“Now, ‘Doc’!” and put my foot in front of him to trip him up.
By the time they got to him, there on the floor, he was unconscious and frothing at the mouth. The next morning I was so bruised from his affectionate handling that I could hardly walk, and there was a cut on my Adam’s apple; but I went around to the jail to see “Doc.” He was back in the terrific chains that he had so dreaded in Stockton. As soon as he saw me he lunged forward, yelling and screaming.
“Yes, they got me”—ripping out a thousand oaths—“but they didn’t get you. I’d like to eat your black heart out.”
They took him to the state asylum, and I don’t know what happened to him later; but I shall never go back to Sissons unless I am sure “Doc” Sullivan is dead.
Walter Scott’s cabin was twenty-two miles from Sissons in Huckleberry Valley, and here I went during vacation time to help him tan hides and smoke venison. Scott was over six feet tall, with bright red hair, a straight Greek profile, and absolutely illiterate. But a more joyous creature never lived. With him was a man named Peter Klink—a silent German who had been a miner in the days of ’49.
One day I was out hunting for the camp, and on one of the benches that ran down from Shasta, with brooks between, I started a doe. I let “rip” and must have “creased” her, as she went down like a shot. Dropping my gun, I went for her, knowing that if I could close with her before she got up, I could knife her. In my mad rush I suddenly took a header. This was unusual in that country, as the ground was free from stones or small brush. Rumpling up the pine needles, I found a pick head; the handle had rotted out, showing that there had been mining there once. Near by—a very uncommon sight—was a large stone.
That night, after the guns were cleaned, the dogs fed, and a brisket of venison hung near the fire, ready for each one of us to cut off a slice with his hunting knife before we went to bed, I told my experience.
“That’s Benny Russell’s stone,” said Peter, and by the light in his eyes I knew, if I kept very quiet, there might be a story.
Taking his pipe out of his mouth and giving me a searching glance, he said:
“You didn’t heist that stone over, did ye?”