CHAPTER XXIII. THE PLACER
As for myself, my dreamy temperament aided me greatly. I could build castles forever; and certainly there was no lack of ground here for the foundation. Sometimes I fancied myself suddenly become the possessor of immense riches, with which I should found a new colony in the very remotest regions of the West. I pictured to myself the village of my workmen, surrounded with its patches of cultivation in the midst of universal barrenness; the smiling aspect of civilized life in the very centre of barbarism; the smelting furnaces, the mills, the great refining factories, of which I had heard so much, all rose to my imagination, and my own princely abode looking down upon these evidences of my wealth.
Then, I fancied the influences of education diffusing themselves among the young, who grew up with tastes and habits so different from those of their fathers. How pursuits of refinement by degrees mingled themselves with daily requirements, till at last the silent forests would echo with the exciting strains of music, or the murmuring rivulet at nightfall would be accompanied by the recited verses of poetry.
The primitive simplicity of such a life as I then pictured was a perfect fascination; and when wearied with thinking of it by day, as I dropped asleep at night the thoughts would haunt my dreams unceasingly.
This castle-building temperament – which is, after all, nothing but hope engaged practically – may, when pushed too far, make a man dreamy, speculative, and visionary, but if restrained within any reasonable limits, cannot fail to support the courage in many an hour of trial, and nerve the heart against many a sore infliction. I know how it kept me up when others of very different thews and sinews were falling around me. Independently of this advantage, another and a greater one accompanied it. These self-created visions, however they may represent a man in a situation of greatness or power, always do so to exhibit him dispensing – what he imagines at least to be – the virtues of such a station! No one, I trust, ever fancied himself a monarch for the sake of all the cruelties he might inflict, and all the tyrannies he might practise; so that, in reality, this “sparring against Fortune with the gloves on” is admirable practice, if it be nothing else.
It was on the seventeenth day of our wanderings that the guide announced that we had struck into the Chihuahua “trail”; and although to our eyes nothing unusual or strange presented itself, Hermose exhibited signs of unmistakable pride and self-esteem. As I looked around me on the unvarying aspect of earth and sky, I could not help remembering my disappointment on a former occasion, when I heard of the “Banks of Newfoundland,” and fancied that the Chihuahua trail might have some such unseen existence as the redoubtable “Banks” aforesaid, which, however familiar to codfish, are seldom visited by Christians.
“The evening star will rise straight above our heads to-night,” said Hermose, – and he was correct; our path lay exactly in the very line with that bright orb. The confidence inspired by this prediction increased as we found that an occasional prickly pear-tree now presented itself, with, here and there, a dwarf-box or an acacia. As night closed in, we found ourselves on the skirt of what seemed a dense wood, bordered by the course of a dried-up torrent. A great wide “streak” of rocks and stones attested the force and extent of that river when filled by the mountain streams, but which now trickled along among the pebbles with scarcely strength enough to force its way. Hermose proceeded for some distance down into the bed of the torrent, and returned with a handful of sand and clay, which he presented to Halkett, saying, “The rains have not been heavy enough; this is last year’s earth.”
Few as were the words, they conveyed to me an immense impression of his skill, who, in a few grains of sand taken at random, could distinguish the deposits of one year from those of another.
“How does it look, Halkett?” cried one.
“Is it heavy?” asked another.
“It is worthless,” said Halkett, throwing the earth from him. “But we are on the right track, lads, for all that; there ‘s always gold where the green snake frequents.”
It was a mystery at the time to me how Halkett knew of the serpent’s vicinity; for although I looked eagerly around me, I saw no trace of one.
“I vow he’s a-sarchin’ for the Coppernose,” said a Yankee, as he laughed heartily at my ignorance.
“Do you see that bird there upon the bough of the cedar-tree?” said Halkett. “That’s the ‘Choyero;’ and wherever he’s found, the Coppernose is never far off.” The mystery was soon explained in this wise: the “Choyero” is in the habit of enveloping himself in the leaves of a certain prickly cactus called “Choya,” with which armor he attacks the largest of these green serpents, and always successfully, – the strong, thorny spines of the plant invariably inflicting death-wounds upon the snake. Some asserted that the bird only attacked the snake during his season of torpor, but others stoutly averred that the Choyero was a match for any Coppernose in his perfect vigor.
The approach of the long-sought-for “Placer” was celebrated by an extra allowance of rum, and the party conversed till a late hour of the night, with a degree of animation they had not exhibited for a long time previous. Stories of the “washings” resumed their sway, – strange, wild narratives, the chief interest in which, however striking at the time, lay in the manner of those who related them, and were themselves the actors. They nearly all turned upon some incident of gambling, and were strong illustrations of how completely the love of gain can co-exist with a temperament utterly wasteful and reckless, while both can render a man totally indifferent to every feeling of friendship. There was mention, by chance, of a certain Narvasque, who had been the comrade of many of the party.
“He is dead,” cried one.
“Caramba!” cried another, “that is scarcely true; they told me he was at the Austin fair this fall.”
“You may rely on it he’s dead,” said the first, “for I know it; he died on the Sacramento, and in this wise. We had had a two months’ run of luck at the Crestones of Bacuachez, – such fortune as I only hope we may soon see again; none of your filthy wash and sieve work, nor any splintering of a steel barreta on a flint-rock, but light digging along the stream, and turning up such masses of the real shining metal as would make your heart leap to look at, – lumps of thirty, – thirty-five, – ay, forty pounds.”
“There, there, Harispe!” said an old fellow, with a long pipe of sugar-cane, “if we are to swallow what’s a-comin’, don’t choke us just now.”
“What does an old trapper know of the diggin’s?” said Harispe, contemptuously. “‘T is a bee-huntin’ and a birds’-nestin’ you ought to be. Smash my ribs! if he ever saw goold, except on the breast of a gooldfinch.” Having silenced his adversary, he resumed: —
“We were all rich by the time we reached Aranchez. But what use is metal? One can’t eat it, nor drink it, nor even sleep on’t; and the fellows up there had got as much as we had ourselves. Everything cost twenty – no, but two hundred and twenty times its value! I used to cut a goold button off my coat every morning for a day’s grub, so that we had to make ourselves a kind of log-hut outside the village, and try to vittal ourselves as best we could. There war n’t much savin’ in that plan neither, for we drank brandy all day long, and it cost half an ounce of goold every bottle of it! Then we stayed up all night and played brag, and it was that finished Narvasque. He was a-betting with Shem Avery, and Shem, who felt he was in for a run of luck, layed it on a bit heavy like; and the end o’ it was, he won all Narvasque’s two months’ diggin’s, all to a twenty-eight ‘ouncer’ that he would n’t bet for anybody, – no, nor let any one see where he hid it. Shem had his heart on that lump, and said, ‘I ‘ll go fifty ounces against your lump, Narvasque;’ and the other did n’t take it at first, but up he gets and leaves the hut. ‘Honor bright,’ said he, ‘no man follows me.’ They all gave their words, and he went out a short distance into the wood, where he had a sheep’s heart hanging near a rock, in the centre of which he had concealed his treasure. He was n’t three yards from the spot, when a great spotted snake darts through the long grass, and, making a spring at the piece of meat, bolts it and away! Narvasque followed into the deep jungle, unarmed as he was; there a deadly combat must have ensued, for when his cries aroused us, as we sat within the hut, we found him bitten on every part of the body, and so near death that he had only time to tell how it happened, when he expired.”
“And the snake?” cried several, in a breath.
“He got clear away; we gave chase for four days after him in vain. But a fellow with as much spare cash about him must have come to bad ere now.”
“The Injians has ripped him open afore this, depend on’t,” said another. “There ‘s scarce a snake of any size hasn’t an emerald or splice of gold in him.”
“There’s more gold lies hidden by fellows that have never lived, or come back to claim it, than ye know of,” said the old trapper; “and that’s the kind of ‘Placer’ I’d like to chance upon, already washed and smelted.”
“They talk of martyrs!” said a tall, sallow Spaniard, who had been educated for a priest: “let me tell you that those Injians, ay, even the negroes, have endured as much torture for their gold as ever did zealot for his faith. There was a fellow in my father’s time up at Guajuaqualla, who, it was said, had concealed immense treasures, not only of gold, but gems, emeralds, diamonds, and rubies: well, he not only refused all offers from the Gobernador of the mines to share the booty, but he suffered his toes to be taken off by the smelting nippers, rather than make a confession. Then they tried him with what the miners call a ‘nest-egg,’ that is, a piece of gold heated almost red, and inserted into the spine of the back; but it was all to no use, he never spoke a word.”
“I heard of him; that was a nigger called Crick,” cried another.
As for me, I heard no more. The sound of that name, which brought up the memory of my night at Anticosti and all its terrors, filled my heart, besides, with a strange swelling of hope, vague and ill-defined, it is true, but which somehow opened a vision of future wealth and greatness before me. The name, coupled with the place, Guajuaqualla, left no doubt upon my mind that they were talking of no other than the Black Boatswain himself. If I burned to ask a hundred questions about him, a prudent forbearance held me back. I knew that of all men living, none are so much given to suspicion and mistrust as the Gambusinos. The frauds and deceits eternally in practice among them, the constant concealments of treasure, the affected desertion of rich “Placers,” in order to return to them later and alone, – these and many like artifices suggest a universal want of confidence which is ever at work to trace motives or attribute intentions for every chance word or accidental expression. I retained my curiosity therefore; but from that hour forward, the negro and his hidden gold were ever before me. It mattered not where I was, in what companionship, or how engaged. One figure occupied the foreground of every picture. If my waking thoughts represented him exactly as I saw him at Anticosti, my sleeping fancies filled up a whole history of his life. I pictured him a slave in the “Barracoons” of his native land, heavily ironed and chained. I saw him on board the slaver, with bent-down head and crippled limbs, crouching between the decks. I followed him to the slave-market and the sugar plantation. I witnessed his sufferings, his sorrows, and his vengeance. I tracked him as he fled to the woods, with the deep-mouthed bloodhounds behind him; and I stood breathless while they struggled in deadly conflict, till, pale, bleeding, and mangled, the slave laid them dead at his feet, and tottered onward to stanch his wounds with the red gum of the liana. Then came an indistinct interval; and when I saw him next, it was as a gold-washer in the dark stream of the “Rio Nero,” his distorted limbs and mangled flesh showing through what sufferings he had passed.
Broken, incoherent incidents of crime and misery, of tortured agonies and hellish vengeance, would cross my sleeping imagination, amidst which one picture ever recurred, – it was of the negro as I saw him at Anticosti, crouching beast-like on the earth, and while he patted the ground with his hand, throwing a stealthy, terrified glance on every side to see that he was not observed. That he fancied himself in the act of concealing the gold for which he had bartered his very blood, the gesture indicated plainly enough; and in the same attitude my fancy would depict him so powerfully, so truthfully, too, that when I awoke, I had but to close my eyes again, and the vision would come back with every color and adjunct of reality.
My preoccupation of mind could not have escaped the shrewd observation of companions, had not the unexpected discovery of gold in the sands of the river effectually turned every thought into another and more interesting channel. At first it was mere dust was detected; but, later on, small misshapen pieces of dusky yellow were picked up, which showed the gold in its most valuable form, in combination with quartz rock.
Up to the moment of that discovery, all was lassitude and indifference. A few only gave themselves the trouble to wet their feet, the greater number sitting lazily down upon the river’s bank, and gazing on the “washers” with a contemptuous negligence. The failures they experienced, even their humble successes, were met with sneers and laughter; till at last Hermose held up aloft a little spicula of gold about the thickness of a pencil. No sooner had the brilliant lustre caught their eyes, than, like hounds at the sight of the stag, they sprung to their feet and dashed into the stream.
What a sudden change came over the scene! Instead of the silence of that dark river, through whose dull current three or four figures waded noiselessly, while in lazy indolence their companions lay smoking or sleeping near, now, in an instant, the whole picture became animated. With plashing water and wild shouts of various import, the deep glen resounded, as upwards of thirty men descended into the river; and while some examined the bed of the stream with the “barretas,” others dived beneath the water to explore it with their hands, and bring up mingled masses of earth and dust, over which they bent with earnest gaze for many minutes together.
Then what cries of joy or disappointment broke forth at every instant! There seemed at once to come over that hardened, time-worn group of men all the changing fickleness of childhood, – the wayward vacillations of hope and despair, bright visions of sudden wealth, with gloomy thoughts of disappointment, – when, suddenly, one brought up from the bed of the stream something which he showed to his neighbor, then to another and another, till a knot had gathered close around him, among which I found myself. “What is it?” said I, disappointed at not seeing some great mass of yellow gold.
“Don’t you see? It is the fossil bone of the antelope,” said Hermose; “and when the floods have penetrated deep enough to unbury that, there ‘s little doubt but we shall find gold enough.”
“Who says enough?” cried a Mexican, as, emerging half-suffocated from the water, he held aloft a pure piece of metal, nearly the size of a small apple. “Of such fruit as this, one never can eat to indigestion!”
Halkett’s whistle was soon heard, summoning the whole party to a council on the bank; nor was the call long unanswered. In an instant the tanned and swarthy figures were seen emerging, all dripping as they were, from the stream, ascending the banks, and then throwing themselves in attitudes of careless ease around the leader.
A short discussion ensued as to the locality upon which we had chanced, some averring that it was an unexplored branch of the “Brazo,” others that it was one of those wayward courses into which mountain streams are directed in seasons of unusual rain. The controversy was a warm, and might soon have become an angry, one, had not Halkett put an end to all altercation by saying, “It matters little how the place be called, or what its latitude; you know the Mexican adage, ‘It’s always a native land where there’s gold.’ That there is some here, I have no doubt; that there is as much as will repay us for the halt, is another question. My advice is, that we turn the river into another course, leave the present channel dry and open, and then explore it thoroughly.”
“Well spoken and true,” said an old white-headed Gambusino. “That is the plan in the Far West; and they are the only fellows who go right about their work.”
The proposal was canvassed ably on all sides, and adopted with scarcely anything like opposition; and then parties were “told off,” to carry into execution different portions of the labor. The section into which I fell was that of the scouts, or explorers, who were to track the course of the stream upwards, and search for a suitable spot at which to commence operations. Hermose took the command of this party, and named the “Lépero” as his lieutenant.
The “sierra” through which our path lay was singularly wild and picturesque. The rocks, thrown about in every fantastic shape, were actually covered with the tendrils of the liana, whose great blue flowers hung in luxuriant clusters from every cliff and crag. Wild fig and almond trees – loaded with fruit, red guavas and limes, met us as we advanced, till at length we found ourselves in the very centre of a tract rich in every production of our gardens, and all growing in spontaneous freedom and wildness. The yellow-flowering cactus and the golden lobelia, that would have been the choicest treasures of a conservatory in other lands, we here broke branches off to fan away the mosquitoes and the gallinippers.
The farther we went, the more fruitful and luxuriant did the tract seem. Oranges, peaches, and grapes, in all the profusion of their wildest abundance, surrounded us, and even littered the very way beneath our feet. To feel the full enchantment of such a scene, one should have been a prairie traveller for weeks, long-wearied and heart-sore with the dull monotony of a tiresome journey, with fevered tongue and scorching feet, with eyeballs red from the glaring sun, and temples throbbing from the unshaded lustre. Then, indeed, the change was like one of those wondrous transformations of a fairy tale, rather than mere actual life. In the transports of our delight we threw ourselves down among the flowering shrubs, and covered ourselves with blossoms and buds; we bound the grape clusters on our foreheads like bacchanals, and tied great branches of the orange-tree round us as scarfs. In all the wantonness of children, we tore the fruit in handfuls, and threw it around us. The wasteful prodigality of nature seemed to suggest excess on our part, prompting us to a hundred follies and extravagances. As if to fill up the measure of our present joy by imparting the brightness of future hope, Hermose told us that such little spots of luxuriant verdure were very often found in the regions richest with gold, and that we might be almost certain of discovering a valuable Placer in our immediate vicinity. There was another, and that no inconsiderable, advantage attending these “Oases” of fertility. The Indians never dared to intrude upon these precincts; their superstition being that the “Treasure God,” or the “Genius of the Mine,” always had his home in these places, and executed summary vengeance upon all who dared to invade them. This piece of red-man faith, however jocularly recorded, did not meet that full contempt from my comrades I could have expected. On the contrary, many cited instances of disasters and calamities which seemed like curious corroborations of the creed. Indeed, I soon saw how naturally superstitious credences become matter of faith to him who lives the wild life of the prairies.
“Then you think we shall have to pay the price of all this enjoyment, Hermose?” said I, as I lay luxuriously beneath a spreading banana.
“Quien sabe? who knows?” exclaimed he, in his Mexican dialect, and with a shrug of the shoulders that implied doubt.
Although each event is well marked in my memory, and the incidents of each day indelibly fixed upon my mind, it is needless that I should dwell upon passages, which, however at the time full of adventure and excitement, gave no particular direction to the course of my humble destiny. We succeeded in finding a spot by which the bed of the river might be changed; and after some days of hard labor we accomplished the task.
The course of the stream thus left dry for a considerable distance became the scene of our more active exertions. The first week or two little was discovered, save gold dust, or an occasional “spicula” of the metal, heavily alloyed with copper; but as we followed up the course towards the mountain, a vein of richest ore was found, lying near the surface too, and presenting masses of pure gold, many of them exceeding twenty ounces in weight.
There could be no doubt that we had chanced upon a most valuable Placer; and now orders were given to erect huts, and such rude furnaces for testing as our skill stood in need of. A strict scale of profits was also established, and a solemn oath exacted from each, to be true and faithful to his comrades in all things. Our little colony demanded various kinds of service; for, while the gold-seeking was our grand object, it was necessary, in order to subsist the party, that a corps of trappers and hunters should be formed, who should follow the buffalo, the red-deer, and the wild hog over the prairies.
Many declined serving on this expedition, doubtless suspecting that the share of treasure which might be allotted to the absent man would undergo a heavy poundage. Hermose, however, whose adventurous spirit inclined more willingly to the excitement of the chase than the monotonous labor of a washer, volunteered to go, and I offered myself to be his companion. Some half-dozen of the youngest agreed to follow us, and we were at once named – The Hunters to the Expedition.
The rivalry between the two careers, good-natured as it was, served to amuse and interest us; and while our blank days were certain to obtain for us a share of scoffs and jibes, their unsuccessful ones did not escape their share of sarcasm. If one party affected to bewail the necessity of storing up treasure for a set of walking gentlemen who passed the day in pleasure-rambles about the country, the other took care to express their discontent at returning loaded with spoils for a parcel of lazy impostors that lounged away their time on the bank of a river. Meanwhile, both pursuits flourished admirably. Practice had made us most expert with the rifle; and as we were fortunate enough to secure some of the “mustangs,” and train them to the saddle, our “chasse” became both more profitable and pleasant. By degrees, too, little evidences of superfluity began to display themselves in our equipment: our saddles, at first made of a mere wooden trestle, with a strip of buffalo hide thrown across it, were now ornamented with black bear-skins, or the more valuable black fox-skin; our own costume, if not exactly conformable to Parisian models, was comfortable and easy, – a brown deerskin tunic, fastened by a belt around the waist; short breeches, reaching to the knee-cap, which was left bare, for climbing; “botas vaqueras,” very loose at top, and serving as holsters for our pistols; and a cap of fox or squirrel, usually designed by the wearer, and exhibiting proofs of ingenuity, if not taste: such was our dress.
Our weapons of rifle, and bowie-knife, and pistols, giving it a character, which, on the boards of a minor theatre, would have been a crowning “success.” We were also all mounted, – some, Hermose and myself in particular, admirably so. And although I often in my own heart regretted the powers of strength and endurance of poor “Charry,” my little mustang steed, with his long forelock and his bushy moustaches, – a strange peculiarity of this breed, – was a picture of compactness and agility.
We had also constructed a rude wagon – so rude that I can even yet laugh as I think on it – to carry our spoils, which were far too cumbrous for a mere horse-load, and when left on the prairies attracted such numbers of prairie-wolves and vultures as to be downright perilous. If this same wagon was not exactly a type for “Long Acre,” it was at least strong and serviceable; and although the wheels were far nearer oval than circular, they did go round; the noise they created in so doing might have been disagreeable to a nervous invalid, being something between the scream of a railway train and the yell of a thousand peacocks. But I believe we rather liked it, – at least, I know that when some luckless Sybarite suggested the use of a little bear’s fat around the axle, he was looked on as a kind of barbarian to whom nature denied the least ear for music.
As for the “chasse” itself, it was glorious sport, – glorious in the unbounded freedom to wander whither one listed; glorious in the sense of mastery we felt that we alone of all the millions of mankind had reached this far-away, unvisited tract; glorious in its successes, its dangers, and its toils!
There was, besides, that endless variety of adventure prairie-hunting affords. Now, it was the heavy buffalo, lumbering lazily along, and tossing his huge head in anger as the rifle-ball pierced his dense hide. Now, it was the proudly antlered stag, careering free over miles and miles of waste. At another time the grizzly bear was our prey, and our sport lay in the dense jungle or among the dwarf scrub, through which the hissing rattlesnake was darting, affrighted at the noise. In more peaceful mood, the antelope would be the victim; while the wild turkey or the great cock of the wood would grace with his bright wavy feathers the cap of him whose aim was true at longest rifle range.
And these were happy days, – the very happiest of my whole life; for if sometimes regrets would arise about that road of ambition from which I had turned off, to wander in the path of mere pleasure, I bethought me that no career the luckiest fortune could have opened to me would have developed the same manly powers of endurance of heat and cold and of peril in a hundred shapes. In no other pursuit could I have educated myself to the like life of toils and dangers, bringing me daily, as it were, face to face with Death, till I could look on him without a shudder or a fear.
I will not say that Donna Maria may not have passed across the picture of my mind-drawn regrets; but if her form did indeed flit past, it was to breathe a hope of some future meeting, some bright time to come, the recompense of all our separation. And I thought with pride how much more worthy of her would I be as the prairie-hunter, – the fearless follower of the bear and buffalo, accustomed to the life of the wild woods, – than as the mere adventurer, whose sole stock in trade was the subterfuge and deceit he could practise on the unwary.
It was strange enough all this while that I seemed to have lost sight of my old guide-star, – the great passion of my earlier years, the desire to be a “gentleman.” It was stranger still, but after-reflection has shown me that it was true, I made far greater progress toward that wished-for goal when I ceased to make it the object of my ambition.