[Sam P. Davis, A Sage-Brush Chief, from Short Stories (1886)]

 

A SAGE-BRUSH CHIEF.

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            While the bones and body of Captain Bob, the recently defunct chief of the Piutes, have scarcely begun to mingle themselves with the alkali of the surrounding earth, I take occasion to pen a brief history of his life. Captain Bob, for more than ten years the chief of the Piutes of Storey County, Nevada, was thirty years old when he breathed his last, at his wickiup, on the 16th of February, surrounded by the leading lights of the tribe over which he had ruled. For an unadulterated specimen of the guileless savage, just barely leavened with the yeast of civilization—such as it was—Bob had no equal on earth.

            The first time I ever had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman was one hot summer afternoon, on Taylor Street, Virginia City. Bob was mounted on a little stumpy mule, and the only exertion he seemed to be engaged in was to bend his knees sufficiently to keep his colossal feet from bumping against the ground. The animal was led by Bob's wife, who had about one hundred and fifty pounds of wood on her back, and was shedding perspiration at a rate which threatened to render the services of a street-sprinkler useless on that thoroughfare. Bob looked every inch like a lazy man born to rule, and held his head with an air that a mining superin-

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tendent might have envied. The same night the mule alluded to was stolen, and Bob came to the Chronicle office with a woeful history of the outrage :

            "Some dama sunagunna heap stealum mula. You putta in pappa one piecer. Catchum, you bet,"

            A blood curdling account of the ravishment of Bob's stable was accordingly promulgated in the columns of the paper next day. The description of the mule (one ear gone, four brands on his body, and a game leg) was recognized by an honest rancher in Carson Valley, and the animal was rescued from the hands of a tramp. Bob got his mule, and from that time his respect for the power of the press was something akin to the reverence of a Hindoo for one of his manufactured deities. To Bob's untutored mind all things were possible with a newspaper, and although the rascal could not read a word of English, he came next morning and ordered a copy left regularly at his wickiup.

            "Me reada to my mahala."

            When it came to thanking the staff for the return of the mule, language is impotent to describe his expressions of gratitude ; and when he learned that I was the man who was immediately responsible for the mule's return, it required the efforts of three able-bodied men to prevent his hugging me to his bosom.

            Finally understanding that such familiarities would not be tolerated during business hours, he contented himself with admiring me from a distance, and ejaculating at short intervals :

            "Heep gooda man, you betcherlife."

            I was at once established in his estimation as a " bigger man than old Grant."

            Next day, about nine o'clock in the morning, he filed

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in with his wife and two children, and gave all hands a formal introduction to the family. As a mark of special distinction to myself, he insisted that I should be allowed to hold the baby, a little weazly-looking papoose, wrapped in greasy swaddling clothes, and smeared all over with ham-fat.

            He sat down and stayed an hour with his feet in a pile of fresh exchanges, and chinned us about the forthcoming Presidential election.

            When told that Henry Ward Beecher was the people's choice for the White House, he communicated the fact to his wife with a chuckle, and nudged her in the ribs with a leer which spoke volumes for his knowledge of the great Brooklyn sensation.

            "Bleecher no good. Me hear allee 'bout ; " and throwing back his head he made the building echo with his laughter.

            He was finally invited outside and given half a dollar to cover a pedestrian lap of two blocks.

            Next day he came in with six squaws and introduced them with a great flourish as "his sisters and cousins, and his aunts." I was specially pointed out to them as " heep gooda man, catchum mule." This announcement made me a family favorite at once. For the next two months I was pointed out by the Piutes on the street as the matchless recoverer of stolen mules, and soon my popularity with the tribe was such that no buck ever thought of passing without shaking hands, while the squaws would skip across C street in three bounds to say, "How you do, Harra Dava?"

            Presently the attentions of Bob took a more pronounced turn, and he would come in with :

            "Say, you got any ole plants, some vlests, blue fannel

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shlurts, may bee. Some ole dote some day, you sabbe?"

            This business would be kept up until a man would be willing to take clothes off his back to satisfy the demands of the unrelenting savage.

            His cheek increased in proportion to the kindnesses he received, and soon the office became a regular resort for the royal family.

            He outfiended the worst of exchange fiends. Although he did not know a single letter, he would frequently spend an hour looking over the papers, pretending to be absorbed in their contents. He had a general idea of what belonged to a newspaper, and was cunning enough to occasionally look up and remark :

            "Heep big fire New Lork." " Steambloat blow up San Flisclo."

            Whenever the Argonaut contained pictures he would slip it into his pocket and carry it away to decorate the walls of his cabin. He also liked the cuts in Boruck's paper, but finally began to throw it aside in disgust, with the remark : " Too muchee hoss."

            After he had finally established himself as a regular visitor, he made it a point to bring along his squaw and two dirty children, Pat and Bob. Mrs. B. would comb her hair in front of the office looking-glass, while Bob would black his brogans with the office blacking, generally using a whole box. Pat would wander into the composing room and pi type.

            One day Mrs. Bob sat down on a hot stove, mistaking it evidently for a settee. She presently discovered her blunder, and rose up—somewhat hastily. She was on fire. We put her out, first with a Babcock extinguisher, and next with a strong shove through an open door. She no doubt still bears the inscription, "Charter Oak No.

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12, Patent applied for," as an evidence of the first lasting impression made upon her by civilization, and can no longer be alluded to as an "unlettered savage."

            One day Bob grabbed up a just finished editorial, written by Dennis McCarthy, on the corruptions of the Bank of California under Bill Sharon, and proceeded to light his pipe with it, while Mac was turning round to give a theatrical agent his ruling figures for three-sheet posters. The author of the editorial never knew where it went to, and no one dared to tell him, fearful of a subsequent homicide.

            There was a half-breed in his tribe who could read, and whenever the Chronicle contained an approving notice of Bob, the half-breed would translate it to the chief and his family. These notices soon bore unexpected fruit!

            One day Bob came in with some game, remarking.

            " You likee fish ?" throwing down a trout. " You likee labbit ? " slamming a hare on the table. " Plalie (prairie) hen pletty good ? "

            These tokens were thankfully received, to Bob's delight ; ducks, hare, grouse, and trout were showered upon the reportorial staff by the hunters of the tribe. Whenever the supply began to fall short, a slight allusion to Bob's eminent fitness for the place he occupied and a passing notice of his good looks, or gentlemanly treatment of his squaw, would bring another deluge of game.

            The reportorial staff, which numbered three, went into keeping bachelor's hall, hired a Chinese cook, and began to live on the fat of the land, at the mere cost of beer and stove-wood. A petition from the staff to the county commissioners, asking an appropriation to build Bob a broad house, was jokingly taken up, and the lumber furnished. This made the staff perfectly solid with Bob, and the sup-

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plies of fish and game increased until it seemed like Christmas all the year round. To keep this stream of luxury and high living flowing to the full capacity of its banks now became our main object in life.

            One day, however, Dan de Quille, who was no doubt a little envious of our popularity with his pet tribe, was taking dinner with us, and there put up a job which sent our Bachelor's Hall to the dogs at a single kick. He told us, in a confidential way, that nothing so delighted a Piute as to be considered the father of twins. We swallowed the bait, hook and all, and next day officially announced in the Chronicle that Captain Bob was the happy father of twins, weighing respectively ten and twelve pounds. We waited next day at the house, expecting Bob to heave in sight loaded with game. He came a little earlier than usual, with several stalwart bucks and the interpreter. He rushed in, and waving the paper aloft shouted, "Heep dam lie !"

            The Indians awaited for no explanation, but pounced upon us bodily, clearing out the astonished staff in about five minutes. We fled through the back window, and Bob and his followers proceeded to smash the crockery and demolish the furniture, after which he left, satisfied with his work. The damage was estimated by the landlord at $65, and I guessed this to be an undervaluation of at least $50.

            We ascertained that night that nothing was such a disgrace to a Piute family as twins, it being supposed by the Indian that each twin required a separate father. Thus our game supply was cut off with one fell stroke. Yet we forgave Dan de Quille for his infamous hoax, for to such dizzy heights does some men's magnanimity soar.

            Presently Bob fell into evil ways and became a poker

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sharp. He made his own rules and counted the spots to suit his own sweet will. He would construct four aces from a pair of deuces, on the principle that the deuces contained the requisite number of spots. For a year or two he had about all the money of the tribe, his flexible and endless rules carrying a percentage in his favor of about ninety-five to five.

            Finally his victims rose in revolt and demanded a set of rules for all time, and not for each change of the moon. They held a poker convention on American Flat, and the ways of the Comstock said that the spirit of Poker-hontas presided over the deliberations, and wanted the rule of " Pass the buck "abolished. After that poker convention Bob never won a hand, and quit gaming in disgust.

            A few weeks ago he lay in his cabin dying. It was the house which he had built from the County's lumber. This inclosure and its cooking stove inside had proven too much for the constitution of the savage, and he was literally dying from a stroke of civilization. He had all his life been accustomed to the cold blasts which sweep over the sage brush ; he had slept in the snow a thousand times, and crouched under the quartz croppings when the storms were fiercest, and recked little of the night with its bitter winds and starless sky. When, however, he moved into a roofed house he fell a speedy victim to the change. When his brother came up to say that Bob wanted to shake hands with me before he died, and ask me to forget the little disturbance at Bachelor's Hall, I was glad to go. The other two reporters had left the country a year before.

            I found him in his house, stretched on a couch of skins, dying. He was surrounded by squaws, who filled

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the air with lamentations, and men of his tribe, who seemed utterly indifferent to the situation. His head was held by his wife, who was utterly disconsolate over the prospect of his speedy demise. At every change in the condition of the dying man the wailing of the squaws broke forth afresh. Every beating of the pulse was noted, every chill that passed over his frame, and every flutter of his breath.

            I knelt by his side and grasped a hand that seemed to belong to a skeleton. He turned his head a little and lifted his eyes. There was always an inexpressibly comic look in Bob's face, and a merry twinkle was always in his eye. As he looked up, I could have wagered a thousand that the cruel sell of which Dan de Quille had made us a victim was flitting across his mind and interrupting a rising view of the spirit world. His hand closed upon mine like a bird's claw. The same irresistible smile wreathed his thin lips, and the same comic leer came for an instant from the corners of his eyes. His face then resumed a serious expression, the grasp of the claw tightened. Bob was dead.

            His wife bent her face to his closed mouth, and as she did so the lower jaw slowly settled down, but there was no breath for her cheek. She raised her head with a look of unutterable despair, and the lamentation of those about her ceased at once, all leaning over and gazing upon the dead in silence. Even the little children seemed impressed with the idea that the climax of the scene had been reached, and, although weeping bitterly with the rest but a moment before, they now hushed their little cries.

            When I left the group there was not a sound in the cabin, yet from the face of every squaw the tears were

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streaming down like summer rain. At the door was an old hag, whose white hair and shriveled skin told of at least a hundred years of life. She was in a sitting posture, with a robe of rabbit skin thrown over her naked shoulders. Holding a staff between her two hands, she leaned forward upon it, motionless ; alongside the relic of another generation, the Witch of Endor, or the foul hags who confronted Macbeth, seemed as rosy, dimpled babes. She made no effort to move out of the way, and I was almost obliged to leap over her to make my exit from the cabin.

            The next morning the body lay in the Catholic Cathedral, for years ago Bob had embraced the Catholic faith and received the rites of baptism. All day the Piutes crowded the sanctuary, and gazed upon the features of the dead chief, who was coffined like a Christian and lying amidst burning tapers. It was nearly sunset when the service was performed. The measured notes of the organ and the solemn chanting of the choir swept through the aisles.

            It was a peculiar and picturesque sight,—a group of savages in their red blankets and paint, standing before a background of gothic architecture in blue and gold, and flanked with images of the Saviour and Holy Mother. How Tavernier would have plied his brush at such a scene !

            Presently the procession went forth from the church, headed by Father Monogue. Eight of Bob's tribe bore his coffin, and darkness was gathering about the cemetery as they threw in the last clods. Thus the poor fellow was buried a Christian as he had lived, for no one will question that he was a better man than his surroundings.

            Although his poker accomplishments sometimes over-

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stepped the bounds of honest play, let us suppose, for sweet charity's sake, that he learned the game from dishonest whites, and actually believed that a sleeve full of Jacks was as much a factor in the play, and as indespensable to success, as mature judgment in deciding whether to complete a flush or draw to three kings.

            An honest and kind heart beat in the breast of the unlettered savage, and in the midst of a mad race for wealth he lived content with what he had,—an extra mule, or the possession of a cast-off pair of pants, being the only ambition which ever tried his soul.