A Millionaire of Rough and Ready
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Bret Harte >> A Millionaire of Rough and Ready
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7 A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
by BRET HARTE
PROLOGUE
There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last!
It had lain there before him a moment ago--a misshapen piece of
brown-stained quartz, interspersed with dull yellow metal; yielding
enough to have allowed the points of his pick to penetrate its
honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of
his pick as he endeavored to lift it from the red earth.
He was seeing all this plainly, although he found himself, he knew
not why, at some distance from the scene of his discovery, his
heart foolishly beating, his breath impotently hurried. Yet he was
walking slowly and vaguely; conscious of stopping and staring at
the landscape, which no longer looked familiar to him. He was
hoping for some instinct or force of habit to recall him to
himself; yet when he saw a neighbor at work in an adjacent claim,
he hesitated, and then turned his back upon him. Yet only a moment
before he had thought of running to him, saying, "By Jingo! I've
struck it," or "D--n it, old man, I've got it"; but that moment had
passed, and now it seemed to him that he could scarce raise his
voice, or, if he did, the ejaculation would appear forced and
artificial. Neither could he go over to him coolly and tell his
good fortune; and, partly from this strange shyness, and partly
with a hope that another survey of the treasure might restore him
to natural expression, he walked back to his tunnel.
Yes; it was there! No mere "pocket" or "deposit," but a part of
the actual vein he had been so long seeking. It was there, sure
enough, lying beside the pick and the debris of the "face" of the
vein that he had exposed sufficiently, after the first shock of
discovery, to assure himself of the fact and the permanence of his
fortune. It was there, and with it the refutation of his enemies'
sneers, the corroboration of his friends' belief, the practical
demonstration of his own theories, the reward of his patient
labors. It was there, sure enough. But, somehow, he not only
failed to recall the first joy of discovery, but was conscious of a
vague sense of responsibility and unrest. It was, no doubt, an
enormous fortune to a man in his circumstances: perhaps it meant a
couple of hundred thousand dollars, or more, judging from the value
of the old Martin lead, which was not as rich as this, but it
required to be worked constantly and judiciously. It was with a
decided sense of uneasiness that he again sought the open sunlight
of the hillside. His neighbor was still visible on the adjacent
claim; but he had apparently stopped working, and was
contemplatively smoking a pipe under a large pine-tree. For an
instant he envied him his apparent contentment. He had a sudden
fierce and inexplicable desire to go over to him and exasperate his
easy poverty by a revelation of his own new-found treasure. But
even that sensation quickly passed, and left him staring blankly at
the landscape again.
As soon as he had made his discovery known, and settled its value,
he would send for his wife and her children in the States. He
would build a fine house on the opposite hillside, if she would
consent to it, unless she preferred, for the children's sake, to
live in San Francisco. A sense of a loss of independence--of a
change of circumstances that left him no longer his own master--
began to perplex him, in the midst of his brightest projects.
Certain other relations with other members of his family, which had
lapsed by absence and his insignificance, must now be taken up
anew. He must do something for his sister Jane, for his brother
William, for his wife's poor connections. It would be unfair to
him to say that he contemplated those things with any other
instinct than that of generosity; yet he was conscious of being
already perplexed and puzzled.
Meantime, however, the neighbor had apparently finished his pipe,
and, knocking the ashes out of it, rose suddenly, and ended any
further uncertainty of their meeting by walking over directly
towards him. The treasure-finder advanced a few steps on his side,
and then stopped irresolutely.
"Hollo, Slinn!" said the neighbor, confidently.
"Hollo, Masters," responded Slinn, faintly. From the sound of the
two voices a stranger might have mistaken their relative condition.
"What in thunder are you mooning about for? What's up?" Then,
catching sight of Slinn's pale and anxious face, he added abruptly,
"Are you sick?"
Slinn was on the point of telling him his good fortune, but
stopped. The unlucky question confirmed his consciousness of his
physical and mental disturbance, and he dreaded the ready ridicule
of his companion. He would tell him later; Masters need not know
WHEN he had made the strike. Besides, in his present vagueness, he
shrank from the brusque, practical questioning that would be sure
to follow the revelation to a man of Masters' temperament.
"I'm a little giddy here," he answered, putting his hand to his
head, "and I thought I'd knock off until I was better."
Masters examined him with two very critical gray eyes. "Tell ye
what, old man!--if you don't quit this dog-goned foolin' of yours
in that God-forsaken tunnel you'll get loony! Times you get so
tangled up in follerin' that blind lead o' yours you ain't
sensible!"
Here was the opportunity to tell him all, and vindicate the justice
of his theories! But he shrank from it again; and now, adding to
the confusion, was a singular sense of dread at the mental labor of
explanation. He only smiled painfully, and began to move away.
"Look you!" said Masters, peremptorily, "ye want about three
fingers of straight whiskey to set you right, and you've got to
take it with me. D--n it, man, it may be the last drink we take
together! Don't look so skeered! I mean--I made up my mind about
ten minutes ago to cut the whole d--d thing, and light out for
fresh diggings. I'm sick of getting only grub wages out o' this
bill. So that's what I mean by saying it's the last drink you and
me'll take together. You know my ways: sayin' and doin' with me's
the same thing."
It was true. Slinn had often envied Masters' promptness of
decision and resolution. But he only looked at the grim face of
his interlocutor with a feeble sense of relief. He was GOING. And
he, Slinn, would not have to explain anything!
He murmured something about having to go over to the settlement on
business. He dreaded lest Masters should insist upon going into
the tunnel.
"I suppose you want to mail that letter," said Masters, drily.
"The mail don't go till to-morrow, so you've got time to finish it,
and put it in an envelope."
Following the direction of Masters' eyes, Slinn looked down and
saw, to his utter surprise, that he was holding an unfinished
pencilled note in his hand. How it came there, when he had written
it, he could not tell; he dimly remembered that one of his first
impulses was to write to his wife, but that he had already done so
he had forgotten. He hastily concealed the note in his breast-
pocket, with a vacant smile. Masters eyed him half contemptuously,
half compassionately.
"Don't forget yourself and drop it in some hollow tree for a
letter-box," be said. "Well--so long!--since you won't drink.
Take care of yourself," and, turning on his heel, Masters walked
away.
Slinn watched him as he crossed over to his abandoned claim, saw
him gather his few mining utensils, strap his blanket over his
back, lift his hat on his long-handled shovel as a token of
farewell, and then stride light-heartedly over the ridge.
He was alone now with his secret and his treasure. The only man in
the world who knew of the exact position of his tunnel had gone
away forever. It was not likely that this chance companion of a
few weeks would ever remember him or the locality again; he would
now leave his treasure alone--for even a day perhaps--until he had
thought out some plan and sought out some friend in whom to
confide. His secluded life, the singular habits of concentration
which had at last proved so successful had, at the same time, left
him few acquaintances and no associates. And in all his well-laid
plans and patiently-digested theories for finding the treasure, the
means and methods of working it and disposing of it had never
entered.
And now, at the hour when he most needed his faculties, what was
the meaning of this strange benumbing of them!
Patience! He only wanted a little rest--a little time to recover
himself. There was a large boulder under a tree in the highway of
the settlement--a sheltered spot where he had often waited for the
coming of the stage-coach. He would go there, and when he was
sufficiently rested and composed he would go on.
Nevertheless, on his way he diverged and turned into the woods, for
no other apparent purpose than to find a hollow tree. "A hollow
tree." Yes! that was what Masters had said; he remembered it
distinctly; and something was to be done there, but what it was, or
why it should be done, he could not tell. However, it was done,
and very luckily, for his limbs could scarcely support him further,
and reaching that boulder he dropped upon it like another stone.
And now, strange to say, the uneasiness and perplexity which had
possessed him ever since he had stood before his revealed wealth
dropped from him like a burden laid upon the wayside. A
measureless peace stole over him, in which visions of his new-found
fortune, no longer a trouble and perplexity, but crowned with
happiness and blessing to all around him, assumed proportions far
beyond his own weak, selfish plans. In its even-handed
benefaction, his wife and children, his friends and relations, even
his late poor companion of the hillside, met and moved harmoniously
together; in its far-reaching consequences there was only the
influence of good. It was not strange that this poor finite mind
should never have conceived the meaning of the wealth extended to
him; or that conceiving it he should faint and falter under the
revelation. Enough that for a few minutes he must have tasted a
joy of perfect anticipation that years of actual possession might
never bring.
The sun seemed to go down in a rosy dream of his own happiness, as
he still sat there. Later, the shadows of the trees thickened and
surrounded him, and still later fell the calm of a quiet evening
sky with far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little
troubled by what they looked upon as he was by the stealthy
creeping life in the grasses and underbrush at his feet. The dull
patter of soft little feet in the soft dust of the road, the gentle
gleam of moist and wondering little eyes on the branches and in the
mossy edges of the boulder, did not disturb him. He sat patiently
through it all, as if he had not yet made up his mind.
But when the stage came with the flashing sun the next morning, and
the irresistible clamor of life and action, the driver suddenly
laid his four spirited horses on their haunches before the quiet
spot. The express messenger clambered down from the box, and
approached what seemed to be a heap of cast-off clothes upon the
boulder.
"He don't seem to be drunk," he said, in reply to a querulous
interrogation from the passengers. "I can't make him out. His
eyes are open, but he cannot speak or move. Take a look at him,
Doc."
A rough unprofessional-looking man here descended from the inside
of the coach, and, carelessly thrusting aside the other curious
passengers, suddenly leant over the heap of clothes in a
professional attitude.
"He is dead," said one of the passengers.
The rough man let the passive head sink softly down again. "No
such luck for him," he said curtly, but not unkindly. "It's a
stroke of paralysis--and about as big as they make 'em. It's a
toss-up if he ever speaks or moves again as long as he lives."
CHAPTER I
When Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes and
garden "truck" on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining
community of that region, and the adjacent hamlet of "Rough-and-
Ready," regarded it with the contemptuous indifference usually
shown by those adventurers towards all bucolic pursuits. There was
certainly no active objection to the occupation of two hillsides,
which gave so little promise to the prospector for gold that it was
currently reported that a single prospector, called "Slinn," had
once gone mad or imbecile through repeated failures. The only
opposition came, incongruously enough, from the original pastoral
owner of the soil, one Don Ramon Alvarado, whose claim for seven
leagues of hill and valley, including the now prosperous towns of
Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, was met with simple derision from the
squatters and miners. "Looks ez ef we woz goin' to travel three
thousand miles to open up his d--d old wilderness, and then pay for
the increased valoo we give it--don't it? Oh, yes, certainly!" was
their ironical commentary. Mulrady might have been pardoned for
adopting this popular opinion; but by an equally incongruous
sentiment, peculiar, however, to the man, he called upon Don Ramon,
and actually offered to purchase the land, or "go shares" with him
in the agricultural profits. It was alleged that the Don was so
struck with this concession that he not only granted the land, but
struck up a quaint reserved friendship for the simple-minded
agriculturist and his family. It is scarcely necessary to add that
this intimacy was viewed by the miners with the contempt that it
deserved. They would have been more contemptuous, however, had
they known the opinion that Don Ramon entertained of their
particular vocation, and which he early confided to Mulrady.
"They are savages who expect to reap where they have not sown; to
take out of the earth without returning anything to it but their
precious carcasses; heathens, who worship the mere stones they dig
up." "And was there no Spaniard who ever dug gold?" asked Mulrady,
simply. "Ah, there are Spaniards and Moors," responded Don Ramon,
sententiously. "Gold has been dug, and by caballeros; but no good
ever came of it. There were Alvarados in Sonora, look you, who had
mines of SILVER, and worked them with peons and mules, and lost
their money--a gold mine to work a silver one--like gentlemen! But
this grubbing in the dirt with one's fingers, that a little gold
may stick to them, is not for caballeros. And then, one says
nothing of the curse."
"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine
superstition. "What is that?"
"You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to
my ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse
upon any who should desecrate them. Good! Let us see! Of the
three Americanos who founded yonder town, one was shot, another
died of a fever--poisoned, you understand, by the soil--and the
last got himself crazy of aguardiente. Even the scientifico,* who
came here years ago and spied into the trees and the herbs: he was
afterwards punished for his profanation, and died of an accident in
other lands. But," added Don Ramon, with grave courtesy, "this
touches not yourself. Through me, YOU are of the soil."
* Don Ramon probably alluded to the eminent naturalist Douglas, who
visited California before the gold excitement, and died of an
accident in the Sandwich Islands.
Indeed, it would seem as if a secure if not a rapid prosperity was
the result of Don Ramon's manorial patronage. The potato patch and
market garden flourished exceedingly; the rich soil responded with
magnificent vagaries of growth; the even sunshine set the seasons
at defiance with extraordinary and premature crops. The salt pork
and biscuit consuming settlers did not allow their contempt of
Mulrady's occupation to prevent their profiting by this opportunity
for changing their diet. The gold they had taken from the soil
presently began to flow into his pockets in exchange for his more
modest treasures. The little cabin, which barely sheltered his
family--a wife, son, and daughter--was enlarged, extended, and
refitted, but in turn abandoned for a more pretentious house on the
opposite hill. A whitewashed fence replaced the rudely-split
rails, which had kept out the wilderness. By degrees, the first
evidences of cultivation--the gashes of red soil, the piles of
brush and undergrowth, the bared boulders, and heaps of stone--
melted away, and were lost under a carpet of lighter green, which
made an oasis in the tawny desert of wild oats on the hillside.
Water was the only free boon denied this Garden of Eden; what was
necessary for irrigation had to be brought from a mining ditch at
great expense, and was of insufficient quantity. In this emergency
Mulrady thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope
beside his house; not, however, without serious consultation and
much objection from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don
Ramon pointed out that this trifling with the entrails of the earth
was not only an indignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking
and tunneling, but was a disturbance of vested interests. "I and
my fathers, San Diego rest them!" said Don Ramon, crossing himself,
"were content with wells and cisterns, filled by Heaven at its
appointed seasons; the cattle, dumb brutes though they were, knew
where to find water when they wanted it. But thou sayest truly,"
he added, with a sigh, "that was before streams and rain were
choked with hellish engines, and poisoned with their spume. Go on,
friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt, but in a seemly fashion,
and not with impious earthquakes of devilish gunpowder."
With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesian
shaft. Being debarred the auxiliaries of steam and gunpowder, the
work went on slowly. The market garden did not suffer meantime, as
Mulrady had employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder
tillage, while he superintended the engineering work of the well.
This trifling incident marked an epoch in the social condition of
the family. Mrs. Mulrady at once assumed a conscious importance
among her neighbors. She spoke of her husband's "men"; she alluded
to the well as "the works"; she checked the easy frontier
familiarity of her customers with pretty Mary Mulrady, her
seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady looked with
astonishment at this sudden development of the germ planted in all
feminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of prosperity.
"Look yer, Malviny; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys
that want to be civil to Mamie? Like as not one of 'em may be
makin' up to her already." "You don't mean to say, Alvin Mulrady,"
responded Mrs. Mulrady, with sudden severity, "that you ever
thought of givin' your daughter to a common miner, or that I'm
goin' to allow her to marry out of our own set?" "Our own set!"
echoed Mulrady feebly, blinking at her in astonishment, and then
glancing hurriedly across at his freckle-faced son and the two
Chinamen at work in the cabbages. "Oh, you know what I mean," said
Mrs. Mulrady sharply; "the set that we move in. The Alvarados and
their friends! Doesn't the old Don come here every day, and ain't
his son the right age for Mamie? And ain't they the real first
families here--all the same as if they were noblemen? No, leave
Mamie to me, and keep to your shaft; there never was a man yet had
the least sabe about these things, or knew what was due to his
family." Like most of his larger minded, but feebler equipped sex,
Mulrady was too glad to accept the truth of the latter proposition,
which left the meannesses of life to feminine manipulation, and
went off to his shaft on the hillside. But during that afternoon
he was perplexed and troubled. He was too loyal a husband not to
be pleased with this proof of an unexpected and superior foresight
in his wife, although he was, like all husbands, a little startled
by it. He tried to dismiss it from his mind. But looking down
from the hillside upon his little venture, where gradual increase
and prosperity had not been beyond his faculties to control and
understand, he found himself haunted by the more ambitious projects
of his helpmate. From his own knowledge of men, he doubted if Don
Ramon, any more than himself, had ever thought of the possibility
of a matrimonial connection between the families. He doubted if he
would consent to it. And unfortunately it was this very doubt
that, touching his own pride as a self-made man, made him first
seriously consider his wife's proposition. He was as good as Don
Ramon, any day! With this subtle feminine poison instilled in his
veins, carried completely away by the logic of his wife's illogical
premises, he almost hated his old benefactor. He looked down upon
the little Garden of Eden, where his Eve had just tempted him with
the fatal fruit, and felt a curious consciousness that he was
losing its simple and innocent enjoyment forever.
Happily, about this time Don Ramon died. It is not probable that
he ever knew the amiable intentions of Mrs. Mulrady in regard to
his son, who now succeeded to the paternal estate, sadly
partitioned by relatives and lawsuits. The feminine Mulradys
attended the funeral, in expensive mourning from Sacramento; even
the gentle Alvin was forced into ready-made broadcloth, which
accented his good-natured but unmistakably common presence. Mrs.
Mulrady spoke openly of her "loss"; declared that the old families
were dying out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at
Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with
the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect.
She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don Caesar.
Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still
more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the
shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely
availed himself of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he
carried out the intentions of his father by consenting to sell to
Mulrady, for a small sum, the property he had leased. The idea of
purchasing had originated with Mrs. Mulrady.
"It'll be all in the family," had observed that astute lady, "and
it's better for the looks of the things that we shouldn't he his
tenants."
It was only a few weeks later that she was startled by hearing her
husband's voice calling her from the hillside as he rapidly
approached the house. Mamie was in her room putting on a new pink
cotton gown, in honor of an expected visit from young Don Caesar,
and Mrs. Mulrady was tidying the house in view of the same event.
Something in the tone of her good man's voice, and the unusual
circumstance of his return to the house before work was done,
caused her, however, to drop her dusting cloth, and run to the
kitchen door to meet him. She saw him running through the rows of
cabbages, his face shining with perspiration and excitement, a
light in his eyes which she had not seen for years. She recalled,
without sentiment, that he looked like that when she had called
him--a poor farm hand of her father's--out of the brush heap at the
back of their former home, in Illinois, to learn the consent of her
parents. The recollection was the more embarrassing as he threw
his arms around her, and pressed a resounding kiss upon her sallow
cheek.
"Sakes alive! Mulrady!" she said, exorcising the ghost of a blush
that had also been recalled from the past with her housewife's
apron, "what are you doin', and company expected every minit?"
"Malviny, I've struck it; and struck it rich!"
She disengaged herself from his arms, without excitement, and
looked at him with bright but shrewdly observant eyes.
"I've struck it in the well--the regular vein that the boys have
been looking fer. There's a fortin' fer you and Mamie: thousands
and tens of thousands!"
"Wait a minit."
She left him quickly, and went to the foot of the stairs. He could
hear her wonderingly and distinctly. "Ye can take off that new
frock, Mamie," she called out.
There was a sound of undisguised expostulation from Mamie.
"I'm speaking," said Mrs. Mulrady, emphatically.
The murmuring ceased. Mrs. Mulrady returned to her husband. The
interruption seemed to have taken off the keen edge of his
enjoyment. He at once abdicated his momentary elevation as a
discoverer, and waited for her to speak.
"Ye haven't told any one yet?" she asked.
"No. I was alone, down in the shaft. Ye see, Malviny, I wasn't
expectin' of anything." He began, with an attempt at fresh
enjoyment, "I was just clearin' out, and hadn't reckoned on
anythin'."
"You see, I was right when I advised you taking the land," she
said, without heeding him.
Mulrady's face fell. "I hope Don Caesar won't think"--he began,
hesitatingly. "I reckon, perhaps, I oughter make some sorter
compensation--you know."
"Stuff!" said Mrs. Mulrady, decidedly. "Don't be a fool. Any gold
discovery, anyhow, would have been yours--that's the law. And you
bought the land without any restrictions. Besides, you never had
any idea of this!"--she stopped, and looked him suddenly in the
face--"had you?"
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