The Duchess, without knowingexactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney's shoulder,spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing thehead of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow,shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white winged birds, andsettled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted cloudslooked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all traceof earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifullyflung from above.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voicesand footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingersbrushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told fromthe equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Eventhe law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving themstill locked in each other's arms.
But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, theyfound the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It borethe following, written in pencil in a firm hand:--
BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER 1850. AND HANDED IN HIS CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in hisheart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was atonce the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.
MIGGLES
We were eight including the driver. We had not spoken during the passageof the last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehicle over theroughening road had spoiled the Judge's last poetical quotation. Thetall man beside the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through the swayingstrap and his head resting upon it,--altogether a limp, helpless lookingobject, as if he had hanged himself and been cut down too late. TheFrench lady on the back seat was asleep too, yet in a half-consciouspropriety of attitude, shown even in the disposition of the handkerchiefwhich she held to her forehead and which partially veiled her face. Thelady from Virginia City, traveling with her husband, had long sincelost all individuality in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils, furs, andshawls. There was no sound but the rattling of wheels and the dash ofrain upon the roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became dimly awareof voices. The driver was evidently in the midst of an exciting colloquywith some one in the road,--a colloquy of which such fragments as"bridge gone," "twenty feet of water," "can't pass," were occasionallydistinguishable above the storm. Then came a lull, and a mysteriousvoice from the road shouted the parting adjuration--
"Try Miggles's."
We caught a glimpse of our leaders as the vehicle slowly turned, of ahorseman vanishing through the rain, and we were evidently on our way toMiggles's.
Who and where was Miggles? The Judge, our authority, did not rememberthe name, and he knew the country thoroughly. The Washoe travelerthought Miggles must keep a hotel. We o
nly knew that we were stopped byhigh water in front and rear, and that Miggles was our rock of refuge.A ten minutes' splashing through a tangled byroad, scarcely wide enoughfor the stage, and we drew up before a barred and boarded gate in awide stone wall or fence about eight feet high. Evidently Miggles's, andevidently Miggles did not keep a hotel.
The driver got down and tried the gate. It was securely locked.
"Miggles! O Miggles!"
No answer.
"Migg-ells! You Miggles!" continued the driver, with rising wrath.
"Migglesy!" joined in the expressman persuasively. "O Miggy! Mig!"
But no reply came from the apparently insensate Miggles. The Judge,who had finally got the window down, put his head out and propoundeda series of questions, which if answered categorically would haveundoubtedly elucidated the whole mystery, but which the driver evadedby replying that "if we didn't want to sit in the coach all night we hadbetter rise up and sing out for Miggles."
So we rose up and called on Miggles in chorus, then separately. And whenwe had finished, a Hibernian fellow passenger from the roof called for"Maygells!" whereat we all laughed. While we were laughing the drivercried, "Shoo!"
We listened. To our infinite amazement the chorus of "Miggles" wasrepeated from the other side of the wall, even to the final andsupplemental "Maygells."
"Extraordinary echo!" said the Judge.
"Extraordinary d--d skunk!" roared the driver contemptuously. "Come outof that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don't hide inthe dark; I wouldn't if I were you, Miggles," continued Yuba Bill, nowdancing about in an excess of fury.
"Miggles!" continued the voice, "O Miggles!"
"My good man! Mr. Myghail!" said the Judge, softening the asperities ofthe name as much as possible. "Consider the inhospitality of refusingshelter from the inclemency of the weather to helpless females. Really,my dear sir"--But a succession of "Miggles," ending in a burst oflaughter, drowned his voice.
Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy stone from the road, hebattered down the gate, and with the expressman entered the inclosure.We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the gathering darkness all thatwe could distinguish was that we were in a garden--from the rose bushesthat scattered over us a minute spray from their dripping leaves--andbefore a long, rambling wooden building.
"Do you know this Miggles?" asked the Judge of Yuba Bill.
"No, nor don't want to," said Bill shortly, who felt the Pioneer StageCompany insulted in his person by the contumacious Miggles.
"But, my dear sir," expostulated the Judge, as he thought of the barredgate.
"Lookee here," said Yuba Bill, with fine irony, "hadn't you better goback and sit in the coach till yer introduced? I'm going in," and hepushed open the door of the building.
A long room, lighted only by the embers of a fire that was dying on thelarge hearth at its farther extremity; the walls curiously papered, andthe flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque pattern; someonesitting in a large armchair by the fireplace. All this we saw as wecrowded together into the room after the driver and expressman. "Hello!be you Miggles?" said Yuba Bill to the solitary occupant.
The figure neither spoke nor stirred. Yuba Bill walked wrathfully towardit and turned the eye of his coach-lantern upon its face. It was a man'sface, prematurely old and wrinkled, with very large eyes, in whichthere was that expression of perfectly gratuitous solemnity which I hadsometimes seen in an owl's. The large eyes wandered from Bill's faceto the lantern, and finally fixed their gaze on that luminous objectwithout further recognition.
Bill restrained himself with an effort.
"Miggles! be you deaf? You ain't dumb anyhow, you know," and Yuba Billshook the insensate figure by the shoulder.
To our great dismay, as Bill removed his hand, the venerablestranger apparently collapsed, sinking into half his size and anundistinguishable heap of clothing.
"Well, dern my skin," said Bill, looking appealingly at us, andhopelessly retiring from the contest.
The Judge now stepped forward, and we lifted the mysterious invertebrateback into his original position. Bill was dismissed with the lantern toreconnoitre outside, for it was evident that, from the helplessness ofthis solitary man? there must be attendants near at hand, and we alldrew around the fire. The Judge, who had regained his authority, and hadnever lost his conversational amiability,--standing before us with hisback to the hearth,--charged us, as an imaginary jury, as follows:--
"It is evident that either our distinguished friend here has reachedthat condition described by Shakespeare as 'the sere and yellow leaf,'or has suffered some premature abatement of his mental and physicalfaculties. Whether he is really the Miggles"--
Here he was interrupted by "Miggles! O Miggles! Migglesy! Mig!" and, infact, the whole chorus of Miggles in very much the same key as it hadonce before been delivered unto us.
We gazed at each other for a moment in some alarm. The Judge, inparticular, vacated his position quickly, as the voice seemed to comedirectly over his shoulder. The cause, however, was soon discovered ina large magpie who was perched upon a shelf over the fireplace, andwho immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence, which contrastedsingularly with his previous volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voicewhich we had heard in the road, and our friend in the chair was notresponsible for the discourtesy. Yuba Bill, who reentered the room afteran unsuccessful search, was both to accept the explanation, and stilleyed the helpless sitter with suspicion. He had found a shed in whichhe had put up his horses, but he came back dripping and skeptical. "Tharain't nobody but him within ten mile of the shanty, and that ar d--d oldskeesicks knows it."
But the faith of the majority proved to be securely based. Bill hadscarcely ceased growling before we heard a quick step upon the porch,the trailing of a wet skirt, the door was flung open, and with a flashof white teeth, a sparkle of dark eyes, and an utter absence of ceremonyor diffidence, a young woman entered, shut the door, and, panting,leaned back against it.
"Oh, if you please, I'm Miggles!"
And this was Miggles! this bright-eyed, full-throated young woman, whosewet gown of coarse blue stuff could not hide the beauty of the femininecurves to which it clung; from the chestnut crown of whose head, toppedby a man's oil-skin sou'wester, to the little feet and ankles, hiddensomewhere in the recesses of her boy's brogans, all was grace,--this wasMiggles, laughing at us, too, in the most airy, frank, off-hand mannerimaginable.
"You see, boys," said she, quite out of breath, and holding one littlehand against her side, quite unheeding the speechless discomfiture ofour party or the complete demoralization of Yuba Bill, whosefeatures had relaxed into an expression of gratuitous and imbecilecheerfulness,--"you see, boys, I was mor'n two miles away when youpassed down the road. I thought you might pull up here, and so I ranthe whole way, knowing nobody was home but Jim,--and--and--I'm out ofbreath--and--that lets me out." And here Miggles caught her drippingoilskin hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that scattered ashower of raindrops over us; attempted to put back her hair; dropped twohairpins in the attempt; laughed, and sat down beside Yuba Bill, withher hands crossed lightly on her lap.
The Judge recovered himself first and essayed an extravagant compliment.
"I'll trouble you for that ha'rpin," said Miggles gravely. Half a dozenhands were eagerly stretched forward; the missing hairpin was restoredto its fair owner; and Miggles, crossing the room, looked keenly inthe face of the invalid. The solemn eyes looked back at hers with anexpression we had never seen before. Life and intelligence seemed tostruggle back into the rugged face. Miggles laughed again,--it was asingularly eloquent laugh,--and turned her black eyes and white teethonce more towards us.
"This afflicted person is"--hesitated the Judge.
"Jim!" said Miggles.
"Your father?"
"No!"
"Brother?"
"No?"
"Husband?"
Miggles darted a quick, half-defiant glance at the two l
ady passengers,who I had noticed did not participate in the general masculineadmiration of Miggles, and said gravely, "No; it's Jim!" There wasan awkward pause. The lady passengers moved closer to each other;the Washoe husband looked abstractedly at the fire, and the tall manapparently turned his eyes inward for self-support at this emergency.But Miggles's laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence.
"Come," she said briskly, "you must be hungry. Who'll bear a hand tohelp me get tea?"
She had no lack of volunteers. In a few moments Yuba Bill was engagedlike Caliban in bearing logs for this Miranda; the expressman wasgrinding coffee on the veranda; to myself the arduous duty of slicingbacon was assigned; and the Judge lent each man his good-humoredand voluble counsel. And when Miggles, assisted by the Judge andour Hibernian "deck-passenger," set the table with all the availablecrockery, we had become quite joyous, in spite of the rain that beatagainst the windows, the wind that whirled down the chimney, the twoladies who whispered together in the corner, or the magpie, who uttereda satirical and croaking commentary on their conversation from his perchabove. In the now bright, blazing fire we could see that the walls werepapered with illustrated journals, arranged with feminine tasteand discrimination. The furniture was extemporized and adapted fromcandle-boxes and packing-cases, and covered with gay calico or theskin of some animal. The armchair of the helpless Jim was an ingeniousvariation of a flour-barrel. There was neatness, and even a taste forthe picturesque, to be seen in the few details of the long, low room.
The meal was a culinary success. But more, it was a socialtriumph,--chiefly, I think, owing to the rare tact of Miggles inguiding the conversation, asking all the questions herself, yet bearingthroughout a frankness that rejected the idea of any concealment onher own part, so that we talked of ourselves, of our prospects, of thejourney, of the weather, of each other,--of everything but our hostand hostess. It must be confessed that Miggles's conversation was neverelegant, rarely grammatical, and that at times she employed expletivesthe use of which had generally been yielded to our sex. But they weredelivered with such a lighting up of teeth and eyes, and were usuallyfollowed by a laugh--a laugh peculiar to Miggles--so frank and honestthat it seemed to clear the moral atmosphere.