have it. He had friends; he liked company. That brings up that picture
of him, the time that I saw him last. The pathos of it! It comes before
me often and often. At that very time, poor thing, I was girding up my
conscience to make him move on again!
Hillyer’s heart is better than mine, better than anybody’s in the
community, I suppose, for he is the one friend of the black sheep of the
camp–Flint Buckner–and the only man Flint ever talks with or allows to
talk with him. He says he knows Flint’s history, and that it is trouble
that has made him what he is, and so one ought to be as charitable toward
him as one can. Now none but a pretty large heart could find space to
accommodate a lodger like Flint Buckner, from all I hear about him
outside. I think that this one detail will give you a better idea of
Sammy’s character than any labored-out description I could furnish you of
him. In one of our talks he said something about like this: “Flint is a
kinsman of mine, and he pours out all his troubles to me–empties his
breast from time to time, or I reckon it would burst. There couldn’t be
any unhappier man, Archy Stillman; his life had been made up of misery of
mind–he isn’t near as old as he looks. He has lost the feel of
reposefulness and peace–oh, years and years ago! He doesn’t know what
good luck is–never has had any; often says he wishes he was in the other
hell, he is so tired of this one.”
IV
“No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the
presence of ladies.”
It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and
laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing
in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the wingless
wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and would visit
together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the
woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose
upon the swooning atmosphere; far in he empty sky a solitary oesophagus
slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and
the peace of God.
October is the time–1900; Hope Canyon is the place, a silver-mining camp
away down in the Esmeralda region. It is a secluded spot, high and
remote; recent as to discovery; thought by its occupants to be rich in
metal–a year or two’s prospecting will decide that matter one way or the
other. For inhabitants, the camp has about two hundred miners, one white
woman and child, several Chinese washermen, five squaws, and a dozen
vagrant buck Indians in rabbit-skin robes, battered plug hats, and tin-
can necklaces. There are no mills as yet; no church, no newspaper. The
camp has existed but two years; it has made no big strike; the world is
ignorant of its name and place.
On both sides of the canyon the mountains rise wall-like, three thousand
feet, and the long spiral of straggling huts down in its narrow bottom
gets a kiss from the sun only once a day, when he sails over at noon.
The village is a couple of miles long; the cabins stand well apart from
each other. The tavern is the only “frame” house–the only house, one
might say. It occupies a central position, and is the evening resort of
the population. They drink there, and play seven-up and dominoes; also
billiards, for there is a table, crossed all over with torn places
repaired with court-plaster; there are some cues, but no leathers; some
chipped balls which clatter when they run, and do not slow up gradually,
but stop suddenly and sit down; there is a part of a cube of chalk, with
a projecting jag of flint in it; and the man who can score six on a
single break can set up the drinks at the bar’s expense.
Flint Buckner’s cabin was the last one of the village, going south; his
silver-claim was at the other end of the village, northward, and a little