Tales of the Argonauts by Bret Harte (top books to read .txt) 📕

ye? He allows you didn’t give him no show for revenge. I said you wasn’t no such d–-d fool; didn’t I, Dick?” continued the artful Wingate, appealing to a confederate.

“Yes,” said Dick promptly. “You said twenty thousand dollars wasn’t goin’ to be thrown around recklessly. You said Cyrus had suthin’ better to do with his capital,” super-added Dick with gratuitous mendacity. “I disremember now what partickler investment you said he was goin’ to make with it,” he continued, appealing with easy indifference to his friend.

Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked at the “Fool,” who, with a troubled face, was rubbing his legs softly. After a pause, he turned deprecatingly toward his visitors.

“Ye didn’t enny of ye ever hev a sort of tremblin’ in your legs, a kind o’ shakiness from the knee down? Suthin’,” he continued, slightly brightening with his topic,—“suthin’ that begins like chills, and yet ain’t chills? A kind o’ sensation of goneness here, and a kind o’ feelin’ as it you might die suddint?—when Wright’s Pills don’t somehow reach the spot, and quinine don’t fetch you?”

“No!” said Wingate with a curt directness, and the air of authoritatively responding for his friends,—“no, never had. You was speakin’ of this yer investment.”

“And your bowels all the time irregular?” continued Hawkins, blushing under Wingate’s eye, and yet clinging despairingly to his theme, like a shipwrecked mariner to his plank.

Wingate did not reply, but glanced significantly at the rest. Hawkins evidently saw this recognition of his mental deficiency, and said apologetically, “You was saying suthin’ about my investment?”

“Yes,” said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost take Hawkins’s breath away,—“the investment you made in”—

“Rafferty’s Ditch,” said the “Fool” timidly.

For a moment, the visitors could only stare blankly at each other. “Rafferty’s Ditch,” the one notorious failure of Five Forks!— Rafferty’s Ditch, the impracticable scheme of an utterly unpractical man!—Rafferty’s Ditch, a ridiculous plan for taking water that could not be got to a place where it wasn’t wanted!— Rafferty’s Ditch, that had buried the fortunes of Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in its muddy depths!

“And thet’s it, is it?” said Wingate, after a gloomy pause. “Thet’s it! I see it all now, boys. That’s how ragged Pat Rafferty went down to San Francisco yesterday in store-clothes, and his wife and four children went off in a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet’s why them ten workmen of his, ez hadn’t a cent to bless themselves with, was playin’ billiards last night, and eatin’ isters. Thet’s whar that money kum frum,—one hundred dollars to pay for the long advertisement of the new issue of ditch stock in the “Times” yesterday. Thet’s why them six strangers were booked at the Magnolia hotel yesterday. Don’t you see? It’s thet money— and that ‘Fool’!”

The “Fool” sat silent. The visitors rose without a word.

“You never took any of them Indian Vegetable Pills?” asked Hawkins timidly of Wingate.

“No!” roared Wingate as he opened the door.

“They tell me, that, took with the Panacea,—they was out o’ the Panacea when I went to the drug-store last week,—they say, that, took with the Panacea, they always effect a certin cure.” But by this time, Wingate and his disgusted friends had retreated, slamming the door on the “Fool” and his ailments.

Nevertheless, in six months the whole affair was forgotten: the money had been spent; the “Ditch” had been purchased by a company of Boston capitalists, fired by the glowing description of an Eastern tourist, who had spent one drunken night at Five Forks; and I think even the mental condition of Hawkins might have remained undisturbed by criticism, but for a singular incident.

It was during an exciting political campaign, when party-feeling ran high, that the irascible Capt. McFadden of Sacramento visited Five Forks. During a heated discussion in the Prairie Rose Saloon, words passed between the captain and the Hon. Calhoun Bungstarter, ending in a challenge. The captain bore the infelicitous reputation of being a notorious duellist and a dead-shot. The captain was unpopular. The captain was believed to have been sent by the opposition for a deadly purpose; and the captain was, moreover, a stranger. I am sorry to say that with Five Forks this latter condition did not carry the quality of sanctity or reverence that usually obtains among other nomads. There was, consequently, some little hesitation when the captain turned upon the crowd, and asked for some one to act as his friend. To everybody’s astonishment, and to the indignation of many, the “Fool” stepped forward, and offered himself in that capacity. I do not know whether Capt. McFadden would have chosen him voluntarily; but he was constrained, in the absence of a better man, to accept his services.

The duel never took place. The preliminaries were all arranged, the spot indicated; the men were present with their seconds; there was no interruption from without; there was no explanation or apology passed—but the duel did not take place. It may be readily imagined that these facts, which were all known to Five Forks, threw the whole community into a fever of curiosity. The principals, the surgeon, and one second left town the next day. Only the “Fool” remained. HE resisted all questioning, declaring himself held in honor not to divulge: in short, conducted himself with consistent but exasperating folly. It was not until six months had passed, that Col. Starbottle, the second of Calhoun Bungstarter, in a moment of weakness, superinduced by the social glass, condescended to explain. I should not do justice to the parties, if I did not give that explanation in the colonel’s own words. I may remark, in passing, that the characteristic dignity of Col. Starbottle always became intensified by stimulants, and that, by the same process, all sense of humor was utterly eliminated.

“With the understanding that I am addressing myself confidentially to men of honor,” said the colonel, elevating his chest above the bar-room counter of the Prairie Rose Saloon, “I trust that it will not be necessary for me to protect myself from levity, as I was forced to do in Sacramento on the only other occasion when I entered into an explanation of this delicate affair by—er—er— calling the individual to a personal account—er. I do not believe,” added the colonel, slightly waving his glass of liquor in the air with a graceful gesture of courteous deprecation, “knowing what I do of the present company, that such a course of action is required here. Certainly not, sir, in the home of Mr. Hawkins—er— the gentleman who represented Mr. Bungstarter, whose conduct, ged, sir, is worthy of praise, blank me!”

Apparently satisfied with the gravity and respectful attention of his listeners, Col. Starbottle smiled relentingly and sweetly, closed his eyes half-dreamily, as if to recall his wandering thoughts, and began,—

“As the spot selected was nearest the tenement of Mr. Hawkins, it was agreed that the parties should meet there. They did so promptly at half-past six. The morning being chilly, Mr. Hawkins extended the hospitalities of his house with a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, of which all partook but myself. The reason for that exception is, I believe, well known. It is my invariable custom to take brandy—a wineglassful in a cup of strong coffee—immediately on rising. It stimulates the functions, sir, without producing any blank derangement of the nerves.”

The barkeeper, to whom, as an expert, the colonel had graciously imparted this information, nodded approvingly; and the colonel, amid a breathless silence, went on.

“We were about twenty minutes in reaching the spot. The ground was measured, the weapons were loaded, when Mr. Bungstarter confided to me the information that he was unwell, and in great pain. On consultation with Mr. Hawkins, it appeared that his principal, in a distant part of the field, was also suffering, and in great pain. The symptoms were such as a medical man would pronounce ‘choleraic.’ I say WOULD have pronounced; for, on examination, the surgeon was also found to be—er—in pain, and, I regret to say, expressing himself in language unbecoming the occasion. His impression was, that some powerful drug had been administered. On referring the question to Mr. Hawkins, he remembered that the bottle of whiskey partaken by them contained a medicine which he had been in the habit of taking, but which, having failed to act upon him, he had concluded to be generally ineffective, and had forgotten. His perfect willingness to hold himself personally responsible to each of the parties, his genuine concern at the disastrous effect of the mistake, mingled with his own alarm at the state of his system, which—er—failed to—er—respond to the peculiar qualities of the medicine, was most becoming to him as a man of honor and a gentleman. After an hour’s delay, both principals being completely exhausted, and abandoned by the surgeon, who was unreasonably alarmed at his own condition, Mr. Hawkins and I agreed to remove our men to Markleville. There, after a further consultation with Mr. Hawkins, an amicable adjustment of all difficulties, honorable to both parties, and governed by profound secrecy, was arranged. I believe,” added the colonel, looking around, and setting down his glass, “no gentleman has yet expressed himself other than satisfied with the result.”

Perhaps it was the colonel’s manner; but, whatever was the opinion of Five Forks regarding the intellectual display of Mr. Hawkins in this affair, there was very little outspoken criticism at the moment. In a few weeks the whole thing was forgotten, except as part of the necessary record of Hawkins’s blunders, which was already a pretty full one. Again, some later follies conspired to obliterate the past, until, a year later, a valuable lead was discovered in the “Blazing Star” tunnel, in the hill where he lived; and a large sum was offered him for a portion of his land on the hilltop. Accustomed as Five Forks had become to the exhibition of his folly, it was with astonishment that they learned that he resolutely and decidedly refused the offer. The reason that he gave was still more astounding,—he was about to build.

To build a house upon property available for mining-purposes was preposterous; to build at all, with a roof already covering him, was an act of extravagance; to build a house of the style he proposed was simply madness.

Yet here were facts. The plans were made, and the lumber for the new building was already on the ground, while the shaft of the “Blazing Star” was being sunk below. The site was, in reality, a very picturesque one, the building itself of a style and quality hitherto unknown in Five Forks. The citizens, at first sceptical, during their moments of recreation and idleness gathered doubtingly about the locality. Day by day, in that climate of rapid growths, the building, pleasantly known in the slang of Five Forks as the “Idiot Asylum,” rose beside the green oaks and clustering firs of Hawkins Hill, as if it were part of the natural phenomena. At last it was completed. Then Mr. Hawkins proceeded to furnish it with an expensiveness and extravagance of outlay quite in keeping with his former idiocy. Carpets, sofas, mirrors, and finally a piano,—the only one known in the county, and brought at great expense from Sacramento,—kept curiosity at a fever-heat. More than that, there were articles and ornaments which a few married experts declared only fit for women. When the furnishing of the house was complete,—it had occupied two months of the speculative and curious attention of the camp,—Mr. Hawkins locked the front-door, put the key in his pocket, and quietly retired to his more humble roof, lower on the hillside.

I have not deemed it necessary to indicate to the intelligent reader all of the theories which obtained in Five Forks during the erection of the building. Some of them may be readily imagined. That the “Hag” had, by artful coyness and systematic