11 A Tragedy

The shove of a heavy foot awakened me.

“Here’s a bite for you to eat,” said Halftrigger, “an we’re goin’ to be a-cruisin’ mighty quick.”

My wrists were unbound again, and they were not rebound after I had taken my food.

“We’ll keep you in the middle o’ our gang as we march, along,” said Halftrigger, “an’ I guess you won’t git away. Ef he tries to run, boys, plunk him.”

The command was addressed to the assembled party, and there was no doubt of their willingness to do as he ordered.

“I guess Hassan, thar, would jump at sech a chance,” continued Halftrigger, looking towards the Moor, “ez I’ve seen him castin’ pleasant glances at you. How about it, Hassan, my lad!”

The Moor grinned and tapped the handle of his knife. “Hassan is one o’ the disciples o’ Mohammed,” said Halftrigger to me, “and he ain’t had our Western advantages. He thinks it lawful to stick that crooked knife o’ his atween the ribs o’ the infidel. So mate, you’ll kindly overlook any little bloodthirsty demonstrations on the part o’ Hassan.”

I knew this talk was intended to arouse my fears and to torment me, and I concluded to adopt my former course on such occasions and say nothing.

But Halftrigger seemed to be highly delighted with himself that morning, and evidently intended to make me a target for what he thought to be his wit.

“Heard anythin’ from them friends o’yours that you desarted so’s to ship with me?’” he asked.

I was somewhat startled at first, for I feared that there was a meaning in the words, and he had seen the signals of the night before. But a moment’s reflection convinced me that it was a mere coincidence.

“No,” I replied. “But I have no doubt I will. I am in your company, and they are sure to pay you their compliments.”

“Oh!” he said, “will they? Well, we will have to make room for them, an’ they may come in handy, too. We’ll need diggers when we git to whar all that gold is. Me and my mates kin lay in the shade while you and your mates dig fur us. Why, that’ll beat slave-drivin’ all-to pieces, an’ then, when all the work is over, we kin put you an’ your mates away so nice an’ handy!”

I knew very well what he meant, but I was not a child to be frightened with that sort of thing. I replied, with a steady countenance, too, that the shoe would more likely be on the other foot.

“Not while I’m in command o’ the ship,” said Halftrigger.

Just then Spanish Pete announced that everything was ready and we started. The party was well armed every man having a rifle and a pistol, while most of them were provided with knives also. They were certainly capable of making a very formidable fight. They straggled along loosely, but they kept a vigilant watch on me and for possible enemies. Halftrigger walked near me, and nothing escaped his wary eye. But I soon saw that the party suffered from a serious disadvantage.

Halftrigger, its commander, was a sailor, and knew nothing about wilderness trails. His men were afflicted with a similar ignorance. It was more by blundering luck than by skill that they had adhered to the course which Pedro had mapped out, and they still felt very uncertain of their bearings.

Halftrigger, under the pretence of friendliness, tried to elicit some information from me. This gave me a cue. So long as he thought my life valuable to him he would not put an end to it. Every day’s delay was worth a fortune to me. I answered very guardedly, intending to convey the impression that I knew a great deal, and for an adequate return might be induced to part with my information. I did this merely to lead him on, for as I have said before I knew that good faith was not to he expected from such a man as he.

“Wa’al, my lad,” said Halftrigger, with a pretense at joviality, “you’d better make the best o’ your bargain. I’ve riled you a bit now an’ then, but you’ll fin’ my bark is sometimes wuss than my bite. Besides you know when I git that gold I’ll be in a mighty good humor an’ I’ll feel like doin’ suthin fur my frien’s. I think the mine is hereabouts; do you?”

I replied that the indications favored his opinion.

“I think we’d better go down this stream,” he said. “Maybe we’ll strike the dry river bed that Pedro told about, an’ ef we don’t I guess we’ll find out whether we’re off our bearin’s or not.”

I said that I thought it would be well for him to ascertain just where he was. He took this to indicate my indorsement of his theory, and accordingly directed the march down the stream. We plodded along for several hours. The sun was very bright and warm and as the stream was a mountain torrent, the way was rough. The men grew impatient, and there was much grumbling, some of which was directed at Halftrigger.

“I say, Cappen’,” said one to Halftrigger, “I thought we wuz gittin’ purty close to that gold. Are we goin’ to tramp over these mountains and valleys forever?”

“Ef you don’t want to go along with us,” said Halftrigger, “you needn’t, you kin stop right whar you are, an’ we’ll divide your share o’ the gold among the rest o’ the boys. I guess they won’t grumble.”

There was a laugh at this and for a while there were no mutterings, but eventually these were heard again. I also saw the gleam of more than one whiskey bottle, the contents of which the men poured down their throats when Halftrigger turned his head the other way. I did not know whether to rejoice or to be alarmed at this. Intoxication would weaken the party, but at the same time in a drunken fury they might put an end to me, for I knew well that few of them would be restrained then by Halftrigger’s motives of policy.

About noon we stopped for rest and food, and two men who went out after game were fortunate’ enough to shoot a deer about four hundred yards from the stopping place. The animal was quickly skinned and cut up, and a portion of the meat was cooked. The other was saved for future use. Halftrigger’s men were not nearly so well equipped as ours, and would be compelled to rely chiefly upon hunting, for supplies of provisions.

Halftrigger allowed only an hour for the halt, and the march and the mutterings of discontent were resumed at the same time.

There had been more sly guzzling of whiskey, and two of the men, Masters and O’Leary, the very same that quarreled the night we were watching from the bush, were pushing each other about in a rough, drunken sort of humor. Halftrigger several times ordered them to keep quiet, and they obeyed until his attention was diverted from them, when they resumed their horse play.

We had come to a place where the narrowing of the valley had compelled the river to contract its width. There had been a consequent deepening of the channel, and the water rushed through the pass in a strong black torrent, like a mill race.

“Look down there Tim,” said Masters to O’Leary, as we entered this defile, “that’s a fine deep current, isn’t it? How would you like to be pitched over in there? It would give you a good bath, which you know you need, for you ain’t had one since we left ‘Frisco.’” The suggestion seemed to awaken an idea in O’Leary’s dull, sodden brain. He leered at Masters, and replied:

“Ye’re a wiser man, Masters, than I took ye to be. A douse of that would do us both good, and faith it would baptize us and prepare us for the world to come. So come along, Jimmy, boy! In we go, you and me!”

He approached Masters with a drunken stagger, seized him around the waist and jerked him to the edge of the rushing stream.

“Come along, Jimmy, lad,” he said in a thick voice. “Do us both good. Let’s get baptized. Both need it.”

The danger of the men was so apparent that I stepped forward instinctively to pull them back, but I was too far away to reach them.

Masters, who was not so thoroughly steeped in liquor as his companion, wrenched away from the edge of the dangerous torrent and his face turned white and ghastly.

“Look out, Tim! Look out! Why it’s death, it’s death, man, to go overboard in that water!” he cried.

“All right,” laughed O’Leary, in drunken glee, “we don’t fear death, you an’ me. We brave men. Come on, Jimmy.”

He seized Masters, and, being the stronger man of the two, dragged him to the brink. Two or three others sprang forward and seized Masters also. With a mighty jerk they wrenched him from O’Leary’s clutch.

O’Leary, with his hands grasping at the empty air, shot over backward into the stream. There was a heavy splash and he disappeared like a cannon-ball beneath the water. But he reappeared, his face changed and gray with fright. The cold water must have sobered him partly, as he shrieked for help.

“Save me, for the love of God, boys!” he cried. “I ain’t ready to die. Save me!”

But the men stood on the brink, dazed by the sudden catastrophe. Nor is it likely that any of them, even if he had kept his wits about him, would have dared the dangers of that wild torrent for the sake of O’Leary.

“Save me, boys! Save—” shrieked O’Leary, and then his voice was lost as the torrent swept him under again.

When he appeared he was a hundred yards further down the stream, and the leaping currents and the whirling eddies dashed and tossed the body from which the life was choked and beaten. Then there was one glimpse of a ghastly face, over which the stringy hair hung like seaweed, and it was sucked under again, to reappear no more until we encountered it a mile further down, where the stream spread out over the level land, lying peacefully in a little cove.

“We’ll leave him thar,” said Halftrigger, “an’ I guess you men don’t need to be told now to let the whiskey bottle alone. Our party is one weaker, but I reckin we won’t miss him.”

This cold comment was O’Leary’s sole funeral service, In his drunken frenzy he had rushed to a foolish death, and those who had stood by were not wont to waste their time on dead men.

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