Selected Stories of Bret Harte, Bret Harte [read aloud books .TXT] 📗

unknown reason, as Morse approached him nearer the man uttered some incoherent protest and desperately turned away, throwing off Morse's extended arm.

Attributing this only to the vague convulsions of a drowning man, Morse, a skilled swimmer, managed to clutch his shoulder, and propelled him at arm's length, still struggling, apparently with as much reluctance as incapacity, toward the bank. As their feet touched the reeds and slimy bottom the man's resistance ceased, and he lapsed quite listlessly in Morse's arms. Half lifting, half dragging his burden, he succeeded at last in gaining the strip of meadow, and deposited the unconscious man beneath the willow tree. Then he ran to his wagon for whisky.

But, to his surprise, on his return the man was already sitting up and wringing the water from his clothes. He then saw for the first time, by the clear moonlight, that the stranger was elegantly dressed and of striking appearance, and was clearly a part of that bright and fascinating world which Morse had been contemplating in his solitude. He eagerly took the proffered tin cup and drank the whisky. Then he rose to his feet, staggered a few steps forward, and glanced curiously around him at the still motionless wagon, the few felled trees and evidence of “clearing,” and even at the rude cabin of logs and canvas just beginning to rise from the ground a few paces distant, and said, impatiently:

“Where the devil am I?”

Morse hesitated. He was unable to name the locality of his dwelling-place. He answered briefly:

“On the right bank of the Sacramento.”

The stranger turned upon him a look of suspicion not unmingled with resentment. “Oh!” he said, with ironical gravity, “and I suppose that this water you picked me out of was the Sacramento River. Thank you!”

Morse, with slow Western patience, explained that he had only settled there three weeks ago, and the place had no name.

“What's your nearest town, then?”

“Thar ain't any. Thar's a blacksmith's shop and grocery at the crossroads, twenty miles further on, but it's got no name as I've heard on.”

The stranger's look of suspicion passed. “Well,” he said, in an imperative fashion, which, however, seemed as much the result of habit as the occasion, “I want a horse, and mighty quick, too.”

“H'ain't got any.”

“No horse? How did you get to this place?”

Morse pointed to the slumbering oxen.

The stranger again stared curiously at him. After a pause he said, with a half-pitying, half-humorous smile: “Pike—aren't you?”

Whether Morse did or did not know that this current California slang for a denizen of the bucolic West implied a certain contempt, he replied simply:

“I'm from Pike County, Mizzouri.”

“Well,” said the stranger, resuming his impatient manner, “you must beg or steal a horse from your neighbors.”

“Thar ain't any neighbor nearer than fifteen miles.”

“Then send fifteen miles! Stop.” He opened his still clinging shirt and drew out a belt pouch, which he threw to Morse. “There! there's two hundred and fifty dollars in that. Now, I want a horse. Sabe?”

“Thar ain't anyone to send,” said Morse, quietly.

“Do you mean to say you are all alone here?”

“Yes.

“And you fished me out—all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

The stranger again examined him curiously. Then he suddenly stretched out his hand and grasped his companion's.

“All right; if you can't send, I reckon I can manage to walk over there tomorrow.”

“I was goin' on to say,” said Morse, simply, “that if you'll lie by tonight, I'll start over sunup, after puttin' out the cattle, and fetch you back a horse afore noon.”

“That's enough.” He, however, remained looking curiously at Morse. “Did you never hear,” he said, with a singular smile, “that it was about the meanest kind of luck that could happen to you to save a drowning man?”

“No,” said Morse, simply. “I reckon it orter be the meanest if you DIDN'T.”

“That depends upon the man you save,” said the stranger, with the same ambiguous smile, “and whether the SAVING him is only putting things off. Look here,” he added, with an abrupt return to his imperative style, “can't you give me some dry clothes?”

Morse brought him a pair of overalls and a “hickory shirt,” well worn, but smelling strongly of a recent wash with coarse soap. The stranger put them on while his companion busied himself in collecting a pile of sticks and dry leaves.

“What's that for?” said the stranger, suddenly.

“A fire to dry your clothes.”

The stranger calmly kicked the pile aside.

“Not any fire tonight if I know it,” he said, brusquely. Before Morse could resent his quickly changing moods he continued, in another tone, dropping to an easy reclining position beneath the tree, “Now, tell me all about yourself, and what you are doing here.”

Thus commanded, Morse patiently repeated his story from the time he had left his backwoods cabin to his selection of the river bank for a “location.” He pointed out the rich quality of this alluvial bottom and its adaptability for the raising of stock, which he hoped soon to acquire. The stranger smiled grimly, raised himself to a sitting position, and, taking a penknife from his damp clothes, began to clean his nails in the bright moonlight—an occupation which made the simple Morse wander vaguely in his narration.

“And you don't know that this hole will give you chills and fever till you'll shake yourself out of your boots?”

Morse had lived before in aguish districts, and had no fear.

“And you never heard that some night the whole river will rise up and walk over you and your cabin and your stock?”

“No. For I reckon to move my shanty farther back.”

The man shut up his penknife with a click and rose.

“If you've got to get up at sunrise, we'd better be turning in. I suppose you can give me a pair of blankets?”

Morse pointed to the wagon. “Thar's a shakedown in the wagon bed; you kin lie there.” Nevertheless he hesitated, and, with the inconsequence and abruptness of a shy man, continued the previous conversation.

“I shouldn't like to move far away, for them steamboats is pow'ful kempany o' nights. I never seed one afore I kem here,” and then, with the inconsistency of a reserved man, and without a word of further preliminary, he launched into a confidential disclosure of his late experiences. The stranger listened with a singular interest and a quietly