most solemn and awful that ever man was called upon to decide.
Gentlemen, I have listened attentively to the evidence, and have
perceived that the weight of it, the overwhelming weight of it, is in
favor of the plaintiff Hyde. I have listened also to the remarks of
counsel, with high interest–and especially will I commend the masterly
and irrefutable logic of the distinguished gentleman who represents the
plaintiff. But gentlemen, let us beware how we allow mere human
testimony, human ingenuity in argument and human ideas of equity, to
influence us at a moment so solemn as this. Gentlemen, it ill becomes
us, worms as we are, to meddle with the decrees of Heaven. It is plain
to me that Heaven, in its inscrutable wisdom, has seen fit to move this
defendant’s ranch for a purpose. We are but creatures, and we must
submit. If Heaven has chosen to favor the defendant Morgan in this
marked and wonderful manner; and if Heaven, dissatisfied with the
position of the Morgan ranch upon the mountain side, has chosen to remove
it to a position more eligible and more advantageous for its owner, it
ill becomes us, insects as we are, to question the legality of the act or
inquire into the reasons that prompted it. No–Heaven created the
ranches and it is Heaven’s prerogative to rearrange them, to experiment
with them around at its pleasure. It is for us to submit, without
repining.
I warn you that this thing which has happened is a thing with which the
sacrilegious hands and brains and tongues of men must not meddle.
Gentlemen, it is the verdict of this court that the plaintiff, Richard
Hyde, has been deprived of his ranch by the visitation of God! And from
this decision there is no appeal.”
Buncombe seized his cargo of law-books and plunged out of the court-room
frantic with indignation. He pronounced Roop to be a miraculous fool, an
inspired idiot. In all good faith he returned at night and remonstrated
with Roop upon his extravagant decision, and implored him to walk the
floor and think for half an hour, and see if he could not figure out some
sort of modification of the verdict. Roop yielded at last and got up to
walk. He walked two hours and a half, and at last his face lit up
happily and he told Buncombe it had occurred to him that the ranch
underneath the new Morgan ranch still belonged to Hyde, that his title to
the ground was just as good as it had ever been, and therefore he was of
opinion that Hyde had a right to dig it out from under there and–
The General never waited to hear the end of it. He was always an
impatient and irascible man, that way. At the end of two months the fact
that he had been played upon with a joke had managed to bore itself, like
another Hoosac Tunnel, through the solid adamant of his understanding.
CHAPTER XXXV.
When we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had an addition to the
company in the person of Capt. John Nye, the Governor’s brother. He had
a good memory, and a tongue hung in the middle. This is a combination
which gives immortality to conversation. Capt. John never suffered the
talk to flag or falter once during the hundred and twenty miles of the
journey. In addition to his conversational powers, he had one or two
other endowments of a marked character. One was a singular “handiness”
about doing anything and everything, from laying out a railroad or
organizing a political party, down to sewing on buttons, shoeing a horse,
or setting a broken leg, or a hen. Another was a spirit of accommodation
that prompted him to take the needs, difficulties and perplexities of
anybody and everybody upon his own shoulders at any and all times, and
dispose of them with admirable facility and alacrity–hence he always
managed to find vacant beds in crowded inns, and plenty to eat in the
emptiest larders. And finally, wherever he met a man, woman or child, in
camp, inn or desert, he either knew such parties personally or had been