The condition of California in 1849 was, to say the least of it, turbulent. Some parts of that State are in a turbulent condition now. Groups of “the boys” can still be discovered. They are not paragons, though, and they never were. The existence of good impulses in uncouth persons does not make them less uncouth. Fine qualities can, and do, exist in beings who are unfamiliar with soap and the toothbrush; but it would seem that the study of human nature can be pursued, more agreeably than elsewhere, among saponaceous branches of the race. It is more pleasant to read about “the boys” than it is to see them. But, broadly speaking, in Belasco’s drama the Girl is the play, and with Miss Bates as the Girl there was little more to be desired. Shorn of all extraneous fringes—variously impious, improper, vulgar, and offensive interjections of profanity and violent expletive—the play is the image of a lovely, impetuous woman’s devotion to her lover,—a devotion that is shown in a series of actions by her to save him from danger and ruin and to make him happy. Feminine heroism is the theme, and the Girl selected to exemplify it is meant to be “a child of nature,” simple, direct, and true—and Belasco was entirely accurate when he wrote that the part fitted the actress for whom he made it from her head to her feet. Given the specified ideal to interpret, Miss Bates placed her reliance on Acting, and there were moments in her performance,—as, for example, in the First Act, as the Girl speaks of the protective instinct in the heart of woman,—when the soul that showed itself in her face was beatific. She gave, throughout, a personation of extraordinary variety and strength. In the situations devised for the heroine,—situations, which, while not radically new, are ingeniously contrived and are fraught with the dominant spell of suspense,—the actress had to express the growth of love; the blissful sense of being loved; the bitter pangs of jealousy; the passionate resentment of a heart that thinks itself betrayed and wronged by the object of its love; the conflict of anger with affection; the apprehension of deadly peril, and the nobility of self-conquest. The exaction of the part is tremendous, equally upon physical resource and nervous vitality, but, at every point, it was met and satisfied. The play exemplifies its author’s remarkable faculty of continuation in the making of characteristic dialogue, together with ample felicity of invention, and it is overlaid with profusion of details. The midnight tryst of the Girl and the Road Agent is not altogether a credible device, but, once assumed and arranged, that situation,—comprehending the outlaw’s detection, as such, by the Girl, the awakening of furious jealousy, her turning him out into the storm, her subsequent harboring of him, and the game of cards with the outlaw’s life and liberty staked against the Girl’s whole future,—is handled with consummate skill and moulded to splendid results, and there the acting of Miss Bates rose to a magnificent climax of emotion, fully expressed and yet artistically controlled and directed,—a triumph of intellectual purpose.
This was the original cast of “The Girl of the Golden West”:
| The Girl | Blanche Bates. |
| Wowkle, an Indian squaw | Harriet Sterling. |
| Dick Johnson | Robert Hilliard. |
| Jack Rance | Frank Keenan. |
| Sonora Slim | John W. Cope. |
| Trinidad Joe | James Kirkwood. |
| Nick | Thomas J. McGrane. |
| The Sidney Duck | Horace James. |
| Jim Larkens | Fred. Maxwell. |
| “Happy” Haliday | Richard Hoyer. |
| “Handsome” Charlie | Clifford Hipple. |
| Deputy Sheriff | T. Hayes Hunter. |
| Billy Jackrabbit, an Indian | J. H. Benrimo. |
| Ashby | J. Al. Sawtelle. |
| José Castro | Roberto Deshon. |
| Rider of the Pony Express | Lowell Sherman. |
| Jake Wallace, a travelling camp minstrel | Ed. A. Tester. |
| Bucking Billy | A. M. Beattie. |
| The Lookout | Fred. Sidney. |
| A Faro Dealer | William Wild. |
| The Ridge Boy | Ira M. Flick. |
| Joe | H. L. Wilson. |
| Concertina Player | Ignazio Biondi. |
| Citizens of the Camp and Boys of the Ridge. | |
A THRILLING STORY—AND A TRUE ONE.
One of the most tense and effective passages in contemporary drama is that contrived by Belasco, in this play, when the Sheriff detects the concealment of the Road Agent, Johnson, in the Girl’s home. Through the swirling snow he has caught a glimpse of a man’s figure near to the cabin of the Girl, has shot at it, and has, in fact, hit and grievously wounded Johnson, who has then been given refuge in the cabin and concealed by the Girl in a low loft. Rance, having come to the cabin and been assured that nobody is concealed there, is about to leave. He goes toward the door, he is about to open it and step out, but turns to speak to the Girl, holding a white handkerchief with which he has wiped the snow from his face; as he does so, a drop of blood falls from the helpless wounded man above him upon the handkerchief, then another,—and Rance, watching the little crimson stain grow, instantly comprehends. Belasco, referring to this device, which, obviously, is as simple and as possible as it is effective but which was somewhat censured by captious fault-finders, writes this interesting account of its origin:
“It was from my father that I first got the idea which afterwards so well served me in ‘The Girl of the Golden West,’—the incident of the Sheriff and the blood dripping on his handkerchief. The experience occurred during the Cariboo mine period. My father and his friend, Shannon, with several others, had a hut together. There had been a heavy snow, so for awhile they had to give up all idea of prospecting. Food was growing very scarce, until finally the twenty-four huts that constituted the expedition could boast of but three or four loaves of bread, one bottle of whisky, a scant supply of bear meat, and some straggling fish. The miners were apt to be careless, and the food supply became so low that it was necessary to form a committee to guard the precious stores. A Sheriff and a commission of deputies made a law that anyone taking more than was handed to him should be shot without trial. Thus things went on for a few weeks. A poor fellow from Philadelphia who was in camp had had the blues for months before this, and had made every effort to start for home. In the midst of the famine he was taken with the hunger fever, and when the boys told him that he was very low he cried out that he did not want to die. So one night he sneaked over to the box, and stole a bit of bread and beef and some gold dust. Then he fled from camp. The next day he was missed, and the loss in the chest discovered. The Sheriff immediately went after him. Instinctively the poor fellow must have felt that he was being followed, for he doubled on his own tracks, and came back to the hut. My father was playing poker at the time, and presently heard a shot outside. The missing man staggered into the room and fell at the feet of the players. ‘Humphrey,’ he gasped, ‘for the sake of my wife, don’t let them do me up. Save me!’ My father told him to get out or be plugged, and he pulled his gun from his belt. But at the same time my father did not say anything when the fellow crawled upstairs into the loft. Hot upon this came the Sheriff, asking all sorts of questions, but never a guiding answer did he receive from the players. Then he joined the game, just as he did in ‘The Girl of the Golden West,’ my father living an eternity while the man was above them. They let the Sheriff win so as to make him feel good, and the game finally broke up. As he held his hand out to my father for a good-night shake a drop of blood fell upon his arm. A blanched face looked down through the rafters, a hand clutched nervously at a shirt, now deep-stained in red. The Sheriff gazed at the telltale spot on his arm, and smiled cynically as one can afford to do who is master of such a situation.
“‘Did you fellows know he was up there?’ he asked, taking his gun from his pocket.
“There was nothing to be said; the facts were against it. The victim was caught. There was no staying the hand of the law; one could see this very well as the Sheriff gripped his gun and drew himself up to his full height. Standing there, his gaunt shadow thrown against the wall, his white face etched deep with marks of hardship and of toil, he poked the muzzle of his gun between the rafters and fired. He had done his job, and so he left without another word.
“Now, the morning after ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ opened, one or two critics declared that I did not know the times; they said that my gambler, so distinctively played by Frank Keenan, was a caricature, that he was taken from prints rather than from life. Why, I know the period of ’Forty-nine as I know my alphabet, and there are things in my ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ truer than many of the incidents in Bret Harte!”