The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West

While Ned arranged his paper and colours, and sharpened the point of his pencil, the Yankee kept up a running commentary on men and things in general, rocking himself on a rudely-constructed chair the while, and smoking his pipe.

The hut was very small—not more than twelve feet by eight, and just high enough inside to permit of a six-foot man grazing the beams when he walked erect. But, although small, it was exceedingly comfortable. Its owner was his own architect and builder, being a jack-of-all-trades, and everything about the wooden edifice betokened the hand of a thorough workman, who cared not for appearance, but was sensitively alive to comfort. Comfort was stamped in unmistakeable characters on every article of furniture, and on every atom that entered into the composition of the Yankee’s hut. The logs of which it was built were undressed; they were not even barked, but those edges of them that lay together were fitted and bevelled with such nicety that the keenest and most searching blast of north wind failed to discover an entrance, and was driven baffled and shrieking from the walls. The small fire-place and chimney, composed of mud and dry grass, were rude in appearance; but they were substantial, and well calculated for the work they had to perform. The seats, of which there were four—two chairs, a bench, and a stool—were of the plainest wood, and the simplest form; but they were solid as rocks, and no complaining creak, when heavy men sat down on them, betokened bad or broken constitutions. The little table—two feet by sixteen inches—was in all respects worthy of the chairs. At one end of the hut there was a bed-place, big enough for two; it was variously termed a crib, a shelf, a tumble-in, and a bunk. Its owner called it a “snoosery.” This was a model of plainness and comfort. It was a mere shell about two and a half feet broad, projecting from the wall, to which it was attached on one side, the other side being supported by two wooden legs a foot high. A plank at the side, and another at the foot, in conjunction with the walls of the cottage, converted the shelf into an oblong box. But the mattress of this rude couch was formed of buffalo-skins, covered with thick, long luxurious hair; above which were spread two large green mackinaw blankets of the thickest description; and the canvas pillow-case was stuffed with the softest down, purchased from the wild-fowl of California with leaden coin, transmitted through the Yankee’s unerring rifle.

There was a fishing-rod in one corner, a rifle in another, a cupboard in a third; poles and spears, several unfinished axe-handles, and a small fishing-net lay upon the rafters overhead; while various miscellaneous articles of clothing, and implements for mining hung on pegs from the walls, or lay scattered about everywhere; but in the midst of apparent confusion comfort reigned supreme, for nothing was placed so as to come in one’s way; everything was cleverly arranged, so as to lie close and fit in; no article or implement was superfluous; no necessary of a miner’s life was wanting; an air of thorough completeness invested the hut and everything about it; and in the midst of all sat the presiding genius of the place, with his long legs comfortably crossed, the tobacco wreaths circling round his lantern jaws, the broad-brimmed straw hat cocked jauntily on one side, his arms akimbo, and his rather languid black eyes gazing at Ned Sinton with an expression of comfortable self-satisfaction and assurance that was quite comforting to behold.

“Wall, mister, if you’re ready, I guess ye’d better fire away.”

“One second more and I shall commence,” replied Ned; “I beg pardon, may I ask your name?”

“Jefferson—Abel Jefferson to command,” answered the Yankee, relighting the large clay pipe which he had just filled, and stuffing down the glowing tobacco with the end of his little finger as slowly and deliberately as though that member were a salamander. “What’s yourn!”

“Edward Sinton. Now, Mr Jefferson, in what position do you intend to sit?”

“Jest as I’m settin’ now.”

“Then you must sit still, at least for a few minutes at a time, because I cannot sketch you while you keep rocking so.”

“No! now that’s a pity, for I never sits no other way when I’m to home; an’ it would look more nat’ral an’ raal like to the old ’ooman if I was drawd rockin’. However, fire away, and sing out when ye want me to stop. Mind ye, put in the whole o’ me. None o’ yer half-lengths. I never goes in for half-lengths. I always goes the whole length, an’ a leetle shave more. See that ye don’t forget the mole on the side o’ my nose. My poor dear old mother wouldn’t believe it was me if the mole warn’t there as big as life, with the two hairs in the middle of it. An’ I say, mister, mind that I hate flatterers, so don’t flatter me no how.”

“It wouldn’t be easy to do so,” thought Ned, as he plied his pencil, but he did not deem it advisable to give expression to his thoughts.

“Now, then, sit still for a moment,” said Ned.

The Yankee instantly let the front legs of his chair come to the ground with a bang, and gazed right before him with that intensely-grave, cataleptic stare that is wont to overspread the countenances of men when they are being photographed.

Ned laughed inwardly, and proceeded with his work in silence.

“I guess there’s Sam at the door,” said Abel Jefferson, blowing a cloud of smoke from his mouth that might have made a small cannon envious.

The door flew open as he spoke, and Sam Scott, the trader, strode into the hut. He was a tall, raw-boned man, with a good-humoured but intensely impudent expression of countenance, and tanned to a rich dark brown by constant exposure to the weather in the prosecution of his arduous calling.

“Halloo! stranger, what air you up to!” inquired Sam, sitting down on the bench behind Ned, and looking over his shoulder.

Ned might perhaps have replied to this question despite its unceremoniousness, had not the Yankee followed it up by spitting over his shoulder into the fire-place. As it was, he kept silence, and went on with his work.

“Why I do declare,” continued Sam, “if you ain’t photogged here as small as life, mole an’ all, like nothin’. I say, stranger, ain’t you a Britisher?”

Sam again followed up his question with a shot at the fire-place.

“Yes,” answered Ned, somewhat angrily, “and I am so much of a Britisher, that I positively object to your spitting past my ear.”

“No, you don’t, do you? Now, that is cur’ous. I do believe if you Britishers had your own way, you’d not let us spit at all. What air you better than we, that you hold your heads so high, and give yourselves sich airs! that’s what I want to know.”

Ned’s disgust having subsided, he replied—

“If we do hold our heads high, it is because we are straightforward, and not afraid to look any man in the face. As to giving ourselves airs, you mistake our natural reserve and dislike to obtrude ourselves upon strangers for pride; and in this respect, at least, if in no other, we are better than you—we don’t spit all over each other’s floors and close past each other’s noses.”

“Wall, now, stranger, if you choose to be resarved, and we choose to be free-an’-easy, where’s the differ? We’ve a right to have our own customs, and do as we please as well as you, I guess.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Abel Jefferson, commencing to rock himself again, and to smoke more violently than ever. “What say ye to that, mister?”

“Only this,” answered Ned, as he put the finishing touches to his sketch, “that whereas we claim only the right to do to and with ourselves what we please, you Yankees claim the right to do to and with everybody, else what you please. I have no objection whatever to your spitting, but I do object to your spitting over my shoulder.”

“Do you?” said Sam Scott, in a slightly sarcastic tone, “an’ suppose I don’t stop firin’ over your shoulder, what then?”

“I’ll make you,” replied Ned, waxing indignant at the man’s cool impudence.

“How?” inquired Sam.

Ned rose and shook back the flaxen curls from his flushed face, as he replied, “By opening the door and kicking you out of the hut.”

He repented of the hasty expression the moment it passed his lips, so he turned to Jefferson and handed him the drawing for inspection. Sam Scott remained seated. Whether he felt that Ned was thoroughly capable of putting his threat in execution or not we cannot tell, but he evinced no feeling of anger as he continued the conversation.

“I guess if you did that, you’d have to fight me, and you’d find me pretty smart with the bowie-knife an’ the revolver, either in the dark or in daylight.”

Sam here referred to the custom prevalent among the Yankees in some parts of the United States of duelling with bowie-knives or with pistols in a darkened room.

“And suppose,” answered Ned, with a smile—“suppose that I refused to fight, what then?”

“Why, then, you’d be called a coward all over the diggin’s, and you’d have to fight to clear your character.”

“And suppose I didn’t care a straw for being called a coward, and wouldn’t attempt to clear my character?”

“Why, then, I guess, I’d have to kick you in public till you were obligated to fight.”

“But suppose still further,” continued Ned, assuming the air of a philosopher discussing a profoundly-abstruse point in science—“suppose that, being the stronger man, I should prevent you from kicking me by knocking you down, what then?”

“Why, then, I’d be compelled to snuff you out slick off?”

Sam Scott smiled as he spoke, and touched the handle of his revolver.

“Which means,” said Ned, “that you would become a cold-blooded murderer.”

“So you Britishers call it.”

“And so Judge Lynch would call it, if I am not mistaken, which would insure your being snuffed out too, pretty effectually.”

“Wrong, you air, stranger,” replied the trader; “Judge Lynch regards affairs of honour in a very different light, I guess. I don’t think he’d scrag me for that.”

Further investigation of this interesting topic was interrupted by Abel Jefferson, who had been gazing in wrapt admiration at the picture for at least five minutes, pronouncing the work “fuss rate,” emphatically.

“It’s jest what’ll warm up the old ’ooman’s heart, like a big fire in a winter day. Won’t she screech when she claps her peepers on’t, an’ go yellin’ round among the neighbours, shewin’ the pictur’ o’ ‘her boy Abel,’ an’ his house at the gold diggin’s?”

The two friends commented pretty freely on the merits of the work, without the smallest consideration for the feelings of the artist. Fortunately they had nothing but good to say about it. Sam Scott, indeed, objected a little to the sketchy manner in which some of the subordinate accessories were touched in, and remarked that the two large hairs on the mole were almost invisible; but Jefferson persisted in maintaining that the work was “fuss rate,” and faultless.

The stipulated sum was paid; and Ned, bidding his new friends good-morning, returned to the inn, for the purpose of discussing dinner and plans with Tom Collins.

Chapter Eighteen.