Golden Face: A Tale of the Wild West

It might have contained some five score dwellings, mainly of the log-hut order; a few frame houses, with real glazed windows figuring as the aristocratic and advanced representatives of civilised architecture among the more primitive structures. It boasted a brace of churches, one of which, only occasionally used, having been reared through the efforts of a travelling priest attached to the nearest Catholic mission, the other representing no creed in particular, though chiefly resorted to by what our friend Smokestack Bill was wont to define as “the pizenest kind of Hard-shell Baptists,” a definition we should be loth to attempt to elucidate. It boasted more stores than churches, and more drinking saloons than stores. It contained a bank, whose manager reckoned handiness at drawing, and, if necessary, using, the six-shooter at least as essential a qualification for his clerks as the footing up of figures. It boasted a sheriff, whose three predecessors had “died in their boots” within less than the same number of years. And for population, fixed and floating, it mainly comprised about as daredevil, swash-bucklering, unscrupulous a set of cut throats, as ever shot a winning adversary at euchre or “held up” (from “Hold up your hands” – the “road agent’s” warning) the Pony Express.

Such was the place to which our two friends were moved by the detachment of troops which had so suddenly and unwelcomely invaded their mountain retreat. A shout of mingled mirth, derision, and resentment went up in the township at this fresh evidence of the high-handedness of Uncle Sam, and in a trice the whole population crowded around the prisoners and their escort.

“Hello, pard!” sung out a slouching-looking fellow in a frowsy shirt and cabbage-tree hat, addressing Vipan. “Don’t be down on your luck, now. When the Colonel here’s fightin’ the Sioux, we’re the boys to slide back and pouch the stuff. Hey!”

“Say, Colonel! Going after Sittin’ Bull soon?” sung out another, to the officer in command of the cavalry. “’Cause Smokestack Bill’s the boy to raise a mob of scouts for yer, and we’re the boys to jine.”

“Not till you put a hunk of lead through yon cussed white Injun, I reckon,” growled a forbidding ruffian, on the outskirts of the crowd, with a scowl at Vipan.

“Snakes! Wasn’t he with the Injun as scalped Rufus Charlie and Pesky Bob?” said another, taking up the suggestion. And then a knot of men, gathered in conclave, eyed the object of the discussion in a manner that boded no good.

Meanwhile the crowd, surging round the new arrivals, continued to pour forth banter and queries.

“Got the ‘dust’ about yer, strangers, or did yer cache it?”

“Say, pardners, whar did yer leave yer squaws? Or did Uncle Sam confiscate ’em as national property? Ho, ho!”

“See here, boys, am I sheriff of Henniker City, or am I not?” drawled a cool, deliberate voice, as the chaff reached its height. “’Cause if I am, jest clear a way; and if I’m not, I reckon I’d like to cotch a glimpse of the galoot as says so.” A shout of mirth greeted this speech, and speedily a lane was opened through the crowd, down which advanced a tall, spare man. This worthy’s sallow visage was adorned with a grizzled beard of the “door-knocker” order, above which protruded a half-chewed cigar, a pair of whimsical grey eyes, and a determined mouth. In his hand he carried a Winchester rifle, and the inevitable six-shooter peeped forth from his hip-pocket.

“How do, Colonel? Brought me some more citizens, hey? Smokestack Bill, as I’m a miserable sinner! That your pard, Bill? All right, come this way. Citizens of Henniker, the High Court is about to sit.”

Without more ado, the two “prisoners” and their custodian, resuming the thread of their previous conversation, followed the whimsical sheriff into the Courthouse, as many as could crowding in until the room was full, laughing, chatting, bantering each other; kicking up an indescribable uproar. At last, raising his voice above the shindy, the whimsical sheriff succeeded in obtaining something like silence.

“Citizens!” he said, “we must proceed with the business which has brought us together. The prisoners at the bar having been handed over to me to be dealt with according to law – that is, kept in custody until able to take their trial for ’truding on Indian lands – cannot be so kept because the gaol with which this city is supplied would not hold a clerk of a dry goods store, let alone a couple of Indian fighters. That being so, the prisoners may consider themselves under bail to the tune of fifty dollars apiece, to appear when wanted; snakes, and that’ll be never,” he parenthesised, in an undertone. “Citizens, the court is adjourned – and now disperse – git – vamoose the ranch. Those who are not too drunk will go home peaceably, those who are, will adjourn to Murphy’s saloon and get drunker. Prisoners at the bar, you will accompany me right along and take supper. I have spoken.”

If any confiding reader imagines that when night settled down upon Henniker City the wearied denizens of that historic township retired to their welcome couches to recruit their toil-worn limbs in sweet and well-earned repose – why we are sorry to dispel the illusion. But in the interests of stern truth we must place it upon record that the hours of darkness usually witnessed the liveliest of scenes, for it was only then that the township began to live. The saloons drove literally a roaring trade, for the shindy that went on in them as the night wore on, and their habitués waxed livelier, was something indescribable. Miners in their rough shirts and cabbage-tree hats, here and there a leather-clad trapper, cowboys and ranchmen in beaded frocks and Indian leggings, and more or less “on the burst,” but all talking at a great rate; all tossing for, or shouting for, or consuming drinks, and, we regret to say, a large proportion somewhat the worse for the latter. Now and then a chorus of ear-splitting whoops, a clatter of hoofs down the street, to an accompaniment of pistol-shots, while the red flashes and whistling of balls in the darkness, warning those who might be under cover not to venture forth just yet, told that a group of cowboys were engaged on the time-honoured and highly popular pastime known among their craft as “painting the town red,” i. e., galloping through the streets whooping and discharging their six-shooters at everything or nothing. But this was far too ordinary an occurrence to attract any attention. It all meant nothing. Here and there, however, it did mean something. Partitioned off from the bar-room was the space devoted to card-playing, and it might be that from here the ominous sound of cards vehemently banged down with a savage curse upon the table warned those who heard it to stand clear. In a twinkling the flash and crack of pistol-shots – then a lull, and amid inquiries from many voices, eager, hurried, perhaps in a lowered tone, a dead man is raised and deposited on a table or carried forth to his home if he have one.

“Who is it?”

“How did it happen?”

“Was it a fair draw?”

“Oh yes, both blazed together!” “All right – fair and square enough!” and the other players resume their gamble, and the talkers their narratives, and more drinks are ordered, and nothing further is thought of the affair.

At that time Henniker City was blessed – or the reverse – with a considerable influx on its normal population. Grouped around the outskirts of the town lay the tents of many of the dispossessed miners – who, like our two friends, had been removed from the Indian lands. All these men were more or less discontented; and suffering in addition from enforced idleness, it follows that monotony and drink rendered them ripe for any mischief which might suggest itself. Moreover, among their ranks was a sprinkling of the very scum of the frontier – horse thieves, “road agents” or highwaymen, professional assassins, and bullies of repute whose presence here was due to the fact that they had rendered every other State too hot to hold them, and where, did they venture to return, they would be lynched without fail, if not shot on sight.

Into one of these tents we must invite the reader to peep with us.

Look at those two knights of the hang-dog countenance. He who is now speaking would stand not a chance before any intelligent jury, if only on account of his aspect alone. By the dim oil-lamp in the tent we can make out two other forms lying around, but the cloud of tobacco smoke, added to the dimness aforesaid, precludes a more familiar study of their not less forbidding features.

“See now, Dan,” hang-dog number one was saying. “May I be chopped in splinters by the reds if I allow this darned white Injun to get away out o’ this without a carcase full o’ lead. So we’d better go up and finish the job to-night.”

“Can’t be done, I reckon. What about his pard – eh? To say nothin’ about Nat Hardroper, who seems to have kinder taken him up!”

“Darn his pard, and darn Nat Hardroper!” replied the other, furiously. “Only a set of doggoned skunks ’ud have elected Nat Hardroper sheriff, and only a set of white-livered coons ’ud have kep’ him in the berth. I guess I don’t fear him.”

“See here, Rube,” suggested the other, “why not tumble to my plan? He’ll be going to Red Cloud’s village in a day or two – see if he don’t. Then we can ambush him at Bald Eagle Forks and plant him full of lead.”

“Don’t want that. Want to string him up. Shooting’s too good. Didn’t he set the red devils on to sculp my pardners? Didn’t he wipe out my brother? leastways, he must have, for I reckon Chinee-Knifer Abe ain’t the boy to be taken playin’ possum. Ef it hadn’t bin for a squad of his reds, we’d have strung him up down in Burntwood Creek the day before the snow.”

“Guess our scalps sat loose that day. Snakes! but they ran us hard,” answered the fellow addressed as Dan. “This Vipan ’d have been buzzard-meat then but for that.”

“Reckon he shall be to-night,” furiously retorted the first speaker. “I’ve said it – and Bitter Rube ain’t the boy to go back on his word. That blanked white Injun, helpin’ to dance around my pardners’ sculps!”

And a volley of curses drowned the speaker’s utterance.

Chapter Fourteen

In a Tight Place

“Stranger – I guess I want this floor!”

The place, an inner room partitioned off from Murphy’s saloon; the time, late evening; the speaker a tall, half-drunken ruffian in frowsy miner’s dress; the spoken to, Vipan – who, lounging against a table was chatting with the saloon-keeper; the tone, insolent and threatening to the last degree; the attitude, that of a man sure of his advantage.

“Stranger – I guess I want this floor!”

“And I guess you’ve got it,” came the quick reply, but not more quickly than the change of attitude which it described. For, in a twinkling, a straight “right and left” from the shoulder had sent the aggressor to earth like a felled ox, while his pistol-bullet buried itself in the wall half a yard above Vipan’s head.

Then ensued a stupendous hubbub. Pistols cracked, as the stricken man’s mates in the outer room hurled themselves at the partition door intent on taking up their comrade’s quarrel. But the door, a solid slab one, met them in full career, pinning the foremost of their number half in, half out.

“Now, Dan Harper, back’s the word!” said the quiet, but stern voice of Smokestack Bill, to whose promptitude was due this first check to the enemy.

“You move a little inch forward and you’re a stiff, you bet.”

“Leggo the darn door, then – F-fixed t-tight,” gasped the pinned one, who, with the muzzle of the scout’s six-shooter within an inch of his nose, would willingly have obeyed, but could not. Smokestack Bill, however, relaxing his pressure, the crushed one was able to draw back, considerably bruised, into the outer room, and the door was jammed to, but not before a couple of bullets fired into the room had narrowly grazed Vipan’s shoulder.

“Now then, boys,” called out the scout. “Anyone feel like trying an entrance? Better not, believe me.”

All this had befallen within infinitely fewer minutes than it takes to chronicle. The felled bully lay prone where he had first dropped, stunned, insensible, and motionless – and disarmed, for the first act of his adversary was to put it out of his power to get the advantage of them. The room, half filled with stifling smoke from the pistol-shots; the barricaded door, against which the besieged ones had run up a couple of casks; the two determined men, fully prepared to defend themselves at the expense of any number of their adversaries’ lives; the fierce, threatening summons to yield entrance from the infuriated gang without; all went to make up a strange and startling metamorphosis on the hitherto quiet evening, which the two men had reckoned upon when they retired into the private room of the saloon-keeper to be clear of any disturbance.

“Air you agoin’ to open?” sung out a harsh voice, at the close of a muttered consultation. “We know you, Smokestack Bill, and we’ve nothin’ again you. But that pizen skunk, the white Injun, we’re bound to have him if we burn down the old log to do it. So you come out of it, Bill, right along, while you can.”

“You be advised, Dan Harper,” cried the scout in reply. “You’re a dead man this very night if you don’t git – mind me.”

“So are a dozen of you, by God!” sung out Vipan. He knew the whole business was a deliberate plan to take his life. The ruffian whom he had felled was to pick a quarrel and shoot him on sight, while his scoundrelly mates stood ready to make sure of him if the first part of the scheme miscarried. A roar went up from the crowd. “Let’s get at him! What’ll we do with him, boys?”

“Tar and feather him!”

“Burn him at the stake!” “Scalp him!” “String him up!” were some of the yells that burst from the maddened throng as it surged round the building, narrowly scanning every door and window for a chance of forcing an entrance. But the defenders of the inner room knew better than to be caught that way.

“One minute before you begin any tricks,” cried the scout, and his voice had the dangerous ring about it of that of an ordinarily cool and quiet man roused at last. “One minute, and just listen to me. We’ve molested nobody, and don’t want to molest nobody. Bitter Rube in here picked a quarrel with my pardner and got knocked down. If he’d done it with any of you boys he’d have been shot dead. He’ll be shot before anyone gets in here – ”

“Darn Bitter Rube! Serve the bunglin’ fool right! What do we care about Bitter Rube? It’s the pizen white Injun we’re going to lynch – and lynch him we will – by God!”

“Try it!” rejoined the scout. “There’ll be a few of you dead in your boots before mornin’, I reckon. And anyone who thinks Smokestack Bill the boy to go back on a pardner is makin’ an almighty big error in the undertaking. So now, stand clear for squalls.”

A roar and a yell was the only reply. A deafening crash, as some of the rioters in the outer saloon vented their rage in smashing all the glass they could lay hands on; then a shock, as the end of a beam, wielded as a battering ram, came full against the door. A couple of flashes and reports, mingling like a single one. The beam fell to the earth at the same time as three of its bearers, whom the fire of the besieged, discharged through a chink at such close quarters, had literally raked in line. The remainder promptly got out of the way.