[From The Overland Monthly, August 1910]

 

BIG JACK SMALL

A Story of the Early Days in Nevada

BY J. W. GALLY

            YOU DO NOT know Big Jack Small? That is a bad omen, because if you did not know Big Jack Small, you would know many things, which, as I think, you do not now know -- for Jack would be sure to talk with you, if you met him, and in his talk he would be quite as sure to tell you something about teaming with six or eight or ten yokes of oxen, and two or three, or four great red wagons, over the hills, across the valleys, and through the bare rock-walled canyons of the State of Nevada.

            That is his profession -- ox-teamster; or as he calls it, "bull-puncher." Not one of your common farmer boys, who can drive one yoke, or two or even four yokes of oxen, with a long, limber fishing pole stock, and a lash that hangs down like a dead garter-snake speared through the eyes ; but a regular graduate of the science of ox -- a bovine persuader -- with a billiard-cue whip-stock, and a lash on it like a young boa-constrictor, and a little steel spike in the lash end of the stock about as big as a carpet-tack when it stands on its head on the point of a walking cane. With the yellow leather lash wound round the stock, the great square braids shining like scales, as of the brazen serpent Moses set up, and glittering steel tongue, sparkling in the sunlight, out of the serpent's head --  with this awful wand in his hand, and elevated diagonally above his head, Big Jack Small will stand in the highway of the desert, the chief of the ox-magi ; while his meek-eyed and clicking-footed company draw slowly round him, at the proper distance and with regular step, straining the great red creaking wains after them in a true circle. "Come row-a-d, boys ! You, Turk!" sharply to the near-side wheel ox, because an ox-team always turns on a haw-pull unless compelled to do otherwise. "Come row-a-d, boys! Steady, now -- like a Freemason funeral!" and he elevates or depresses the glittering tongue of the serpent above his head. The oxen know what that means, and the whole long procession winds about him with mathematical precision.

            That is the way Big Jack Small does it. He is an artist. Why does not some brother artist go forth and canvas him? He is worth preserving, as the picture of a true American, void of European or classic taint -- a strong American, calm and humorous in the hardest struggles, through the very thrill and tickle of abundant life and pure mountain air. Tall? -- no; he is not so very tall. About six feet, or half an inch less than that. Head well set upon his shoulders, with an inclination to one side, as if to give room for the big whip on the other shoulder; while his soft slouch hat inclines just in the opposite direction, as if to equalize things and maintain a perpendicular outline. No coat on. Woolen shirt -- in winter three of them, one inside the other; heavy vest buttoned to the chin, or to somewhere hidden under the long flow of lion-colored beard. Legs clad externally in thick white ducking or buckskin, terminating in coarse boots drawn over the trousers bottoms. Hands cased in rough buckskin gloves. So dressed, Big Jack Small may not be a very large man, but he looks large.

            When this remarkable man walks from you, you are impressed with a broadness of shoulders and strength of neck and loin. When he walks toward you, you are made conscious of the coming of great thigh muscles, and fists, and a lion-like front; and you would not have any rash impulse to rush upon him for the fun of a little

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combat. Then he has a curious long, springing stride -- a sort of dropping and rising upon his thigh muscles with every step -- that suggests power; though I suppose it is mere force of habit, caught in walking across plowed ground in early life, and maintained by striding over the sage brush and loose rocks in Nevada.

            Big Jack Small has a head under his slouched hat, and a face that shows between his hat-brim and his beard. If you are not in the habit of looking at heads and faces for the purpose of forming your own estimate of men, it would not be worth while to look at Jack. You might as well pass on. He is of no interest to you. But if you want to look into a face where the good-natured shrewdness of Abraham Lincoln shines out, smoothed of its rough-carved homeliness, you can accost Jack when you meet him walking beside his winding train down the rough canyon or across the dusty valley, and ask him how the road is over which he has come. This interrogation, requiring some length of answer, he will shout: " Whoa-ooa-ah, ba-a-ck!" Then drawing down the great iron handle or lever of the brake on his first wagon, his team will gradually stop. How he steps out into the sage-brush in front of you, sets the point of his whip-stock carefully in the fork of a bush, builds his arms one on top of the other upon the butt of the stock, shoves his hat to the back of his head, and says:

            "We-e-ll, the road's nuther good nor had. Hit's about from tollable to middlin'. Seen wus an' seen better."

            "How's the alkali flat?"

            "Well, yer know thar's two alkali flats 'tween yer'n Austin. The first one's a little waxy, an' t'other'n 's a little waxy, too."

            "Will our horses sink down in the flats so as to impede -- that is, so that we cannot get out?"

            "Oh, h--1, no. Only hard pullin' an' slow, hot work, sockin' through the stiff mud. I hed to uncouple an' drop all my trail-wagons, an' pull an' holler an' punch round at both o' them flats fer two days, till my cattle looks like the devil ; but you kin go right along, only slow, though -- very slow. The rest o' the road's all right -- no trouble."

            "Thank you."

            "You're welcome. But, I say, tell me -- I'm out now about two weeks -- what's the news? Hev they caught them stage-robbers?"

            "No ; they were not caught when we left Hamilton."

            "D---n 'em! Hev ye any newspapers? I'd like to hev somethin' to read when I'm campin' out on the road -- a feller gits mons'ons lonesome."

            By this time you have hunted out of your traps all the newspapers and parts of newspapers, and passed them over to him.

            "Thank ye. Git up, Brigham ! Gee, Beecher !" The loosened lever of the brake clanks back in its ratchet, the oxen slowly strain the yokes, the great wagons groan to the tightening chains,

            "Good-bye."

            "So-'long."

            And the slow dust-cloud moves onward, musical with the strong voice encouraging "Beecher" and "Brigham'' on the lead to stiffen their necks under the yoke as a bright example to the entire train.

            You, passing on your way. say to yourself, or companion : "What a fine face and head that rough fellow has: with what relish that full, wide forehead must take in a good story, or survey a good dinner; what a love for sublime and the ridiculous there must be in the broad, high crown of that skull, which is so full at the base ! Why, the fellow has a head like Shakespeare, and a front like Jove ! What a pity to waste so grand a man in ignorance among rocks and oxen !" All of which may be a good and true regret; but you must not forget that nature knows how to summer-fallow for her own rare products.

            You will please to understand that Mr. Small is his own master, as well as master and owner of that long string of wagons and oxen; and that train, which slowly passes you, is laden with perhaps every conceivable variety of valuable articles, worth in the aggregate thousands of dollars, for the safe conveyance whereof, over a road hundreds of miles long, the owners have no security but a receipt signed "John Small." It is safe to say that nothing but the "act of God or the public enemy" will prevent the sure de-

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livery of the entire cargo -- a little slowly, but very surely.

            I do not think you will get a just idea of Big Jack Small and the men of his profession, who are very numerous in Nevada, without I tell you that the sagebrush ox-teamster seldom sleeps in a house -- does not often sleep near a house -- but under his great wagon, wherever it may halt, near the valley spring or the mountain stream. His team is simply unyoked, and left to feed itself, until gathered up again to move on, the average journey being at the rate of eight miles per day -- some days more than that, some less.

            Twice a day the teamster cooks for himself, and eats by himself, in the shadow cast by the box of his wagon. Each evening he climbs the side of his high wagon -- very high it sometimes is -- heaves his roll of dusty bedding to the earth, tumbles it under the wagon, unbinds it, unrolls it, crawls around over it on his hands and knees to find the uneven places, and punch them a little with his knuckles or boot-heel, and -- and well, his room is ready and his bed is aired. If it is not yet dark when all this is done, he gets an old newspaper or ancient magazine, and, lighting his pipe, lies upon his back, with feet up, and laboriously absorbs its meaning. Perhaps he may have one or more teams in company. In that case, the leisure time is spent smoking around the fire and talking ox, or playing with greasy cards a game for fun. But generally the ox-teamster is alone, or accompanied by a Shoshone Indian, whose business it is to pull sage-brush for a fire where pine-wood is scarce, and drive up the cattle to be yoked.

            In Jack Small's train there is usually an Indian, though you may not always see him, as sometimes, when the team is in motion, he is off hunting rats, or away up on top of the wagon asleep; but at meal-time he is visible, sitting about the fire, or standing with his legs crossed, leaning against a wagon wheel.

            The early training of Mr. John Small, having been received while following the fortunes of his father in that truly Western quest -- the search after cheap rich land, had been carried forward under various commonwealths, as his parent moved from State to State of our Union -- out of Ohio, and into and out of the intermediate States of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa until he dragged into the grave, and ended his pilgrimage in Nebraska, while waiting for the locomotive of that great railway which was to make him rich. A training so obtained has made Mr. Small something of a politician, with a keen ear for distinguishing the points in the reading of a State statute, and a high appreciation of the importance of State lines; while the attempts at teaching and the example of his worn-out pious mother have turned his attention to the consistencies and inconsistencies of religious forms; so that Mr. Small's heaviest and highest thought dwells upon the present State where he resides, and the future state where he is promised a residence. His greatest intellectual joy he finds to be a politician or a preacher. Of course, he has smaller joys of the intellect in talking ox with the other teamsters, or in "joshing" over a game of cards -- but he does not find solid comfort until he strikes a master in politics or a teacher in religion.

            "What I'd like to be shore of," said he one day, "is this yere: Kin a American citizen die, when his time comes, satisfied that he leaves a republic behind what'll continue as it was laid out to; an' that he's goin' to sech a country as his mother thought she was goin' to. Now, them's two o' the biggest pints in Ameriky. And dern my skin ef I hain't get doubts about 'em both ! Now, yere's a letter from my sister in Iowa, an' she says she's sick an' goin' to die; but she's happy because she's goin' where mother's gone, to be happy feriver and ivr. An' yere's her husband -- he's a lawyer, an' he's rejoicin', in his part o' this letter, over Grant's election, because, he says, that puts the Republikin party onto a sure foundation, an' secures the support o' Republikin principles feriver and iver in Ameriky. Now, you see, I've knocked round a heap -- yes, sir, knocked round a heap, an' seen a good deal, an' seems to me some people knows a mighty sight for certain, on powerful slim proof. An' yere, my sister wants me to be a good Christian, an' my brother-in-law wants me to be a good Republikin, when, ef you pan me all out, I'm only a

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bull-puncher, an' hain't more'n half learned the science o' that."

            It will be surmised from this hint of Mr. Small's character, taste and disposition, that he was highly satisfied when the Rev. L. F. Sighal said he had been recommended to come to Mr. Small as a humane and intelligent person, and having heard that Mr. Small's wagons were loaded for a long trip to the south-eastward, he would very much like to accompany him as an assistant, being willing to rough it as much as his constitution would stand.

            "All right!" said Jack. "Heave yer beddin' right up thar on top o' the wagon an' come ahead. But, I say, did y'ever play billiards?"

            "I have yes, occasionally, at the house of a friend ; never in any public place. Yes, sir."

            "Did y'ever play bull-billiards, I mean -- with this kind of a cue, with a brad into it? Make a run on the high-wheeler and carom on the off-leader, yer know?"

            "Ah ! you mean have I ever driven oxen? Well, no, sir, not in that way -- though I was brought up on a farm in Pennsylvania, and have drawn logs with one yoke."

            "All right ! I'll teach yer how to punch bulls, an' you kin convert me an' the Injin. I've been wantin' that Injin converted ever since I hed him. He's heerd a little about Christ, in a left-handed way, but we'll go fer him on this trip."

            Mr. Small, while making these remarks, was striding, with long, strong strides, up and down the road on either side of his wagons with whip on shoulder, making all ready for a start ; looping up a heavy chain here, taking up a link there, and inspecting -- shortening or lengthening -- the draws of brakes, etc.: while his long team, strung out and hitched in the order of march, were some standing and some lying down under the yoke, on the hard shard-rock road beneath the hot summer sun. His Indian, yclept Gov. Nye, was standing with his legs crossed near the ankle, stoically watching the preparations, well satisfied for the present, in the comfort of a full stomach and the gorgeous outfit of a battered black-silk plug hat, a corporal's military coat with chevrons on the sleeves and buttoned to the chin, a pair of red drawers for pantaloons, a red blanket hanging gracefully from his arm, and a pair of dilapidated boots on his feet.

            Gazing bashfully upon this scene, and striving to catch a word with Mr. Small, the Rev. Mr. Sighal turned his hands each uneasily over the other, and said:

            "Mr. Small, I cannot heave my bedding up there."

            "Can't! Well, give it yere to me; I'll h'ist it fer you."

            "But I have not brought it yet. It is just here, almost at my hand, where I lodge."

            "Well, well, rustle round an' fetch it! Biz is biz with me now. I must git up an' dust. Yere, Gov., you go him -- all same me -- he talk. Take this Injin with yer he'll help yer carry what you've got."

            "Thank you. You are very kind, indeed," said the reverend, as he marched off, followed by the gorgeous red man, down the steep street of the mining town.

            While he was gone, Mr. Small, having all things in readiness, proceeded to straighten his team so as to tighten the chains and couplings whereby the great wagons are made to follow each other, in order that he might be sure that everything should draw even, strong, and true. Presently, Mr. Sighal and Gov. came panting and trotting round the corner, out of the street into the road, each having hold of the end of a roll of bedding; the reverend carrying a black overcoat and purple scarf on his right arm, and Gov. having his royal red blanket on his left arm.

            Mr. Small, taking the roll poised on end on his right palm, steadied it with his left, and shot it to the top of the high wagon-box as if it had been a bag of feathers.

            "Thar, Gov., heap jump up -- heap fix 'em -- little rope no fall off. You sabe?"

            "Yash me heap sabe !" said Gov., tossing his precious blanket to the wagon-top, and slowly climbing up after it, over the wheel and side.

            "All ready, Parson?" said Mr. Small, interrogatively, as he picked up his baton of command.

            "Yes," timidly, "I -- I believe I am!"

            Rapidly Mr. Small strode forward, drawling out in the indescribable rhetoric

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of his profession : "You, Ro-w-dy ! Turk ! Dave! Gee, Brigham!" then suddenly, "Who-o-oah ba-a-ack!"

            "See yere, Parson! Got anything to eat aboard?"

            "No, sir. I have presumed I could buy provisions at the houses where we stop."

            "Houses, h--1! Oh, excuse me, Parson. Thar hain't no houses to speak of, an' ef there was, bull-teams can't hev nothin' to do with houses, 'thout they're whisky-mills." Then shoving up his hat and scratching his head with a vigorous rake or two of his hard finger-nails, he pulled the hat down on his nose, and leaning back, looked at the Rev. Mr. Sighal, and said: "S'yere, Parson, I'll grub ye, but my grub's lightnin' -- beans, bread, bacon, coffee, and can-truck. You go into camp, an' buy -- le'me see -- well, buy a small sack o' oatmeal, two papers o' pinoly, a pound o' black tea, an' half a dozen cans o' condensed milk. That'll put ye through. Yer kin easy ketch up to the team. Gee, Brigham! Git up, Dave! You, Roany! Bally! Haw thar! Roll out ! Roll out !" And the slow line moves over the rocky road at a snail's pace, the wheels grinding, almost imperceptibly, to the top of the not large stones, and then dropping off at the other side with a sudden fall and a jar, which, though the fall be but an inch or two, makes the loading talk in various voices as it settles more firmly to its place.

            Up, slowly -- ah, so slowly, so dustily ! -- up and up the mountain, by the canyon road, pausing at intervals to breathe the panting herd, Mr. Small grinds and crushes out a solid shining line, with his many wheels, in the porphry and granite dust. The dry mountain summits rise on either hand, capped with the undaunted rocks, which have defied the color stood to witness the shock -- the rays of the sun converging upon the head of Big Jack Small, as he marches stoutly up the side of his team, to pause for its clicking step, then up another march, and then pausing again, lifting the serpent coiled baton above his head, shouting anon the name of some throbbing toiler of the yoke. Thus he gains the summit, and halts to draw the rearward brakes.

            "Ah, Parson! H'ist them things up thar to Gov. -- Gov., you fix 'em. Now we're off. Plenty time, though, Parson, to look at the scenery. You see that round peak yonder -- way off ! That's jest eighty-two miles from yere. Can't see that-away in Pennsylvania, kin ye ? Gee, Brigham ! Git-a-a-up !"

            More rapidly, and with much clinking and clanking of yoke-rings, hooks, and chains, and the loud braying and howling of the friction of wheel-tire and brake-block, the team winds down the canyon of the opposite side of the mountain, the big wains rocking, reeling, and groaning, as they crowd each other round the curves of the declivity ; and above all, the driver's voice echoing along the canyon the drawling words of command and encouragement.

            Mr. Sighal is behind, out of sight; pausing mayhap upon some bold outcrop of earth's foundation-stone, to gaze far around and across the uplifts of the grand furrows where the forgotten forces have plowed the field that now lies fallow in the wisdom of a plan wise beyond all that is yet written or revealed. O servant of the faith, look well ! It is the aristocracy of nature upon which you gaze. Sublime it is in the reposeful grandeur of its difference to commerce, agriculture or the petty avenues of human thrift. Locked in the coffers of the rocks are the wages of its early days of labor. Stern and forbidding is the giant land, sad and unsocial; but rich in the abundance of that which renders even man unsocial, stern and forbidding !

            At the foot of the mountain the team halts where the water sinks and the dry valley begins. It is but short work for Big Jack Small to draw out the bow-pins, release his cattle, and drop his eight yokes in a line, with the bright, heavy chains linking them together in the gravel and dust.

            Meanwhile, Mr. Sighal arrives in camp with each hand full of fragments of varicolored stone, he having tired his wits at prospecting for silver.

            "Hullo, Parson! Hev you struck it rich?" interrogated Big Jack, as he let down the grub box and cooking utensils from the wagon-top to Gov. Nye. "That's a bad beginning, Parson!"

            "Why so, Mr. Small?"

            "'Cause," said Jack, jumping down

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from the wagon and coming up to take a look at the rocks in the parson's hands, "'cause ef you ever git quartz on the brain, you're a gorner ! That are meetin'-house in Pennsylvany 'll put crape on the door-knob -- shore ! an' 'dvertiz for a new parson. But ye'll not git quartz on the brain -- not much -- s'long's yer don't find no ' ones than these yere," said he, after examining the collection.

            "Ah ! I was merely guessing at the stones to amuse myself. Are they not quartz fragments?"

            "No, sir-ee," said Jack, as, driving his axe into a pine- log he made the wood fly in splits and splinters -- "not much. Them is iron-stained porphry, greenstone, black trap, and white carb'nates of lime. Hold on til' we git across the valley an' git a-goin' up the next mountain, 'n I'll show yer some good quartz. Some bully float-rock over thar, but nobody hain't found no mine yit -- never will, I reckon: I've hunted fer the derned thing twenty times.  "Yere, Gov. git a bucket o' water. Parson, d'ye feel wolfish?" added Mr. Small, after he had his fire lighted and was proceeding culinarily.

            "Wolfish?" exclaimed Mr. Sighal, with surprise.

            "Yes -- hungry," explained Jack, as he sawed with a dull knife at the tough rind of a side of bacon, cutting down one fat slice after the other upon the lid of the grub-box near the firs.

            "Not unusually so."

            "Hain't et nothin' sense mornin', hev ye?"

            "No, not since early morning."

            "Must do better'n that !" said Jack, putting the frying pan upon the fire.

            "I usually eat but little, for fear of eating too much."

            "Well, s'pose yer heave away them rocks an' run this fryin'-pan -- jest fer appertite. Nothin' like facin' an inemy, ef yer want to git over bein' afraid of him!"

            Mr. Sighal immediately complied, and, squatting by the fire, poised the frying-pan upon the uneven heap of burning sticks in his first lesson at camp life.

            "I don't allow yer kin eat much this evenin' as we've only traveled half a day, but to-morrer we've got to cross the valley through the alkali dust, an' make a long drive. Git a lot o' that alkali into ye, an' you'll hanker after fat bacon!"

            "Ah!" said Mr. Sighal, carefully balancing the pan on the fire.

            "Yes, sir" -- with emphasis on the sir. "Alkali and fat bacon goes together like a match yoke o' leaders. Does thar seem to be any coals a-makin' in that fire, Parson?"

            "The wood seems to burn; I infer there will be coals."

            "Inferrin' won't do, Parson ! We've got to hev 'em, 'cause I must bake this bread after supper, fer to-morrer. Allus keep one bakin' ahead," ejaculated Mr. Small, as he finished kneading bread in the pan, and quickly grasped the axe, proceeding to break up some more wood. "Yer see, Parson, a bull-puncher hes to be up to a little of every sort o' work, in the mountains. Gov., you look out fer that coffeepot, while I put this wood on the fire. Drink coffee, Parson ? No ? Well, then, make yer some tea in an empty oyster can --  hain't got only one pot fer tea an' coffee."

             "No, Mr. Small, do not make any trouble for me in that way. I drink water at the evening meal."

            "All right, then: this hash is ready fer biziness !"

            The Reverend Mr. Sighal, sitting cross-legged on the ground, received the tin plate and rusty steel knife and fork into his lap from the hand of Mr. Small, and then Mr. Small sat down cross-legged opposite him, with the hard loaf of yellow yeast-powder bread and the sizzling frying pan between them, surrounded by small cotton sacks, containing respectively salt, pepper and sugar.

            "Now, Parson," said Mr. Small. "Pitch in!"

            "One moment, Mr. Small," said the parson, removing the hat from his own head, "will you not permit me to ask the blessing of God upon this frugal repast?"

            "Certainly ! " assented Mr. Small, snatching off his hat, and slapping it on the ground beside him. Then happening to note quickly the Indian sitting listlessly on the other side of the fire, he said : "Yere, you Injin, take off yer hat: quick."

            "Yash -- heap take 'em off," said the obeying Indian.

            "Now, Parson, roll on !"

            The reverend, turning his closed eyes

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skyward, where the wide red glory of the setting sun was returning the eternal thanks, offered the usual mild and measured form of thanksgiving and prayer for the Most High's blessing upon the creature comforts, at the end of which he replaced his hat: but Mr. Small, being too busy with his supper and with cogitation upon the new style of etiquette, and being careless about his head-covering in camp, neglected, or omitted, the replacement of his hat; which state of the case bothered the "untutored savage" as to his own proper behavior, whereupon, lifting his cherished "plug" from the earth, he held it in his hand, brim up, and grunted interrogatively :

            "Uh, Jack, put um hat on ? No put um hat on? -- me no sabe !"

            "Yes; put um hat on."

            "Uh ! yash, me heap put um hat on. All right -- all same medisum (medicine) white-a-man. Heap sabe!" and relapsed into silent observation.

            The parson did not enjoy his supper. His day had been one of tiresome nervous preparation for a new kind of life; but Mr. Small was in hearty sympathy with all nature, which includes a good appetite (if it is not founded upon a good appetite), and he ate with a rapid action and a keen relish, talking as he ate, in a way to provoke appetite, or if not to provide, at least raise a sigh of regret for its absence.

            "Thar!" said Mr. Small, with sighing emphasis, "that lets me out on creature comforts, in the grub line, till to-morrer. Yer don't waltz in very hearty on this grub, Parson. All right; I'll bake yer an oatmeal cake soon's I git done with my bread, an' mix yer a canteen o' milk for to-morrer's lunch."

            "Thank you, indeed, Mr. Small."

            "Yere, Gov.," said Mr. Small, as he piled the greased frying-pan full of broken bread and poured out a tin cup of coffee, "yere's yer hash!" to which Gov. responded silently by carrying the pan and cup to the fire, and then sitting down between them on the ground, to eat and drink in his own fashion.

            "These yere Injins is curious." said Mr. Small, in his running commentary on things in general, as he actively passed from one point in his culinary duties to another ; "they wun't eat bacon, but they'll eat bacon-grease an' bred, or beef an' bacon-grease; an' they wun't eat cheese, but they'll eat dead hoss. I b'lieve the way to conquer Injins would be to load cannons with Limburg cheese an' blaze away at 'em !"

            "As the Chinese shoot their enemies in war with pots of abominable smells."

            "Yes; I've heard before o' Chinee way o' makin' war, but reckon 'tain't the smell Injins keer for -- it's mighty hard to knock an Injin with a smell! Injins, leastway this yere tribe, hain't got no nose fer posies. They got some kind o' superstition about milk an' cheese, though I reckon they must hev drinked milk when they's little." And Mr. Small chuckled at the delicacy of his own allusion to the font of aboriginal maternity.

            "Don't yer smoke, Parson?"

            "Not of late years," replied Mr. Sighal, and paced up and down meditatively past the fire, gazing up at the darkening sky. "I formerly enjoyed a cigar, occasionally, but my dyspepsia has cut me off from that vice."

            "Well, I've got this bread bakin', an' reckon I'll take a smoke. Yere, Gov., done yer supper? Scoot up thar, an' throw down them beds, so we kin hev a seat." The silent and ready compliance of the Indian enabled Mr. Small, as he tossed the rolls of bedding over by the fire, to remark: "Yere, Parson, take a seat. This yere's high style -- front settin' room, fust floor. You'll want yer legs to-morrer, though yer kin ride ef yer want to; but it's powerful tejus, ridin' a bull-wagon." And he sat down on his roll of bedding to cut his plug tobacco, fill his short pipe, and watch the process of bread-making while he enjoyed his smoke.

            The reverend also sat down on his bed.

            The Indian sat on the ground, at the opposite side of the fire, humming the low, buzzing, dismal ditty of his remote ancestors.

            The stars came quietly out in the clear sky, and the dry, still air seemed to listen to the coming on of the innumerable host. So still – O, so crystalline still -- is the summer night in Nevada!

            "You see, Parson," began Mr. Small, after a short, quiet consultation with his pipe, "they say 'at bull-punchin's slow

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business, but they don't know. People kin tell what they don't know powerful slick-like. Let some o' them talkin' fellers what knows all about this business in three squints from a stage-coach winder -- let 'em try it on. Let 'em stand in once an' chop wood, build a fire, cut bacon, make bread an' coffee, an' so on, all in the same minute -- an' do it faster 'n they kin write it down in a letter, an' they wun't talk so much with their mouth !"

            "Yes; I was just, in the moment you began to speak, reflecting on the multiplicity of your duties and the rapid execution of them. Does not your life wear upon you terribly ?"

            "No, sir. It's head-work does it. Seems to me when a feller hes a big idee in his head, an' is jest a-boomin' with the futur, an' lookin' forward, that work doesn't hurt him a darned bit. Hit's hangin' back on the yokes 'at wears a feller out -- an' a ox, too. When I used to foller a plow, by the day's work fer wages, an' havin' no pint ahead to steer to -- no place to unload at -- I wasn't no more account than a cripple in a country poor-house !"

            "What is your great aim at this time? if I may be so impolite as to make such an inquiry on so short acquaintance," queried Mr. Sighal, in a soft voice and balmy manner.

            "Oh, no: nothin' imperlite about it. Open out on me, Parson, when you feel like it. I hain't got no secrets. My great aim is to play my game up to the handle. Every feller's got a game. Some's politics, some's religion, some's big money, some's land, some's keards, some's wimmen an' good clo'es, some's good, some's bad," said Mr. Small, rapidly, and punctuating his remarks with puffs of tobacco smoke, "an' my game is to hev the best eight-yoke o' cattle, an' the best wagons, an' pull the biggest load to yoke, in these yere mountains; an' then," he added, laughing and stroking his long bronze beard, "I kinder think there's a solid, square-built gal some'rs what I ain't jest seen yit, that's a-waitin' in her daddy's front porch fer a feller like me -- an' the old man he's gittin' too old, an' hain't got no other children, an' he's jest a-walkin' up an' down under the shade trees, expectin' a feller about my size an' build, what kin sling ink in the Bank o' Californy for about ten thousand cash, honest money. How's that fer high, Parson?" And Mr. Small roared with his loudest laugh until the parson and Gov. joined sympathetically.

            "A very laudable endeavor, Mr. Small; and let me say that I heartily wish you God-speed."

            "Amen, Parson! I don't know ef I kin make it. But that's my game; an' ef I can't make it -- well, hit's better to hev a game an' lose it than never to play at all. Hain't it, Parson?"

            "It surely is. No good endeavor is ever entirely lost. God, in His great providence, gives germinating power to the minute seed of the plant which grew and died last year, though the seed may have been blown miles away."

            "Do you b'lieve," said Mr. Small, after a long pause, in which he raised the bake kettle lid with the point of a stick, and piled more hot coals upon the top -- "do you b'lieve, fer certain -- dead sure -- that God looks after all these little things?"

            "Surely, Mr. Small. Have we not the blessed promises in the good book?"

            "I don't jest reck'lect what we've got in the good book. But do you, as yer mammy's son -- not as a parson -- do you b'lieve "it?"

            "If I at all know my own thoughts and convictions, Mr. Small, I do."

            After another long pause and strict attention to the baking bread: "Parson, gittin' sleepy?"

            "Not at all, Mr. Small."

            "Thinkin' 'bout somethin', p'raps?"

            "'I was reflecting whether I had done my whole duty, and had answered your question as fully as it should be answered."

            "Well, whenever you feel sleepy, jest spread your lay-out where you choose, an' turn in. Needn't mind me. I'll fuss round yere an' smoke a good while yit. Thar hain't no ceremony at this ho-tel --  the rooms is all fust-class 'partments."

            "Thank you, Mr. Small," said Mr. Sighal; and then, after some pause, resuming audibly the thread of his own thought, he asked: "Mr. Small, do you not believe in the over-ruling providence of God?"

            "Which God?"

            "There is but one God."

BIG JACK SMALL. 187

            "I don't see it, Parson. On this yere Pacific Coast, gods is numerous – Chinese gods, Mormon gods, Injin gods, Christian gods, an' the Bank of Californy."

            "Perhaps so, Mr. Small -- it is written there be gods many; but there is one only

true God, Jesus Christ the righteous."

            "Don't see it, Parson."

            The Reverend Mr. Sighal rose quickly to his feet, and pulled down his vest at the waistband, like a warrior unconsciously feeling for the girding of his armor.

            "Do you deny the truth of the sacred Scriptures, Mr. Small?"

            "I don't deny nothin', 'cept what kin come before me to be recognized. What I say is, I don't see it."

            "You don't see it?"

            "No, sir !" -- emphasis on the sir.

            "Perhaps not, with the natural eyesight; but with the eye of faith, Mr. Small, you can see it, if you humbly and honestly make the effort."

            "I hain't got but two eyes -- no extra eye fer Sunday use. What I can't see, nor year, nor taste, nor smell, nor feel, nor make up out o' reek-lection an' hitch together, hain't nothin' to me. That's my meanin' when I say, 'I don't see it.'"

            "I am deeply grieved to hear you speak so, Mr. Small."

            "Now, look yere, Parson," replied Mr. Small, as he got up to bustle about his work, "fellers like me, livin' out o' doors, has got a God what couldn't git into one of your meetin'-houses."

            "Mr. Small -- pardon me -- there is a glimmer of what seems to be meaning in your remarks, but really I fail to comprehend you."

            "That's hit" -- it will be observed as a peculiarity in Mr. Small's language (a peculiarity common to unlettered Western-born Americans) that he sounds the emphatic form of the pronoun it with an aspirate h -- "that's hit ! That's the high-larnt way to say, 'I don't see it.' Now we're even, Parson -- only you've got a million o' meetin' house bells to do the 'plaudin' fer you, an' I hain't got nary one. But these yere mountains, an' them bright stars, an' yonder moon pull in' bright over the summit, would 'plaud me ef I knowed how to talk fer what made 'em. Hush -- listen!" said Small, suddenly pausing, and pointing under the moonlight across the dim valley. "That's a coyote; I wonder which of us he's laughin' at !"

            "Yash; kiotee. He heap talk. Mebbe so tabbit ketch um," said the Indian, rising and gathering up his blanket to retire. "Me heap shneep" (sleep.)

            "Throw down another stick o' wood off the wagon, Gov., before yer go to bed."

            "Yash; me heap shneepy," replied the Indian, stretching and yawning with uplifted hands, from one of which his red blanket draped down for a moment over his shoulder, gorgeous in the dancing camp-fire light.

            While the Indian climbed the wagon-side for the stick of wood, Mr. Sighal remarked:

            "Mr. Small, before we retire, may I not ask the privilege of a few words of audible prayer to God for His preservation through the night hours?"

            "Yes, sir. Yere, Gov., come yere. I want that Injin to year one prayer, ef he never years another. I've paid money when I was a boy to hev Injins prayed fer, an' now I'm goin' to see some of it done. Come yere, Gov."

            The Indian came to the fireside.

            "Yere, Gov., -- you sabe? This a-way; all same me" -- and Mr. Small dropped upon his own knees at the side of his roll of bedding.

            "All-a-same -- Injin all-a-same – little stand-up ?" asked Gov., dropping his blanket, and placing his hands upon his knees.

            "Yes! Little stand-up -- all same me!"

            "Yash !" assented Gov., on the opposite side of the roll, settling gradually upon his knees.

            It happened that the parson kneeled facing the Indian, so that the Indian had him in full view with the firelight shining on the parson's face, and not being accustomed to family worship, nor having had the matter fully explained to him, he conceived the idea of doing as others did; so that when the parson turned his face to the stars and shut his eyes, the Indian did so, too, and began repeating in very bad English, word for word, the parson's prayer -- which piece of volunteer assistance not comporting with Mr. Small's impression of domestic decorum, caused that stout gentleman to place his two hands upon the Indian's shoulders and jerk him, face down, upon the bedding, with the

188 OVERLAND MONTHLY.

fiercely whispered ejaculation, "Dry up !"

            The Rev. Mr. Sighal prayed for the persons present, in their various conditions, and their safety through the night; acknowledging that he knew God's hand was in these vast solitudes, guiding as of old the swoop of the raven's wing, and marking the death-bed of the sparrow. There was much in the prayer that was fervent and fitting, but nothing that could be fairly called original.

            When the party arose to their feet, Mr. Sighal sat down, burying his face in his hands supported by his knees; Mr. Small changed an unbaked for a baked loaf with the bake-kettle; and the Indian, taking up his "plug" hat and red blanket, merely remarked "Me heap shneep !" and retired behind a sage-brush.

            "Parson," said Mr. Small, after refilling his pipe and resuming his seat, and as the

Rev. Mr. Sighal sat gazing reflectively into the fire.

            Sir," responded Mr. Sighal, with a slight start, from his reverie.

            "I'm a-thinkin' over your prayer."

            "Well. Mr. Small, I hope God will make my humble effort of some slight use in opening to you the door of His great mercy."

            "I was a-thinkin' about it jest that-away. I was tryin' the sense of it on."

            ''I wish, Mr. Small that God had vouchsafed to me the power of making its meaning plain."

            "Oh, you made it plain enough, according to -- to -- well, ef my mother'd been yere, she'd ha' thought that was a No. 1 prayer, and she ha' hollered 'Amen!' every time you went for me an' the Injin; but what I was thinkin' about was your callin' on Jesus Christ as the Giver of all Good, the Creator of all things. Now – you excuse me, Parson! -- right thar is jest whar I can't quite go with ye."

            "It is written, 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and by it were all things made which are made.' "

            "Yes, I've read it. I know hit's written, an' hit's printed. But written things hain't no deader 'n some things what hain't been wrote yit."

            "Deader! Deader!" repeated Mr. Sighal.

            "Yes; dead sure -- certiner."

            "Ah ! I understand it now."

            "An' as fer printed things," continued Mr. Small, "they crawl" -- then, observing the look of perplexity in the parson's face --  "yes ! they crawl -- wun't stay put. Allers changin' with new translatin' an' new lights."

            Here Mr. Small had occasion to look after his baking. Resuming his seat, he said :

            "Parson, ever been to Yosemite ?"

            "I have not."

            "Ever seen the Grand Canyon o' the Colorado River ?"

            "I have not."

            "Well, Parson, I've seen both them places. I resked my skelp, me an' two other fellers -- bully fellers them was, too! a-packin' my blankets fer three weeks out an' aroun' the Canyon o' the Colorado, jest to see it. I b'lieve I could stay there foriver an' climb an' look !"

            "I have read of the great works of God made manifest in the desert places."

            "Parson, that remark don't touch the spot ! Ef ever yer see that canyon, yer'll jest think any printed book yer ever opened, or any words yer ever heerd, hain't got no power in 'em."

            "I have no doubt it is magnificently grand."

            "Parson," slowly queried Mr. Small, "do yer think Jesus Christ made the Canyon o' the Colorado, an' the world hit runs through, an' the sky hit opens under, an' the ocean 'at takes hits waters?"

            "I do."

            ''Well, I don't know ! Seems to me thar was never nothin' born in Judear that hed hands that kin lay over Ameriky -- an' nothin' was never born in Ameriky that hed hands that kin build a ten-cent sideshow fer that ar canyon! Parson, them's things that can't be wiped out, nor wrong-printed in no books ! -- nor no new light can't make 'em more'n they jest are! Whatever made sech things as them, an' these yere mountains, that's my God. But He hain't got no hands in the image o' these yere !" extending his horny, blackened palms, and adding as a climax, "ye kin bet yer sweet life on that."

            "Oh, Mr. Small!" cried Mr. Sighal, rising to his feet, "My dear sir, do you wish to deny and throw away as naught, all that the good Lord Jesus, our Divine Savior, has taught, and fall back into

BIG JACK SMALL. 189

heathenism ?"

            "I don't want to deny nothin' nor fall back nowhar. Ef Jesus Christ teaches men to do honest an' fair, one to another, that's all right, an' I'm with him, in my style, sech as it is ; but when you, or anybody else, asks me to jump from that p'int into the idea that he made an' rolls creation -- that lets me out ! Thar, now, Parson ! I kinder understood you, because you was a Parson; but you wasn't likely to understand me, because I'm a bullpuncher. Now we understand each other. I've had my say, an' I'll listen to anything you've got to say on the whole trip, as well as I know how.''

            "Well, Mr. Small," said the Reverend Mr. Sighal, taking Big Jack's extended hand, "whatever may be my regrets, I can but respect the opinions of a man who respectfully states them. And I shall only pray to God to give you a clearer light."

            "That's all right, Parson! An' now, as I've got your oatmeal cake baked an' everything done up brown, what do you say ef we roll out the blankets, go to sleep an' fergit it all till mornin' ?"

            "I shall be pleased to retire at any time."

            "Well, hit's a fine night," said Jack, proceeding to untie the roll of his bedding, "an' we needn't go under the wagons but jest spread down in evenest places we kin find."

            The Reverend Mr. Sighal made his first his bed, straightening the blankets about bed in the wilderness, and, as the mountain phrase goes, "crawled in."

            "Parson," said Mr. Small, as he sat in his feet, "got plenty blankets? I kin spare ye a pair."

            "Plenty, thank you."

            "Good-night, Parson."

            "Good-night, and God bless you, Mr. Small."

            The bright moon and stars moved on in their long-appointed courses through the wide and cloudless sky, the sage-brush of the valley stretched far away, the mountain rose ragged to the serrated summit, the cattle browsed along the slope, the shadows of the great wagons fell square and dark upon the dry desert earth, and nature's old, old silence closed down upon the wilderness.

            In the morning, Mr. Sighal awakened early, after a sweet and refreshing sleep, his lungs and whole inner man toned up with the dry, dewless, fresh air, to find Mr. Small far forward in the preparation of breakfast.

            "Good mornin', Parson ! Didn't anybody disturb yer last night, walkin' on the up-stairs floor, did thar ?"

            "Good morning, Mr. Small ! No ; I've had a fine sleep" -- drawing on his wearing apparel.

            "When ye sleep out nights yere, whar thar's never no dew fallin', hit's better 'n any ho-tel."

            "Yes, sir : the air is very refreshing and invigorating," said Mr. Sighal, stamping his feet into his boots, and shaking the creases out of his pantaloons.

            "Thar's soap an' a sort o' towel on the wheel-hub, an' ye kin take 'em an' go right over thar to them willer-bushes an' hev a wash, an' then hash'll be ready."

            While Mr. Sighal and Mr. Small were taking breakfast after the customary petition for grace, the first gold rim of the sun, with the distant trees painted in its halo, rose into view on the top of the far-off Eastern mountains, and Gov. Nye, with his red blanket about his shoulders, came softly across the nearer hills, the scattered cattle moving zigzag through the sagebrush in front of him.

            "Now, Parson," said Mr. Small, when they had finished breakfast, "we'll roll up, tie up, an' h'ist up our beddin' ; then hitch up the bulls while Gov. eats his grub, an' roll out."

            While Mr. Small, taking each heavy yoke in its turn upon his shoulder and holding one bow in his right hand, walked up to each off-side ox successively, dropped the end of the yoke gently upon his neck, slipped the bow upward and secured it to its place with the key, then removing the other bow, rested that end of the yoke upon the ground, led the nigh-side ox to his place with the bow, and thus arranged each twain in their proper yoke, Mr. Sighal, with outspread arms and extended hands, rendered amiable assistance in keeping the herd together.

            "Done eatin', Gov.?" said Mr. Small, when he had stationed his horned troop in marching order.

            "Yash. Heap eat um all up."

            "All right," approved Mr. Small, tum-

190 OVERLAND MONTHLY.

bling the cooking utensils into the box. "No time to wash dishes this mornin'. Yere, Gov., snail hold o' this box. Now tumble up there an' take it." And heaving the box up after the Indian, he drew his terrible whip from its place between the wheel spokes, stepped to the side of his team, and letting go the lash, swung it about in the air at arm's-length in front of him, and then suddenly bringing it toward him with a peculiar jerk, causing the buckskin snapper to go off like a revolver, shouted "Gee, Brigham ro-o-al out!" and the "desert schooners" slowly sailed away into the valley.

            Mr. Sighal marched afoot, pausing to pick up a peculiar pebble and carry it awhile, then to find a pebble more peculiar and drop the first to take the second ; now to hunker down and study the spikes upon a sleeping horned toad, then to pluck some flower so tiny small that it seemed but a speck among the pulpy dry gravel and loose earth ; now turning face about to take in the rugged outline of the mountain under whose shadow he had passed the night, and then lower his vision to note the saucy swaggering strut of that black "prospector," the raven, walking down the road in the distant track of the wagons, not failing at the time to watch the lizards flash across his path ; now again trudging along, like Bunyan's "Christian," with eyes surveying the to him unknown land in front -- the Delectable Mountains, where, according to Mr. Small, he might see some "bully float quartz." To him the sameness of the land was a newness ; no green and gold of leaves that grow and leaves that die, no babbling streams through valleys grown with grass, no heaving fields with squares of "thine and mine;" but one wide waste of ashen gray, one cloudless sun, one wagon-road across the scene, and mountains all about.

            Thus the time passed. Driving all day in the hot sun, with unhitching, cooking, eating, talking, praying, cooking, eating and re-hitching during the cool evening and morning, and sweetly sleeping through the night. Dustily across valley after valley; slowly up this side and noisily down the other side of mountain after mountain, Mr. Small pausing on the summit of each to point out to the parson the prominent peaks as they appeared plainly to the eye in a range of one hundred miles -- showing, here and there, far away, their huge sides, where man, with all his might and genius, is boring mere gimlet holes, from which to draw the bright white wealth that makes the yellow glitter in the city's halls.

            In the long, slow journey, Mr. Sighal sought, by easy lessons, to draw round the consciousness of Big Jack Small the subtle and intricate simplicity of his own faith in a personal God, with feelings of humanity, yet powerful to the utmost limit of all the mighty magnitudes of power. All of which Mr. Small refused to see, and stoutly clung to his own crude materialism, overshadowed by a wide Gothic spirituality, born perhaps of the tribal tinge in the blood which gave him his fair skin, high-bridged nose, bold gray eye, and long, tawny beard. It was again the old subtleties born of a southern sun endeavoring to bring the wild Norse blood upon its knees at the foot of a Roman cross.

            The conversion of the Indian, which was Mr. Small's special desire, did not proceed satisfactorily. It is comparatively easy, I opine, to build religion upon civilization; but the labor must be thorough, and the effort exhaustive where there is only the love of food, of passion and of existence to appeal to.