Joaquin Miller

“ The iron-gray hair is white as the snow on the mountain-tops that environ him. The tall man is bent as a tree is bent when the winter snow lies heavily on its branches. The tawny boy is grown a man now. This is John Logan, the fugitive. The two homeless children have long since taken his place. [Pg 120]
And still the pick clangs on in that dark, damp tunnel that is always dripping, dripping, dripping, where it looks out at the glaring day, as if in eternal tears for the wasted life within. Yet now there is hope.
New life has been infused into this old camp of late years. ”

“ And he holds up John Logan's cap, which had been knocked from his head in his hasty retreat to cover, and he rolls his red eyes toward the bed, takes a step in that direction, reaches a hand, lays hold of the curtain, and is about to dash it aside.
"John Logan is there!" shouts Dosson, and again the curtain is clutched.
Does he dream of what is beyond? If he could only see the panting, breathless wretch that leans there eagerly, with lifted gun, ready to brain him—waiting, waiting for him to come, even wishing that he only would come—he would start back with terror to the other side. ”

“ In Forty-nine's cabin, by a flickering log-fire, Carrie sits alone. The wind howls horribly, the door creaks, and the fire snaps wickedly; the wind roars—now the roar of a far-off sea, and now it smites the cabin in shocks, and sifts and shakes the snow through the shingle. The girl draws her tattered blanket tighter about her, and sits a little closer to the fire. ”

“ That pursuer was also an old man, and not much unlike himself; an old man with a scythe—death. Death following fast from the hot valley of pestilence, where he, death, kept, if possible, closer watch than the Agents, that no Indian ever returned to his native mountains. But death gave up the pursuit, and turned back from the moment the baptismal fountain touched the girl's fevered forehead. At last the old man who held her in his arms, rose up, rode on and down to his cabin in the twilight, all secure from pursuit of Agents, death, or any one. ”

“ As the sun settled low, one afternoon, and cast long, creeping shadows over the flowery land—shadows that lay upon and crept along the ground, as if they were weary of the day, and would like to lie there and sleep, and sleep, forever—the stealthy step of a man was heard approaching the old cabin. There was something of the tiger in the man's movements, and it was clear that his mission, whatever it was, was not a mission of peace. ”

“ But the old man had worked on and waited. He had kept constantly sober. He would see and would save this girl at all hazards.
And now, as the sorrowful remnant of a once great tribe was being taken, like Israel into captivity, he rushed forward to meet her, to hold her hands, to press her to his heart, and bid her be strong and hopeful.
The agent saw the old man and shouted to the officer; the officer called to the soldiers—the line moved forward, the bayonets crossed the old man's breast as the prisoners passed on down the mountain, and he saw the sad, pitiful face no more. ”

“ I am ugly, and I know it! For, last winter, when I went down to the grocery to fetch Forty-nine—he'd gone down there to get medicine for his ager, Mr. John Logan—I heard a man say, 'She is ugly as a mud fence.' Oh, I went for him! I made the fur fly! But that didn't make me pretty. I was ugly all the same. No, I'm not pretty—I'm ugly, and I know it!"
"Oh, no, you're not. You are beautiful, and getting lovelier every day." Carrie softens and approaches him.
"Am I, John Logan? And you really don't think red hair is the ugliest thing in the world?" ”

“ The only difference is, we preach and profess peace; they, war.
Logan was alone in this damp hut and deadly pen. He could hear the tramp of the soldiers; he could see the long thin silver beams of the moon reach through the gratings, reach on and on, around and over and across the damp, mouldy floor, as if reaching out, like God's white fingers, to touch his face, to cool his fever, and comfort him. But he could see, hear nothing more. He was so utterly alone! They would send an unfriendly Indian in with his breakfast, foul and unfit for even a well man, and a tin cup of water in the morning. ”

“ He holds it tenderly, as if a child, or something dearly loved. He takes it to the light and looks at the lock; he blows in the barrel; he mournfully shakes his head. "It is not loaded! Well, no matter; I can but die," and he clubs the gun and prepares for mortal battle.
"Oh, come, Carats," cries Gar Dosson, "let's have a little frolic before the sheriff comes—a kiss, eh? Come, my beauty!"
The rough man has all this time been stealing up, as nearly as he could to the girl, and now throws his arm about her neck. ”

“ Two dark figures pass the window, and in a moment more the latch-string is clutched by a rough, unsteady hand from without.
"Here, here!" cries the girl, as she springs back to the dingy curtain that divides off a portion of the cabin into a bed-room. "Here! in here! Quick! quick!" as she draws the curtain aside, and lets it fall over the retreating fugitive. Forty-nine and Gar Dosson enter. The former is drunk, and therefore dignified and silent. His companion is drunk, and therefore garrulous and familiar. Wine floats a man's real nature nearly to the surface. ”

“ When the gold is brought to the light and given to the commerce of the world, we see it shining in the sun. It is now a part of the wealth of the nation. But do not forget that every piece of gold you touch or see, or stand credited with at your bank, cost some brave man blood, life!
This old Forty-nine, years before, when the camp was young, had found a piece of gold-bearing quartz in a ledge on the top of a high, sharp ridge, that pointed down into the canyon. This was before quartz mining had been thought of. ”

“ In a canyon here, deep, deep, away down in the darkness, where night seems to have an abiding place, where the sun sifts through the pine-tops timidly, where the loftiest trees tip-toe up and seem to strive to reach out of the edge of the chasm, there gurgles a little muddy stream among the boulders, about the miners' legs, as they bend their backs wearily and toil for gold. ”

“ The voice is tremulous; the hand that is raised in the air comes down. Then lifting it again he says resolutely, "Swear, Miss!"
All are looking—leaning—with the profoundest interest. There is a dark strange face peering through a rift in the half-opened curtain. "God bless her! God bless her! She can, and she will!" mutters Forty-nine.
"She can't!" cries Dosson. "She believes the book and, by gol, she can't!" The man says this over his shoulder, and in a husky whisper as the girl seems to pause. ”

“ I don't care what Phin Emens, or anybody says; for his mother didn't sick 'Bose' at me, she didn't!"
The pale and pitiful face at the window begins to brighten. There is snow in the long matted black locks that fall to his shoulders. For nearly half a year this man has fled from his fellow-man, a hunted grizzly, a hunted tiger of the jungle.
What wonder that his step is stealthy as he lifts the latch and enters? What wonder that his eyes have an uncommon glare as he looks around, looks back over his shoulder as he shuts the door noiselessly behind him? ”

“ That is, I like to climb one mountain at a time. But when there are two or three mountains all piled up on top of one another, Oh, oh, oh!"
"Oh, Johnny! You to go to bragging about climbing mountains! You can't climb mountains!" And again the girl, with shoes that would hardly hold together, a dress in ribbons, and a face not unfamiliar with the dirt of the earth, danced back and forth before him and sung snatches of a mountain song. "Oh, I'm so happy up here, Johnny. ”

“ The man stops, turns, comes back a step or two, as she continues:
"I do—I do! Oh, I wish to Moses I had tow hair, I do, like Sylvia Fields."
The man is standing close beside her now. He is looking down into her face and she feels his presence. The foot does not swing so violently now, and the girl has cautiously, and, as she believes, unseen, lifted the edge of her tattered sleeve to her eyes. "Why Carrie, your hair is not red." And he speaks very tenderly. "Carrie, you are going to be beautiful. You are beautiful now. You are very beautiful!" ”

“ As the girl speaks, John Logan, the sick woman's son, a strong handsome man, only brown as if browned by the sun, with a pick on his shoulder and a gold-pan slanting under his arm, comes whistling along the trail. Seeing the children, he stops and says:
"Why, children, good evening! What are you running away for? Come, come now, don't be so shy, my little neighbors, and don't give the trail all to me because I happen to be a man, and the strongest. Come, Johnny, give me your hand. There! an honest, chubby little fist it is. Why, what have you got in your other hand? Been gathering nuts, hey? ”

“ When you have learned to know the absolute, the utterly unlimited power and authority of an Indian Agent or sub-Agent, you have only to ask the capability for villainy he may possess in order to find the limit of his actions.
Could you have seen the lofty disdain of this girl for her suitor at that first and every subsequent meeting, as she kept at the bedside of John Logan, you could have guessed what might follow. The man's love was turned to rage. He resolved to send her back to the Reservation also. It is true, the soldiers had learned to respect and to pity her. ”

“ Here the smoke curls up from a low log cabin; there a squirrel barks a nut on the roof of a ruined and deserted miner's home, and away up yonder, where the deep gorge is so narrow you can almost leap across it, the wild beasts prowl as if it were really night, and great owls beat their wings against the boughs of the dense wood in everlasting darkness. But high over gorge and wilderness, gleaming [Pg 19] against the cold blue sky, towers Mount Shasta, the monarch of the Sierras.
Here, where the canyon debouches into the little valley, once stood a populous mining camp ”

“ But his faith, which the few remaining miners call a madness, is still unbroken. Yet it is not in human nature to endure all this agony of suspense, all this hope deferred from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, and still be human. The man has, in some sense, become a brute. He now is seen to reel and totter to his cabin, late at night oftentimes. He has at last fallen into the habit of the camp. ”

“ This tinge of Indian blood, that all men abhor and fear, and call treacherous and bloody. Across my brow at my birth was drawn a brand that marks me forever—a brand—a brand as if it were the brand of Cain. ”

“ You had better be a negro—you had better be ten times a negro, were it possible—than be one-tenth part an Indian in the West. The Indian will have little to do with one who is part Indian. And as for the white man, unless the Indian is willing to be his slave, do him homage and service, he would sooner take a leper in his house or to his heart.
Up and above the Indian woman's house, in the dense wood and on the spur of the mountain, wound an old Indian trail. ”

“ Well, here were men wanting this land. Down yonder, far away to the scorching South, at the edge of the level alkali lands, in a tule swamp, where the Indians taken from the mountains were penned up and dying like sheep in a corral, was a bold, enterprising Indian Agent who was gathering in, under orders of his Government, all the Indians of Northern California. ”

“ We are poor men, and have but few cattle, and so, so we have no brand—eh? pardner—eh?"
"No. We got no brand. Poor men, poor men."
"We are poor men, with a few cattle that have gone astray. We are hungry, tired poor men, that have lost their way in the night. Poor men that's hungry, and now you want to drive us out into the storm."
"Oh, Forty-nine,—John Logan,—they're poor hungry men!" interposed Carrie.
"There, there's my hand!" cried impulsive, honest old Forty-nine. "That's enough. You're hungry. Sit down there. And quick, Carrie, pour us the California wine. ”

“ At last the girl stopped, stood still, pointed and half pushed the boy before and in through the thicket, past an occasional lonely cabin, toward the widow's woody home.
This old woman had long been ailing. She was now very ill. You are surprised to learn of sickness in the heart of the Sierras? I tell you that if you were to wash down mountains and uproot forests in the moon—were such a thing possible—the ague would seize hold of you and shake you for it. Nature is revengeful. ”

“ But the real Indian is not there. The Special Correspondent will not find him, though he travel ten thousand miles. He is in the mountains, a free man yet; not a beggar, not a thief, but the brightest, bravest, truest man alive. Every few years, the soldiers find him; and they do not despise him when found. Think of Captain Jack, with his sixty braves, holding the whole army at bay for half a year! Think of Chief Joseph, to whose valor and virtues the brave and brilliant soldiers sent to fight him bear immortal testimony. ”

“ How the squirrels run and chatter and frisk, and fly from branch to branch, with their bushy tails tossing in the warm wind! Under foot, ten thousand tall strange flowers and weeds and long spindled grasses grow, and reach up and up, as if to try to touch the sunlight above the tops of the oak and ash and pine and fir and cedar and maple and cherry and sycamore and spruce and tamarack, and all these that grow in common confusion here and shut out the sun from the earth as perfectly as if all things dwelt forever in cloudland. [Pg 59]
The cabin of old Forty-nine was very modest ”