After delivering Hewley and his treasure to the commanding officer, Jones with his five troopers went to the sutler’s store and took a drink at Jones’s expense. Then one of them asked the corporal to have another. But Jones refused. “If a man drinks much of that,” said he (and the whiskey certainly was of a livid, unlikely flavor), “he’s liable to go home and steal his own pants.” He walked away to his quarters, and as he went they heard him thoughtfully humming his most inveterate song, “Ye shepherds tell me have you seen my Flora pass this way.”
But poisonous whiskey was not the inner reason for his moderation. He felt very much like a responsible corporal to-day, and the troopers knew it. “Jones has done himself a good turn in this fuss,” they said. “He’ll be changing his chevron.”
That afternoon the Legislature sat in the State-House and read to itself in the Statutes all about oaths. It is not believed that any of them sat up another night; sleeping on a problem is often much better. Next morning the commanding officer and Governor Ballard were called upon by F. Jackson Gilet and the Speaker of the House. Every one was civil and hearty as possible. Gilet pronounced the captain’s whiskey “equal to any at the Southern, Saint Louey,” and conversed for some time about the cold season, General Crook’s remarkable astuteness in dealing with Indians, and other topics of public interest. “And concernin’ yoh difficulty yesterday, Gove’nuh,” said he, “I’ve been consulting the laws, suh, and I perceive yoh construction is entahley correct.”
And so the Legislature signed that form of oath prescribed for participants in the late Rebellion, and Hewley did not have to wait for his poker money. He and Wingo played many subsequent games; for, as they all said in referring to the matter, “A little thing like that should nevuh stand between friends.”
Thus was accomplished by Ballard, Paisley—and Jones—the Second Missouri Compromise, at Boisé City, Idaho, 1867—an eccentric moment in the eccentric years of our development westward, and historic also. That it has gone unrecorded until now is because of Ballard’s modesty, Paisley’s preference for the sword, and Jones’s hatred of the pen. He was never known to write except, later, in the pages of his company roster and such unavoidable official places; for the troopers were prophetic. In not many months there was no longer a Corporal Jones, but a person widely known as Sergeant Jones of Company A; called also the “Singing Sergeant”; but still familiar to his intimate friends as “Specimen.”
LA TINAJA BONITA
“And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”—1 Kings xvii. 7.
A pretty girl was kneeling on the roof of a flat mud cabin, a harvest of red peppers round her knees. On the ground below her stood a swarthy young man, the bloom on his Mexican cheeks rich and dusky, like her own. His face was irresponsible and winning, and his watching eyes shone upon her with admiration and desire. She on the roof was entertained by her visitor’s attention, but unfavorable to it. Through the live-long sunny day she had parried his love-talk with light and complete skill, enjoying herself, and liking him very well, as she had done since they were two children playing together in the Arizona desert. She was quite mistress of the situation, because she was a woman, and he as yet merely a boy; he was only twenty-two; she was almost sixteen. The Mexican man at twenty-two may be as experienced as his Northern brother of thirty, but at sixteen the Mexican woman is also mature, and can competently deal with the man. So this girl had relished the thoughtless morning and noon as they passed; but twice lately she had glanced across the low tree-tops of her garden down the trail, where the cañon descended to the silent plain below.