[Albert S. Evans, Among the Clouds, The Overland Monthly, July, 1869]

 

60        AMONG THE CLOUDS.        [July,

 

AMONG THE CLOUDS.

 

            OH, this dreary, bitter storm ; will it never end ? Day after day it has swept along the mountain-tops in ever increasing fury ; night after night has this demon of the upper air by turns raged and howled, exultant in his strength and destructive power, and moaned and wailed like a lost soul in the depths of its hopeless agony. Rain, hail, and snow have been driven in succession with resistless force before the blast, and then the frozen vapor, the terrible Po-go-nip, laden with suffering, disease, and death, like the dread miasmatic fogs which arise from Egyptian marshes, has come stealthily creeping upon us. As we heard its low rustling as it swept over the frozen ground and around our lonely cabin, we, despite our will, shudderingly likened it in our mind to the sound of the crumpling of the crisp cambric we heard from the room below, when years ago we lay half conscious on the sick bed in the dark, close chamber, adjoining that wherein one of the lights of our home had gone out forever, and trembling hands, guided by eyes made dim by tears, were fashioning a shroud for the loved and lost.

            Day after day we have shivered and shaken over the stove as we fed the fire and vainly sought to catch the heat which the roaring wind sucked up and bore away as fast as it was generated ; night after night we have shaken and shivered beneath piles of woollen blankets in our narrow bunk, until we envied our fever-stricken companion, whose blood coursed through his veins like a stream of molten metal, scorching as it went, for he at least was warm. We have counted every nail in the cabin's sides, every crack in its dirty floor, and looked up from our bunk at the canvas roof, and watched it rise and fall with the wind until we were sea-sick. Through the crack in the side of the shaking, creaking, swaying cabin we have seen the stars marching across the blue heavens in grand, silent procession : then seen the clouds go surging and whirling past until our brain grew dizzy. Is this storm to be eternal ? will the darkness never end ? has light gone out forever, and shall there be sunshine no more on earth ?

            An ashen gray, which is rather the pallor of death on the brow of night than the flush of life on the cheek of morning, steals slowly along at last, and accepting this miserable apology in lieu of honest daylight, we arise as reluctantly as we lay down, and go out to see what new abomination by way of a surprise the enterprising clerk of the weather has in store for us—as if we could be surprised by anything he could be guilty of after the atrocities he has already perpetrated.

            Have the seas which ages ago covered this whole vast area of desert inland mountain country surged back again from the poles, towards which they fled at the command of the Almighty ; or has the Storm King in his might torn the mountains from their base, and borne them away through the air to regions hyperborean ? Hoar frost inches in thickness covers every object around us. The Treasure Mountain, on which we stood last night, has dwindled to a hillock of frost and snow ; and where the White Pine, Ruby, and Diamond Mountains towered into the blue sky yesterday, only similar hillocks dimly outlined, and standing unsteadily at best in the seething sea above which they project, are now to be seen. A dull, leaden-colored ocean, boundless, endless, cold, and terrible, like the

1869.]  AMONG THE CLOUDS.        61

ghost of the Antarctic, stretches away before us to the limit of vision ; the waves which roll over its surface breaking at our feet, in silence more terrible than the roar of the storm-lashed Atlantic. The horrors of the storm were but the baseless fabric of a fearful dream ; day has brought back to us a more terrible reality ; we are shipwrecked mariners standing alone on a floating iceberg, and drifting, drifting, drifting, slowly away into the unknown Polar Sea, from whence no living thing returns to tell the story of its dread mystery. Oh, cruel, pitiless sea, beneath your waves lie buried home and hope, all which was loved and beautiful, all which was fair of earth ; you have done your worst ; since you cannot give them back if you would, bear us, onward whither you will!

            The gale has subsided into a gentle breeze, the breeze dies out entirely, and a calm settles down on the face of the ocean. Forth from the bosom of the waters comes the sun, and even as we gaze with the first start of surprise, the panorama shifts, and a change more wonderful than ever was wrought by enchanter comes over the whole grand scene. As in the last great day the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, the ocean on whose bosom we were floating a few minutes since, dissolves into thin wreaths of fleecy, rose-colored mist, which rise and float away to be seen no more. The monarch mountains in all their savage grandeur, clad in mantles glittering in the sunlight with more than barbaric magnificence of glittering gems, rise up from the ocean depths, and anon the wide valleys stretching away to the Humboldt on the north, and the Colorado on the south, beautified and glorified by a faint purple and coralline hue which softens each ragged outline, and blends in harmony the otherwise discordant red, black, and yellow colorings of the desert, are unrolled again before us.         Last night we recalled to mind the words of the poet :

                                    " He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find

                                    The loftiest peaks most clad in clouds and snow."

And in the bitterness of our heart added, " And the more fool he for ascending them ! Why could n't he have sense enough to stay in the valley, where the birds sing, and the flowers bloom, and they have strawberries and cream ; where he could have his boots blacked, and where a boiled shirt, and the old woman, and the children could make him comfortable ? Served him right, the climbing idiot !" We take it all back. Taken " by and large," as our old friend from the Little Skillet Fork of the Wabash was wont to remark, this is not in the language of brave old Hendrick Hudson :

                                    " A right good land to live in, And a pleasant land to see."

But in all the valleys on earth you could not match a scene like this, and he who has not witnessed it, so far as all that is grand, sublime, and peerlessly beautiful may go, has lived his life in vain. The entrance fee is high, but the entertainment is cheap at double the money. We would not sell the recollection for another Eberhardt, and almost begrudge you the poor satisfaction of listening to the brief and sadly imperfect description.

            Lee Wing, our accomplished and popular caterer, who wears the dishcloth around his neck, with a grace which throws a poetic charm over all he does, as he spills the dish-water by apparent accident over George Washington, the gentlemanly Shoshone who for " halp dollah and biscake " condescends to cut our wood, (everybody must have somebody to look down upon; Celt and Teuton look down on Sambo, Sambo looks down on John, and John looks down with interest on Lo, and Lo must despise a politician, or take the bottom of the ladder) makes his appearance at last, with his head bound up in

62        AMONG THE CLOUDS.        [July,

a woollen comforter. He tells us that he started up from Hamilton last night, but his hat was blown away, and in the darkness he got stalled in a snow-drift ; he adds, with a seductive smile : "Me tinkee one time I losey you, sure I" Thankful that he did not lose us, and revoking the determination to whale him black and blue for not coming sooner, we are soon sitting down at a tolerably well-filled table, with appetites such as are never felt in the milder climate of California, and for which we may thank this sharp, bracing mountain air—and it is well that we have something to thank it for. " See here, George Washington, you lazy rascal, you did not come to cut us any wood last night ! You do n't deserve a mouthful of breakfast !" G. Washington, who sits sulking in the corner by the stove, waiting impatiently for the crumbs and bones which are to fall from the rich man's table, humbly expresses his regret for the omission, and with an almost convincing earnestness, accounts for his apparent neglect by pointing out the fact that the pair of old boots we gave him yesterday, to keep his feet from the snow, are odd mates, as it were—" both rights "—making it a matter of impossibility for him to travel in a straight line. He started up here early in the evening, but miscalculated the slant ; struck the hill at a wrong angle, missed the cabin, and following the bent not of his own sweet will, but of his toes, which were forced to conform to that of his boots, travelled in gradually decreasing circles all night, hitting the cabin at the summit just after sunrise. The noble red man is by nature a gifted liar, and George took care of the horse on which a candidate for the Nevada Assembly rode around on an electioneering tour until he became utterly demoralized. We can hardly believe a word he says on any subject, but this story looks a little more probable than those he usually tells, and waiving the doubt, we intimate to Lee that he can give him a lay-out. Lee sullenly slings some cold potatoes, a few pancakes, hot biscuit, and chunks of the cold meat out of yesterday's soup into a pan, pours out a basin of black coffee, and motions to George to sit down at the washstand and gorge himself; then takes a seat at the table from which we have just arisen, and makes a square meal off the best he can find in the house ; he is chief of the ranch now, and means to make George know his place.

            There comes no sound of the church-going bell, and no long lines of people clad in solemn black are to be seen wending their way toward places of worship, but nevertheless any one with half an eye can see that it is Sunday ; there are twice as many idlers on the streets ; three times as many drunken miners in the saloons, and a far greater number of men recklessly throwing away their earnings at the gambling tables as on a week day, and although it is only 1 P.M., there has been some excitement in town already. Two first-class dog fights have come off on Main Street, attracting large and enthusiastic audiences. The last one ended in a free fight, and the man who owned the wolf-dog which sailed in "promiscuous" and by a well-directed bite at the root of the tail of one of the combatants disjointed the vertebra, and made it perfectly useless for that interesting animal to waste any time henceforth in wagging it, got whipped, as he richly deserved ; for a man who will tolerate and encourage back-biting finds little favor among the hard-fisted yeomanry who make up the bulk of an industrious and enterprising mining community. He got even, however, and demonstrated the superiority of the Caucasian race later in the day by whipping an Indian who refused to sell him a back-load of wood for four bits on credit. The accidental discharge of a pistol in one of the big saloons had created a panic, resulting in a rush for

1869.]              AMONG THE CLOUDS.        63

the street, in which the entire front, both windows and the double glass doors of the building, had been carried away and reduced to infinitesimal fragments by the feet of the excited multitude. The gentlemanly proprietor of the premises had kindly volunteered to "put a head" on the man who fired the pistol if anybody would point him out ; but his offer had not been accepted, and he very unreasonably, as his patrons appeared to think, seemed to feel hurt at the levity which they displayed on the occasion. When a fellow hears a shot fired in his immediate neighborhood how is he to know that it is not intended for him ? and if a man does n't want his windows and doors smashed why does he leave them in the way when there is an excitement ? If a man can 't afford to take the chances of an occasional loss of this kind he ought to sell out to somebody with more public spirit. Then there had been a lot jumpers' fight down at the end of the street, both parties to which had been arrested by the constable, and would be fined equal amounts next day, without regard to the question of title, such being the accepted system of taxing real estate circuitously, as it were, for the benefit of the treasury of White Pine County. They were fined $10 and costs each, for shooting at each other, and it would have been twice as much if either had been killed. The costs amounted to $37.50 ; since a man cannot afford to keep a justice's shop and run a constable in White Pine, just for the grandeur of the thing.

            There had also been a controversy, partaking of a personal character, between Hitwell, formerly a broker in San Francisco and now one of the most successful prospectors and operators in mines in the district, and Col. Smithson, whose gray hairs and venerable beard should have protected him from unnecessarily disparaging remarks by a young, vigorous, and athletic man like Hitwell.

            "You may have heard of the Natural Bridge of Virginia, Col. Smithson ? " a man had casually remarked.

            "Heard of it ! Why, bless your heart, I am a Virginian by birth, and was raised in the immediate vicinity. I have seen it a thousand times at least ; and by the by, my father built that bridge !" was the gallant Colonel's emphatic reply.

            Hitwell, who was riding by at the moment on his fine bay horse and silver-mounted saddle, hearing this, remarked that Col. Smithson had a reputation for truthfulness which was proverbial, until he attended the California Legislature as a lobby member, since which time he had shown the demoralizing effect of bad associations, and could n't always be bet on. He would like to look over the contract under which the old man did that job. This remark the Colonel construed into an imputation upon his veracity, or at least a reflection upon the fair fame of his ancestor. To be brief, and not to put too fine a point on it, he would just like to know what Hitwell meant by that remark. Mutual friends interfered, and Hitwell finally explained that what he said about demoralizing effects, etc., was only a general remark anyway ; and he only wanted to look over the contract to be able to assure his friends that the father of his friend (the Colonel) did business on the square, and was not to be confounded with the class of thieving rascals known as contractors in these degenerate days. Smithson in turn explained that the contract was made and work executed before the war, and under a Democratic administration, which of course relieved his respected progenitor from the obloquy which might otherwise have attached to his memory ; and so, the matter was dropped—both parties, out of respect for each other's feelings, abstaining religiously from referring to the subject thereafter.

            Auctioneers were yelling forth at the top of their lungs the merits of the

64        AMONG THE CLOUDS.        [July,

Cheap John clothing and other traps they were vainly trying to sell ; and some two hundred and fifty Indians, in their parti-colored rags, were assembled at one point receiving a ton of flour, which the citizens had good-naturedly bought at twenty cents per pound, as a present for the untutored children of the sage-brush—there are no forests in this part of Nevada—who had run out of grass-seed, and had yet some months to wait before the annual grasshopper crop would be ready for gathering and fatten the ribs of old and young. A few Mexican vaqueros, a long train of laden pack-mules driven by the last of the Montezumas, and a few Mormons in butternut clothing and tow hair, who had come in from Salt Lake, after a four hundred mile drive across the alkali desert, with bull teams loaded with eggs, honey, butter, potatoes, etc., added variety to the picture. There was to have been a theatrical matinée to-day ; but an unfortunate accident made it necessary to postpone it. On the night previous a San Francisco melodeon troupe had given an entertainment, and the audience was at once large, appreciative, select, and enthusiastic.

            A lady, with an accent indicative of Teutonic origin, had been singing "The Flying Trapeze," when the house came down with an encore. One demonstrative lover of the divine art, carried away by his feelings, felt around for something to throw upon the stage. He would have cried brava ! patted his kid gloves together, and tossed a bouquet to the fair cantatrice, had he been in the is Opera House at San Francisco ; but as he was not there, he accommodated himself to the circumstances of the occasion, and did what he could to encourage her. He yelled "bully ! " stamped his cowhide boots, and bouquets being out of the question, (as the flower crop was short in White Pine at that time) he seized a bottle of whisky and hurled it with diabolical accuracy of aim. It struck the single coal-oil lamp which answered for the footlights, and bursted both lamp and bottle. Regard for strict truthfulness and reliability, which the writer is determined never to forfeit, precludes him from stating positively whether it was the coal-oil or the whisky which ignited first ; but between them they set the wall-paper screen, which constituted the scenery of the theatre, on fire and came near burning down the premises. He was "as good-hearted a fellow as ever lived, but too impulsive-like," one of his friends told me. His spirited little episode put an end to the evening's entertainment, and compelled, as has been said, the postponement of the Sunday matinée, much to the disappointment of the lovers of rational and unobjectionable amusement. Nevertheless, the public were in fair spirits over the termination of the storm, and the camp altogether was about as lively as any you could find in a year's travel west of the Rocky Mountains. When the fun flagged, and other topics failed, the question of the respective merits of two women, horses, or rival mining titles, would revive it immediately.

            A rude hearse followed by a dozen miners, clad in decent apparel and marching in mournful silence, passes slowly down the street. Every voice is hushed as the sad procession moves by. "Poor Bill—he has gone with the rest, and left his family destitute ! " says one huge-bearded man, with a touch of honest human sympathy in his voice. There no ostentatious display of charity, no subscription list for publication—but liberal sums are contributed on the spot, and no account demanded from or given by the impromptu treasurer who is to send the money to the afflicted widow and unprotected orphans down at " the Bay." Another funeral, that of the victim of a reckless street brawl passes, and that uncharitableness which admits of any amount of ill-speaking of the dead

1869.]              AMONG THE CLOUDS.        [July,

in more highly civilized communities, is manifested by no man among all the throng upon the street, many of whom had but too good reason for having known him intimately, if not well. And now, from out the open door of a modest cottage on a back street, around which a number of sorrowing friends stand bare-headed in reverential attitude, comes the voice of a strong man, humbly imploring an All-Merciful God to have in His holy keeping, and strengthen with His strength, the mother, sick in body and in heart, whose faltering steps had borne her almost here, but who had been denied the sad privilege of hearing the parting words from the lips of her only earthly hope and supporter, whose cold form is enclosed in the rude coffin at our feet. What a fearful price are we paying for the wealth which has for ages been lying buried in the bosom of this mountain ! Poor Richard ! Ten days ago he walked among us in all the pride and vigor of early manhood. Was it necessary that his young life must be lost with the others ? Lost did you say ? No, not lost ! To have lived well, one needs not to have lived long. The all-consoling consciousness of duty nobly done comes not with years alone. The servant was not questioned as to the amount of capital entrusted to his care or the time he had retained it, but rather what use he had made of it to enhance the Master's interest.

            The day advances toward noon, and crowds are gathering all along Main Street, in the vicinity of Treasure Street. All is life, noise, and excitement here ; expectation and lively interest are depicted on every countenance, while every tongue is busy. "Two to one on Wells, Fargo & Co !" shouts one big fellow, in a seal skin overcoat and seven-league boots. " That 's me! Come out scads !" says No. 2, pulling out his long buckskin purse filled with twenty-dollar pieces, and tossing them up and down to make them jingle temptingly. All eyes are turned on the two in an instant, and the crowd thickens around them. " I draw !" says No. 1, who had been caught " bluffing " ; and the laugh is against him. " One hundred even that the Pacific Union wins by a minute and a half," says No. 2. " That 's me!" says No. 1 ; and up goes the coin in the hands of a third party. " It was a dead beat yesterday ! " says one. " Pshaw ! Nothing of the kind ; the Pacific Union was half a mile behind ! "rejoins another, contemptuously. " Bet you fifty it wa' n't no such thing !" rejoins the first speaker. "The Pacific beat by two minutes thirty-one and two-fifths seconds," interposes an outsider, with a double-tinned imitation gold watch, and an itching for fame as an exact statistician. And so it goes—the confusion increasing every moment. At last it culminates. Two dark spots are visible above the snow-drifts, away out on the brow of the hill toward Hamilton. "Hi ! hi ! hurrah ! Here they come ! Wells, Fargo & Co. are ahead !" " No they aint ; the gray is the Pacific Union ! " " Bet you a hundred on that." "Take you for the drinks ; I'm short to-day ; the game beat me last night." " I do n't make four bit bets. What 'n thunder d' ye take me for ? " is the angry response. Now both horsemen are lost to view for a moment behind the snow-drifts, and now they round into Main Street and the crowd break out into vociferous applause, each individual encouraging the party on which he has staked his money to the very utmost. The riders are plying whip and spur with all their strength, and the horses, though nearly ready to drop down from exhaustion, are straining every muscle to the utmost, going through the slush and snow with a with the speed which would endanger the rider's neck on the best road in Christendom.  Does the fate of the nation hang on

66        HOLY WEEK AT ROME.       [July,

the news they carry ? Has a great battle been won or lost ? Has the dread pestilence of Asia burst on the land ? Do the enemy in overwhelming numbers, ravaging the land with fire and sword, ride behind the flying horsemen ? Nothing of the sort ! It is only the daily race between the messengers of the rival express companies, who have snatched the bags with the Treasure City letters from the stage-drivers at Hamilton and dashed up the mountain as if the fate of the whole human race depended on the issue. Neck and neck the horses are running ; one stumbles and goes on his knees ; before he can regain his feet the other has gained a half-dozen yards, and his rider throws the bag into the door of the Union Express Co.'s office, and is off in an instant ; he has won "by a leetle," and is a hero for five minutes. A yell arises from the crowd. Attendants who have been waiting for hours throw blankets over the exhausted, panting steeds that contested the race so well, and lead them up and down in the open air, while the crowd, whose enthusiasm has gone in a moment, breaks up and disappears, only to reassemble in less force, (it being a week day) and go through, as nearly as may be, the same programme, tomorrow.

            The sky above is gloriously blue ; the snow fields on the mountains that bound the wide horizon glitter dazzlingly in the full flood of the light of the declining sun. Almost beautiful seem the barren valleys, seen through the soft, blue haze which mellows all their outlines. This strange, weird land never looked so attractive to our eyes—but it is not Home. It is a land to toil and fight, grow rich suddenly, or die in—but not a land to live and love in ; not a land in which to rear the household altar and set up the household gods ; not a land one would wish to sleep in, when life's day of toil is ended and the evening shadow falls. The home of our heart lies behind the western horizon, by the waters of the sunset sea, where the flowers bloom and the birds sing all the year round. There is but one California on earth, and toward it we turn with willing feet.

            Land, swept ever by the drifting cloud ; land of the tempest and the Po-go-nip ; land of toil and excitement, suffering, disease, fabulous and sudden wealth, disappointment, and death : we bid you a glad good-by.