It had been snowing hard for
twenty-four hours at Dead Man’s Gulch.
Beginning with a few feathery particles, they had steadily
increased in number until the biting air was filled
with billions of snowflakes, which whirled and eddied
in the gale that howled through the gorges and canyons
of the Sierras. It was still snowing with no sign
of cessation, and the blizzard blanketed the earth
to the depth of several feet, filling up the treacherous
hollows, caverns and abysses and making travel almost
impossible for man or animal.
The shanties of the miners in Dead
Man’s Gulch were just eleven in number.
They were strung along the eastern side of the gorge
and at an altitude of two or three hundred feet from
the bed of the pass or canyon. The site protruded
in the form of a table-land, offering a secure foundation
for the structures, which were thus elevated sufficiently
to be beyond reach of the terrific torrents that sometimes
rushed through the ravine during the melting of the
snow in the spring, or after one of those fierce cloud-bursts
that give scarcely a minute’s warning of their
coming.
The diggings were in the mountain
side at varying distances. The success in mining
had been only moderate, although several promising
finds raised hopes. The population numbered precisely
thirty men, representing all quarters of the Union,
while five came from Europe. The majority were
shaggy, bronzed adventurers, the variety being almost
as great as the numbers. Some had been clerks,
several were college graduates, a number were the
sons of wealthy parents, and one was a full-fledged
parson, while there was a certain percentage who had
left their homes to escape the grip of the offended
law.
With that yearning for picturesqueness
which is a peculiar trait of Americans, the miners
felt that when their settlement had attained the dignity
of nearly a dozen dwellings, it was entitled to an
appropriate name. The gorge, which seemed to
have been gouged out of the solid mass of boulders
and rocks, when the mountains were split apart in the
remote past, was known from the first by the title
already given, which also clung to the diggings themselves.
The single saloon presided over by
Max Ortigies, was the Heavenly Bower, so
that point was settled, but when it came to
naming the settlement itself, the difficulties were
so numerous that days and weeks passed without an
agreement being reached. No matter how striking
and expressive the title offered by one man, the majority
promptly protested. It was too sulphurous, or
too insipid or it lacked in that nebulous characteristic
which may be defined as true Americanism. It
looked as if the problem would never be solved, when
Landlord Ortigies, taking the bull by the horns, appointed
a committee of three to select a name, the others
pledging themselves to accept whatever the committee
submitted.
But the mischief was to pay when on
the night of the blizzard the committee met at the
Heavenly Bower to make their report. The chairman
insisted upon “E Pluribus Unum,” the
second member’s favorite was “Murderer’s
Holler,” while the third would not listen to
anything except “Wolf Eye,” and each was
immovably set in his convictions.
Budge Isham was not a member of the
committee, but he was known as a college graduate.
From his seat on an overturned box at the rear of
the room, where he was smoking a pipe, he asked troublesome
questions and succeeded in arraying the committeemen
so fiercely against one another that each was eager
to vote, in the event of failing to carry his own
point, in favor of any name objectionable to the rest.
The chairman as stated favored the
patriotic name “E Pluribus Unum,”
and boldly announced the fact.
“It has a lofty sound,”
blandly remarked Isham; “will the chairman be
good enough to translate it for us? In other words,
what does ’E Pluribus Unum’ mean?”
“Why,” replied the chairman
with scorn in his manner; “everybody oughter
know it means, ‘Hurrah for the red, white and
blue.’”
“Thank you,” returned Isham, puffing at
his pipe.
Vose Adams, the second committeeman,
felt it his duty to explain his position.
“The trouble with that outlandish
name is in the fust place that it has three words
and consequently it’s too much to manage.
Whoever heard of a town with three handles to its
name? Then it’s foreign. When I was
in college (several disrespectful sniffs which caused
the speaker to stop and glare around in quest of the
offenders); I say when I was in college and studying
Greek and Chinese and Russian, I larned that that
name was made up of all three of them languages.
I b’leve in America for the Americans, and if
we can’t find a name that’s in the American
language, why let’s wait till we can.”
This sentiment was delivered with
such dramatic force that several of the miners nodded
their heads in approval. It was an appeal to the
patriotic side of their nature which was
quick to respond.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Budge
Isham, addressing the landlord, who, by general consent,
was the presiding officer at these disputations, and
who like the others failed to see the quiet amusement
the educated man was extracting, “if it is agreeable
to Mr. Adams, to whose eloquent speech we have listened
with much edification, I would like him to give us
his reasons for calling our handsome town ‘Murderers’
Hollow.’”
The gentleman appealed to rose to
his feet. Turning toward the man who had called
upon him, he gave him a look which ought to have made
him sink to the floor with mortification, preliminary
to saying with polished irony:
“If the gentleman had paid attention
as he oughter, he would have obsarved that I said
‘Murderer’s Holler,’ not ‘Murderers’
Hollow.’ I would advise him not
to forget that he ain’t the only man in this
place that has received a college eddycation.
Now as to the name: it proclaims our stern virtue
and love for law.”
The orator paused, but the wondering
expression of the bronzed faces turned toward him
showed that he would have to descend to particulars.
“When violators of the law hear
that name, what does it say to them? It says
that if any murderer shows his face in this place,
he will receive such rough handling that he will have
to holler ‘enough,’ and will be glad to
get out I don’t see what there is
to laugh at!” exclaimed Vose angrily, looking
threateningly around again with his fists clenched
and his gaze fixed specially upon the grinning Budge
Isham.
“There’s some sense in
what Vose says, which ain’t often the case,”
remarked Ike Hoe, the other member of the committee,
“but the trouble will be that when folks hear
of the name, they won’t think to give it the
meanin’ that he gives it. They’ll
conclude that this place is the home of murderers,
and, if it keeps on, bime by of hoss thieves.
If it warn’t for that danger, I might go in
for backing up Vose with his name, but as it stands
it won’t do.”
The argument of Ike had produced its
effect. There was little sympathy in the first
place for the title, and that little was destroyed
by the words of Ike, who proceeded to plead for his
own choice.
“Now as to ‘Wolf Eye.’
In the first place, it is short and easy to say.
There ain’t any slur in the name, that might
offend a new comer, who would think the ‘Murderer’s
Holler’ contained ungentlemanly allusions to
his past. It is warning, too, that the place has
got an eye on everybody and has teeth as sharp as
a wolf. Then there is poetry in the name.
Gentlemen,” added Ike in a burst of enthusiasm,
“we oughter go in for poetry. How can any
one live in such a glorious country as this with the
towering kenyons around him, with the mountains thousands
of feet deep, with the grand sun kissin’ the
western tips in the morning and sinking to rest at
night in the east, with the snow storms
in summer and the blazing heat in winter with
the glo ”
“Hold on! hold on!” called
Budge Isham, rising solemnly to his feet, with hands
uplifted in protest; “if Ike doesn’t stop,
he’ll have us all standing on our heads.
There’s a brand of liquor down in Sacramento
called ‘Wolf Eye;’ I don’t make any
charges, gentlemen, against my friend Ike, but you
can draw your inferences. Wolf Eye won’t
do.”
A general laugh greeted this sally,
seeing which the indignant Ike turned the tables upon
Budge with an admirable piece of sarcasm.
“Seeing as how all of us together
don’t know ’nough to git up a name that
will suit, I move that the college eddycated gentleman
supplies the brains and does it himself.”
The crushing irony of this remark
was spoiled by Budge accepting it in all seriousness.
He bowed his head and gracefully thanked the satirical
Vose.
“I shall be very glad to do
so. The committee meant well enough, but the
trouble was that there were too many fools on it ”
At this point Wade Ruggles sprang
to his feet, with the fierce question:
“Does the gentleman refer to me?”
His hand was at his hip on the butt
of his revolver and matters looked squally, but the
tactful Budge quelled the rising storm with Chesterfieldian
grace. Waving his hand and bowing, he said:
“I did not intend the remotest reference to
you.”
Vose Adams came up promptly.
“Then it’s me and I’m ready
to make any man eat his words.”
“My good friend is mistaken;
nothing could induce me to apply such a term to him;
I hold him in too high esteem.”
Since this left Ike Hoe as the only
remaining member, he began to show signs of explosion,
perceiving which the incomprehensible Budge proceeded
to mollify him.
“And Ike knows that I would
be the last person in the world to slur a gentleman
from whom I as well as the others have received so
much instruction.”
Ike was mystified. He looked
at the other members of the committee and then into
the faces of the group. He couldn’t make
it out.
“If it’s all the same,
Mr. Chairman, since the gentleman has said there was
too many fools on the committee, and has just explained
that he didn’t mean any one of us three, I’ll
be obliged if he’ll explain who in thunder he
did mean.”
This sounded unanswerable, but the
cunning Budge was equal to the occasion.
“It gives me pleasure to answer
the question of the gentleman: my remark was
made in a Pickwickian sense.”
He leaned forward with a beaming smile,
as if his explanation left nothing to be added.
No one understood to what he referred, but all were
too proud to admit the fact. There was a general
nodding of heads, and Ike, with the manner of a man
who magnanimously accepts the humble apology of him
whom he has worsted, leaned back on his stool and
audibly remarked:
“That makes it all right.”
Budge Isham resumed his seat, when
he was reminded that he was expected to submit a name
for the new settlement.
“I beg pardon,” he said,
rising again, “it is a fact known to this highly
intelligent assemblage, that every city of prominence
in Europe has from one to forty namesakes in this
country. There is one exception, however; doubtless
all know to what city I refer.”
In response to his inquiring looks,
the group tried to appear as if the name was familiar
to them, but no one spoke.
“It is hardly necessary for
me to mention the city, but I may say it is Constantinople.”
A contemptuous sniff greeted this proposal.
“That’s the worst yet,”
said Wade Ruggles, drawing a match along the thigh
of his trousers to relight his pipe, which had gone
out during the excitement; “the man that insults
this party with such a proposition, ought to be run
out of the place.”
“What’s the matter with it?” demanded
Budge.
“It’s too long in the
fust place,” commented Ike Hoe; “it bothers
a man to git his mouth around it and it hain’t
any music, like the other names such as Starvation
Kenyon, Hangman’s Noose, Blizzard Gorge and
the rest. I stick to mine as the purtiest of all.”
“What’s that?”
“‘Blazes,’ short and sweet and innercent
like.”
Landlord Ortigies was leaning with
both elbows on the bar. The new name struck him
favorably.
“I’m inclined to agree
with Budge,” he said, “cause there hain’t
any other place that’s hit onto it. All
of them names that you chaps have tried to spring
onto us, have been used in other places, or at least
some part of the names, but, as Budge has observed,
no galoot has scooped ‘Constantinople.’”
“’Cause no one ain’t
fool enough,” observed Ike Hoe, who noted the
drift of the sentiment.
“But they’ll pounce onto
it powerful quick if we don’t grab it while
it’s passin’; it’s a good long name,
and what if it does make a chap sling the muscles
of his jaw to warble it? All the better; it’ll
make him think well of his town, which I prophesy
is going to be the emporium of the West.”
“Let’s see,” growled
Wade Ruggles, “Constantinople is in Ireland isn’t
it?”
“Where’s your eddycation?”
sneered Ike Vose; “it’s the oldest town
in Wales.”
Landlord Ortigies raised his head
and filled the room with his genial laughter.
“If there was anything I was
strong on when I led my class at the Squankum High
School it was astronermy; I was never catched in locating
places.”
“If you know so much,”
remarked Ruggles, “you’ll let us know something
’bout that town which I scorn to name.”
“I’m allers ready
to enlighten ign’rance, though I’ve never
visited Constantinople, which stands on the top of
the Himalaya Mountains, in the southern part of Iceland.”
“That’s very good,”
said Budge Isham, who with his usual tact maneuvered
to keep the ally he had gained, “but the Constantinople
I have in mind is in Turkey, which is such a goodly
sized country that it straddles from Europe to Asia.”
“Which the same I suppose means
to imply that this ere Constantinople will do likewise
similar.”
“No doubt that’s what
it’ll do in time,” assented the landlord.
“I beg to offer an amendment
to my own motion,” continued the oily Budge;
“when the boom strikes this town, as it is bound
soon to do, and it rivals in size the famous city
on the other side of the Atlantic, there should be
something to distinguish the two. We have no
wish to rob any other place of the honors it has taken
centuries to gain; so, while we reserve the principal
name, I propose that we distinguish it from the old
city by prefixing the word ‘New.’”
“You mean that this town shall
be ‘New Constantinople?’” was the
inquiring remark of the landlord.
“Precisely; and I now make the
motion that that be our name.”
There were seventeen persons present
and it looked as if a decision was inevitable.
The landlord was shrewd. His first act was to
invite all to drink at his expense, after which he
made each pledge himself to abide by the decision,
whatever it might be. These preliminaries being
arranged, a show of hands was called for. The
vote was eight for and eight against the new name.
“That’s a tie,”
commented the landlord from behind his immense beard;
“and therefore the question ain’t settled.”
“It’s easy ’nough to settle it,”
said Ike Hoe.
“How?”
“Take another vote.”
“I don’t see how that’ll
do it, onless some one changes his mind; but again,
gentlemen: all who favor the new name, raise their
right hands.”
Eight horny palms were elevated in
air, while the same number were displayed in the negative.
The landlord looked troubled.
“We must keep it up till some
one weakens,” observed Wade Ruggles.
The host scanned the earnest faces in front of him.
“Which of you gentlemen will
promise to weaken if we keep this thing up for half
the night?”
“I’ll stay here a week,”
was the reply of Vose Adams, while the general nodding
of heads showed that he echoed the sentiments of the
others. The landlord met the crisis with becoming
dignity.
“Gentlemen, when I was a member
of Congress, all questions that was tied was settled
by the presiding officer casting the deciding vote,
and which as aforesaid we don’t lay any claim
to being higher than Congress, I therefore, by virtue
of the aforesaid right vested in me, cast my vote
in favor of this city being called New Constantinople,
which the same is on me again; gentlemen, what will
you have?”
It was a coup d’etat, the victory
being clinched before the opposition realized it.
Ere the company had fairly recovered from their bewilderment,
Budge Isham declared that the victory was really his,
due to the good sense and high toned chivalry of his
friends, and he insisted upon doing the honors.
He would accept no denial and the engaging style in
which he acquitted himself of this duty restored good
humor. Thus it was that the little mining town
of the Sierras in the days that are gone received
its title.
The Heavenly Bower consisted of two
large apartments, both on the ground floor. The
one at the rear was used by Landlord Ortigies for
sleeping, eating and partial storage purposes.
When Vose Adams made his quarterly visits to Sacramento,
he was accompanied by two mules. They were not
necessary to take and bring the mail, since the pocket
of Adams’ great coat was sufficient for that,
but they carried down to Sacramento several empty
casks which came back filled, or rather they were
thus when the return journey was begun, but to the
dismay of the proprietor of the Heavenly Bower, he
found that they were barely two-thirds full, when
unloaded at his place. Vose explained that the
leakage was due to the roughness of the trail.
Since there seemed no other way of overcoming this,
the landlord sent an extra cask with the request to
Vose that he would confine his leakage to that and
Vose kindly obliged him.
The stuff thus provided for the Heavenly
Bower was generally in concentrated form, thereby
permitting a dilution which insured a full supply
for the customers who were afflicted with an eternal
thirst.
The bar room was of extensive proportions.
Nearly all of one side was occupied by the bar.
Opposite was the huge fireplace, and scattered around
were a number of stools, rickety chairs and strong
boxes which served equally well for seats.
The crackling fire, the genial warmth
and good cheer within the room were the more striking
because of their contrast with the howling storm without.
The gale roared around the corners of the rude but
strong structure, rattling against the massive door
and the log walls, spitting vicious gusts down the
chimney and flinging great drifts hither and yon with
a fury that threatened to send the building skurrying
through the snowy space.
“It’s the worst blizzard
we ever had,” remarked Wade Ruggles, after one
of these violent outbursts; “God pity any one
that’s abroad to-night.”
“It reminds me of that zephyr
last winter,” observed Vose Adams, “when
I was bringing your freight, Max, from Sacramento.”
“I remember,” nodded the
landlord; “you started with two kegs and got
here with about half a one; the leakage was tremenjus
on that trip.”
“True; the blizzards is always
rough on Mountain Dew, and sorter makes it shrink,”
replied the unblushing Vose.
“Can’t you stop the casks
leaking so much,” inquired Felix Brush, who
had been a parson in Missouri, and claimed that he
had never been “unfrocked.”
The landlord solemnly swayed his head.
“Not as long as Vose has charge of the freight ”
At that instant a dull but resounding
thump was heard on the roof overhead. It shook
every log in the structure, checked speech and caused
each man to look wonderingly at his neighbor.
“The mountain has fell on us!” exclaimed
Ike Hoe in a husky whisper.
“If it was the mountain,”
said Budge Isham, slightly raising his voice, as the
courage of the party came back; “none of us would
be able to tell of it.”
“Then it’s a rock well, I’m
blessed! the thing is moving!”
Something was certainly astir in the mass of snow
overhead.
“I guess it’s a angel that has lost its
way,” submitted Hoe.
“More likely it’s a grizzly b’ar
that’s stumbled off the rocks ”
But all these speculations were scattered
to the winds by the sound of a voice muffled and seemingly
far away, which came to them through the storm:
“Helloa, the house!”