The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
gang. Don't you fret; the Rancho Verde will house us, and you
pertickler, first-chop, as the Chinee says."
"I do not understand, but I am wholly in your hands."
"That's the best place to put yourself. You kin offer me a testimonial
in a gold frame hereafter."
They moved on once more at a good pace. As they approached their goal
the light of guidance seemed to spread out. Soon they could make out
that an immense glare flamed from the open portals as from a crater,
and they heard singing, whistling on war whistles, shouts, wild
laughter, all jumbled up with the shrill twang of a guitar, of which
the far from harmonious notes blended more or less satisfactorily with
the rumble of a tambourine.
"Having a jamboree," said the hunter, drawing rein at the blazing
doorway.
"Some unfort'nat' has lost his ducats. Uncle's swarming with robbers
tonight."
The ground was hard as flint, and the clatter of the horses' hoofs had
attracted to the mudsill (for the doorstep was embedded in the earth
of the floor) a stout knave of some forty years, with a sullen eye, a
ferocious mien, and cars as tattered as a fighting dog's. His peculiar
complexion, yellowish, and muddy, and oily hair, denoted him to be
no regular blooded white. This burly rogue, stiffly standing in the
entrance, eyed the strangers sullenly without speaking.
The American uttered the religious greeting customary among the
Mexicans, to which the regular counter speech was grumblingly accorded,
and, alighting, he subjoined:
"Well, _Tío Camote_ (Uncle Sweet-potato), _hosquillo_ as ever! Ay,
even more gloomy! But how much longer air you going to keep an old
companyero at the head of his nag? Don't you see with half an eye that
my pard. an' me have rattled along as if your granddad Old Horny was at
our hosses' tails, and that we want food and sleep as much as they do
to bury their muzzles in oats?"
"Why!" ejaculated the individual, who, by the rule of contrary which
pervades the popular idea of fun, had been nicknamed "_Sweet_ Potato,"
"Heaven forgive me, but, as true as I am a sinner, we have here Señor
Don Olivero. Just overlook my not having recognised your señory at the
first peep."
"So I will, Aluino,--so I will! Only get the animals into the stables
right smart."
"Like a shot, Señor," said the changed man with alacrity, and taking
both bridles with no more pride than a hostler.
"Half a minute, uncle," interposed the hunter, taking him by one of the
split cars playfully, and yet with significance. "I want you to keep in
mind, Potato of Sweetness," he continued, "that your brother trusts the
intire consarn to you,--cattle, harness, bags, and inn'ards,--the whole
consarn, you savey?"
"Yo sabe," was the reply, tranquilly made, but the half-breed made a
wry face which did not beautify its everyday expression.
"Now, that's talking. You know me right down to my boots. So, git you
gone, but don't go to sleep, for I have something to talk about."
"In ten minutes I shall be at your señorship's orders."
"Good boy, Uncle Al!"
The hotelkeeper went away grumbling louder and louder, with the horses
for the _corral_ (enclosure).
"Stick your pistols in your belt, and follow me. You air going to see
no end of a curious circus," resumed Oliver to his companion. "Keep
cool, and a little swagger does no harm. These here tough men and rough
men must think you no tenderfoot; I rayther guess they'll figger me up
first pop, as raised right hyar on the plantation."
"I hope you'll be content with me," returned Mr. Gladsden; "I have made
up my mind. I am not going to back out, but sail right over the bar,
whatever the quantity of broken glass."
He laughed quietly, and assumed the bearing which he believed he had
worn at the time he was clad in red flannel shirt and corduroy trousers
tucked into cowhide boots when up the country, not a thousand miles
from that spot, fifteen years before.
"That looks the ticket. I believe we are going to see some fun."
With that they entered the tavern with steady foot.
The uproar that hailed their entrance seemed louder than before.
Neither of them, however, was affected by the malevolent greeting, but
strode to a heavy table, hewn into shape with the broad axe, where they
installed themselves, and proceeded to take a disdainful survey of the
patrons of the drinking den. For their part they devoured the intruders
with most ravenous eyes.
A pen dipped in vitriol would not adequately describe this vile haunt
of all the scum of the border. The dozen guests were men of all mixed
castes and hues, with hangdog faces and in squalid rags. They were
sodden already with the coarse liquor. The muddy, smoky, ignoble room
was furnished with massive benches, stools, and tables, soaked with
blood and spilt beverages. The bar had two 'tenders, men as sturdy as
Camote himself, who carried pistols in hip pockets and long knives
in sheaths at the back of their necks, more as if they were besieged
behind the counter than anything else, so precious was the poison
they served out. Their patrons sang, shouted, yelled, quarrelled,
all through thick cigar smoke, played with greasy cards and yellowed
dice, whilst one resumed pulling at his _heaca's_ homemade strings.
The gamblers, however, pulled out handfuls of gold and silver from the
secret pouches in their bedraggled and tattered garments, worn from
choice of slovenliness.
The scene was illumined by several smoky wicks swimming like decaying
serpents in as foul green oil, in open lamps as antique in fashion as
those now and again dug up in Old Spain. Each man had his own bottle,
and the aguardiente, tepache, rum, and Californian wine, labelled
falsely "Catalonia," flowed so profusely that someone was gurgling at
them constantly.
Such was this palace of prairie pleasures.
The arrival of strangers had considerable effect. Far from benevolent
squints, we repeat, were directed upon them fixedly, while murmurs of
evil augury began to be heard. The objects of this growing ill feeling
replied by the most complete indifference to the provocations which
were more and more emphasized.
"Warm," remarked Oliver sententiously.
"We are in a hot box," rejoined Mr. Gladsden.
"Yes, I reckoned it would be a mixed lot, 'stead o' which, they are all
of a gang. All the _honest_ ruffians have been cleared out."
As Camote did not hasten in, Oliver rose, went up to the counter, threw
down a dollar, took up a bottle at hazard, spite of the nearer bar
'tender's scowls, and returned. He clapped it on the table, knocked
off the ring of glass round the mouth and its cork a-flying, with a
dexterous cut of the back of his knife, and poured out brimmers of
wine for himself and his friend in the pannikin which, like a gold
prospector, he always carried at his waist, and in the silver mounted
cup cover of Mr. Gladsden's brandy pistol.
"Here's to well-out-of-this!" he murmured in English.
"I concur," added Gladsden heartily, and they drank.
"The music is over. The dance is going to begin," said Oliver, putting
his tin cup up in place.
Indeed, the guitar, so noisy, was silenced. The player, a tall,
haggard, lengthened rascal, who seemed to have been once hanged and
pulled out by the feet, suspended the instrument carefully up on the
walls and advanced in a swaggering way towards the latest comers, his
hat outrageously cocked on one side, as much to cover a patch whence a
portion of the scalp had been removed as to look rakish, resting one
fist upon his bony, prominent hip, and the other hand on the steel hilt
of a very fine old rapier of enormous length. On gazing most closely
at Oliver, who happened to be the nearer to him, when he stopped in an
insolent attitude, he remarked the additional pistol and knife in his
belt acquired by right of conquest from the spy whom he had shot, and,
after a moment's hesitation, his colour coming again more deeply, he
cried, _ex abrupto_:
"Flames of purgatory! Gentlemen, I never knew of greater impudence than
for you to present yourselves, after having murdered my brother-in-arms
La Gallina."
"Caballero, what do you mean by that?" returned the American, as much
surprised as all the auditors by this denunciation.
"Do you think I do not recognise the Chicken heart's pistol of two
shots, by the handle nicked with cuts for the men he has slain? Was it
not mine first, and did we not exchange firearms when we became sworn
comrades in life to death?"
"Caballero," said the hunter again, with killing politeness, "I believe
I did shoot some skunk that came prowling round me at suppertime. But,
the fact is, I hate to be riled when I am eating, _or drinking,_ and
I'll put a bullet out of the same barrel into anyone who repeats the
annoyance. You hear me?"
"Shoot me!" cried the bandit in a furious voice, as he drew the long
blade. "A thousand demons."
"Yes, you! Right away too, you candidate for the gallows," rejoined the
hunter, rising.
"We'll see about that,--¡Caray!"
"I guess _you_ won't see much of it, though the principal body
consarned!"
Already the hunter had jumped forward to seize the fellow by the neck
and the sword belt; he raised the bag of bones as easily as if he had
been a toy balloon, and getting him "on the swing," by an irresistible
motion, forced him to fly twenty feet aloof.
"Excuse me not telling you, gentlemen, your friend was coming," he
remarked, sarcastically.
The bandit almost flattened against the doorpost, and fell senseless
just outside the opening, only his long arms within.
"Some folks air so dull, a man's obleeged to give them a warning,"
added the Oregonian, resuming his seat.
This feat had been executed so quickly that the spectators remained
motionless with amazement; but on their anger enlivening them they
sprang up, every man of them, and rushed towards the strangers with
drawn swords and knives, yelling for blood and death.
The very brutality and causelessness of this fresh attack made it the
more mortal and savage. These drunken vagrants were too much on their
guard against each other, and, besides, knew their own opponents'
abilities too well to fight among themselves, so that to fall upon
strangers was always deemed more profitable. It was not, therefore,
so much to avenge their fallen comrades as to obey the sanguinary
instincts which the rudely fabricated alcohol had inflamed, that they
renewed this charge. They cared very little whether Gallina or his
blood companion had been killed by the men before them, they fought
merely for the pleasure of bloodspilling. Such a conflict of twelve to
two was one of those merry byplays which varied the joys of debauchery,
and would afford them foundation for bragging at the refreshment bar
during the fandango. These men, moreover, being mongrels, hated the
pure whites inveterately, and to exterminate them would be an excessive
pleasure.
But as such barroom squabbles are common occurrences in the life of
a hunter, always incurred by him when he comes to the outposts of
civilisation, they did not daunt Oregon Oliver in the slightest degree.
The storm he had raised by the summary correction of the spoil-feast
did not make him blench. No more was his companion appalled. The
present peril had transformed the gentleman. His features beamed
with that glow of battle which irradiates the pages of Froissart when
he speaks of the English knights travelling as far as Spain to war
in fratricidal struggles which in no way really interested them. He
even smiled, and aided his associate with charming readiness in his
defensive preparations. These were neither long nor difficult to carry
out.
They merely overturned the solid table on its side, one end against
a cask, the other against the sidewall, their backs to the rear of