As soon as Bill Stevens’ back was turned, Scotty took occasion to inquire somewhat about him. Bob really knew little of his history, except that, as he said, they had been “pards” in a little game some time previous, after which Stevens had thought it prudent5 to go away. Scotty pressed Old Bob to know the particulars of this partnership6 enterprise, but Bob declined at first to tell them. Finally, however, he exclaimed:
“Well, I s’pose you might as well know, its only another point against them dod-rotted young swells7 up the creek8. The fact is, when Brehm and his partner lived down in that{67} there cabin ’cross the bridge yonder, Bushwick went off to Denver. By’n bye he came back with a heap o’ cash—don’ know how much—mebbe a thousand or so. ’Bout that time Bill came over to see me from t’other side the range, and I was telling about it, you know. Well Bill, he made out ’s how Bushwick didn’t have no right to the money no how, havin’ stole it from somebody else by some kind of lawyer’s game, and ’twas as much ours as his’n or anybody’s, which of course that is true, providin’ he got it by swindlin’, which like enough he did, you know.”
“So you and Bill held him up, did you?”
“No, we didn’t have no chance to rob him on the road, but we thought we could get into his cabin easy enough. So we tried it, Stevens climbin’ softly into the winder and I outside a-holdin’ the ladder. He’d got e’en-a ’most in, when bang went a gun and out tumbled Bill on top o’me. I thought we was both killed sure, but Bill picked himself up,{68} and we lit out as though the Old Scratch himself was after us, which the same he mighty9 near was.”
“Didn’t hit Stevens, then?” Scotty inquired, with a grin which showed how well he enjoyed the comical side of the situation, and how little his conscience was touched by the villainy of the story.
“No, but it was an awful close call. Great C?sar! But Max Brehm kin2 shoot, now you just bet!”
“Does Stevens know that the boys up the creek where he stopped t’other night are the same fellows?”
“I guess not; he aint said nothin’ about it.”
“If he did know, I reckon there’d be three of us as thought we owed the fine gentlemen a little debt of honor, which the same we hadn’t ought, on no account, to fail to pay—eh?”
Scotty’s leer and chuckle10 were as long as these slow and wicked words, and Bo{69}b’s squinty11 and bleary eye answered with a distorted, left-handed, evil grin of comprehension as he snarled12 out the laconic13 assent14:
“Bet yer boots!”
And yet this is the kind of men whom so many well-meaning but romantically inclined eastern boys, knowing the far West only as they read of it in cheap books of a very poor sort, regard as heroes in disguise, and long to see and associate with. Thieves and gamblers at home are justly abhorred15 by them, yet the same man, perhaps, transplanted to the Rockies to escape the sheriff at home, becomes in these flashy books a sort of chivalrous16 knight17 whose uncouth18 ways only heighten his supposed virtues19.
This is the worst of nonsense. A brave, heroic man does not show himself in this garb20. The honest heroes of the Rockies never figure in dime21 novels and never will. They are not loud and “chinny” enough for that. They do not wear long hair, nor carry a big Kentucky rifle, nor appear and disappear{70} in any mysterious Jack-in-the-box manner. They are not accustomed to kill six or eight “red-skinned varmints” at a single blow, and if ever they are engaged in Indian warfare22, are far too wise to get so surrounded by a circle of Indians that they are obliged to take a standing23 leap over the heads of their foes24, as did Eagle-eye or some other scout25 I once read of. If they tried to behave in this way, or to dress in story-book fashion, they would be hung or driven out by men of action who have no time to spend watching Bowery-museum foolishness, and whose business would be harmed by its display.
There is in every mining district a class of men who behave more or less as these novels portray26, going as far toward it, anyhow, leaving out some of the theatrical27 foolishness, as they dare; and I suppose they form the material out of which the writers of the sorry stuff try to make their heroes. But as a matter of fact they are lawless scamps, brutal28, lowlived, ignorant, unclean men, with whom{71} not one in fifty of their admirers among the readers of these false and miserable29 tales would allow himself to be seen on the streets of the town where he was born. They are more noisy and more difficult to separate from their betters in the rough and unarranged surroundings of a new mining camp or cattle district, than they would be in an eastern village where the affairs of life are well classified; but they are none the less avoided and despised by good citizens, and are feared rather than trusted in any emergency, like an Indian war, which calls for courage and discretion30.
I cannot conceive of a more complete disappointment and experience of fraud, than would meet the romantic reader of the Indian-slaying and horse-stealing tales in yellow covers, who should go on a search through the far West for the originals of those thrilling pictures.
Ruffianly men exist and attempt their wicked schemes among honest men, who, in{72} the absence of regular police protection, and at the great distance which many mines and ranches31 lie from courts, are often obliged to defend themselves as soldiers would in an enemy’s country, or as any man has a right to do when attacked by robbers. But, boys, for the sake of all that is fair and square, let us call a ruffian a ruffian, and not attempt to see glory in the doings of a horse-thief, or a gambler, or a man who tries by force of rifle and pistol to seize upon property which does not belong to him.
While Scotty and Bob were discussing the achievements by which Mr. William Stevens, so called, had made himself distinguished32, that worthy33 came in, bringing a new bag of cheap black tobacco. Filling their pipes, the three scallawags sat down in front of the coals smouldering in the adobe34 fireplace, and Bob immediately began to tell Stevens the names of the miners whose hospitality he enjoyed the night before, and how eager he ought to be to join the other two in a scheme{73} to break them down. Partly from ignorance, partly by design, they exaggerated to each other the injury each had suffered, and also the amount of plunder35 which it was likely might be obtained from the firm of B. B. & Co. The upshot of it all, was a compact between them to “get even” with the lads. This meant to rob them and drive them from the town, or, if it was at all necessary, to kill them, accounting36 for their crime by some artful story of self-defense or the like.
They were in no great hurry, however, to carry out their wicked purposes, and three or four days passed without their making any movement, since no plan suggested itself that seemed promising37.
One evening Old Bob came home and remarked, as he took the coffee-mill between his knees and began to fill it from a buckskin bag that hung against the chimney, that Morris had returned from below, and that he had talked with him a little.
“Did he say he loved ye?” inquired Scotty,{74} in sarcastic38 tones, and betraying a little uneasiness as to what might follow when Morris should hear of his return in defiance39 of the order of banishment40.
“Wall—no, I reckon he’s soured on me,” was Bob’s candid41 response. “But that didn’t phase me. I wanted mighty bad to find out suthin’, and I played sweet and boned him for the information.”
“Did he play sweet, too, and tell ye?”
“Wall—no. But all the same I found out what I wanted. I let on I’d heard Jim Bowen was dead, and asked him was it true.”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, he glared at me, as though he was a bull buffalo42 and I was a ky-yote, ’n’ just says ‘dead and buried,’ and then he marched off as if he’d been sent for. I’ll get even with that sardine43 yet!”
This was a pretty accurate account of what really had passed between them. In fact, Morris had just been hunting with “Buckeye Jim” Bowen all that week, and knew he was
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SCOTTY AND OLD BOB.
Silver Caves, Page 74.
{75}
as much alive as anybody had need to be; but Morris hated Bob, thought he had no business to be playing the hypocrite and asking questions about what was none of his affair, and so sent him off with this short and reckless answer, not thinking or caring how much Bob might believe of it.
“So the Terror’s passed in his checks, eh?” was Scotty’s comment. “He wasn’t a bad sort of a party. I used to know him in Illinoy. They runned him off because they said he stole some horses,—fine nags44 they was, too. But it turned out he wasn’t the feller after all. I could ’a’ told ’em all the time they was wrong, only it wouldn’t a’-been quite healthy.”
“Why?” asked Stevens, whose wits were not of the quickest. “Did you know the right man?”
“I should smile! I stole them horses, pardner! But, Bob, what made you so anxious to know whether Buckeye Jim was dead?”
“Cause it fixes us O. K. The boys up{76} the creek are working his mine. I don’t know whether they’ve got any show of right about it or not, but now Jim’s dead I reckon they’d have hard work to keep it if we war to jump it.”
Do you know what it is to jump a mine? It means simply to seize it without any right, and hold it by force, a thing very often successful when the first claimant has no legal title to the property.
Bob’s proposition interested the others at once, and they began to discuss it eagerly. Stevens asserted that it was the middle one of the three mines at the head of the creek, namely the Aurora45, that the boys were working. He confessed that he had not gone into it, but was sure that he was right. There was too much water in the upper tunnel near the cabin, he assured them, to do anything there.
“Don’t you ’spose Morris knows that these boys have jumped Buckeye’s mine?” asked Scotty, who remembered that Bowen partly owned the Aurora.{77}
“Tain’t likely,” Bob answered. “But it will be just as well to keep him from findin’ out they’re in there, if we can, for fear of any interference. I reckon he feels friendly toward ’em by reason of helpin’ him in your El Dorado scrape.”
The very next morning, therefore, the three conspirators46 were thrown into a quiver of alarm, by seeing both Len and Max in town. Bob met them at the post-office, and loitered around, hoping, even if Morris should appear, that he might be able by some good chance to prevent their meeting. He thus heard Max tell the postmaster that they meant to stay in town until the next day, and took it for granted, from something else which he overheard, that the Scotchman had come in also, leaving the mine and cabin alone over-night.
The moment he heard this, Old Bob hastened to find his partners and to say that now was their opportunity to go up the creek, get a look at the property, and make a plan for {78}capturing it. Scotty and Stevens agreed that this was advisable, and borrowing horses, the three rattled47 up the road to Panther Creek as fast as possible, since no time ought to be wasted if they were to get back before sundown, and to travel on those mountain trails in the darkness is by no means a comfortable or safe proceeding48.
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1
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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galled
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| v.使…擦痛( gall的过去式和过去分词 )；擦伤；烦扰；侮辱 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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squinty
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| 斜视眼的，斗鸡眼的 | |
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snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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abhorred
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| v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
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chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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ranches
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| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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32
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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adobe
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| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
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plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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banishment
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| n.放逐，驱逐 | |
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41
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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42
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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sardine
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| n.[C]沙丁鱼 | |
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44
nags
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| n.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的名词复数 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的第三人称单数 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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45
aurora
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| n.极光 | |
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conspirators
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| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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