Joaquin Miller

“ Here's one baby among a thousand men. Here's a thousand men asking if it's got a father. Now does that little baby want a father? I've got a cave full of gold and I'll be its father! I'll be its brother and uncle and aunt and mother!" The Gopher thundered his fist down on the bar as he concluded, and the glasses there jumped up and clinked together, and bowed to each other, as if they had been dancers about to begin a cotillion.
The woodpecker flew away, and the mice were heard no more that day, for the men shouted their approval till they were hoarse-voiced as mules. ”

“ A man and a woman were coming slowly and cautiously down the way from the Widow's cabin. They were coming straight for the great center of the Forks, the Howling Wilderness.
The woman had something in her arms. She walked as carefully as if she had been bearing a waiter of wine. Could this be the Widow? It could hardly be Bunker Hill, thought the Forks, as it rose up from its seat on the stumps, and lifted its face up the trail, for she is almost as tall and comely and steps as nimbly as any woman in camp. ”

“ The two words came out like the bark of a bull-dog; as if one of the brutes he had drawn back under his bench had stuck out his nose and yelped in the face of the Widow, and Sandy was frightened nearly to death. The perspiration dropped from his brow to his hand, and he knew that things could not last in this way much longer. The bull-dogs would be out, and he knew it. The dead man that he was sitting down upon would rise up to judgment, and the felon at his side was only swinging and turning and twisting more than before. ”

“ The Forks was the wildest and the freshest bit of the black-white, fir-set, and snow-crowned Sierras that ever the Creator gave, new from His hand, to man.
One thousand men! Not a woman, not a child, down in that cañon of theirs, so deep that the sun never reached them in the Winter and but a little portion of the day in Summer.
Forests, fir and pine, in the cañon, and out of the cañon, up the hills and up the mountains, black and dense, till they broke against the colossal granite peaks far above and crowned in everlasting snow. ”

“ On the little wooden mantel-piece above the fire-place there stood a row of nuggets. They lay there as if they were a sort of Winter fruit put by to ripen. They were like oranges which you see lying about the peasants' houses in Italy, and almost as large. These were the gifts of the hardy miners of the Forks to their patron saint; gifts given at such times and in such ways that they could not be well refused.
Once there had been, late in the night, a heavy stone thrown against the door, while the two "turtle doves," as the camp used to call its lovers, sat by the fire. ”

“ The sun was pouring down in the open streets. Little Bunker Hill felt hardly, somehow, that she had a right to be married out in the open day, in the fresh, sweet air, and under the trees; and Limber Tim preferred to be married where his partner had been married, and so it was that they had met in the Howling Wilderness as before. All was silence now, all were waiting for the Judge to begin. Up in the loft the mice nibbled away at their endless rations of old boots, and a big red-headed woodpecker pounded away on the wall back by the chimney without. ”

“ The fourth day came down into the cañon, and sat down there as a sort of pioneer Summer. Birds flew over the camp from one mountain side to the other, and sang as they flew. Men whistled old tunes in a dreamy sort of a way as they came up from their work that day, and recalled other days, and were boys once more in imagination, away in the world that lay beyond the Rocky Mountains.
"There is something in this glorious climate of Californy, say what you will," mused the Judge, as he lit his pipe and sat down on a stump in the street. ”

“ The red, bristled head of the bar-keeper reached over toward Sandy. The bar-keeper's hand reached out and took Sandy by the loose blue-shirt bosom, and drew him close up to the red head. Then again looking toward the door, and then back over his shoulder, as if he suspected that his own bottles might hear him, he said, in a sharp hissing whisper, "Shoo! They want Nancy Williams!"
Sandy's mind at once turned to the Widow. He dared not trust the bar-keeper. In truth, no man dared trust his best friend where this most terrible and secret order was concerned. ”

“ The Widow sat a little way back across the cabin, a bit of work in her lap, looking up at Sandy now, and now dropping her half-sad blue eyes down to her work, and all the time, in a low sweet way, doing every word of the talking.
Sandy's hot stove kept getting hotter and hotter. He began to wish he was down with the boys at the Howling Wilderness, consulting the oracle of cocktails. All at once he seemed to discover his great long legs. They seemed to him as if they reached almost clean across the cabin, like two great anacondas going to swallow up the Widow. ”

“ He laid down his pick, for the sun was just pitching his last lances at the snow-peaks away up yonder above the firs, above the clouds, and night was coming down with steady steps to possess this chasm in the earth.
Limber Tim untwisted himself from the sapling as Sandy came up from the mine, twisting his great shaggy beard with his right hand, while he carried his black slouch hat in his left, and the two sauntered on toward their cabin together, while Sandy's great gum boots whetted together as he walked. ”

“ On the site of the Howling Wilderness the yellow golden grain reached up till it touched the very beard of the giant. So do perish the mining towns of the Sierras.
The hills are not so wild now; the woods have been mown away, and up on the hill-sides the miners have sat down, old and wrinkled and few in numbers; and around their quiet old cabins have planted fruit trees, and trees even from the tropics. And these trees flourish here too, for though the snow falls deep, and the sun has little room between the walls of the mighty cañon, still it seems never now so bleak or cold. ”

“ His last recollections of that day were a long and protracted and fruitless wrestle with the phial of wrath in his boot-leg, and an ineffectual attempt to screw the picket fence on to his back.
It was no new thing to find a man spilt out in the trail in these days, and his fall excited no remark.
They would carry men in out of the night and away from the wolves, or else would sit down and camp by them till they were able to care for themselves.
A man took a leg under each arm, another man took hold of his shoulders, and Limber Tim, now the limpest thing dead or alive was borne to his cabin. ”

“ It was not accident that made Sandy, or the Parson either, a head man in the Forks.
The Forks knew just how sterling, and how solid, and how sincere he was. No flattery here. There was not a penny to win by it. No applause to care for here. No public opinion to appease or woo. If a man did not like the company at the Howling Wilderness he need not put in an appearance. He could stay at home, lord of his castle, toil three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and no man would question him or doubt his motives.
Nor was it any accident that made Limber Tim the partner of Sandy. ”

“ A fair boy, the dreamer, the poet, went back to a bunk against the further wall, where the bar-keeper's bull-dog lay sleeping in his blankets, and put his arms about his neck, and put his face down and remained there a long time. Perhaps he wept. Was he weeping for joy or for sorrow?
There was a great big grizzly head moved out of the crowd and up to the bar. The head rolled on the shoulders from side to side, as if it was not very firmly fixed there, and did not particularly care at this particular time whether it remained there or not. A big fist fell like a stone on the bar. ”

“ Will you believe me now?"
"Blood," mused the man. "Somebody's hurt. Somebody's hurt awful bad, too, or they wouldn't keep a feller a-standin' agin a fence the whole blessed night."
The man's teeth began to chatter. The thought of blood and the bleak cold morning kept them smiting together as if he had had an ague.
A man in great gum boots came screeching by the cabin; his nose was pointed straight for the Howling Wilderness, but backing against Limber Tim as he hung up against the fence, stopped, and asked timidly and very respectfully of the Widow. ”

“ The meekest man that the world has seen since Socrates, was Washee-Washee. He sat there with the same semi-grin on his face, the same half smile in his almond eyes, though a man shook a rope in his face, jerked it up, thrust out his tongue, pointed to a tree, and hung himself in pantomime before this placid Chinaman.
"What will we do with him?" A bearded citizen stood there with a bundle of clothes under his arm, waiting to be gone.
"Poor, lonesome, harmless little man." Sandy stood there, repeating the words of the little Widow without knowing it.
"He does lie so helplessly," said one. ”

“ How that courtship got on, or where and when Sandy first opened his lips, nobody ever knew. At first he took Limber Tim with him. But really Limber was so awkward in the presence of ladies, or at least so thought Sandy to himself, that he was ashamed of him.
It was a great relief to Sandy, if he had only known enough to admit it to himself, to find some one in the room more awkward than himself. Nothing is a better boon, when embarrassed, than to see some one there a bigger dolt than yourself. ”

“ But the Parson did not pass on. He came close up to the boy as he stood there alone in the dusk, half trembling with fear, as the Parson approached.
The strong man did not speak at first. His face was terrible with rage and a strange tumult of thought.
The stars were half hidden by the sailing clouds, and the moon had not risen. It was almost dark. Away up on the mountain side a wolf called to his companion, and a lonesome night-bird, with a sharp cracked voice, kept up a mournful monotone in the cañon below. ”

“ One day, Bunker Hill, a humped-back and unhappy woman of uncertain ways, passed through the crowd in the Forks. Some of the rough men laughed and made remarks. This boy was there also. Lifting his eyes to one of these men at his side, he said:
"God has made some women a little plain, in order that he might have some women that are wholly good."
These things began to be noised about. All things have their culmination. Even the epizootic has one worst day. Things only go so far. Rockets only rise so high, then they explode, and all is dark and still. ”

“ The still blue skies of California were bending over the camp. Not a cloud sailed east or west, or hovered about the snow-peaks. It was full Summer-time in the Sierras before it was yet mid-Spring, and men began to pour over the mountains across the settled and solid banks of snow. Birds flew low and idly about the cabins, and sang as the men went on with their work down in the foaming, muddy little rivers, and all the world seemed glad and strong with life and hope. ”

“ There was also a row of men reaching within hail all the way down to the town, waiting to be of help, for Limber Tim had told them the Widow was ill.
The man started from his fastening on the fence at sight of this apparition, wild, half-clad, with her hair all down about her loose, ungathered garments, and he stood before her.
"I want to go home," the woman cried, wringing her hands. "I want to go home. I will go home. There is something wrong. You do not understand. Sandy is an angel; I am a devil. I want to go home." ”

“ This woman, Bunker Hill, had been knighted by their queen. She had been picked out, and set apart and over and above all the other fallen women of the Forks.
Even Limber Tim, who stood there on one leg, with his back screwed tight up against the palings, began to like her overmuch, and to wonder why she also would not make some honest man an honest wife. In fact, many men that night recalled many noble acts on the part of this poor woman, and they almost began to feel ashamed that they had sometimes laughed at her plainness, and promised in their hearts to never do so again. ”

“ Sandy was born King of the Forks. He was king already, without knowing it or caring to rule it.
There are people just like that in the world, you know,—great, silent, fearless fellows, or at least there are in the Sierra-world, and they are as good as they are great. They are there, throned there, filling up more of the world than any ten thousand of those feeble things that God sent into the world, in mercy to the poor good men who sit all day silent, and cross-legged, and in nine parts, sewing, on a table.
They will not go higher, they can not go lower. ”

“ Sold clean out. It's not the Widder at all—it's Sandy. Split his foot open with an ax. Blood gushed out all over Bunker Hill. Kivered Bunker Hill with blood clean up to the elbows."
"And what the devil was Bunker Hill a-doin' at Sandy's?"
The man from the dark saw that somebody had been sold, and, fearing it might possibly be himself, simply pecked at the other man, staggered up to the bar, pecked at the head that blazed like a pine-knot fire, and then the three drank in silence. ”

“ The tall, thin man went straight up to the bar, struck his knuckles on the counter, and nodded at the red bottle before him. It came forward, with a glass tumbler, and he drank deep, alone and in silence.
When a miner of the Sierras enters a saloon where other men are seated, and drinks alone, without inviting any one, it is meant as a deliberate insult to those present, unless there is some dreadful thing on his mind.
The Jumper, tall and fidgety, turned to the Parson, bent his back against the counter, and pushed back his hat. ”

“ But let us return to this one firm first woman, who had come into camp and taken at once upon her shoulders the task of washing and mending the miners' clothes.
Men, even the most bloated and besotted, walked as straight as possible up the trail that led by the Widow's cabin, as they passed that way at night; and kept back their jokes and war-whoops till far up the creek and out of her hearing in the pines. ”