Poker Jim, Gentleman, and Other Tales and Sketches

by G. Frank Lydston

CHIQUITA

I had been rambling about through Calaveras, investigating mining properties, and incidentally enjoying to the full the glorious weather of the early California spring. My search for the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow had led me far up among the majestic Sierras—those wondrous mountains at the foot of which was verdure more beautiful than any artist could portray, while their snow-covered tops reared themselves proudly through the clouds and, peering beyond, seemed to challenge the very sky to descend and meet them. The ravines and gulches were tortured and torn by rushing torrents from the melting snows above. Every rivulet had become a brook, every brook a river, and every river a veritable Niagara.

So replete with the swift rushing yellow waters were the courses of the mountains and valleys, that the venerable wise-acre, yclept “the oldest inhabitant,” was permitted by his neighbors to croak to his heart’s content, and actually held his audiences while he regaled them with the horrors of “the freshet of the spring of ’61 and ’62,” and chilled the very marrow of their bones with the ominous prophecy that the present gorging of the streams was but the forerunner of a rising of the waters which should make the famous old-time flood of the Sacramento Valley fade into nothingness.

I had been leisurely retracing my steps from the mountains, and returning by the “Big Tree” road through the historic town of Murphy’s Camp—made famous by Bret Harte, and interesting to me because I had there spent several of the years of my childhood—arrived at the little town of Vallecito, where I intended to inspect some placer property.

The ardent, coppery-red ball of the California sun was just descending behind the foothills to westward when I arrived at my destination, hence there was nothing to do save to make myself as comfortable as possible at the little ramshackle inn, “The Miner’s Rest,” and defer all thought of business until the morrow.

Life in the foothills of the Sierras may be monotonous, but it has its pleasant features, not the least of which was the fare of the humble Miner’s Rest. I found that Mr. Jim Truesdell, the landlord, had not boasted when he said genially, “We ain’t much on style hereabouts, Mister, but you kin bet your bottom dollar our feed is just as good, an’ just as plenty as it is at the Frisco Palace; tho’ we ain’t braggin’ none about variety on our meenu kyards.”

Having finished my supper, I lighted a cigar and strolled out upon the rude, tumble-down veranda of the little inn. Seating myself with my feet planted upon the railing and a book upon my lap, I proceeded to enjoy my smoke. Then—my book forgotten—I fell into the revery which the fragrant smoke wreaths of a good cigar and the glorious flame of a dying sun bring to him who is at peace with himself and his surroundings.

More beautiful sunsets there may be than those of my native heath, but I have never seen but one that could in any way compare with them, and even there, in a harbor of far-off Guatemala, the conditions, save for the brilliant ocean rim below which the sun sank to sleep, were much the same. The mountains to the eastward of Vallecito recalled the Sierra Madre, of that distant alien land. There were the same fleecy clouds, illumined by the waning fire of the God of Day, reflecting colors that surely would have been the despair of the most ambitious brush, and floating with soft caress over the snow-capped peaks which, like grim and watchful sentinels, walled in the valley where nestled the little town. There was just breeze enough blowing to give a keen zest to the balm-laden air of the mountains—a feature which that ever to be remembered scene in the Bay of Ocos distinctly lacked, for ’twas a miniature hell down there, night or day.

Save for the weird cry of some mysterious night bird, who ever and anon called his mate, and the infrequent whir of a diminutive species of bat, everything was as quiet as a blue Sunday in staid old New England. The “chug” of the pick, the clamorous ring of the shovel and the rattling of the miner’s cradle were conspicuously absent in the valley and the hills and ravines round about. So still was the little mining town, that a giant elk who was sniffing the air in a spirit of curious and careful investigation far up the mountain side, came nearer and yet nearer, tossing his head with its burden of enormous horns in defiance at first, and then standing stock-still as if amazed. When he had finished his tour of investigation, he turned and stalked majestically away down the side of a rocky gorge that would scarcely have afforded safe footing for a cat. He glanced back several times as though he did not quite understand his undisputed kingship, and then, with a farewell belligerent toss of his mighty antlers, plunged into the obscurity of the beautiful manzanita, and scraggly mésquite and chapparal that fringed the steep canyon sides of the awesome Sierras.

As the elk disappeared, a long, sobbing, terrifying wail was wafted from amid the scrub firs and tall bread pines still higher up on a distant mountain side. It was the cougar’s warning to his tawny mate. The elk was not king, nor yet was the hungry panther, for somewhere amid those far-off mountain ravines was the lair of the grizzly, fiercest of his kind.