THE JEW'S BOOTS.
In the morning I awoke much refreshed. It was about seven o'clock, and time to start. I turned to arouse my friend Israel, but, to my surprise, found that he had already taken his departure. A horrible suspicion seized me. Had he also taken—Yes, of course; my boots were gone too! And the security? The watch? I looked under my pillow. Miserable wretch! he had also taken the watch. I might have known it! I was a fool for trusting him. When I picked up the old pair of boots bequeathed to me as a token of remembrance by this depraved man—when I held them up to the light and examined them critically—when I reflected upon the journey before me, it was enough to bring tears to the sternest human eye.
No matter; I would catch the dastardly wretch on the trail. If ever I laid hands upon him again, so help me—But what is the use of swearing. No man ever caught another in this world with such a pair of boots on his feet—and here I examined them again—never! One might as well attempt to walk in a pair of condemned fire-buckets.
There was no help for it but to await some chance of getting over on horseback. Fortunately, a saddle-train which had passed down to Genoa during the previous day returned a little after daylight. For the sum of $30, cash in advance, I secured an unoccupied horse—the poorest animal, perhaps, ever ridden by mortal man. There is no good reason that I am aware of why people engaged in the horse-business should always select for my use the refuse of their stock; but such has invariably been their practice. I have never yet been favored with a horse that was not lame, halt, or blind, or otherwise physically afflicted.
I had not ridden more than a mile from Woodford's before I discovered that the miserable hack upon which I was mounted traveled diagonally, like a lugger beating against a head wind. His fore feet were well enough—they traveled on the trail; but his hind feet were continually undertaking to luff up a little to windward. When it is borne in mind that the trail was over a bank of snow from eight to ten feet deep, and not more than a foot wide, the inconvenience of that mode of locomotion will at once be perceived. Every few hundred yards the hind feet got off the trail, and went down with a sudden lurch that kept me in constant apprehension of being buried alive in the snow. Another serious difficulty was, that my horse, owing perhaps to the defect in his hind legs, had no capacity for short turns, so that whenever the trail suddenly diverged from its direct course, he invariably brought up against a rock, stump, or bank of snow.
I appealed to the captain or commander of the train to give me a better animal, but he assured me positively this was the very best in the whole lot, and that I would find him peculiarly adapted to mountain travel, where it was often an advantage for an animal to hold on to an upper trail with his fore feet while his hind ones were searching for another down below. In short, on this account solely he had named him "Guyascutas."
As there seemed to be no way of impressing the captain with a different opinion of the merits of Guyascutas, I was obliged to make the best of a bad bargain, and jog on as fast as spurs, blows, and entreaties could effect that result.
In reference to the Jew, whom I expected to overtake, and for whom I kept a sharp look-out, it may be as well to state at once that I never again put eyes on him. Whether he secreted himself behind some tree or rock till the saddle-train passed, or, overcome by remorse for the dastardly act he had committed, cast himself headlong over some precipice, I have never been able to ascertain. He is a miserable wretch at best. In view of the future, I would not for all the wealth of the Rothschilds stand in his—Well, yes, for that much money I might stand in his boots, provided no others were to be had; but I should regret extremely to be guilty of such an act toward any fellow-traveler as he had committed.