IN THE TULES
He had never seen a steamboat in his life. Born and reared in one of theWestern Territories, far from a navigable river, he had only known the"dugout" or canoe as a means of conveyance across the scant streamswhose fordable waters made even those scarcely a necessity. The long,narrow, hooded wagon, drawn by swaying oxen, known familiarly asa "prairie schooner," in which he journeyed across the plains toCalifornia in '53, did not help his conception by that nautical figure.And when at last he dropped upon the land of promise through one of theSouthern mountain passes he halted all unconsciously upon the low banksof a great yellow river amidst a tangled brake of strange, reed-likegrasses that were unknown to him. The river, broadening as it debouchedthrough many channels into a lordly bay, seemed to him the ULTIMA THULEof his journeyings. Unyoking his oxen on the edge of the luxuriantmeadows which blended with scarcely any line of demarcation into thegreat stream itself, he found the prospect "good" according to hislights and prairial experiences, and, converting his halted wagon into atemporary cabin, he resolved to rest here and "settle."
There was little difficulty in so doing. The cultivated clearings he hadpassed were few and far between; the land would be his by discoveryand occupation; his habits of loneliness and self-reliance made himindependent of neighbors. He took his first meal in his new solitudeunder a spreading willow, but so near his natural boundary that thewaters gurgled and oozed in the reeds but a few feet from him. Thesun sank, deepening the gold of the river until it might have been thestream of Pactolus itself. But Martin Morse had no imagination; he wasnot even a gold-seeker; he had simply obeyed the roving instincts of thefrontiersman in coming hither. The land was virgin and unoccupied; itwas his; he was alone. These questions settled, he smoked his pipe withless concern over his three thousand miles' transference of habitationthan the man of cities who had moved into a next street. When thesun sank, he rolled himself in his blankets in the wagon bed and wentquietly to sleep.
But he was presently awakened by something which at first he couldnot determine to be a noise or an intangible sensation. It was a deepthrobbing through the silence of the night--a pulsation that seemed evento be communicated to the rude bed whereon he lay. As it came nearerit separated itself into a labored, monotonous panting, continuous, butdistinct from an equally monotonous but fainter beating of the waters,as if the whole track of the river were being coursed and trodden by amultitude of swiftly trampling feet. A strange feeling took possessionof him--half of fear, half of curious expectation. It was coming nearer.He rose, leaped hurriedly from the wagon, and ran to the bank. The nightwas dark; at first he saw nothing before him but the steel-black skypierced with far-spaced, irregularly scattered stars. Then there seemedto be approaching him, from the left, another and more symmetricalconstellation--a few red and blue stars high above the river, withthree compact lines of larger planetary lights flashing towards him andapparently on his own level. It was almost upon him; he involuntarilydrew back as the strange phenomenon swept abreast of where he stood, andresolved itself into a dark yet airy bulk, whose vagueness, topped byenormous towers, was yet illuminated by those open squares of lightthat he had taken for stars, but which he saw now were brilliantly litwindows.
Their vivid rays shot through the reeds and sent broad bands across themeadow, the stationary wagon, and the slumbering oxen. But all this wasnothing to the inner life they disclosed through lifted curtains andopen blinds, which was the crowning revelation of this strange andwonderful spectacle. Elegantly dressed men and women moved throughbrilliantly lit and elaborately gilt saloons; in one a banquet seemedto be spread, served by white-jacketed servants; in another were menplaying cards around marble-topped tables; in another the light flashedback again from the mirrors and glistening glasses and decanters ofa gorgeous refreshment saloon; in smaller openings there was the shydisclosure of dainty white curtains and velvet lounges of more intimateapartments.
Martin Morse stood enthralled and mystified. It was as if some invisibleAsmodeus had revealed to this simple frontiersman a world of which hehad never dreamed. It was THE world--a world of which he knew nothingin his simple, rustic habits and profound Western isolation--sweeping byhim with the rush of an unknown planet. In another moment it was gone; ashower of sparks shot up from one of the towers and fell all around him,and then vanished, even as he remembered the set piece of "Fourth ofJuly" fireworks had vanished in his own rural town when he was a boy.The darkness fell with it too. But such was his utter absorption andbreathless preoccupation that only a cold chill recalled him to himself,and he found he was standing mid-leg deep in the surge cast over the lowbanks by this passage of the first steamboat he had ever seen!
He waited for it the next night, when it appeared a little later fromthe opposite direction on its return trip. He watched it the next nightand the next. Hereafter he never missed it, coming or going--whateverthe hard and weary preoccupations of his new and lonely life. He felt hecould not have slept without seeing it go by. Oddly enough, his interestand desire did not go further. Even had he the time and money to spendin a passage on the boat, and thus actively realize the great world ofwhich he had only these rare glimpses, a certain proud, rustic shynesskept him from it. It was not HIS world; he could not affront the snubsthat his ignorance and inexperience would have provoked, and he wasdimly conscious, as so many of us are in our ignorance, that in minglingwith it he would simply lose the easy privileges of alien criticism. Forthere was much that he did not understand, and some things that gratedupon his lonely independence.
One night, a lighter one than those previous, he lingered a littlelonger in the moonlight to watch the phosphorescent wake of theretreating boat. Suddenly it struck him that there was a certainirregular splashing in the water, quite different from the regular,diagonally crossing surges that the boat swept upon the bank. Lookingat it more intently, he saw a black object turning in the water likea porpoise, and then the unmistakable uplifting of a black arm in anunskillful swimmer's overhand stroke. It was a struggling man. But itwas quickly evident that the current was too strong and the turbulenceof the shallow water too great for his efforts. Without a moment'shesitation, clad as he was in only his shirt and trousers, Morsestrode into the reeds, and the next moment, with a call of warning, wasswimming toward the now wildly struggling figure. But, from some unknownreason, as Morse approached him nearer the man uttered some incoherentprotest and desperately turned away, throwing off Morse's extended arm.
Attributing this only to the vague convulsions of a drowning man, Morse,a skilled swimmer, managed to clutch his shoulder, and propelled him atarm's length, still struggling, apparently with as much reluctance asincapacity, toward the bank. As their feet touched the reeds and slimybottom the man's resistance ceased, and he lapsed quite listlessly inMorse's arms. Half lifting, half dragging his burden, he succeeded atlast in gaining the strip of meadow, and deposited the unconscious manbeneath the willow tree. Then he ran to his wagon for whisky.
But, to his surprise, on his return the man was already sitting up andwringing the water from his clothes. He then saw for the first time,by the clear moonlight, that the stranger was elegantly dressed andof striking appearance, and was clearly a part of that bright andfascinating world which Morse had been contemplating in his solitude. Heeagerly took the proffered tin cup and drank the whisky. Then he roseto his feet, staggered a few steps forward, and glanced curiously aroundhim at the still motionless wagon, the few felled trees and evidence of"clearing," and even at the rude cabin of logs and canvas just beginningto rise from the ground a few paces distant, and said, impatiently:
"Where the devil am I?"
Morse hesitated. He was unable to name the locality of hisdwelling-place. He answered briefly:
"On the right bank of the Sacramento."
The stranger turned upon him a look of suspicion not unmingled withresentment. "Oh!" he said, with ironical gravity, "and I suppose thatthis water you picked me out of was the Sacramento River. Thank you!"
Morse, with slow Western patience, explained that he had only settledthere three weeks ago, and the place had no name.
"What's your nearest town, then?"
"Thar ain't any. Thar's a blacksmith's shop and grocery at thecrossroads, twenty miles further on, but it's got no name as I've heardon."
The stranger's look of suspicion passed. "Well," he said, in an imperativefashion, which, however, seemed as much the result of habit as theoccasion, "I want a horse, and mighty quick, too."
"H'ain't got any."
"No horse? How did you get to this place?"
Morse pointed to the slumbering oxen.
The stranger again stared curiously at him. After a pause he said, witha half-pitying, half-humorous smile: "Pike--aren't you?"
Whether Morse did or did not know that this current California slangfor a denizen of the bucolic West implied a certain contempt, he repliedsimply:
"I'm from Pike County, Mizzouri."
"Well," said the stranger, resuming his impatient manner, "you must begor steal a horse from your neighbors."
"Thar ain't any neighbor nearer than fifteen miles."
"Then send fifteen miles! Stop." He opened his still clinging shirtand drew out a belt pouch, which he threw to Morse. "There! there's twohundred and fifty dollars in that. Now, I want a horse. Sabe?"
"Thar ain't anyone to send," said Morse, quietly.
"Do you mean to say you are all alone here?"
"Yes.
"And you fished me out--all by yourself?"
"Yes."
The stranger again examined him curiously. Then he suddenly stretchedout his hand and grasped his companion's.
"All right; if you can't send, I reckon I can manage to walk over theretomorrow."
"I was goin' on to say," said Morse, simply, "that if you'll lie bytonight, I'll start over sunup, after puttin' out the cattle, and fetchyou back a horse afore noon."
"That's enough." He, however, remained looking curiously at Morse. "Didyou never hear," he said, with a singular smile, "that it was about themeanest kind of luck that could happen to you to save a drowning man?"
"No," said Morse, simply. "I reckon it orter be the meanest if youDIDN'T."
"That depends upon the man you save," said the stranger, with the sameambiguous smile, "and whether the SAVING him is only putting things off.Look here," he added, with an abrupt return to his imperative style,"can't you give me some dry clothes?"
Morse brought him a pair of overalls and a "hickory shirt," well worn,but smelling strongly of a recent wash with coarse soap. The strangerput them on while his companion busied himself in collecting a pile ofsticks and dry leaves.
"What's that for?" said the stranger, suddenly.
"A fire to dry your clothes."
The stranger calmly kicked the pile aside.
"Not any fire tonight if I know it," he said, brusquely. Before Morsecould resent his quickly changing moods he continued, in another tone,dropping to an easy reclining position beneath the tree, "Now, tell meall about yourself, and what you are doing here."
Thus commanded, Morse patiently repeated his story from the time hehad left his backwoods cabin to his selection of the river bank for a"location." He pointed out the rich quality of this alluvial bottomand its adaptability for the raising of stock, which he hoped soonto acquire. The stranger smiled grimly, raised himself to a sittingposition, and, taking a penknife from his damp clothes, began to cleanhis nails in the bright moonlight--an occupation which made the simpleMorse wander vaguely in his narration.
"And you don't know that this hole will give you chills and fever tillyou'll shake yourself out of your boots?"
Morse had lived before in aguish districts, and had no fear.
"And you never heard that some night the whole river will rise up andwalk over you and your cabin and your stock?"
"No. For I reckon to move my shanty farther back."
The man shut up his penknife with a click and rose.
"If you've got to get up at sunrise, we'd better be turning in. Isuppose you can give me a pair of blankets?"
Morse pointed to the wagon. "Thar's a shakedown in the wagon bed; youkin lie there." Nevertheless he hesitated, and, with the inconsequenceand abruptness of a shy man, continued the previous conversation.
"I shouldn't like to move far away, for them steamboats is pow'fulkempany o' nights. I never seed one afore I kem here," and then, withthe inconsistency of a reserved man, and without a word of furtherpreliminary, he launched into a confidential disclosure of his lateexperiences. The stranger listened with a singular interest and aquietly searching eye.
"Then you were watching the boat very closely just now when you saw me.What else did you see? Anything before that--before you saw me in thewater?"
"No--the boat had got well off before I saw you at all."
"Ah," said the stranger. "Well, I'm going to turn in." He walked to thewagon, mounted it, and by the time that Morse had reached it with hiswet clothes he was already wrapped in the blankets. A moment later heseemed to be in a profound slumber.
It was only then, when his guest was lying helplessly at his mercy, thathe began to realize his strange experiences. The domination of thisman had been so complete that Morse, although by nature independentand self-reliant, had not permitted himself to question his right orto resent his rudeness. He had accepted his guest's careless orpremeditated silence regarding the particulars of his accident as amatter of course, and had never dreamed of questioning him. That it wasa natural accident of that great world so apart from his own experienceshe did not doubt, and thought no more about it. The advent of the manhimself was greater to him than the causes which brought him there. Hewas as yet quite unconscious of the complete fascination this mysteriousstranger held over him, but he found himself shyly pleased with even theslight interest he had displayed in his affairs, and his hand felt yetwarm and tingling from his sudden soft but expressive grasp, as if ithad been a woman's. There is a simple intuition of friendship in somelonely, self-abstracted natures that is nearly akin to love at firstsight. Even the audacities and insolence of this stranger affectedMorse as he might have been touched and captivated by the coquetriesor imperiousness of some bucolic virgin. And this reserved and shyfrontiersman found himself that night sleepless, and hovering with anabashed timidity and consciousness around the wagon that sheltered hisguest, as if he had been a very Corydon watching the moonlit couch ofsome slumbering Amaryllis.
He was off by daylight--after having placed a rude breakfast by the sideof the still sleeping guest--and before midday he had returned with ahorse. When he handed the stranger his pouch, less the amount he hadpaid for the horse, the man said curtly:
"What's that for?"
"Your change. I paid only fifty dollars for the horse."
The stranger regarded him with his peculiar smile. Then, replacing thepouch in his belt, he shook Morse's hand again and mounted the horse.
"So your name's Martin Morse! Well--goodby, Morsey!"
Morse hesitated. A blush rose to his dark check. "You didn't tell meyour name," he said. "In case--"
"In case I'm WANTED? Well, you can call me Captain Jack." He smiled,and, nodding his head, put spurs to his mustang and cantered away.
Morse did not do much work that day, falling into abstracted moods andliving over his experiences of the previous night, until he fancied hecould almost see his strange guest again. The narrow strip of meadow washaunted by him. There was the tree under which he had first placedhim, and that was where he had seen him sitting up in his dripping butwell-fitting clothes. In the rough garments he had worn and returnedlingered a new scent of some delicate soap, overpowering the strongalkali flavor of his own. He was early by the river side, having a vaguehope, he knew not why, that he should again see him and recognize himamong the passengers. He was wading out among the reeds, in the faintlight of the rising moon, recalling the exact spot where he had firstseen the stranger, when he was suddenly startled by the
rolling over inthe water of some black object that had caught against the bank, buthad been dislodged by his movements. To his horror it bore a faintresemblance to his first vision of the preceding night. But a secondglance at the helplessly floating hair and bloated outline showed himthat it was a DEAD man, and of a type and build far different from hisformer companion. There was a bruise upon his matted forehead and anenormous wound in his throat already washed bloodless, white, and waxen.An inexplicable fear came upon him, not at the sight of the corpse, forhe had been in Indian massacres and had rescued bodies mutilated beyondrecognition; but from some moral dread that, strangely enough, quickenedand deepened with the far-off pant of the advancing steamboat. Scarcelyknowing why, he dragged the body hurriedly ashore, concealing it in thereeds, as if he were disposing of the evidence of his own crime. Then,to his preposterous terror, he noticed that the panting of the steamboatand the beat of its paddles were "slowing" as the vague bulk came insight, until a huge wave from the suddenly arrested wheels sent asurge like an enormous heartbeat pulsating through the sedge that halfsubmerged him. The flashing of three or four lanterns on deck and themotionless line of lights abreast of him dazzled his eyes, but he knewthat the low fringe of willows hid his house and wagon completely fromview. A vague murmur of voices from the deck was suddenly overridden bya sharp order, and to his relief the slowly revolving wheels again senta pulsation through the water, and the great fabric moved solemnly away.A sense of relief came over him, he knew not why, and he was consciousthat for the first time he had not cared to look at the boat.
When the moon arose he again examined the body, and took from itsclothing a few articles of identification and some papers of formalityand precision, which he vaguely conjectured to be some law papers fromtheir resemblance to the phrasing of sheriffs' and electors' noticeswhich he had seen in the papers. He then buried the corpse in a shallowtrench, which he dug by the light of the moon. He had no question ofresponsibility; his pioneer training had not included coroners' inquestsin its experience; in giving the body a speedy and secure burialfrom predatory animals he did what one frontiersman would do foranother--what he hoped might be done for him. If his previousunaccountable feelings returned occasionally, it was not from that;but rather from some uneasiness in regard to his late guest's possiblefeelings, and a regret that he had not been here at the finding of thebody. That it would in some way have explained his own accident he didnot doubt.
The boat did not "slow up" the next night, but passed as usual; yetthree or four days elapsed before he could look forward to its comingwith his old extravagant and half-exalted curiosity--which was hisnearest approach to imagination. He was then able to examine it moreclosely, for the appearance of the stranger whom he now began to call"his friend" in his verbal communings with himself--but whom he did notseem destined to again discover; until one day, to his astonishment, acouple of fine horses were brought to his clearing by a stock-drover.They had been "ordered" to be left there. In vain Morse expostulated andquestioned.
"Your name's Martin Morse, ain't it?" said the drover, with businessbrusqueness; "and I reckon there ain't no other man o' that name aroundhere?"
"No," said Morse.
"Well, then, they're YOURS."
"But who sent them?" insisted Morse. "What was his name, and where doeshe live?"
"I didn't know ez I was called upon to give the pedigree o' buyers,"said the drover dryly; "but the horses is 'Morgan,' you can bet yourlife." He grinned as he rode away.
That Captain Jack sent them, and that it was a natural prelude to hisagain visiting him, Morse did not doubt, and for a few days he livedin that dream. But Captain Jack did not come. The animals were of greatservice to him in "rounding up" the stock he now easily took in forpasturage, and saved him the necessity of having a partner or a hiredman. The idea that this superior gentleman in fine clothes might everappear to him in the former capacity had even flitted through his brain,but he had rejected it with a sigh. But the thought that, with luck andindustry, he himself might, in course of time, approximate to CaptainJack's evident station, DID occur to him, and was an incentive toenergy. Yet it was quite distinct from the ordinary working man'sambition of wealth and state. It was only that it might make him moreworthy of his friend. The great world was still as it had appearedto him in the passing boat--a thing to wonder at--to be above--and tocriticize.
For all that, he prospered in his occupation. But one day he woke withlistless limbs and feet that scarcely carried him through his dailylabors. At night his listlessness changed to active pain and afeverishness that seemed to impel him toward the fateful river, as ifhis one aim in life was to drink up its waters and bathe in its yellowstream. But whenever he seemed to attempt it, strange dreams assailedhim of dead bodies arising with swollen and distorted lips to touch hisown as he strove to drink, or of his mysterious guest battling with himin its current, and driving him ashore. Again, when he essayed to bathehis parched and crackling limbs in its flood, he would be confrontedwith the dazzling lights of the motionless steamboat and the glare ofstony eyes--until he fled in aimless terror. How long this lasted heknew not, until one morning he awoke in his new cabin with a strange mansitting by his bed and a Negress in the doorway.
"You've had a sharp attack of 'tule fever,'" said the stranger, droppingMorse's listless wrist and answering his questioning eyes, "but you'reall right now, and will pull through."
"Who are you?" stammered Morse feebly.
"Dr. Duchesne, of Sacramento."
"How did you come here?"
"I was ordered to come to you and bring a nurse, as you were alone.There she is." He pointed to the smiling Negress.
"WHO ordered you?"
The doctor smiled with professional tolerance. "One of your friends, ofcourse."
"But what was his name?"
"Really, I don't remember. But don't distress yourself. He has settledfor everything right royally. You have only to get strong now. My dutyis ended, and I can safely leave you with the nurse. Only when you arestrong again, I say--and HE says--keep back farther from the river."
And that was all he knew. For even the nurse who attended him throughthe first days of his brief convalescence would tell him nothing more.He quickly got rid of her and resumed his work, for a new and strangephase of his simple, childish affection for his benefactor, partlysuperinduced by his illness, was affecting him. He was beginning tofeel the pain of an unequal friendship; he was dimly conscious that hismysterious guest was only coldly returning his hospitality and benefits,while holding aloof from any association with him--and indicating theimmeasurable distance that separated their future intercourse. He hadwithheld any kind message or sympathetic greeting; he had kept back evenhis NAME. The shy, proud, ignorant heart of the frontiersman swelledbeneath the fancied slight, which left him helpless alike of reproachor resentment. He could not return the horses, although in a fit ofchildish indignation he had resolved not to use them; he could notreimburse him for the doctor's bill, although he had sent away thenurse.
He took a foolish satisfaction in not moving back from the river, with afaint hope that his ignoring of Captain Jack's advice might mysteriouslybe conveyed to him. He even thought of selling out his location andabandoning it, that he might escape the cold surveillance of hisheartless friend. All this was undoubtedly childish--but there is anirrepressible simplicity of youth in all deep feeling, and the worldlyinexperience of the frontiersman left him as innocent as a child. Inthis phase of his unrequited affection he even went so far as to seeksome news of Captain Jack at Sacramento, and, following out his foolishquest, even to take the steamboat from thence to Stockton.
What happened to him then was perhaps the common experience of suchnatures. Once upon the boat the illusion of the great world it containedfor him utterly vanished. He found it noisy, formal, insincere, and--hadhe ever understood or used the word in his limited vocabulary--VULGAR.Rather, perhaps, it seemed to him that the prevailing sentiment andaction of those who frequented it
--and for whom it was built--were of alower grade than his own. And, strangely enough, this gave him none ofhis former sense of critical superiority, but only of his own utter andcomplete isolation. He wandered in his rough frontiersman's clothes fromdeck to cabin, from airy galleries to long saloons, alone, unchallenged,unrecognized, as if he were again haunting it only in spirit, as he hadso often done in his dreams.
His presence on the fringe of some voluble crowd caused no interruption;to him their speech was almost foreign in its allusions to things he didnot understand, or, worse, seemed inconsistent with their eagerness andexcitement. How different from all this were his old recollections ofslowly oncoming teams, uplifted above the level horizon of the plains inhis former wanderings; the few sauntering figures that met him as manto man, and exchanged the chronicle of the road; the record of Indiantracks; the finding of a spring; the discovery of pasturage, withthe lazy, restful hospitality of the night! And how fierce here thiscontinual struggle for dominance and existence, even in this lull ofpassage. For above all and through all he was conscious of the feverishhaste of speed and exertion.
The boat trembled, vibrated, and shook with every stroke of theponderous piston. The laughter of the crowd, the exchange of gossip andnews, the banquet at the long table, the newspapers and books in thereading-room, even the luxurious couches in the staterooms, were alldominated, thrilled, and pulsating with the perpetual throb of the demonof hurry and unrest. And when at last a horrible fascination dragged himinto the engine room, and he saw the cruel relentless machinery at work,he seemed to recognize and understand some intelligent but pitilessMoloch, who was dragging this feverish world at its heels.
Later he was seated in a corner of the hurricane deck, whence he couldview the monotonous banks of the river; yet, perhaps by certain signsunobservable to others, he knew he was approaching his own locality.He knew that his cabin and clearing would be undiscernible behind thefringe of willows on the bank, but he already distinguished the pointswhere a few cottonwoods struggled into a promontory of lighter foliagebeyond them. Here voices fell upon his ear, and he was suddenly awarethat two men had lazily crossed over from the other side of the boat,and were standing before him looking upon the bank.
"It was about here, I reckon," said one, listlessly, as if continuing aprevious lagging conversation, "that it must have happened. For it wasafter we were making for the bend we've just passed that the deputy,goin' to the stateroom below us, found the door locked and the windowopen. But both men--Jack Despard and Seth Hall, the sheriff--weren'tto be found. Not a trace of 'em. The boat was searched, but all fornothing. The idea is that the sheriff, arter getting his prisonercomf'ble in the stateroom, took off Jack's handcuffs and locked thedoor; that Jack, who was mighty desp'rate, bolted through the windowinto the river, and the sheriff, who was no slouch, arter him.Others allow--for the chairs and things was all tossed about in thestateroom--that the two men clinched THAR, and Jack choked Hall andchucked him out, and then slipped cl'ar into the water himself, for thestateroom window was just ahead of the paddle box, and the cap'n allowsthat no man or men could fall afore the paddles and live. Anyhow, thatwas all they ever knew of it."
"And there wasn't no trace of them found?" said the second man, after along pause.
"No. Cap'n says them paddles would hev' just snatched 'em and slung 'emround and round and buried 'em way down in the ooze of the river bed,with all the silt of the current atop of 'em, and they mightn't come upfor ages; or else the wheels might have waltzed 'em way up to Sacramentountil there wasn't enough left of 'em to float, and dropped 'em when theboat stopped."
"It was a mighty fool risk for a man like Despard to take," resumed thesecond speaker as he turned away with a slight yawn.
"Bet your life! but he was desp'rate, and the sheriff had got him sure!And they DO say that he was superstitious, like all them gamblers, andallowed that a man who was fixed to die by a rope or a pistol wasn't tobe washed out of life by water."
The two figures drifted lazily away, but Morse sat rigid and motionless.Yet, strange to say, only one idea came to him clearly out of this awfulrevelation--the thought that his friend was still true to him--and thathis strange absence and mysterious silence were fully accounted for andexplained. And with it came the more thrilling fancy that this man wasalive now to HIM alone.
HE was the sole custodian of his secret. The morality of the question,while it profoundly disturbed him, was rather in reference to its effectupon the chances of Captain Jack and the power it gave his enemies thanhis own conscience. He would rather that his friend should have proventhe proscribed outlaw who retained an unselfish interest in him than thesuperior gentleman who was coldly wiping out his gratitude. He thoughthe understood now the reason of his visitor's strange and varyingmoods--even his bitter superstitious warning in regard to the probablecurse entailed upon one who should save a drowning man. Of this herecked little; enough that he fancied that Captain Jack's concern inhis illness was heightened by that fear, and this assurance of hisprotecting friendship thrilled him with pleasure.
There was no reason now why he should not at once go back to his farm,where, at least, Captain Jack would always find him; and he did so,returning on the same boat. He was now fully recovered from his illness,and calmer in mind; he redoubled his labors to put himself in a positionto help the mysterious fugitive when the time should come. The remotefarm should always be a haven of refuge for him, and in this hope heforbore to take any outside help, remaining solitary and alone, thatCaptain Jack's retreat should be inviolate. And so the long, dry seasonpassed, the hay was gathered, the pasturing herds sent home, and thefirst rains, dimpling like shot the broadening surface of the river,were all that broke his unending solitude. In this enforced attitude ofwaiting and expectancy he was exalted and strengthened by a new idea. Hewas not a religious man, but, dimly remembering the exhortations of somecamp meeting of his boyhood, he conceived the idea that he might havebeen selected to work out the regeneration of Captain Jack. What mightnot come of this meeting and communing together in this lonely spot?That anything was due to the memory of the murdered sheriff, whose boneswere rotting in the trench that he daily but unconcernedly passed, didnot occur to him. Perhaps his mind was not large enough for the doubleconsideration. Friendship and love--and, for the matter of that,religion--are eminently one-ideaed.
But one night he awakened with a start. His hand, which was hanging outof his bunk, was dabbling idly in water. He had barely time to springto his middle in what seemed to be a slowly filling tank before the doorfell out as from that inward pressure, and his whole shanty collapsedlike a pack of cards. But it fell outwards, the roof sliding from overhis head like a withdrawn canopy; and he was swept from his feet againstit, and thence out into what might have been another world! For therain had ceased, and the full moon revealed only one vast, illimitableexpanse of water! It was not an overflow, but the whole rushing rivermagnified and repeated a thousand times, which, even as he gasped forbreath and clung to the roof, was bearing him away he knew not whither.But it was bearing him away upon its center, for as he cast one swiftglance toward his meadows he saw they were covered by the same sweepingtorrent, dotted with his sailing hayricks and reaching to the woodedfoothills. It was the great flood of '54. In its awe-inspiringcompleteness it might have seemed to him the primeval Deluge.
As his frail raft swept under a cottonwood he caught at one of theoverhanging limbs, and, working his way desperately along the bough, atlast reached a secure position in the fork of the tree. Here he was forthe moment safe. But the devastation viewed from this height was onlythe more appalling. Every sign of his clearing, all evidence of his pastyear's industry, had disappeared. He was now conscious for the firsttime of the lowing of the few cattle he had kept as, huddled togetheron a slight eminence, they one by one slipped over struggling into theflood. The shining bodies of his dead horses rolled by him as he gazed.The lower-lying limbs of the sycamore near him were bending with theburden of the lighter articles
from his overturned wagon and cabin whichthey had caught and retained, and a rake was securely lodged in a bough.The habitual solitude of his locality was now strangely invaded bydrifting sheds, agricultural implements, and fence rails from unknownand remote neighbors, and he could faintly hear the far-off callingof some unhappy farmer adrift upon a spar of his wrecked and shatteredhouse. When day broke he was cold and hungry.
Hours passed in hopeless monotony, with no slackening or diminution ofthe waters. Even the drifts became less, and a vacant sea at last spreadbefore him on which nothing moved. An awful silence impressed him. Inthe afternoon rain again began to fall on this gray, nebulous expanse,until the whole world seemed made of aqueous vapor. He had but one ideanow--the coming of the evening boat, and he would reserve his strengthto swim to it. He did not know until later that it could no longerfollow the old channel of the river, and passed far beyond his sight andhearing. With his disappointment and exposure that night came a returnof his old fever. His limbs were alternately racked with pain orbenumbed and lifeless. He could scarcely retain his position--at timeshe scarcely cared to--and speculated upon ending his sufferings by aquick plunge downward. In other moments of lucid misery he was consciousof having wandered in his mind; of having seen the dead face of themurdered sheriff, washed out of his shallow grave by the flood, staringat him from the water; to this was added the hallucination of noises. Heheard voices, his own name called by a voice he knew--Captain Jack's!
Suddenly he started, but in that fatal movement lost his balance andplunged downward. But before the water closed above his head he had hada cruel glimpse of help near him; of a flashing light--of the blackhull of a tug not many yards away--of moving figures--the sensation ofa sudden plunge following his own, the grip of a strong hand upon hiscollar, and--unconsciousness!
When he came to he was being lifted in a boat from the tug and rowedthrough the deserted streets of a large city, until he was taken inthrough the second-story window of a half-submerged hotel and caredfor. But all his questions yielded only the information that thetug--a privately procured one, not belonging to the Public ReliefAssociation--had been dispatched for him with special directions, by aman who acted as one of the crew, and who was the one who had plunged infor him at the last moment. The man had left the boat at Stockton.There was nothing more? Yes!--he had left a letter. Morse seized itfeverishly. It contained only a few lines:
We are quits now. You are all right. I have saved YOU from drowning, andshifted the curse to my own shoulders. Good-by.
CAPTAIN JACK.
The astounded man attempted to rise--to utter an exclamation--but fellback, unconscious.
Weeks passed before he was able to leave his bed--and then only as animpoverished and physically shattered man. He had no means to restockthe farm left bare by the subsiding water. A kindly train-packer offeredhim a situation as muleteer in a pack train going to the mountains--forhe knew tracks and passes and could ride. The mountains gave him backa little of the vigor he had lost in the river valley, but none of itsdreams and ambitions. One day, while tracking a lost mule, he stoppedto slake his thirst in a waterhole--all that the summer had left of alonely mountain torrent. Enlarging the hole to give drink to his beastalso, he was obliged to dislodge and throw out with the red soil somebits of honeycomb rock, which were so queer-looking and so heavy as toattract his attention. Two of the largest he took back to camp withhim. They were gold! From the locality he took out a fortune. Nobodywondered. To the Californian's superstition it was perfectly natural.It was "nigger luck"--the luck of the stupid, the ignorant, theinexperienced, the nonseeker--the irony of the gods!
But the simple, bucolic nature that had sustained itself againsttemptation with patient industry and lonely self-concentration succumbedto rapidly acquired wealth. So it chanced that one day, with a crowd ofexcitement-loving spendthrifts and companions, he found himself onthe outskirts of a lawless mountain town. An eager, frantic crowd hadalready assembled there--a desperado was to be lynched! Pushing hisway through the crowd for a nearer view of the exciting spectacle, thechanged and reckless Morse was stopped by armed men only at the foot ofa cart, which upheld a quiet, determined man, who, with a rope aroundhis neck, was scornfully surveying the mob, that held the other endof the rope drawn across the limb of a tree above him. The eyes of thedoomed man caught those of Morse--his expression changed--a kindly smilelit his face--he bowed his proud head for the first time, with an easygesture of farewell.
And then, with a cry, Morse threw himself upon the nearest armed guard,and a fierce struggle began. He had overpowered one adversary and seizedanother in his hopeless fight toward the cart when the half-astonishedcrowd felt that something must be done. It was done with a sharp report,the upward curl of smoke and the falling back of the guard as Morsestaggered forward FREE--with a bullet in his heart. Yet even then he didnot fall until he reached the cart, when he lapsed forward, dead, withhis arms outstretched and his head at the doomed man's feet.
There was something so supreme and all-powerful in this hopeless actof devotion that the heart of the multitude thrilled and then recoiledaghast at its work, and a single word or a gesture from the doomedman himself would have set him free. But they say--and it is crediblyrecorded--that as Captain Jack Despard looked down upon the hopelesssacrifice at his feet his eyes blazed, and he flung upon the crowd acurse so awful and sweeping that, hardened as they were, their blood rancold, and then leaped furiously to their cheeks.
"And now," he said, coolly tightening the rope around his neck with ajerk of his head--"Go on, and be damned to you! I'm ready."
They did not hesitate this time. And Martin Morse and Captain JackDespard were buried in the same grave.