[Sam Davis, The Hermit of Treasure Peaks, The Californian, April 1880]

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THE HERMIT OF TREASURE PEAKS.

            In 1858, a couple of ragged and vermin-inhabited prospectors, wandering about one of the spurs of the Sierra, discovered gold, an article for which they had been assiduously searching for some months. Immediately on fixing their hungry optics to the fragment of auriferous rock, they gave a shout of delight, drove down a stake, fixed a notice of location, and announced the birth of a new town, calling the same Treasure Peaks.

            When the place was dubbed Treasure Peaks, even the visionary minds of the two unkempt gold-hunters did not for a moment imagine that the mountain-side would ever be graced by any more than one, or perhaps two, miners' cabins. They were not selfish men, and the next time they visited the town of Forks Flat, they proclaimed their golden discovery at the first public bar of the place.

            The idle population of Forks Flat was not slow in availing itself of the traveling facilities which led to Treasure Peaks. The trail up the mountain side was a rugged and tedious one, and took the better part of two days to traverse; yet, inside of six months, a passable wagon-road was worn to the camp, and the place witnessed all the scenes of life and activity incidental to the birth of a new city.

            When Treasure Peaks contained about a thousand inhabitants, the little town began to swell with importance. The mining prospects were, indeed, flattering, and the quartz ledges in the hills were rapidly being developed. Besides, they were productive, and the deeper the workers went, the richer and wider grew the veins. New cabins went up every day, the prospect-holes became shafts, the bucket and windlass gave way to the donkey-engine, people poured in from all directions, and the village child began to assume the airs of the municipal man.

            In the midst of the bustle of business and money-making, the inhabitants of the Peaks did not forget that they had a rival—a small one, it was true—in the shape of the town of Forks Flat, and to wipe out the Flat from all commercial and geographical recognition was their sole aim; Joe Beggs, a man whose opinions had the advantage of considerable weight—as he ran a first-class blue-chip faro game—insisted on a newspaper :

            "What we want for this growing camp is a first- class newspaper, that can properly set forth the interests of this mountain metropolis."

            One of the crowd suggested that a man named Lightner, in San Francisco, was the party wanted.

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            "Has he got the classical education necessary to run a newspaper in a town like Treasure Peaks? Is he a man of elevated thought and vigorous expression? Is he a man that's well read?—one that we can refer gambling disputes to with a guarantee of a proper rendering of the points?"

            The party who had suggested the name of Lightner vouched for the thorough capacity of the man, and by the next day three thousand dollars were raised, as a bonus, to induce him to come. Lightner was sent for, and in about a month the citizens of the Peaks began to look for the advent of the printing-office.

            One sultry afternoon, a horseman came up the grade at a brisk pace, to announce that the printing establishment was on the way, and would arrive in a few hours. This intelligence caused an extraordinary commotion in the camp, and as soon as the first flush of excitement was over, preparations commenced for giving the new editor a fitting reception—something which would glorify the Peaks forever, and correspondingly humiliate the commercial pride of Forks Flat.

            It was just at nightfall when John Lightner, with two loaded freight wagons, came in view at a bend of the grade, half a mile below town. The sighting of the teams from the top of the hill was signalized by the explosion of an anvil —a mode of firing salutes much in vogue at that period. In an instant more, an American flag was hoisted to the top of a pole, while on a neighboring eminence the welcoming bonfires were lighted, and there was a general rush to the foot of the main street.

            When the teams halted, steaming and panting, at the town level, the journalist was considerably astonished to find a delegation of citizens drawn up to receive him. It had been agreed that Joe Beggs, the leading faro -dealer in the town, should deliver the address of welcome; and, for the first time since attaining his majority, the man of notable nerve and coolness was in a State of excitement which required a stiff horn of brandy, taken every fifteen minutes, to allay. When Lightner got down over the wheel, however, Beggs advanced, and, with half-lifted hat, grasped him warmly by the hand, cleared his throat for the first oratorical effort of his life, and, after a slight pause, began :

            "MR. LIGHTNER : In behalf of the citizens of this growing commercial metropolis and mining center, I bid you thrice welcome to Treasure Peaks. [ here he threw his weight over on the other leg.] I assure you that the fact of my being the first man to be afforded the opportunity of welcoming a writer of your brains and ability to our midst, causes my breast to swell with a pride which would be impossible for me to conceal, even if I so desired. It is the happiest moment of my checkered and eventful existence, and I will not efface it from the tablets of my memory till my dying day."

            At this point, the speaker, whose remarks had fully realized the most sanguine expectations of his friends, looked about him in a dazed way, and it was quite evident, to those who knew him best, that his stock of English had given out. Nothing daunted, however, he plunged boldly into the more congenial and familiar parlance of his profession, and struck out as follows:

            "You will find the journalistic lay-out in this section a bang-up game to buck at, and with a man of your heft in the look-out chair, we can call the turn on the whole coast. We boys propose to play you open-up from the start, and chip up our subscriptions to the last cove in the camp, and to the full limit of the game. As long as you don't ring in a brace deal, and keep clean cases, you can bet heavy on the square-up support of this camp, and don't you forget it."

            Three rousing cheers greeted Beggs's closing words, and one of his admirers critically remarked:

            "He made some awful wild play at the start, but called the turn beautiful at the close."

            Lightner thanked them cordially in a few quiet, well-turned remarks, and introduced his wife, who had remained on the elevated seat of the freight wagon, curiously contemplating the lionizing of her husband. She heard the three cheers given in her honor, saw the waving hats and bristling hands of welcome, and wished, more than at any other time in her life, that she had a thick veil to cover her beauty and blushes. Then came a fusilade of small arms, as a sort of gunpowder supplement to the cheering, and the boom of another anvil shook the air. A moment later her hand was grasped by the supple fingers of Beggs, who hastened to extend his apologies for the incompleteness of the preparations for the reception, and the utter poverty of their execution.

            After having made the speech and chatted with the first respectable woman ever seen at the Peaks, Beggs seriously considered the propriety of securing a municipal charter for the town, and getting elected mayor. When the reception was over, and the ruddy light of the bonfires had ceased to gild the rough crags lying behind the Peaks, the crowd dispersed, and for the rest of the night the public sentiment could be summed up in a remark of Beggs :

            "Now we'll snake them Forks Flat fellers sick."

            It took some weeks to set the little printing-office on its legs, and the constant presence of squads of inquisitive visitors did not materially facilitate matters. Over a hundred men came

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in to suggest a name, and such names ! The Tidal Wave, The Mountain Thunderbolt, The Mining Blast, The Sierra Snow Slide, The Voice of Truth, The Forks Flat Crusher, and The Treasure Peaks Howitzer were a few proposed. The excitement incidental to the baptism of the new journal ran so high that one man was shot dead in his tracks, in a street debate over it.

            The editor finally announced The Treasure Peaks Standard, and the first issue was hailed with a general outlay of enthusiasm, liquor, and gunpowder. The proprietor of the leading saloon purchased the first copy, damp from the press, for twenty dollars, and put it proudly on exhibition in his cabinet of curiosities. The leading article, dilating upon the prospects of the town, its growing industries and inexhaustible resources, was voted "just the business" by everybody. Subscriptions and advertising poured in, and Lightner came to the conclusion that he had reached a spot where a small fortune awaited him.

            Time showed that the editor had, indeed, wielded a prophetic pen. Treasure Peaks progressed with a steady development, and the founders of the city began to regret that they had not built on some spot where there was more room, instead of being huddled up in the confines of a mountain, with a precipice below and a wall of rock behind them. Claims increased in value, corner lots advanced, the saloons were crowded, and the gambling-hells resounded with strains of music and revelry; while the abodes of vice and the resorts of commercial industry literally made money "hand over fist."

            The Standard was a weekly, and Lightner and his wife did the work, both setting type, and each assisting the other in the odd jobs which are found in a printing-office. As business increased, Lightner concluded that his wife was overtasking herself, and finally the following was inserted in the paper:

            "WANTED—A GOOD STEADY COMPOSITOR TO whom the highest wages will be paid.  Apply at this office immediately."

            Next day a young man called, and said he had come to answer the advertisement.

            "I've been keeping cases at Beggs's," he said, frankly. "I could get nothing else to do, except mining, and my health won't stand it."

            He said his name was Houghson, and he was from Maine. He was set to work at once, and proved to be a rapid, careful compositor, and just the man for the place. There was no longer any necessity for Mrs. Lightner working as a type-setter, yet, after a few days, she came down and took a case by the side of Houghson. Presently, Houghson changed his slouched attire for new clothes, and manifested a decided interest in clean shirts.

            One day Mrs. Lightner left a composing stick half full, and when she returned from dinner, noticed that the balance of the type had been set. Next day Houghson found some wild flowers on his case. The new compositor assisted Mrs. Lightner whenever she "pied" a line, or fell into any vexatious troubles with the type. She needed assistance quite often, and Lightner was delighted with the thrifty ways and accommodating spirit of his new employee. On one occasion, in correcting Mrs. Lightner's type, their hands touched, but she made no effort to withdraw hers, and they lingered in contact. The woman's eyes met Houghson's, and in her confusion she "pied" a line, and the type, rattling upon the floor, caused her husband to look up. He saw, however, nothing but two people absorbed in their work.

            Soon after, the new compositor resolved on a desperate venture. He was setting some reprint, and a fresh piece of copy began with the words "I love you." He set them in his stick, and held it where she could see it. She gazed at it steadily a few seconds, and bit her lip with an angered expression, as if she considered such a liberty unwarrantable. Lightner went out a moment after, and Houghson took advantage of the opportunity afforded to make an explanation and apology, saying that the words he had set were in his copy.

            "Then you did not mean it seriously?" she said.

            "No."

            The anger which Mrs. Lightner had assumed a few moments before now changed to genuine discomfiture. Houghson saw that the point so daringly won had been lost by sheer cowardice. She noticed his troubled face, and a few minutes later they exchanged smiles which spoke louder than the type.

            It was a day or so before they began to renew their conversation, and then they did so by touching, successively, the boxes containing the letters, thus spelling words and sentences quite rapidly. Houghson grew bolder every day, and finally, using their system of dumb signals within a few feet of the unsuspecting husband, they talked without reserve; their expressions of affection, born of a finger-touch upon piles of inanimate type, leaving no trace.

            One night, the woman contrived to have Houghson invited to the house. After accepting, Houghson gave her to understand that she must search the right-pocket of his overcoat for a letter, when he came. That evening he called, and, taking off his coat, handed it to his

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employer, who was assisting him. He passed it to his wife, instructing her to hang it up, and, the instant his back was turned, the letter was extracted, and another put in its place. Houghson smiled in the husband's honest face at the idea of making a letter-carrier of him, and Lightner smiled cordially in return.

            After that, Houghson spent his evenings at Lightner's quite frequently—the husband pressing him to come, and the wife professing that she considered him a bore. They exchanged letters daily—each seeming to be endeavoring to outdo the other in expressions of affection ; and all this time the woman treated her lover so coldly in the presence of her husband that on one occasion he took her to task for it.

            "If you don't like the man, you should at least remember that he is a gentleman, and treat him with politeness."

            "I can't endure his ways," was the reply, and the subject dropped.

            The crisis in events was bound to come, sooner or later, and it came in due time.    One night, Lightner was standing on a knoll, in the rear of the printing-office. It was an evening sweet with the delicious atmosphere which characterizes the mountains, and the strong scents of the pines loaded the breeze with a fragrance so suggestive of woods and glens that one could almost see the splendid scenery with closed eyes. He watched the rush of busy life beneath him. The roar of machinery, the clamor of the stamp-mills, and the cheery songs of the men blended grandly together. As the doors of the furnaces were opened, at intervals, the glow of the fires penetrated the dark recesses of foliage beyond, and lit up the bleak rocks with mellow reflections. Lightner's mind reverted to the business of the past year, while he considered the prospects of the future ; and when he thought of his cheerful though humble home, and devoted wife, he was indeed a happy man.

            As he sat gazing upon the works below, he fancied that the glare upon the pines and rocks suddenly grew more pronounced. A moment later, the shout of fire rang out ; it was the first time that cry had ever been raised in the Peaks, and the camp was a scene of confusion at once.

            The main mine of the place was burning ; and there being nothing to check the rush of the flames, and no water facilities to speak of, the whole line of works went, one after the other. All night the pillars of fire shot upward from the shafts—as the underground workings communicated with each other—and these pillars rose above the tallest crags, while the thick, dun smoke shut out the sky. Below, the mines were filled with men perishing in the flames that swept from drift to drift, or suffocated long before in the sulphurous gases that on such occasions find their way to the remotest corners.

            In the morning, the flames were flaring from the shafts. The town had escaped, but every vestige of the mining industry had been swept away. It would not pay to rebuild. There was no longer any reason to conceal a fact, well known to the insiders, that the vein had "pinched out." Treasure Peaks was already a thing of the past, and the exodus began. The grade was filled with men and horses, leaving the stricken town as fast as possible. They did not even remain to take out the dead from the lower levels.

            "Why should we dig 'em up from the ground to bury 'em again ?"

            No one could answer such a question, and the subject was not agitated. Business men did not sell out, they simply vacated the premises —finding, in many instances, that it was cheaper to leave provisions and merchandise than to remove them—something not at all uncommon in those days. Stores were gutted, and barrels of liquor rolled out for the mob. The streets were filled with howling drunkards, most of them singing snatches of the wild refrains which were horn of the rush and riot of '49. Thus the town passed out of existence, with the inhabitants singing, fighting, drinking, and drowning their troubles in a delirium of revelry.

            The night after the fire, Lightner's wife advised him to go down to the office and look after affairs. As he left, she remarked that she was indisposed, and would go to bed early, but he need not hurry back.

            Half an hour later, as Lightner was sitting in his murky office, he thought he heard the clatter of hoofs, and went to the door ; as he did so he saw two figures disappear over the grade, but thought no more of it.

            By midnight he had put things to rights about the place, determining to move away with the rest in a day or two. As he went home he thought of the brave little woman who had faced the trials and privations of the past two years, and all for him. He entered the room where she was sleeping, but did not light the candle, for fear of waking her. He sat for half an hour beside the bed, filled with gloomy reflections and miserable forebodings. Then he bent over the pillow where he knew her head lay, and tried to kiss her cheek. He found nothing, and his hands wandered nervously over the bedclothes a moment. Rushing to the window he tore aside the curtain, and let the moonlight stream in. The bed was empty.

            Three days later a man wandered aimlessly about the streets of the deserted city. It was

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Lightner, gone mad from the events of the past week, and the sole surviving inhabitant of the dead camp. He roamed about the streets all the forenoon, and then drifted back to his little office. Sitting down at his desk, as he had before a thousand times done, he wrote :

            "CHEERING PROSPECTS.—Treasure Peaks was never on a more substantial basis than at present. Its population is constantly increasing ; buildings are going up at a rate which bespeaks a population, by next fall, of double that which we can boast of at present. The strike in the Lone Pine, yesterday, is one of immense importance, and more will be said of it in our next issue."

            He hung this on the hook, and went out to "rustle" for more items ; going from one empty store to another, and returning in an hour or so to scribble his impressions on paper. He moved about all day, and returned home at night, wholly oblivious of the fact that he was the only inhabitant of the dead and desolate city.

            Occasionally the Indians would pay the Peaks a visit, but seldom, as the dreariness of the place was to them more lonely than the unexplored forest. These savages, who never harm a demented man, brought Lightner provisions, and treated him with great respect. He usually alluded to their visits as the arrival of New York capitalists seeking investments in mining property.

            There was an old hall at the Peaks, which had been occasionally used for theatrical performances by local talent. Not unfrequently, Lightner would repair to this building, and, taking a front seat in the dress-circle, sit for a couple of hours under the supposition that a play was in progress. Here, indeed, was the "beggarly array of empty benches." The moon, shining through the gaps of dismantled windows, threw but an indifferent light upon the stage and over the interior of the building, and occasionally Lightner would allude, in his paper, to the fact that it was a pity that the leading place of amusement in the city was not better lighted. He was always very guarded in his comments, however, as he seemed to fear that, unless he remained on good terms with the manager, he might lose his advertising patronage. Sometimes he would hang about the empty box-office for days, with a bill which he was anxious to collect.

            On one occasion he delivered a lecture in the theatre, on the "Life of Charlemagne," and roared and gesticulated for an hour and a half, by the light of a tallow candle, to absolute emptiness, weaving his mad oratory to the irresponsive air, and trying vainly to call down the applause of the silent gallery.

            On the Fourth of July he decorated his office with evergreens ; pulled out an old American flag, which he hoisted early in the morning ; read the Declaration of Independence to a band of Washoe Indians ; marched them up and down the main street, and wanted to get gloriously drunk, but lacked the spirituous auxiliaries.

            During the next few months the town shrank away like a withered vegetable. The buildings twisted and warped with the summer's heat, and the dry rot net in. Here and there patches of grass could be seen in the streets, a sort of verdigris collecting upon the town. Day after day the signs and awnings were shaken by the mountain winds, and fell to the ground alongside the sinking buildings. Vines and weeds began to mantle and choke the charred and blackened ruins of the hoisting works, and cover the grim wrecks of machinery.

            In the midst of all this, the demented editor prolonged his solitary existence, subsisting on the scanty allowance which the Indians furnished him, and occasionally issuing the Standard, printing it on odd pieces of paper, and distributing it by throwing it into the yawning doorways. Its circulation was generally about a dozen copies, and it came out as the humor seized him.

            When not at work on his journal, he was digging among the ruins for the body of his wife, whom he firmly believed had been burned in the fire. One day he found some bones, probably belonging to a miner, and, believing them to be the remains of his lost helpmate, he buried them in a little knoll back of his office, and began to plant flowers there, watering the spot daily. These flowers soon completely engaged his attention, and, one day, seeing them through the open window, he wrote

            "The flowers are coming up close by our door again. All hail ! As, in our wild and uncertain struggle for wealth, we toil in the lower levels, let us not forget the priceless treasures of the upper earth. The gold of the mine is not half so bright as the yellow buttercups that fleck the sod above it. The cold crystals, the gleaming pyrites, and the many-colored traceries of wealth and beauty that blend in the soulless rocks, make poor compare with the vines and grasses which, a hundred feet above, tell us of God's divine sympathy and Nature's exhaustless bounty. The gold and silver lasts forever because neither have ever lived. The flowers spring up and die because they are immortal. Does not the spirit of the rose, upon the hill yonder, live and breathe as a man lives and breathes? Does it not feel every movement and change of the air which surrounds it, and die as the blast smites it? Does not the spiritual essence of its fragrance haunt the earth, while its seed is quickened for another spring? Let every man have his share, for the treasures of nature are illimitable."

            In the fall he imagined that he had been nominated for Congress, and for about six weeks

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conducted a vigorous political campaign. He went on a canvassing tour through the mountains, and whenever he struck an Indian camp he made a speech—a rousing and ringing Republican oration—which was generally listened to with marked attention by groups of stolid savages.

            On election day he distributed his tickets through the saloons, laying a pile on each dusty counter, and covering them with small stones to hold them in place.

            In a day or so he imagined himself elected, and thanked the solitudes about him as follows :

            "It is with a feeling of no inconsiderable pride that the editor of the Standard is able to announce that he has been chosen by the people of Nevada as their Congressional representative. We did not seek the office, and, in accepting it, we but bend to the royal will of the popular majority, who were determined to do us honor, in return for our labors in behalf of the growing country during the past four years. Our record as a pioneer, a journalist, and a citizen we feel proud of, and shall make it our endeavor to retain the confidence of our constituents in the future as we have in the past."

            That night he packed a small black valise, and determined to set out for Washington on the early stage. He went behind the office, and stood for half an hour by the grave which he supposed to be that of his wife, and then turned sadly back to the dingy old printing-shop. Sitting down to his desk, he seized a scrap of paper, and began to write. He wrote slowly for about half an hour, and then, throwing away the manuscript, wrote again. Then he carefully read his copy, and hung it on the hook.

            "Julia," said he, "set that up in leaded minion, and then we'll go home."

            He looked over toward the case where his wife had so often worked, and his dimming eyes tried to pierce the gloom. Folding his arms upon the table, he laid his head down upon them with a sigh of weariness, and was soon asleep.

            Three years later, a man and a woman came up the grade on horseback, and entered the deserted town. They walked where the ruins of the hoisting-works crumbled beneath masses of waving grass, and inert machinery lay in the close embrace of creeping vines. The pair rode through the flowers and weeds in the main street, and neared the office of the Standard. The woman's quick eye caught sight of the grave at the top of the knoll, and she walked up to it. On the head-board she saw the inscription cut deeply into the wood :

JULIA LIGHTNER,

MY BELOVED WIFE.

Died April 16th.

            The two looked in each other's faces, when the man remarked :

            "The day of the fire."

            They walked through the office, passed the cases, thick with spiders' webs, the rusty press, and the pied masses of type. They saw something bowed over the editorial table. It was a human figure, half skeleton, half mummy, over which clung some ragged remnants of clothes.

            "My husband !" said the woman.

            A horrible shiver came over the man, and the woman, ashy pale, clung to him for protection, as if she expected the figure would rise up and confront them.

            Presently, Houghson walked up closer, and seeing a sheet of paper upon the hook, took it off, shook the dust free, and, with some difficulty, read as follows :

            "HOME.—Love is a sleep, in which a man dreams of joys which rise before him in the air, in endless architecture which the imagination never tires of rearing upon the clouds. He awakes, is at home, and the unsubstantial castles of his dreams become as solid masonry, when he views the cheerful hearth, hears the prattle of his children, and presses the responsive lips of his faithful wife. This is the glad consummation of all his hopes, and all other joys which wealth and power and satiated ambition tempt us with, pale before the splendor of such a sun as this whose fire the grave itself quenches not, and whose light pierces the shadows of eternity."

            As he read, Houghson had moved toward the light which came through the broken window, and his back was turned away from the woman whose affections he had won. Suddenly the crash of a pistol's report caused him to leap back as if the ball had pierced him.

            As he turned, the woman fell to the floor at the skeleton's feet, the blood which streamed from her mouth mingling with a bubbling froth which swelled from her nostrils. She made no motion after the fall, except to inflate her chest once or twice.

            Houghson gazed, transfixed, upon the corpse for a few minutes, incapable of motion. The sun had set, and the scene was shrouded in the gathering shadows. He made a step to approach the body, met the fixed gaze of the eyes, and, recoiling, reeled through the open door. The two horses were close at hand ; one he liberated, and the other he mounted. He turned one more look at the office, and paused, as if he would go back ; and then, wheeling his horse about, dashed through the crumbling and rotting city at a pace which made the frail houses tremble as he passed, and in the misty twilight disappeared down the lonely grade.

SAM. DAVIS.