The Monkey That Would Not Kill, Henry Drummond [e book reader .txt] 📗

emigrated to America. As it was to get these tools that Donald came in to San Francisco he soon found his way to the harbour, and, finding out the _Mermaid_, walked on board. No one was visible on deck, so Donald sat down on a coil of rope to wait. He had not been there three minutes when a matted head and two very brilliant eyes suddenly shot up the companion, and a full-grown monkey sprang in front of him and stared into his face. Donald, much startled by this apparition, called out in a loud voice for the creature to go away; but the moment the words were spoken the monkey sprang on his back and clasped its long hairy arms about his neck. The miner shook it off in terror and tried to run ashore, but the monkey followed, frisking and gambolling round him, and chasing him all over the quay. Donald soon discovered, however, that the monkey meant no harm, and a few days later an explanation of this sudden outburst of interest in a stranger--the Captain told Donald that the monkey had never been known to behave like this before--broke in upon the miner's mind. He remembered that when he suddenly spoke to the monkey he had called to it _in Gaelic_. Under the impulse of a sudden fear, I suppose, the language of his boyhood had started to his lips, and the words came out unconsciously '_Imich air falbh_,' which means 'Go away.' What made Donald remember the circumstance was this, that whenever afterwards he used the Highland tongue the monkey manifested peculiar signs of joy. The only way the miner could account for this singular fact was to suppose that somehow or other this monkey had once belonged to some one who used the Gaelic language--a suggestion, however, which people generally laughed at. The miner always maintained, nevertheless, that the monkey really knew Gaelic, and he seldom spoke to it in any other language. Of course, people said this was simply to show off that he knew two languages.

I do not know whether the miner bought the monkey, or whether the Captain gave it to him, or whether it ran away, but it is certain that from this hour it belonged to Donald. When he left the ship with his tools, the monkey followed, trotting after him like a dog all the way till he reached his lodgings. The miner then went into the house and shut the door, leaving the monkey outside. In ten minutes it seemed as if all the boys in San Francisco had gathered in that street. They formed a crowd round the door which almost stopped the traffic; and when the policeman shortly appeared he was rather disgusted to find that it was only a monkey performing gymnastic exercises on a door-knocker. Roughly ringing the bell, he ordered Donald to take in his monkey. Donald replied meekly that he was not responsible for the monkey, but the officer said he would be summoned for 'obstructing the thoroughfare and causing a breach of the peace' if he did not take in his guest at once. So Donald had to submit, for he saw there would be no rest in San Francisco till this wayward creature had its will and was safe inside. That night Donald had a serious talk with the monkey as it sat upright in its chair at supper. He told it that if it would behave itself he would take it up to the Rocky Mountains to the gold diggings. The monkey seemed to understand, for it put down a lump of cheese it was about to eat, skipped off its chair, and nestled against Big Donald's side. Only one other thing happened that night: Donald gave the monkey its name. He called it 'Gum'--because it stuck to him.


CHAPTER III

Next morning Donald and Gum started from San Francisco by an early train on their way to Silver Creek. The appearance of the monkey in the railway carriage created much amusement among the passengers, and Donald had to stand a running-fire of questions as to whether it belonged to his great-grandfather or to a barrel-organ. The fun was stopped in a little while by the entrance of the conductor, who demanded Gum's ticket. Gum not having a ticket, an angry discussion arose on the subject of fare; but Donald said he would only pay when the conductor showed him the correct price for a monkey printed in black and white in the official books. There being no special mention in these volumes of monkeys on tour, Donald declined to pay a cent, and the conductor departed, vowing he would put Gum out of the train at the next station. When the next station came, however, Donald and the monkey were entrenched in a corner, the latter tightly grasped in the miner's great arms, and the conductor, after a glance at the situation, decided to wait for a more convenient season. In America the conductor, instead of entering the carriages only when the train stops, moves about all the time from one carriage to another, so that as the station for Silver Creek was still eleven hours' distant, he had little doubt his chance would come.

And come it did. It was a piping hot day, even for California, and late in the afternoon Donald fell asleep. His arms were still clasped round the monkey, and the conductor would never have succeeded in his object but for an accident. It happened that about that time the train was approaching an important junction, and part of every ticket had to be given up at that point. In America a railway ticket is sometimes half a yard in length, and pieces have to be torn off from point to point. To avoid the disturbance caused by this operation, miners, cowboys, and others are in the habit of wearing their tickets slipped into the band of their great wide-awake hats, and Donald was in this inviting position when the conductor came round. He snatched it out of the hat to tear off the necessary piece, when the monkey, thinking a theft was meant, sprang at the man and buried his teeth in his wrist. Roaring with pain, the conductor seized his assailant by the throat, and, before Donald could come to the rescue, tossed him out of the window. The train was dashing round a curve at thirty miles an hour, and when Donald stretched out his neck to find out whether Gum was killed, it was with small hope of ever seeing him more. For two minutes the miner gazed at the receding distance, then, without uttering a word, turned round and felled the conductor to the floor.


CHAPTER IV

When the train rolled into the junction, about an hour after, Donald went into the refreshment room to quiet his nerves with a cup of cocoa. He was about to take his seat again in the carriage when he observed a crowd on the platform opposite the brake-van at the rear end of the train. Making his way to the spot and looking over the heads of the crowd, what was his amazement to see Gum seated on the coupling apparatus, and looking about him with perfect serenity. One hand held an iron rod, and with the other he scratched his head; and, but for a great splash of brown earth on one side, the monkey seemed wholly untouched by his adventure. A single word in Gaelic from Donald made the monkey spring from its perch, and over the heads of the people into his arms, and in a few minutes the strange friends were pursuing their journey again, as if nothing had happened. A new conductor was now on the train, and Donald made friends with him by reciting the whole adventure, so that they were allowed to end the day in peace. About midnight the two got out at a roadside station, where they spent the night, and in the grey of the morning set out by coach for Silver Creek. From Silver Creek Donald's cabin was still thirty miles' walk over the mountains, and after another day's hard toiling they reached the spot.


CHAPTER V

After a long journey over the mountains Donald reached his log cabin on the Silver Creek. The monkey, however, did not find quite so immediate a welcome as himself from Donald's wife. The only pet her children had ever seen before was a baby puma, which the miner had picked out of the stream one day in a half-drowned state. Donald had mistaken it for a kitten of some new brand, and it was not until some weeks later, when it sprang upon his little girl and buried his claws in her neck, that he realised what sort of plaything--the puma is the lion of the Rocky Mountains--he had introduced into his family. So Donald's wife was suspicious of pets, and when she saw the monkey she was sure it was another lion, and would not allow it to enter the door. But Gum had other ways of entering houses than by doors, and finally he was received as a lawful member of the family, for the simple reason that he could not be kept out. The new guest gave little trouble. Most of the day the monkey spent with Donald at the mine. He went off with him when he went to work in the morning, and gambolled round him till he came home for supper. And very soon an incident happened which more than reconciled Donald's wife to her strange visitor. Donald's gold-mine was a poor one. He had to work very hard to get enough of the precious dust to keep his family in food, but his spirits were kept up by the constant hope that he would strike a richer bed and make his fortune. The way he got the gold was to take the sand and gravel from the banks of the river and wash it about in a pan till all the lighter particles passed off with the water, leaving the little spangles of gold at the bottom. Sometimes a week would pass without the miner getting more than a thimbleful, but occasionally he would find a few lumps as big as a pea. One day, however, just as Donald was getting discouraged, a piece of great good-luck befell him. He had been particularly depressed that day, for no gold at all had rewarded his search for a week, and the family were already in debt for flour and clothes. But, thanks to the monkey, he was able to go home to his wife with the largest gold nugget that had been seen in that valley for many years. Gum had been skirmishing about as usual on the gravel heaps, when some loose pebbles were dislodged by his paws, and, as they rolled down, he must have been attracted by the yellow glitter in one large lump, for the next moment he had picked up the nugget and laid it, with a wag of his tail, at Donald's feet. The miner almost wept for gladness, and, taking Gum up in his arms as if he were a child, hurried home to proclaim his fortune. That night the family had a great feast, and Gum's health was drunk in the strongest tea the mining camp could furnish. Perhaps if they had known what was shortly to happen they would not have slept quite so soundly.


CHAPTER VI

Two nights after the wheel of fortune gave an unlooked-for turn. Donald's wife was so proud of the nugget that she could not keep the news to herself, and, next morning, although Donald had carefully told her to keep it quiet, confided his good-luck to another miner's wife, who lived a few hundred yards