Toppy, as I well knew, had the only abode on the opposite bank of the river, where, high up on the hillside, in full though somewhat distant view of the little town, he had built a small but neat cabin, which nestled in the bosom of the hill, looking not unlike a child’s playhouse as seen from the town proper.
“Yep,” replied the miner, “thar’s whar he is. It aint best ter depen’ too much on pop’larity, ye know, Doc, an’ Jim’ll be a little safer over thar than in town. Nobody goes ter my place—less’n I invite ’em,” and Toppy grinned sardonically.
I recalled the fate of a poor devil who did go to his cabin without an invitation—from Toppy—in the early days of his housekeeping on the hillside, when a more or less charming little Mexican half-breed damsel was said to have presided over Toppy’s domestic affairs.
Being averse to the discussion of other people’s family matters, I had never conversed with my miner friend on that delicate subject. To tell the truth, there seemed to be very little encouragement for gossip in Jacksonville—town-talk was too direct a cut to the little collection of white head-boards that decorated a small plateau just outside the town. All my information on such subjects, was therefore derived from more subtle and less dangerous airy rumor.
The river was quite low, and a few vigorous pulls from Toppy’s stalwart arms brought us to the opposite shore, from which I could see, far up the hillside, the gleaming white walls of the miner’s rude little home, where lay my prospective patient.
Toppy was notoriously careless in his personal grooming, but the little half-breed had evidently inspired a coat of whitewash for the cabin, that endured longer than the sentiment with which its owner had inspired that swarthy little traitress. Possibly that gleaming white cabin was her monument—who knows? The river ran dangerously and temptingly near, considering how short a time it takes to fall a few hundred feet down a steep and rocky hillside, and rumor whispered that Pepita—well, no one knew where she was, and women were not so plentiful in the Tuolumne valley that hiding was easy.
But the Tuolumne kept its secret well, if secret there was. Its quick-sands told no tales. They could hide the precious gold of the river bottom; why not a mouldering skeleton?
On entering Toppy’s cabin, completely winded after my climb up the hill that constituted his front yard, I found my new patient lying on a cot in the middle of the room. He turned inquiringly toward the door as his host and I entered, and what was my amazement to see reflected in the dim light of the candle with which the cabin was illuminated, the features of the handsome unknown of the San Francisco gambling-house, whose adventure with the unfortunate young southerner I have already related. The recognition was evidently mutual, but I fancied that my patient looked at me with an expression slightly suggestive of annoyance.
Toppy’s introduction was laconic, and as characteristic as was he himself:
“Doc, this is Jim—Jim, this yer’s Doc Weymouth, an’ he’s all right, y’u bet, ’specially on bullets an’ sich things.”