I never saw a deeper melancholy shadow a man’s face or sadden his voice. He seemed broken-hearted, bewildered with some unspeakable sorrow.
“I’ve come 2,500 miles to see you, and now you ain’t the man I’m looking for,” he said at last.
I drew him into the parlor, and in the bright light got a better look at his face and form. He was one of Bret Harte’s portraits stepped out of the frame. Of medium height, slightly but strongly built, his form had about it that untaught and indefinable grace of movement which it is popularly supposed is imparted only by the untrammeled freedom of forest life. His long brown hair slightly curled, fell about his neck, and his handsome beard evidently was as innocent of steel as that of a Nazarite’s. He was roughly dressed, having a pair of alligator boots, to which doubtless the newsboy’s “shine” was an untried novelty. But it was his face that chiefly charmed me. His nose was straight and clearly cut and his eye was as frank and innocent as a baby’s. When he spoke his speech was flavored with that Southern twang which no man not to the “manner born” can ever imitate.
“Yes,” he repeated, with increasing sorrow in his soft voice, “I have come 2,500 miles to see you, and you ain’t the man.”
“You were looking for somebody bearing my name?”
“Yes, sir. You see I’ve been livin’ for about twelve or thirteen years down on the borders of old Mexico, among the Indians and half-breeds. An’ there was a man come down there several years ago by the name o’ Snyder, John Snyder, that’s your name, ain’t it? Yes. Well, he’d been a Methodis’ preacher and he come from my own State, North Carliny. He used to work in the mines an’ he used to preach, too. An’ I tell you he was a mighty good man. ’Fore he come things was awful rough in that camp. Why, they use ter kill a man almost every week. I’ve seen a fellow shot right dead on a bar-room floor and nobody’d take any notice of him, and one of them rough women would go up to the bar to take a drink of whisky and her clothes would jest brush over the dead man’s face! But I tell ye when that preacher come things began to be different. All that killing business begun to stop. The boys jest thought everything of him. They’d trust him with everything they had in the world. And he come to St. Louis about five or six months ago and I want to find him the worst way.”
Thinking that as my heroic namesake had come from North Carolina, he would naturally belong to the M. E. Church, South, I directed my disconsolate visitor to the book concern of that branch of the church militant. As he turned to leave the door he said, “If I didn’t find that preacher, could you let me come back and get you to write me a letter, for I can’t write?” I was touched by the sense of desolation and pitiable ignorance in which this lonely creature seemed to dwell, and said cordially:
“Come back, and I will do anything I can to serve you.”
In the early morning of the next day my backwoods hero presented himself. He had searched the city through, but the saintly miner-preacher was nowhere to be found. And yet there was a gleam of dimmest hope in his eye and a sweet and quiet smile upon his lips, for he seemed to transfer all his loving, clinging confidence to me.
“Well, I couldn’t find him,” he said. “Now, I’ll just tell you in what kind of a fix I’m in. I’ve been out of the mines fur nigh onto thirteen years, and sometimes I’ve got together as much as $12,000 or $13,000 at a time, and then it would jest kinder melt away from me. Now I see a chance to make some money. Fur about twelve years I’ve hed a chum who’s a half-breed Indian, a fellow by the name of Zamora. Well, about six months ago he was out hunting with some full-blooded Indians, and they chased a small deer up the side of a hill; when all of a sudden the deer went out of sight. My chum went up to the place where he missed him, and looking down a hole, saw him jest about four or five feet down. So he went down after him. When he got down there he forgot all about the deer, I tell ye. He was jest in a hole o’ gold! He got the Indians to help him, and right there and then he got out some chunks, and buildin’ a fire where they was campin’, they made what them fellers call a dobie mold and jest run some of the gold into that. After he had filled them Indians full o’ whiskey he knew they’d never think of the place again, and so when he got rid o’ them he went back alone and got what stuff was on the surface. Then he come and told me about it; but mind ye, he didn’t show me the place. Them half-breeds are mighty suspicious. But he brought out three of the chunks. I showed a piece of the stuff to a fellow named Bailey—Capt. Bailey they called him, and he stole it. He said, ‘An Indian ain’t got any rights anyhow.’[anyhow.’] Well, if I’d tried to get it back none of the boys would ’er backed me up, ’cause they’re all down on Indians, and Zamora wouldn’t let me trust another feller in the camp. He says to me, says he, ‘Let’s go look for that preacher; we can trust him; these fellers ’ill not only rob us, but put lead into us, too.’ So we come to Kansas City and I buried two of the chunks of stuff in a hole about three feet deep, and then we brought the other chunks here. Now, you see what we want to do is this: First of all, we want to find some man we can trust. That half-breed won’t hardly let me speak to a white man. He is always sayin’: You’ve been cheated once trustin’ a white man, now jest do my way. Let’s find that preacher, we know we can trust him. Well, we’ve lost the trail of that preacher and I want you to help us out. I’ll pay you well fur your trouble.”