‘Well, old boy, don’t you know me now?’ asked the stranger. ‘Am I so little like the Vermudyn you chummed with in Cherokee Dick’s claim?’
‘It’s Halloween again,’ muttered the other hoarsely, still delaying to take the proffered hand.
‘And an unlucky night for me to turn up, after the scurvy trick I played you,’ laughed the stranger. ‘But look here, mate—if you kept my ring, I’ve kept yours; and I’m flesh and blood safe enough—no spirit or demon, as you seem to fancy.’
Old Grizzly grasped both his hands, looking long and earnestly in his face meanwhile. ‘It is Vermudyn!’ he at last exclaimed. ‘Though how they found your bones yonder in the Devil’s Panniken, and yet you’re alive and hearty here to-night, is more than Pat Murphy or any other Irishman could explain!’
‘I had better say at once that there’s no mystery about this—this—gentleman’s arrival to-night, at least,’ interposed Gentleman Jack. ‘He is a chance companion and fellow-traveller of mine, and like myself, he hails from ’Frisco last.’
‘As you seem to be in the humour for telling stories to-night, mates,’ observed the newcomer, ‘perhaps it wouldn’t be amiss if I explained to my friend here, in your presence, the truth of his strange Halloween experiences on the night he parted company with me—or I with him—whichever you prefer.
‘I told you once,’ said he, addressing himself to Old Grizzly, ‘I had travelled a good deal and spent some years in the East; but I never told how much I had learned of the manner and customs of the people I lived with; or that, amongst other diverting knowledge, I acquired the art of smoking and eating that extract of hemp known in eastern countries as “hashish;” and no one save those who have been under its marvellous influence can ever understand the wonderful reality of the illusions it produces—stronger and more powerful than any opium in its effect, and less harmful to use. Years ago, the drug was almost unknown; to-day, there are “hashish” eaters and smokers in most of the big cities of the States.
‘At the time I’m speaking of, it was little known, and its effects scarcely understood. I had taken it often enough myself; but some idle whim prompted me to try the result of a dose on my friend here, that special and memorable night of which he has just told you something. Well, I administered a biggish dose in a pill I gave him for an aguish turn he’d had; and after that, as we rode along I let him have some tobacco, as his own was smoked out, and this tobacco of mine consisted almost entirely of the dried hemp, the true “hashish.” We had not ridden a great way into the Devil’s Panniken, talking, as we rode, of the bad reputation of the place and the various legends concerning it, when the drug began to take effect on my old friend here, and he would have fallen from his horse, if I had not kept close beside him and supported him with my arm. As matters were then, I decided to dismount and camp for the night. For myself, I’d never been afraid of man or demon, and I knew my companion could go no farther; so I easily persuaded him to stop, though several times he muttered something about riding on.
‘Well, I wrapped him in his blanket like a babby, lighted him another pipe, just to compose him, and set to work to make a rousing fire, for the night was cold, and a keen frosty wind came sweeping down the ravine. He behaved strangely enough for some time, muttering and talking, while I watched by him; then by turns singing and laughing, while he stared at me or the fire. Once or twice he struggled hard to get up; but by-and-by the hashish overpowered him, and he slept soundly. I remained by him the whole night, and then tried in the early dawn to awaken him, as we wanted to push on. But he slept so heavily, that the idea occurred to me to ride off and leave him to wake alone, thoroughly mystified between his hashish visions and the loss of me!
‘It was a bad, mad sort of practical joke, but I was full of such follies in those early days. After I’d left him, I made tracks for the town we’d determined on visiting together, and waited for him some days; but he never turned up; and then an uneasy fear that some harm had befallen my friend through my own folly, got hold of me; and taking a sudden distaste for a digger’s life, I made my way to the nearest port, and went on board a ship just starting for Europe, and which, luckily for me, stood in need of an extra hand.