With antique sinew and with modern art.
SIDNEY LANIER.
GENTLEMAN DICK.
They had, all of them, nicknames themselves, for in a Colorado mining-community it was not difficult to acquire a title, and they called him Gentleman Dick. It was rather an odd name, to be sure, but it was very expressive, and conveyed much of the prevailing opinion and estimate of its owner. They laughed when he expressed a desire to join the party in Denver, and Old Platte looked at his long, delicate hands, so like a woman's, with a smile of rough, good-humored pity, mingled, perhaps, with a shade of contempt for the habits and occupation that had engendered such apparent effeminacy. But he pleaded so earnestly and talked with such quiet energy and confidence of what he could and would do, and moreover had about him so much of that spirit of subdued bonhomie that always captivates the roughest of the rough, that they relented, took his money and put it in the "pot," and informed him that he was one of them. Their decision was not altogether unconnected with the fact that he had given evidence of considerable surgical skill in his treatment of Mr. Woods, more familiarly known as "Short-card William," who had been shot a week or so previously over a game of poker by an independent bull-whacker whom he had attempted to defraud. The sense of the community had sustained the act; and while the exhibition of his skill in dealing was universally condemned as having been indiscreet under the circumstances, still he was accounted a live man among them, and the discovery of a surgeon to dress his wound was hailed with a somewhat general feeling of relief. Had it not been for the fact that the sobriquet of Gentleman Dick was already conferred and accepted universally as his name, he certainly would not have escaped that of "Doctor," and as it was, Mr. Woods, who was profuse as well as profane in his gratitude, insisted upon so calling him. A doctor, or anything bearing even a resemblance to a member of that sadly-represented profession, was regarded with a certain degree of reverence among a community whose peculiar habits often gave rise to pressing and immediate need of surgical attendance. Consequently, Gentleman Dick rapidly attained an elevated position in their regard, and became a great favorite with Old Platte's party, although they still looked doubtfully at his slender figure and felt "kind o' bothered" by the air of gentility and good-breeding which hung around him in spite of the rough miner's garments that he had chosen to assume. By the time they left Denver for the Blue he was deemed as indispensable to the company as Old Platte himself.
The forest of dark pines and firs that covered both sides of the valley of the Blue grew down to the bars of the river, which along its banks was thickly grown with wild gooseberry and raspberry bushes, and piled up here and there with great tangled heaps of driftwood which the spring floods brought down and left in masses of inextricable confusion along its sides. Back a little distance from one of these sandy flats, and nestled right in the shadow of the forest's edge, they built a long rough cabin early in June. In summer-time the spot was a wild and picturesque one. Green and luxuriant vegetation made a soft and brilliant carpet at the feet of the stately old pines; huge boulder-like rocks, their edges softened and rounded in the grasp of one of Agassiz' pre-Adamite glaciers that had ground its icy way down from the melting snow-caps above—rocks covered with bright lichens and tufts of moss—- lay piled on one another at the foot of the steep mountain-side; while gnarled cedars twisted around about them, their rough red roots twining here and there in search of sustenance. Below the cabin a little way lay the bar—Chihuahua Bar they had christened it, out of deference to "Jones of Chihuahua," whose prospecting-pan had developed the fact that gold in promising quantities lay beneath it—and a little farther on the Blue sang merrily in its gravelly bed. Down the river, about two miles, was Blue Bar, where about two hundred miners had formed a settlement, and where a red-headed Scotchman, who combined the duties of a self-constituted postmaster with the dispensation of a villainous article of whisky, kept a lively grocery and provision store.
During the early part of the season they had prospected up along the river, finding gold all the way, but not in quantities sufficiently large to warrant working. At the place, however, which they subsequently named Chihuahua (pronounced in the vernacular Chee-waw-waw) the perspicacious Jones had given it as his opinion, formed after mature deliberation and a sapient examination of some two or three shovelsful of dirt, that there was a satisfactory "color in that ar bank." Some hard work of about a week demonstrated that there were excellent diggings there, and then work was commenced upon it in good earnest. The cabin was built, Gentleman Dick's choice of location being unanimously approved; two or three trips were made across the "Range" to the nearest settlement for materials and provisions; and then the real labor began. As they cut through the heavy bank of mould and gravel, gradually eating a long trench to the bed-rock, prospects grew better and better. At last, one day a narrow ledge of brittle, shaly rock came in view, covered with a coating of thick, heavy yellow mud, of which Old Platte gathered a panful and betook himself down to the river-side. A war-whoop from the direction in which he had disappeared came ringing through the gooseberry bushes to their ears, and with a responsive yell and a simultaneous dropping of shovels and picks they all dashed off to his side. He was discovered in a condition of great excitement, dancing wildly round the pan, in the bottom of which about half a teaspoonful of coarse yellow nuggets were shining among the black sand. It was a grand prospect, and with the exception of Gentleman Dick, whose exultation was of a very mild and reserved order, the proprietors of the Chihuahua Claim behaved in a very undignified and unseemly way; Thompson and Jones organizing an impromptu sparring-match, and Old Platte standing indecorously on his head in a neighboring clump of bushes. Sundry war-whoops and divers indications of activity showed that work of a very lively and energetic character was being prosecuted that afternoon on the bar; and when the sun sunk to rest behind the purple mountains, and the blue mists of evening rose in the valley, they had their sluice-boxes and "riffles" in order, and were ready to commence washing at sunrise.
It did not take very long to clean the ledge, and early in the afternoon the water was shut off. When it was found that the "riffles" yielded thirteen ounces of gold that would coin eighteen dollars and a half to the ounce, a firm conviction seemed to settle upon the camp that this was an occasion which it would be improper to pass over without a thorough and practical acknowledgment of its importance in the shape of a regular celebration. The gold was weighed and divided, all sitting in a circle in the middle of the cabin floor, while Old Platte officiated at the scales with all the gravity and dignity which the responsible position called for.
Mr. McNab's grocery and post-office at Blue Bar was the scene of much excitement and noisy revelry that evening and all the next day while the gold lasted. Miners who had heard of the Chihuahua "streak" flocked up to Blue Bar to get the particulars, and naturally joined in the general feeling of exultation and hilarity that seemed to pervade that community. Old Platte got terribly drunk, and Thompson and Jones developed the strangest eccentricities of gait, manner and speech, and finally subsided into a deep slumber in the dust and sand of the main thoroughfare of the Bar. Gentleman Dick's absence from the festivities was not noticed that evening, but the next day Thompson, who seemed to feel aggrieved on the subject, announced his intention of going up to Chihuahua to fetch him down. He left Mr. McNab's on his charitable mission armed with a bottle of rum, and proceeded up the creek in a condition of moderate intoxication. That he was somewhat sobered on his arrival at the cabin was perhaps due to the fact that the cork was fixed very firmly in the neck of his bottle: at any rate, he did not ask his friend to drink when he found him.
Gentleman Dick had just directed and sealed a letter, and was about to start for the settlement of Gold Dirt, when Thompson loomed up unsteadily in the doorway, surveyed him inquiringly for a moment and asked undecidedly and apologetically, "Wass' up? W'ere you goin'?"