The night after instructing Virginia, I walked over the desolate4 “divide” and down to Gold Hill, and lectured there. The lecture done, I stopped to talk with a friend, and did not start back till eleven. The “divide” was high, unoccupied ground, between the towns, the scene of twenty midnight murders and a hundred robberies. As we climbed up and stepped out on this eminence5, the Gold Hill lights dropped out of sight at our backs, and the night closed down gloomy and dismal6. A sharp wind swept the place, too, and chilled our perspiring7 bodies through.
“I tell you I don’t like this place at night,” said Mike the agent.
“Well, don’t speak so loud,” I said. “You needn’t remind anybody that we are here.”
Just then a dim figure approached me from the direction of Virginia—a man, evidently. He came straight at me, and I stepped aside to let him pass; he stepped in the way and confronted me again. Then I saw that he had a mask on and was holding something in my face—I heard a click-click and recognized a revolver in dim outline. I pushed the barrel aside with my hand and said:
“Don’t!”
He ejaculated sharply:
“Your watch! Your money!”
I said:
“You can have them with pleasure—but take the pistol away from my face, please. It makes me shiver.”
“No remarks! Hand out your money!”
“Certainly—I—”
“Put up your hands! Don’t you go for a weapon! Put ’em up! Higher!”
I held them above my head.
A pause. Then:
“Are you going to hand out your money or not?”
I dropped my hands to my pockets and said:
Certainly! I—”
“Put up your hands! Do you want your head blown off? Higher!”
I put them above my head again.
Another pause.
Are you going to hand out your money or not? Ah-ah—again? Put up your hands! By George, you want the head shot off you awful bad!”
“Well, friend, I’m trying my best to please you. You tell me to give up my money, and when I reach for it you tell me to put up my hands. If you would only—. Oh, now—don’t! All six of you at me! That other man will get away while.—Now please take some of those revolvers out of my face—do, if you please! Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes up into my throat! If you have a mother—any of you—or if any of you have ever had a mother—or a—grandmother—or a—”
“Cheese it! Will you give up your money, or have we got to—. There—there—none of that! Put up your hands!”
“Gentlemen—I know you are gentlemen by your—”
“Silence! If you want to be facetious8, young man, there are times and places more fitting. This is a serious business.”
“You prick9 the marrow10 of my opinion. The funerals I have attended in my time were comedies compared to it. Now I think—”
“Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am situated12—now don’t put those pistols so close—I smell the powder.
“You see how I am situated. If I had four hands—so that I could hold up two and—”
“Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!”
“Gentlemen, don’t! Nobody’s watching the other fellow. Why don’t some of you—. Ouch! Take it away, please!
“Gentlemen, you see that I’ve got to hold up my hands; and so I can’t take out my money—but if you’ll be so kind as to take it out for me, I will do as much for you some—”
“Search him Beauregard—and stop his jaw13 with a bullet, quick, if he wags it again. Help Beauregard, Stonewall.”
Then three of them, with the small, spry leader, adjourned14 to Mike and fell to searching him. I was so excited that my lawless fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner of facetious questions about their rebel brother-generals of the South, but, considering the order they had received, it was but common prudence15 to keep still. When everything had been taken from me,—watch, money, and a multitude of trifles of small value,—I supposed I was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig16 to warm my feet and stir up some latent courage—but instantly all pistols were at my head, and the order came again:
They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to keep his hands above his head, too, and then the chief highwayman said:
“Beauregard, hide behind that boulder17; Phil Sheridan, you hide behind that other one; Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage-bush there. Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, and if they take down their hands within ten minutes, or move a single peg18, let them have it!”
Then three disappeared in the gloom toward the several ambushes19, and the other three disappeared down the road toward Virginia.
It was depressingly still, and miserably20 cold. Now this whole thing was a practical joke, and the robbers were personal friends of ours in disguise, and twenty more lay hidden within ten feet of us during the whole operation, listening. Mike knew all this, and was in the joke, but I suspected nothing of it. To me it was most uncomfortably genuine. When we had stood there in the middle of the road five minutes, like a couple of idiots, with our hands aloft, freezing to death by inches, Mike’s interest in the joke began to wane21. He said:
“The time’s up, now, aint it?”
Presently Mike said:
“Now the time’s up, anyway. I’m freezing.”
“Well freeze. Better freeze than carry your brains home in a basket. Maybe the time is up, but how do we know?—got no watch to tell by. I mean to give them good measure. I calculate to stand here fifteen minutes or die. Don’t you move.”
So, without knowing it, I was making one joker very sick of his contract. When we took our arms down at last, they were aching with cold and fatigue24, and when we went sneaking25 off, the dread26 I was in that the time might not yet be up and that we would feel bullets in a moment, was not sufficient to draw all my attention from the misery27 that racked my stiffened28 body.
The joke of these highwayman friends of ours was mainly a joke upon themselves; for they had waited for me on the cold hill-top two full hours before I came, and there was very little fun in that; they were so chilled that it took them a couple of weeks to get warm again. Moreover, I never had a thought that they would kill me to get money which it was so perfectly29 easy to get without any such folly30, and so they did not really frighten me bad enough to make their enjoyment31 worth the trouble they had taken. I was only afraid that their weapons would go off accidentally. Their very numbers inspired me with confidence that no blood would be intentionally32 spilled. They were not smart; they ought to have sent only one highwayman, with a double-barrelled shot gun, if they desired to see the author of this volume climb a tree.
However, I suppose that in the long run I got the largest share of the joke at last; and in a shape not foreseen by the highwaymen; for the chilly33 exposure on the “divide” while I was in a perspiration34 gave me a cold which developed itself into a troublesome disease and kept my hands idle some three months, besides costing me quite a sum in doctor’s bills. Since then I play no practical jokes on people and generally lose my temper when one is played upon me.
When I returned to San Francisco I projected a pleasure journey to Japan and thence westward35 around the world; but a desire to see home again changed my mind, and I took a berth36 in the steamship37, bade good-bye to the friendliest land and livest, heartiest38 community on our continent, and came by the way of the Isthmus39 to New York—a trip that was not much of a pic-nic excursion, for the cholera40 broke out among us on the passage and we buried two or three bodies at sea every day. I found home a dreary41 place after my long absence; for half the children I had known were now wearing whiskers or waterfalls, and few of the grown people I had been acquainted with remained at their hearthstones prosperous and happy—some of them had wandered to other scenes, some were in jail, and the rest had been hanged. These changes touched me deeply, and I went away and joined the famous Quaker City European Excursion and carried my tears to foreign lands.
Thus, after seven years of vicissitudes42, ended a “pleasure trip” to the silver mines of Nevada which had originally been intended to occupy only three months. However, I usually miss my calculations further than that.
MORAL.
If the reader thinks he is done, now, and that this book has no moral to it, he is in error. The moral of it is this: If you are of any account, stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence; but if you are “no account,” go away from home, and then you will have to work, whether you want to or not. Thus you become a blessing43 to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them—if the people you go among suffer by the operation.
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1
stagecoaches
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| n.驿马车( stagecoach的名词复数 ) | |
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gunpowder
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| n.火药 | |
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intrepidity
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| n.大胆，刚勇；大胆的行为 | |
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4
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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6
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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7
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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8
facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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9
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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10
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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11
palaver
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| adj.壮丽堂皇的；n.废话，空话 | |
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12
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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13
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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14
adjourned
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| （使）休会， （使）休庭( adjourn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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16
jig
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| n.快步舞（曲）；v.上下晃动；用夹具辅助加工；蹦蹦跳跳 | |
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17
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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18
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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19
ambushes
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| n.埋伏( ambush的名词复数 )；伏击；埋伏着的人；设埋伏点v.埋伏( ambush的第三人称单数 )；埋伏着 | |
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20
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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21
wane
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| n.衰微，亏缺，变弱；v.变小，亏缺，呈下弦 | |
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22
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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23
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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24
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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25
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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26
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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27
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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28
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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29
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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30
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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31
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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32
intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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33
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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34
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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35
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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36
berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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37
steamship
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| n.汽船，轮船 | |
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38
heartiest
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| 亲切的( hearty的最高级 )； 热诚的； 健壮的； 精神饱满的 | |
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39
isthmus
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| n.地峡 | |
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40
cholera
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| n.霍乱 | |
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41
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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42
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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43
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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