185CHAPTER XIX
SUNDAY AT HANGMAN’S GULCH
It was now about four o’clock. The crowd dispersed slowly in different directions, and to its different occupations and amusements. We wandered about, all eyes and ears. As yet we had not many acquaintances, and could not enter into the intimate bantering life of the old-timers. There was enough to interest us, however. A good many were beginning to show the drink. After a long period of hard labour even the most respectable of the miners would have at times strange reactions. That is another tale, however; and on this Sunday the drinking was productive only of considerable noise and boasting. Two old codgers, head to head, were bragging laboriously of their prowess as cooks. A small but interested group egged them on.
“Flapjacks?” enunciated one laboriously; “flapjacks? Why, my fren’, you don’t know nothin’ about flapjacks. I grant you,” said he, laying one hand on the other’s arm, “I grant ye that maybe, maybe, mind you, you may know about mixin’ flapjacks, and even about cookin’ flapjacks. But wha’ do you know about flippin’ flapjacks?” He removed his hand from the other’s arm. “Nawthin!” said he. “Now I am an exper’; a real exper’! When I want to flip a flapjack I just whirl 186 her up through the chimney and catch her by holdin’ the frying pan out’n the window!”
I found at another point a slender, beardless young chap, with bright black eyes, and hectic cheeks, engaged in sketching one of the miners who posed before him. His touch was swift and sure, and his faculty at catching a likeness remarkable. The sketch was completed and paid for in ten minutes; and he was immediately besieged by offers from men who wanted pictures of themselves or their camps. He told me, between strokes of the pencil, that he found this sort of thing more remunerative than the mining for which he had come to the country, as he could not stand the necessary hard work. Paper cost him two dollars and a half a sheet; but that was about all his expense. Alongside the street a very red-faced, bulbous-nosed and ancient ruin with a patriarchal white beard was preparing to give phrenological readings. I had seen him earlier in the day, and had been amused at his impressive glib patter. Now, however, he had become foolishly drunk. He mounted the same boxes that had served as the executive desk, and invited custom. After a moment’s hesitation a burly, red-faced miner shouldered his way through the group and sat down on the edge of the boxes.
In the earlier and soberer part of the afternoon the phrenologist had skilfully steered his way by the safe stars of flattery. Now, as he ran his hands uncertainly through the miner’s thick hair, a look of mystification crept into his bleary eyes. He felt again more carefully.
“Most ’xtraor’nary!” he muttered. “Fren’s,” said he, 187 still feeling at the man’s head, “this person has the most extraor’nary bump of ’quisitiveness. Never felt one like it, ’xcept on th’ cranium of a very celebrated thief an’ robber. His bump of benev’lence ’s a reg’lar hole. Bump of truthfulness don’ somehow seem to be there at all. Bump of cowardice is ’s big ’s an egg. This man, fren’s,” said he, dropping the victim’s head and advancing impressively, “is a very dangerous character. Look out for ’m. He’s a liar, an’ a thief, an’ a coward, an’ a─”
“Well, you old son of a gun!” howled the miner, rising to his feet.
He seized the aged phrenologist, and flung him bodily straight through the sides of a large tent, and immediately dove after him in pursuit. There came from that tent a series of crashes, howls of rage and joy, the sounds of violent scuffling, and then there burst out through the doorway the thoroughly sobered phrenologist, his white beard streaming over one shoulder, his pop eyes bulging out, his bulbous nose quite purple, pursued by the angry miner and a score of the overjoyed populace interrupted in their gambling. Everybody but the two principals was gasping with laughter. It looked as though the miner might do his victim a serious injury, so I caught the pursuer, around the shoulders and held him fast. He struggled violently, but was no match for my bulk, and I restrained him until he had cooled down somewhat, and had ceased trying to bite and kick me. Then all at once he laughed, and I released him. Of the phrenologist nothing remained but a thin cloud of dust hanging in the still air.
Yank and I then thought of going back to camp, and 188 began to look around after Johnny, who had disappeared, when McNally rolled up, inviting us to sup with him.
“You don’t want to go home yet,” he advised us. “Evening’s the time to have fun. Never mind your friend; he’s all right. Now you realize the disadvantage of living way off where you do. My hang-out is just down the street. Let’s have a drink.”