by J. Berwick Harwood, author of "Lady Flavia," "The Lady Egeria," etc.
As published in Strange Doings in Strange Places (Cassell & Company, Ltd.; 1890), originally published in Cassell's Saturday Journal.
I.
"Don't talk such trash to me! Not wish to marry, indeed! If that conceited young Britisher, the puppy I meet here sometimes, could afford to ask you to have him, I reckon, Miss Marian, your answer would be kinder different. And yet, I guess, I've Squire Croft's consent, and it's a match many a girl would jump at, or my name is not Eli Pell."
It was early morning, and the hot Californian sunshine was already drying the dew that clung to the impenetrable hedges of thorny cactus and aloes that guarded the almond and peach orchards, and causing the speckled lizards to gleam like living jewels as they darted from the crevices of the grey rocks, overgrown by thickets of the huge Californian rose and the scarlet oleander. To the left, there rolled away a prairie that seemed limitless as the sea; but on the right, there towered on high a range of lofty cliffs, seamed by ghastly ravines, and overtopped by blue peaks, around which, on broad and tireless wings, the vultures soared and wheeled beneath a cloudless sky.
Close to these vast almond orchards stood a long, low house, roughly built, but large and commodious; and in its shaded verandah, draped with blossomed creepers, were two figures. One was that of a tall—a very tall—man, gaunt and raw-boned, whose long black hair hung carelessly from beneath a broad-leaved Mexican hat, and whose features, bronzed by the fierce sun, wore no very amiable expression. He was coarsely clad in a suit of the blue blanket cloth commonly worn by rancheros and frontiersmen, but the buttons of his coat, like the jingling spurs buckled to his high boots of untanned leather, were of solid silver; while in his hand he held a ponderous stock whip, with its hickory handle and long lash. His horse, held by a bare-footed Indian boy, snorted and pawed the turf, as it stood just beyond the shadow of the cool verandah.
The other figure was that of a young and slender girl, who seemed to shrink from her rough admirer, and whose fair face and gentle blue eyes were unmistakably English. Marian Croft had indeed been born in England; but of her native land she remembered little or nothing, so many years had elapsed since her father, now a widower, and styled "Squire" by his neighbours on account of his superior education, had emigrated to America and finally settled in the Wild West. Mr. Croft, unhappily, was a narrow-minded man, whose idol was wealth, and in whose eyes Eli Pell, rich in acres, cattle, and dollars, was by far a more eligible suitor for his daughter's hand than the young English surveyor, Frank Sedley, whose visits the almond grower had encouraged at first.
"It is cruel, it is hard, Mr. Pell," said Marian, struggling to keep back the rising tears, "to speak to me in this manner—and you have no right to do it!" she added, more firmly, as her eyes met those of her imperious wooer.
"No right, when I've your father's approval!" retorted Eli Pell, almost savagely. "Often it comes about, I calculate, that men like the Squire and me know what's for a silly girl's happiness in life better than she can herself. Guess I'm a warm man. Not a settler in these parts has a bigger house, nor more money in the Carthage Bank, nor a corral so well stocked—hark to those bulls!" he added, exultingly, as on the breeze there came a hoarse roaring noise, mingled with the cracking of whips and shouting of men. "Here they come: more than a thousand beasts, that my hired hands are driving to their pasture. Think of that, Miss Marian; and there are sheep and hogs beside, worth near as much. If you want fine furniture, or Paris fal-lals, or smart things from San Francisco or New York, I can afford to pay for them, so I expect you'd best think it over again by the time Squire Croft comes back from town. Now," as the noise drew nearer, and grew almost deafening, "I must go; but just you take my advice, young lady."
He nodded, and was gone, mounting his fiery horse and riding forth to where, amidst a cloud of dust, could dimly be discerned a great mass of horned cattle, half wild, and surging hither and thither as they rushed along, and marshalled by several mounted men, armed with formidable whips, who galloped on the flanks of the fast-moving herd, and strove to keep some order amongst their unruly charges. Marian stood with averted face, sobbing audibly, while the sounds gradually died away in the distance; but presently she started, and the colour rose to her face, as another footfall was heard in the verandah, and another voice addressed her by her name.
"Miss Croft—Marian, darling—I hardly thought to find you alone; but Yunca, the Indian lad, told me that Mr. Croft was still at Carthage City on business," said the new comer. "What is this, though—you have been crying?"
"How could I help it, Frank?" sobbed out the girl, as she turned towards him. "Mr. Pell, our neighbour—how I hate the sight of him!—has been here, and so lately that I wonder you did not meet him and his herdsmen, He has my father's approval: so he says—"
"I understand you, dear one," rejoined Frank, as he approached the weeping girl and took her little hand in his. "It is not in the nature of Eli Pell to speak or act otherwise than as brute and a savage. But you need not fear him. Nor can even a father, in this free country, compel a daughter to marry one whom she dislikes. To the ranchero, at any rate, rich and boastful as he is, you owe no obedience, nor has he the right to persecute you when he sees that his suit is unwelcome."
A few words were exchanged between the lovers, for such they were; and then Frank Sedley, who, as a skilled surveyor, had readily found employment in that mining district, bade "adieu" to Marian, and set off on foot to begin the labours of the day.
II.
The sultry evening came at last, when work, whether pastoral or that of the gold-digger, was over, and the bar of Colonel Pegg's hotel—the sun-dried bricks and bare rafters of which seemed oddly assorted with the marble and gilded mirrors, amidst which the clink of glasses and the uncorking of bottles were incessant—was crowded with customers, bearded and booted for the most part, and often as picturesque as red shirts, Mexican mantles, and Spanish-looking sombreros could render them. There were diggers flushed with success, who scorned any beverage less costly than champagne at five dollars a bottle; and hunters or shepherds who "shouted" more modestly for a mint julep or a sling of Taos whisky, while there were sober Mexicans who craved for nothing stronger than chocolate or the national pulque. In a quiet corner of the bar, with a cup of coffee before him, Frank Sedley was seated.
Presently Eli Pell made his noisy entrance on the scene, and, swaggering up to the long buffet, began to drink and talk after his usual loud and boastful fashion, casting, from time to time, an evil glance in the direction of Frank Sedley. Frank was accustomed to the man and his ways, and for some time philosophically endured, as on previous occasions, the braggart's sneering remarks on foreigners in general and Britishers in particular; but at last, Eli, to whose brains the liquor appeared to have mounted, said one or two things so pointedly and personally offensive that it was impossible for the young surveyor to maintain his former attitude of stoical indifference. In firm but temperate language he told Mr. Pell that he knew little of England or Englishmen, and that, speaking in a public place, he must request him to be a little more civil as to the opinions he expressed. There was a general murmur of something like approbation as Frank concluded his remonstrance.
Eli Pell laughed loudly and coarsely.
"Guess you'd better keep your advice to yourself, young chap," he said, scowling. "We're Western men, we are, and can whip our weight in wild cats, let alone a pack of lily-livered curs from that benighted old country of yours. We want no schooling from Britishers, Mr. Sedley, and I for one shall say what I choose, without caring what coxcomb's corns I tread upon. Perhaps you'd like to show the stuff you're made of, and to call me out, though gun and pistol are not much in your line, I expect."
All eyes were directed towards Frank Sedley. The hot blood tingled in his cheek. He was the reverse of quarrelsome, by nature or habit, but under such provocation as this he could not remain quiescent.
"I have done nothing to offend you, Mr. Pell," he said, calmly; "but if you choose to force a duel on me, I'll not baulk your inclinations in this instance."
Eli Pell uttered an actual crow of triumph.
"Now, boys," he exclaimed, "the Britisher has put his foot in it. That's a challenge on his part, sure as I was christened Eli!"
There was a growl of assent from the bystanders, nor did Frank attempt to deny the meaning put upon his words.
"Then," pursued the ranchero, fixing a malignant stare upon the face of his young rival, "I, as the challenged party, claim to fight this out according to regular rule—the old Californy duel, citizens. I have fought it before, as you know, and been the one to come up alive. And, to-morrow, I'll do the trick again, as spry as then, I reckon."
Pitying glances, on the part of some of those who stood near, were now turned upon Frank, and one or two of the more respectable of the audience undertook to explain to him the manner in which, according to tradition, the old Californian duel was conducted. Its chief peculiarity was that it took place underground, and in the darkness of some one of the many abandoned claims or shafts among the diggings. Into this, according to gold-diggers' law, the two combatants were to be lowered with ropes, while the signal to begin firing was to be made, after a reasonable interval, by those who stood above, as it was phrased, to "see fair." And the fight was to be carried on, with pistol and bowie knife, in gloom and solitude, until the death of one of the actors in the grim drama should terminate the strife, and permit the successful duellist, according to the words of Eli Pell, to "come up alive."
All this, to Frank's English ears, sounded very barbarous and shocking, and he said so, at the same time expressing his readiness, since matters had gone so far, to give Eli Pell his choice of weapons and place, provided the encounter should, at any rate, be by the light of day. Again Eli Pell's coarse laugh resounded. He was unwilling to forego what he regarded as his advantage over his rival for the hand of
Marian Croft, and bitterly reviled the young Englishman, taunting him with cowardice, and bidding him either to face the wager of battle by Californian custom or to leave Lurli Gulch and the neighbourhood before twenty-four hours should elapse. A hot flush of indignation crimsoned Frank's brow as he sprang to his feet and accepted the combat, according to diggers' law, for the following morning at daybreak. Four of the bystanders agreed to be present.
Baker's Gully—so named from a former miner who had worked the claim until he was pistolled in a drunken affray—had been chosen as the place of meeting, and at dawn on the following day Frank Sedley there encountered his future antagonist, and the four men who had volunteered to act as witnesses, and who were duly provided with a coil or two of rope to facilitate the entering and leaving of the abandoned shaft, beside which the old windlass was still standing. Both principals were armed, according to agreement, with revolver and bowie knife.
A wild and solitary spot it was among the stony hills, with the blue shadows of the crags above, dwindling as the hot sun glared down upon it; but all the blacker, like an actual grave of unusual depth, was the gloom of the deserted shaft, and Frank could scarcely repress a visible shudder as he permitted himself, by the help of a noose passed under his armpits, to be lowered into the darkness below. Then the rope was cast off, and soon the creak, creak of the rusty windlass announced that Eli Pell, in his turn, was being lowered to the bottom of the narrow shaft.
"Now, citizens," said the most experienced of the gold-diggers above, kneeling beside the edge of the dark pit, so soon as the noosed rope, called in California by the name of lariat, had been again drawn up, "take a little time. Then I'll clap my hands three times, slow and regular. That's to be your signal. Not a shot before the third clap, or 'tis murder. After that let her rip and blaze away. D'ye hear me, both?"
"Yes, old hoss!" replied Eli from below.
"I hear you," said Frank.
A minute's silence, and then the gold-digger's horny palms were clapped together once! twice! thrice! There were a few instants of breathless expectation, and then bang! bang! went the sharp cracking of the pistols below. One two three! then a fourth shot; and then, after a short interval, a fifth; and then from the darkness came the call of a human voice.
"Guess you may as well let down the lariat again, you boys. The Britisher's as dead as any deer or catamount I ever riddled in the bush." And indeed a few turns of the windlass brought the callous face and towering form of Eli Pell to the surface. "You had better bury the chap—if he's worth it," said the ruffian, in answer to an inquiry as to his luck-less adversary. "As for me, my time, I reckon, is worth money."
And, without further leave-taking than a nod and a laugh, the ruffian strode away to the spot where his horse was tied to a young persimmon tree, mounted, and rode off. The four men left behind took counsel together. Then one of them, being lowered into the pit, examined, by the light of a small lantern such as miners use, the condition of the defeated duellist. Then he made the signal, and was drawn up again.
"Poor fellow, there he lies," said the digger, pityingly; "I saw him, white and still, with a stain of blood on his forehead, where the ball hit that brought him down. We'd better fetch up spades and picks and bury him decently."
This advice was so clearly sound that the others readily concurred. They were all worthy fellows in their way, and as they trudged off in quest of the necessary tools, were not backward in expressing their disapprobation of the brutality of Eli Pell and their compassion for his victim.
"He'll go up the flume, though, for all his bluster, some day," said the elder gold-digger. "He's bound to die in his boots as sure as my name's Jem."
III.
Very, very strange were the sensations of Frank Sedley when, after a period during which he lay as if he had been dead indeed, his senses returned, and he stirred feebly and gasped for air. Slowly but surely, as he recovered from the swoon brought on by the shock of the wound he had received, he began to think, and remembered the events which had preceded the fainting fit that was just over. He put his hand, feebly, to his head, which ached a good deal, and felt that his hair was wet and clotted, with blood, no doubt. The ball that struck him had glanced upwards, instead of piercing his forehead, and the wound, though painful, was not severe. That his lethargy had been mistaken for death, both by his enemy and by the witnesses, he readily conjectured; but he was uncertain as to what had become of the latter. He raised his weak voice and called aloud, to intimate that he was living and in need of help; but there was no reply save that of the sullen echoes of the pit in which he lay. Could it be that he had been left to moulder, without funeral or mourners, in that lonely place? The idea was very horrible, but not more so than the savage character of the duel into which he had been trapped.
Again Frank Sedley called aloud, and on receiving no answer, tried to rise, and with some difficulty staggered to his feet. With his handkerchief he stanched the blood that still slowly trickled from the wound he had received, and then asked himself if there were any means of escape, or if he were indeed shut up alone to die, like some victim of feudal tyranny starving in the dungeon of a medieval castle. High above him was a glimmer of light, but the sides of the rocky pit were as steep and smooth as a wall, and unless a rope had been left in the dungeon, to reach the upper air was quite impossible. He groped with his outstretched hands to right and left, and soon ascertained that the rope had been removed. And, in so solitary a place, no one, hunter or shepherd or gold-seeker, might pass for weeks to come, so as to hear his cry and bring succour. He would be dead of thirst and hunger long ere such a chance occurred.
Frank had a brave spirit, and the thought of Marian, too, spurred him on to shake off the chill of despair, and to make an effort to save himself. He knew that the abandoned claim in which he was might be a mere pit, or was possibly connected with a series of tunnels and shafts, by exploring which he might find the means of egress. Faint and giddy as he was, he still managed to walk towards the left with outstretched arms, until at last the gallery grew so much lower that he was forced to scramble forward, on hands and knees, as best he might, through the darkness. The uneven floor, strewn by heaps of rubbish, made his slow progress toilsome and difficult, while there seemed every likelihood that the narrow gallery would end in a mere rock wall, only to be breached by pick and gunpowder. The chill of despair crept over him, but yet he persevered and struggled on. What was that? A ray of light streaming from above, and as welcome to Frank's eyes as ever was the sight of water to some thirsting pilgrim in the Arabian deserts. Through the broken roof it came, pouring in from a fissure some four or five feet above the young Englishman's head, as now the gallery grew high enough to permit him to stand almost upright.
What was the yellow gleam of brightness on which the glancing sunbeam fell? Could that shining heap be gold, real gold, the powerful magnet that had peopled California with an eager band of treasure seekers? Gold it was, as Frank ascertained when once he had reached the spot, and picked up a handful of the bright things that lay there. Yes, there were the little nuggets of milk-white quartz and glistening
yellow metal curiously blended together, and, better still, the brilliant flakes and flat splangles of so-called gold dust, free from any admixture of earth or stones. The heap was one out of several, more dimly visible as they lay beyond.
Clearly, the late Mr. Baker, from whom the gully was named, had been on the eve of making his fortune when a pistol shot ended at once his life and his researches. He was dead, and the mine would belong to the first discoverer who should claim it, according to rule. But what a mockery would such a piece of good fortune as Frank's now seem, should it merely tantalise him with a vision of prosperity and Marian, when all the time he was shut up in loneliness and gloom to die! He nerved himself, however, and pushed on, stumbling over stones and mounds of sand, until at last he was rewarded by seeing a faint sign of daylight creeping through the darkness that environed him, and, after tearing his hands and his clothes by struggling through some thorny shrubs and brushwood that barred his way, he reeled forth into the outer air, and sank down, swooning for the second time, on the rocky ground.
When he recovered his faculties, Frank found himself lying in a narrow ravine, one of many that gashed the sides of the mountain, with beetling crags above, and thick bushes, and thorny cactus all around. Beside him was an opening, some four feet high, which led into the disused mine whence he had just escaped. This had been masked by the rank growth of sub-tropical vegetation, and had thus attracted no notice from the few who chanced to enter that desolate glen in quest of game or of firewood. And, weak and giddy as he yet was, Frank was prudent enough to replace the tangled bushes and long grass, so as to veil the opening from any prying eyes. Then, following the course of a streamlet, a mere thread of water that wound its sinuous way amid the boulders and thorny scrub, he walked, with tottering steps, until he had emerged from the ravine into the rolling prairie that lay beyond, and recognised the familiar landmarks, and knew whereabouts must lie the village of Lurli Gulch.
It was noontide of the sultry day when Frank Sedley, whose strength was all but spent, regained the shelter of the log cabin, in which, on the outskirts of the straggling village, he dwelt. His first care was to despatch his Chinese servant Chang to Mr. Croft's house, with instructions to inform Marian, when alone, of his safety. Bad news, as he knew, has a tendency to travel fast, and Frank feared lest the tidings of his death by Eli Pell's cruel hand should reach the ears of the girl he loved before she was aware that he was yet numbered amongst the living. Chang's mission performed, and Marian, whose father was to return that evening from the town of Carthage, having been gladdened by tidings of Frank's recovery from the jaws of death, the Chinese, who, like most Orientals, was a good and kind nurse, did his best for his European master. The wound was washed and bandaged, and Frank thankfully swallowed cup after cup of the tea that his pigtailed attendant prepared for him, and then sank into a refreshing slumber. His last care had been to exhort Chang to discretion, should any acquaintance pass that way, now that Marian knew the truth. Frank Sedley, who had already a scheme in his head, did not, by any means, object to being reported as defunct by popular rumour in Lurli Gulch.
Meanwhile, the four men who had undertaken to "see fair" at the ghastly duel at Baker's Gully had plodded their way back from the village with the shovels and picks necessary for the interment of the unlucky combatant, and great was their astonishment when no corpse was found at the bottom of the pit. What, they asked themselves, with blank faces, could have become of the Britisher? The excavation was so deep that no wolves or other beasts of prey could have reached the body, while no human being could well have anticipated them as to the burial. At last it was vaguely conjectured that Frank, though apparently dead, might have had life enough in him to call aloud, and, by some happy accident, at the moment when some party of roving hunters, or perhaps of friendly Indians, passed within earshot, and that he had been thus rescued from the pit. If so, and if those who had found him were bound for a direction opposite to that of Lurli Gulch, weeks might elapse before anything certain as to the Britisher's fate should be learned. It was a mere hypothesis, but with it the rugged fellows were fain to be content; so they shouldered their tools, and marched off, grumbling.
Four days afterwards, Frank Sedley was at Carthage City, where he duly registered, with the consent of the authorities of the county, his claim to the disused mine known as Baker's Gully. And on his return to Lurli Gulch, he went to the almond grower's
house to ask for his daughter's hand, backing his suit by the exhibition of the papers which secured him possession of the long-abandoned mine, and of some specimen nuggets and gold dust which he had brought away with him. Mr. Croft, as has been hinted, was not indisposed to worship Mammon, and had encouraged even such a suitor as Eli Pell, but he liked his young countryman, and after some hesitation gave his sanction to the proposed betrothal, conditional on Frank's property proving as valuable as he conceived it to be. And at the close of the interview Frank was able, as Marian put her timid hand into his, and bent her loving eyes upon his face, still pallid from his recent wound, to draw her to him, and kiss her soft cheek. Then he went down to Lurli to engage labourers and purchase machinery for working his new claim, the happiest man in Lurli Gulch, and was warmly welcomed, as one risen from the dead, by all who knew him.
Baker's Gully turned out a rich mine, and soon it was certain that Frank Sedley would be comparatively a wealthy man. As for Eli Pell, he went from bad to worse, drank more deeply than of old, and his evil temper grew daily more ferocious and insufferable. Nor was it long before Nemesis overtook him. One of Frank's hired hands brought the news to the mine, before a month was out, that "Eli Pell had died in his boots." He had been shot down in Colonel Pegg's tavern, by some one whom, with his usual coarse insolence, he had insulted, "like a dog," as the narrator pithily declared. The gold-digger's prediction was thus verified, and no lurking danger remained to mar the happiness of the two young people, who were married before the close of the year, with the full approbation of Mr. Croft, under whose roof, for the first two years of their wedded life, the young couple resided. Then the old almond grower died, and Frank, at his wife's desire and his own, determined to quit California, and return to England. Baker's Gully was sold for a large sum, the almond orchards were also disposed of for a fair price, and with the proceeds Frank was enabled to buy a pretty house and small estate in the south of England, where he and Marian, loving and beloved, still live, as happy a pair as any in the county.