California -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Western stories
“I wouldn't hev spoken of it before,” he said, with a sidelong glance
at Briggs, “for it might be all in the line o' Bulger's 'business,'
but suthin' happened the other night that, for a minit, got me! I was
passin' the Bakers' shanty, and I heard one of them gals a singing a
camp-meeting hymn. I don't calkilate to run agin you young fellers in
any sparkin' or canoodlin' that's goin' on, but her voice sounded so
pow'ful soothin' and pretty thet I jest stood there and listened. Then
the old woman--old Mother Baker--SHE joined in, and I listened too. And
then--dern my skin!--but a man's voice joined in--jest belching outer
that cabin!--and I sorter lifted myself up and kem away.
“That voice, gentlemen,” said Mosby, lingering artistically as he took
up a glass and professionally eyed it before wiping it with his towel,
“that voice, cumf'bly fixed thar in thet cabin among them wimen folks,
was Bulger's!”
Briggs got up, with his eyes looking the darker for his flushed face.
“Gentlemen,” he said huskily, “thar's only one thing to be done. A lot
of us have got to ride over to Sawyer's Dam tomorrow morning and pick up
as many square men as we can muster; there's a big camp meeting goin'
on there, and there won't be no difficulty in that. When we've got a big
enough crowd to show we mean business, we must march back here and ride
Bulger out of this camp! I don't hanker arter Vigilance Committees, as
a rule--it's a rough remedy--it's like drinkin' a quart o' whisky agin
rattlesnake poison but it's got to be done! We don't mind being sold
ourselves but when it comes to our standin' by and seein' the only
innocent people in Rattlesnake given away--we kick! Bulger's got to be
fired outer this camp! And he will be!”
But he was not.
For when, the next morning, a determined and thoughtful procession of
the best and most characteristic citizens of Rattlesnake Camp filed into
Sawyer's Dam, they found that their mysterious friends had disappeared,
although they met with a fraternal but subdued welcome from the general
camp. But any approach to the subject of their visit, however,
was received with a chilling dissapproval. Did they not know that
lawlessness of any kind, even under the rude mantle of frontier justice,
was to be deprecated and scouted when a “means of salvation, a power of
regeneration,” such as was now sweeping over Sawyer's Dam, was at hand?
Could they not induce this man who was to be violently deported to
accompany them willingly to Sawyer's Dam and subject himself to the
powerful influence of the “revival” then in full swing?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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