"No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the
presence of ladies."
It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and
laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing
in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the wingless
wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and would visit
together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the
woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose
upon the swooning atmosphere; far in he empty sky a solitary oesophagus
slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and
the peace of God.
October is the time--1900; Hope Canyon is the place, a silver-mining camp
away down in the Esmeralda region. It is a secluded spot, high and
remote; recent as to discovery; thought by its occupants to be rich in
metal--a year or two's prospecting will decide that matter one way or the
other. For inhabitants, the camp has about two hundred miners, one white
woman and child, several Chinese washermen, five squaws, and a dozen
vagrant buck Indians in rabbit-skin robes, battered plug hats, and tin-
can necklaces. There are no mills as yet; no church, no newspaper. The
camp has existed but two years; it has made no big strike; the world is
ignorant of its name and place.
On both sides of the canyon the mountains rise wall-like, three thousand
feet, and the long spiral of straggling huts down in its narrow bottom
gets a kiss from the sun only once a day, when he sails over at noon.
The village is a couple of miles long; the cabins stand well apart from
each other. The tavern is the only "frame" house--the only house, one
might say. It occupies a central position, and is the evening resort of
the population. They drink there, and play seven-up and dominoes; also
billiards, for there is a table, crossed all over with torn places
repaired with court-plaster; there are some cues, but no leathers; some
chipped balls which clatter when they run, and do not slow up gradually,
but stop suddenly and sit down; there is a part of a cube of chalk, with
a projecting jag of flint in it; and the man who can score six on a
single break can set up the drinks at the bar's expense.
Flint Buckner's cabin was the last one of the village, going south; his
silver-claim was at the other end of the village, northward, and a little
beyond the last hut in that direction. He was a sour creature,
unsociable, and had no companionships. People who had tried to get
acquainted with him had regretted it and dropped him. His history was
not known. Some believed that Sammy Hillyer knew it; others said no.
If asked, Hillyer said no, he was not acquainted with it. Flint had a
meek English youth of sixteen or seventeen with him, whom he treated
roughly, both in public and in private; and of course this lad was
applied to for information, but with no success. Fetlock Jones--name of
the youth--said that Flint picked him up on a prospecting tramp, and as
he had neither home nor friends in America, he had found it wise to stay
and take Buckner's hard usage for the sake of the salary, which was bacon
and beans. Further than this he could offer no testimony.
Fetlock had been in this slavery for a month now, and under his meek
exterior he was slowly consuming to a cinder with the insults and
humiliations which his master had put upon him. For the meek suffer
bitterly from these hurts; more bitterly, perhaps, than do the manlier
sort, who can burst out and get relief with words or blows when the limit
of endurance has been reached. Good-hearted people wanted to help
Fetlock out of his trouble, and tried to get him to leave Buckner; but
the boy showed fright at the thought, and said he "dasn't." Pat Riley
urged him, and said:
"You leave the damned hunks and come with me; don't you be afraid. I'll
take care of him."
The boy thanked him with tears in his eyes, but shuddered and said he
"dasn't risk it"; he said Flint would catch him alone, some time, in the
night, and then--"Oh, it makes me sick, Mr. Riley, to think of it."
Others said, "Run away from him; we'll stake you; skip out for the coast
some night." But all these suggestions failed; he said Flint would hunt
him down and fetch him back, just for meanness.
The people could not understand this. The boy's miseries went steadily
on, week after week. It is quite likely that the people would have
understood if they had known how he was employing his spare time. He
slept in an out-cabin near Flint's; and there, nights, he nursed his
bruises and his humiliations, and studied and studied over a single
problem--how he could murder Flint Buckner and not be found out. It was
the only joy he had in life; these hours were the only ones in the
twenty-four which he looked forward to with eagerness and spent in
happiness.
He thought of poison. No--that would not serve; the inquest would reveal
where it was procured and who had procured it. He thought of a shot in
the back in a lonely place when Flint would be homeward bound at
midnight--his unvarying hour for the trip. No--somebody might be near,
and catch him. He thought of stabbing him in his sleep. No--he might
strike an inefficient blow, and Flint would seize him. He examined a
hundred different ways--none of them would answer; for in even the very
obscurest and secretest of them there was always the fatal defect of a
risk, a chance, a possibility that he might be found out. He would have
none of that.
But he was patient, endlessly patient. There was no hurry, he said to
himself. He would never leave Flint till he left him a corpse; there was
no hurry--he would find the way. It was somewhere, and he would endure
shame and pain and misery until he found it. Yes, somewhere there was a
way which would leave not a trace, not even the faintest clue to the
murderer--there was no hurry--he would find that way, and then--oh, then,
it would just be good to be alive! Meantime he would diligently keep up
his reputation for meekness; and also, as always theretofore, he would
allow no one to hear him say a resentful or offensive thing about his
oppressor.
Two days before the before-mentioned October morning Flint had bought
some things, and he and Fetlock had brought them home to Flint's cabin: a
fresh box of candles, which they put in the corner; a tin can of
blasting-powder, which they placed upon the candle-box; a keg of
blasting-powder, which they placed under Flint's bunk; a huge coil of
fuse, which they hung on a peg. Fetlock reasoned that Flint's mining
operations had outgrown the pick, and that blasting was about to begin
now. He had seen blasting done, and he had a notion of the process, but
he had never helped in it. His conjecture was right--blasting-time had
come. In the morning the pair carried fuse, drills, and the powder-can
to the shaft; it was now eight feet deep, and to get into it and out of
it a short ladder was used. They descended, and by command Fetlock held
the drill--without any instructions as to the right way to hold it--and
Flint proceeded to strike. The sledge came down; the drill sprang out of
Fetlock's hand, almost as a matter of course.
"You mangy son of a nigger, is that any way to hold a drill? Pick it up!
Stand it up! There--hold fast. D--you! I'll teach you!"
At the end of an hour the drilling was finished.
"Now, then, charge it."
The boy started to pour in the powder.
"Idiot!"
A heavy bat on the jaw laid the lad out.
"Get up! You can't lie sniveling there. Now, then, stick in the fuse
first. Now put in the powder. Hold on, hold on! Are you going to fill
the hole all up? Of all the sap-headed milksops I--Put in some dirt!
Put in some gravel! Tamp it down! Hold on, hold on! Oh, great Scott!
get out of the way!" He snatched the iron and tamped the charge himself,
meantime cursing and blaspheming like a fiend. Then he fired the fuse,
climbed out of the shaft, and ran fifty yards away, Fetlock following.
They stood waiting a few minutes, then a great volume of smoke and rocks
burst high into the air with a thunderous explosion; after a little there
was a shower of descending stones; then all was serene again.
"I wish to God you'd been in it!" remarked the master.
They went down the shaft, cleaned it out, drilled another hole, and put
in another charge.
"Look here! How much fuse are you proposing to waste? Don't you know
how to time a fuse?"
"No, sir."
"You don't! Well, if you don't beat anything I ever saw!"
He climbed out of the shaft and spoke down:
"Well, idiot, are you going to be all day? Cut the fuse and light it!"
The trembling creature began:
"If you please, sir, I--"
"You talk back to me? Cut it and light it!"
The boy cut and lit.
"Ger-reat Scott! a one-minute fuse! I wish you were in--"
In his rage he snatched the ladder out of the shaft and ran. The boy was
aghast.
"Oh, my God! Help. Help! Oh, save me!" he implored. "Oh, what can I
do! What can I do!"
He backed against the wall as tightly as he could; the sputtering fuse
frightened the voice out of him; his breath stood still; he stood gazing
and impotent; in two seconds, three seconds, four he would be flying
toward the sky torn to fragments. Then he had an inspiration. He sprang
at the fuse; severed the inch of it that was left above ground, and was
saved.
He sank down limp and half lifeless with fright, his strength gone; but
he muttered with a deep joy:
"He has learnt me! I knew there was a way, if I would wait."
After a matter of five minutes Buckner stole to the shaft, looking
worried and uneasy, and peered down into it. He took in the situation;
he saw what had happened. He lowered the ladder, and the boy dragged
himself weakly up it. He was very white. His appearance added something
to Buckner's uncomfortable state, and he said, with a show of regret and
sympathy which sat upon him awkwardly from lack of practice:
"It was an accident, you know. Don't say anything about it to anybody;
I was excited, and didn't notice what I was doing. You're not looking
well; you've worked enough for to-day; go down to my cabin and eat what
you want, and rest. It's just an accident, you know, on account of my
being excited."
"It scared me," said the lad, as he started away; "but I learnt
something, so I don't mind it."
"Damned easy to please!" muttered Buckner, following him with his eye.
"I wonder if he'll tell? Mightn't he?... I wish it had killed him."
The boy took no advantage of his holiday in the matter of resting; he
employed it in work, eager and feverish and happy work. A thick growth
of chaparral extended down the mountainside clear to Flint's cabin; the
most of Fetlock's labor was done in the dark intricacies of that stubborn
growth; the rest of it was done in his own shanty. At last all was
complete, and he said:
"If he's got any suspicions that I'm going to tell on him, he won't keep
them long, to-morrow. He will see that I am the same milksop as I always
was--all day and the next. And the day after to-morrow night there 'll
be an end of him; nobody will ever guess who finished him up nor how it
was done. He dropped me the idea his own self, and that's odd."
