Golden Face: A Tale of the Wild West

If any confiding reader imagines that when night settled down upon Henniker City the wearied denizens of that historic township retired to their welcome couches to recruit their toil-worn limbs in sweet and well-earned repose – why we are sorry to dispel the illusion. But in the interests of stern truth we must place it upon record that the hours of darkness usually witnessed the liveliest of scenes, for it was only then that the township began to live. The saloons drove literally a roaring trade, for the shindy that went on in them as the night wore on, and their habitués waxed livelier, was something indescribable. Miners in their rough shirts and cabbage-tree hats, here and there a leather-clad trapper, cowboys and ranchmen in beaded frocks and Indian leggings, and more or less “on the burst,” but all talking at a great rate; all tossing for, or shouting for, or consuming drinks, and, we regret to say, a large proportion somewhat the worse for the latter. Now and then a chorus of ear-splitting whoops, a clatter of hoofs down the street, to an accompaniment of pistol-shots, while the red flashes and whistling of balls in the darkness, warning those who might be under cover not to venture forth just yet, told that a group of cowboys were engaged on the time-honoured and highly popular pastime known among their craft as “painting the town red,” i. e., galloping through the streets whooping and discharging their six-shooters at everything or nothing. But this was far too ordinary an occurrence to attract any attention. It all meant nothing. Here and there, however, it did mean something. Partitioned off from the bar-room was the space devoted to card-playing, and it might be that from here the ominous sound of cards vehemently banged down with a savage curse upon the table warned those who heard it to stand clear. In a twinkling the flash and crack of pistol-shots – then a lull, and amid inquiries from many voices, eager, hurried, perhaps in a lowered tone, a dead man is raised and deposited on a table or carried forth to his home if he have one.

“Who is it?”

“How did it happen?”

“Was it a fair draw?”

“Oh yes, both blazed together!” “All right – fair and square enough!” and the other players resume their gamble, and the talkers their narratives, and more drinks are ordered, and nothing further is thought of the affair.

At that time Henniker City was blessed – or the reverse – with a considerable influx on its normal population. Grouped around the outskirts of the town lay the tents of many of the dispossessed miners – who, like our two friends, had been removed from the Indian lands. All these men were more or less discontented; and suffering in addition from enforced idleness, it follows that monotony and drink rendered them ripe for any mischief which might suggest itself. Moreover, among their ranks was a sprinkling of the very scum of the frontier – horse thieves, “road agents” or highwaymen, professional assassins, and bullies of repute whose presence here was due to the fact that they had rendered every other State too hot to hold them, and where, did they venture to return, they would be lynched without fail, if not shot on sight.

Into one of these tents we must invite the reader to peep with us.

Look at those two knights of the hang-dog countenance. He who is now speaking would stand not a chance before any intelligent jury, if only on account of his aspect alone. By the dim oil-lamp in the tent we can make out two other forms lying around, but the cloud of tobacco smoke, added to the dimness aforesaid, precludes a more familiar study of their not less forbidding features.

“See now, Dan,” hang-dog number one was saying. “May I be chopped in splinters by the reds if I allow this darned white Injun to get away out o’ this without a carcase full o’ lead. So we’d better go up and finish the job to-night.”

“Can’t be done, I reckon. What about his pard – eh? To say nothin’ about Nat Hardroper, who seems to have kinder taken him up!”

“Darn his pard, and darn Nat Hardroper!” replied the other, furiously. “Only a set of doggoned skunks ’ud have elected Nat Hardroper sheriff, and only a set of white-livered coons ’ud have kep’ him in the berth. I guess I don’t fear him.”

“See here, Rube,” suggested the other, “why not tumble to my plan? He’ll be going to Red Cloud’s village in a day or two – see if he don’t. Then we can ambush him at Bald Eagle Forks and plant him full of lead.”

“Don’t want that. Want to string him up. Shooting’s too good. Didn’t he set the red devils on to sculp my pardners? Didn’t he wipe out my brother? leastways, he must have, for I reckon Chinee-Knifer Abe ain’t the boy to be taken playin’ possum. Ef it hadn’t bin for a squad of his reds, we’d have strung him up down in Burntwood Creek the day before the snow.”

“Guess our scalps sat loose that day. Snakes! but they ran us hard,” answered the fellow addressed as Dan. “This Vipan ’d have been buzzard-meat then but for that.”

“Reckon he shall be to-night,” furiously retorted the first speaker. “I’ve said it – and Bitter Rube ain’t the boy to go back on his word. That blanked white Injun, helpin’ to dance around my pardners’ sculps!”

And a volley of curses drowned the speaker’s utterance.

Chapter Fourteen

In a Tight Place

“Stranger – I guess I want this floor!”

The place, an inner room partitioned off from Murphy’s saloon; the time, late evening; the speaker a tall, half-drunken ruffian in frowsy miner’s dress; the spoken to, Vipan – who, lounging against a table was chatting with the saloon-keeper; the tone, insolent and threatening to the last degree; the attitude, that of a man sure of his advantage.

“Stranger – I guess I want this floor!”

“And I guess you’ve got it,” came the quick reply, but not more quickly than the change of attitude which it described. For, in a twinkling, a straight “right and left” from the shoulder had sent the aggressor to earth like a felled ox, while his pistol-bullet buried itself in the wall half a yard above Vipan’s head.

Then ensued a stupendous hubbub. Pistols cracked, as the stricken man’s mates in the outer room hurled themselves at the partition door intent on taking up their comrade’s quarrel. But the door, a solid slab one, met them in full career, pinning the foremost of their number half in, half out.

“Now, Dan Harper, back’s the word!” said the quiet, but stern voice of Smokestack Bill, to whose promptitude was due this first check to the enemy.

“You move a little inch forward and you’re a stiff, you bet.”

“Leggo the darn door, then – F-fixed t-tight,” gasped the pinned one, who, with the muzzle of the scout’s six-shooter within an inch of his nose, would willingly have obeyed, but could not. Smokestack Bill, however, relaxing his pressure, the crushed one was able to draw back, considerably bruised, into the outer room, and the door was jammed to, but not before a couple of bullets fired into the room had narrowly grazed Vipan’s shoulder.

“Now then, boys,” called out the scout. “Anyone feel like trying an entrance? Better not, believe me.”

All this had befallen within infinitely fewer minutes than it takes to chronicle. The felled bully lay prone where he had first dropped, stunned, insensible, and motionless – and disarmed, for the first act of his adversary was to put it out of his power to get the advantage of them. The room, half filled with stifling smoke from the pistol-shots; the barricaded door, against which the besieged ones had run up a couple of casks; the two determined men, fully prepared to defend themselves at the expense of any number of their adversaries’ lives; the fierce, threatening summons to yield entrance from the infuriated gang without; all went to make up a strange and startling metamorphosis on the hitherto quiet evening, which the two men had reckoned upon when they retired into the private room of the saloon-keeper to be clear of any disturbance.

“Air you agoin’ to open?” sung out a harsh voice, at the close of a muttered consultation. “We know you, Smokestack Bill, and we’ve nothin’ again you. But that pizen skunk, the white Injun, we’re bound to have him if we burn down the old log to do it. So you come out of it, Bill, right along, while you can.”

“You be advised, Dan Harper,” cried the scout in reply. “You’re a dead man this very night if you don’t git – mind me.”

“So are a dozen of you, by God!” sung out Vipan. He knew the whole business was a deliberate plan to take his life. The ruffian whom he had felled was to pick a quarrel and shoot him on sight, while his scoundrelly mates stood ready to make sure of him if the first part of the scheme miscarried. A roar went up from the crowd. “Let’s get at him! What’ll we do with him, boys?”

“Tar and feather him!”

“Burn him at the stake!” “Scalp him!” “String him up!” were some of the yells that burst from the maddened throng as it surged round the building, narrowly scanning every door and window for a chance of forcing an entrance. But the defenders of the inner room knew better than to be caught that way.

“One minute before you begin any tricks,” cried the scout, and his voice had the dangerous ring about it of that of an ordinarily cool and quiet man roused at last. “One minute, and just listen to me. We’ve molested nobody, and don’t want to molest nobody. Bitter Rube in here picked a quarrel with my pardner and got knocked down. If he’d done it with any of you boys he’d have been shot dead. He’ll be shot before anyone gets in here – ”

“Darn Bitter Rube! Serve the bunglin’ fool right! What do we care about Bitter Rube? It’s the pizen white Injun we’re going to lynch – and lynch him we will – by God!”

“Try it!” rejoined the scout. “There’ll be a few of you dead in your boots before mornin’, I reckon. And anyone who thinks Smokestack Bill the boy to go back on a pardner is makin’ an almighty big error in the undertaking. So now, stand clear for squalls.”

A roar and a yell was the only reply. A deafening crash, as some of the rioters in the outer saloon vented their rage in smashing all the glass they could lay hands on; then a shock, as the end of a beam, wielded as a battering ram, came full against the door. A couple of flashes and reports, mingling like a single one. The beam fell to the earth at the same time as three of its bearers, whom the fire of the besieged, discharged through a chink at such close quarters, had literally raked in line. The remainder promptly got out of the way.

“Put in the faggot. Don’t give any of the skunks a further show,” yelled the frantic mob, exasperated by this reverse. And a rush was made for the further end of the building.

Chapter Fifteen

Judge Lynch takes a Back Seat

It is not wonderful, all things considered, that the citizens of Henniker, together with its fortuitous and floating population, should have been moved to such lengths as to resolve upon lynching Vipan. Indeed, it would have been surprising had matters turned out otherwise. Here was a man they very much more than suspected of being in league with their barbarous and dreaded foes, at a time when the frontier was almost in a state of war. A man of known daring and unscrupulousness, and whom they knew to have been present – the only white man – at an important council, involving issues of peace or war; to have taken part in its deliberations, going even so far as to advise the chiefs, and that, if report were to be believed, by no means in the direction of peaceful results. Several of their friends and neighbours had been murdered and scalped, those who had escaped a similar fate being obliged to carry on their mining or other operations rifle in hand, even if not forced to quit altogether. Meanwhile, this man, it was well known, could move about the country perfectly unmolested, visiting the Indian encampments at will – indeed, in one instance he was known to have witnessed a scalp-dance, wherein the prime attraction of the entertainment lay in the exhibition of the scalps recently torn from the heads of two of their murdered comrades.

And then he was an alien, which was the crowning point of the whole offence; and the good citizens of Henniker were virtuously stirred that a foreigner – an Englishman – should, while dwelling on their free and sacred soil, presume to be on friendly terms with its dispossessed and original owners; even as here and there in Great Britain may still be found a misguided and hard-headed Tory moved to honest indignation at the prospect of Fenians and Invincibles and National Leaguers stirred up to dynamite and murder by Irish-American agents and American dollars.

But how came it that so much should be known of Vipan’s movements, seeing that he himself was almost the only white man who could safely penetrate the semi-hostile country or venture among the roving bands who even then were raiding and murdering at their own sweet will? Well, human nature is rather alike all the world over. Gossip on that wild Western frontier was circulated through very much the same channels as, say, at Lant with Lant-Hanger in the county of Brackenshire – through the agency of the squaws to wit. Some of the miners owned red spouses, others, again, were not above open admiration for the savage beauties – and, presto! – sooner or later the gossip of the Indian villages leaked out.

Peering through the chinks, the besieged could descry a sea of threatening faces, savagely hideous in the red torchlight. Prominent among these was a man who held a noosed cord. Hither and thither he moved, stirring up the crowd, his sinister features distorted with malicious rage. Hatred, envy, disappointed greed, all were depicted there, as with blood-curdling threats the mob clamoured for the object of its resentment.

Suddenly a clatter of approaching hoofs became audible alike to besiegers and besieged. The crowd paused aghast, the first thought being that of an Indian attack. Then a score of horsemen darted into the light, and a ringing voice was heard inquiring —

“Say, boys, what in thunder’s all this muss?”

“That’s the sheriff,” said Smokestack Bill, coolly, lowering his revolver. “We’re out of this fix, anyhow.”

A roar was the answer.

“The white Injun! The pizen white Injun! We’re going to lynch him.”

“I guess not,” was the reply. “Not while Nat Hardroper’s sheriff of Henniker City. When it comes to reckoning with that invaluable officer, Judge Lynch’ll have to take a back seat. Eh, boys?” turning to his well-armed followers, a score of cowboys and well-disposed citizens, whom he had prudently collected in haste on receiving the first intimation of a riot.

“That’s so, sheriff,” was the prompt reply.

“Say, Dan Harper,” called out the sheriff, “Judge Lynch’s sittin’ in the State you’ve just left. Why not go and talk to him there?”

The face of the fellow named blanched at this allusion.

Meanwhile the crowd, composed mainly as it was of ruffians and bullies, began to show a disposition to slink off, in the presence of these well-armed and determined representatives of law and order.

“Never mind, boys,” shouted someone. “We’ll plant him full of lead yet. Now let’s git.”

“How do, sheriff?” said the scout, calmly stepping forth with extended hand. “Guess you’ve raised the siege on us right slick in the nick of time.”

“How do, Bill? How do, colonel?” to Vipan. “Now you come right along to my log and we’ll talk.”

“Hold hard, friends,” objected Vipan. “We’ve got to drink first. Murphy, bring out the juice.”

“Whurroo, sheriff darlint,” chuckled the saloon-keeper. “Whurroo! but it’s purty shootin’ there’s bin around here afure you came. Be jabers! and thur’ll be a big inquist to-morrow, and the power of the ‘crame’ ’ll be on hand for the jewry, I reckon. Bedad! and whur’s that shuck-faced omadhaun?” he added, gazing at the corner. For Bitter Rube, having recovered his confused senses, had profited by the confusion to steal away unperceived.

“Now, boys, mind me,” said Nat Hardroper to Vipan and the scout, after a substantial supper a few hours later. “This same Henniker City’s a powerful survigerous place. I’ve got you out of one fix, but I can’t go on getting you out of fixes. It’s too big a contract on one man’s hands, I want you to see. Now, a power of those chirruping roarers’ll be on your trail first thing you show your noses out of this shebang. If I warn’t sheriff this’d be my advice – to take your hosses this very night and git. But it ain’t my advice, because, you see, I am sheriff, and you’re under my charge. No, no; it ain’t my advice.”

Save for the faintest possible wink, he looked them straight in the face, as solemn as an owl. Vipan burst into a roar of laughter.

“Right you are, Nat. It’s not your advice – we’ll remember that.”

“Well, good-night, boys; good-night.”

They shook hands heartily. But our two friends did not go to bed; they went to the stable. By daybreak they had put a considerable number of miles between Henniker City and themselves.

Chapter Sixteen

A Conjugal Debate and its Sequel

With all his failings, the Rev. Dudley Vallance had one redeeming point – he was excessively fond of his children; but it is probable that he loved his only son more than all the rest put together. To him he could refuse nothing. Indeed, so loth was he to part with him even for a time that he could not bring himself to allow Geoffry to enter any profession. He must remain at home. There was no need for him to earn his living, since he would one day succeed to the Lant property, and meanwhile he could be learning to look after it.

Fortunately, Geoffry was something of a bookworm, and studious of temperament, or the bringing-up he had received, and the aimless life which it entailed upon him, would have sent the boy straight to the dogs. As it was, he was cut out by Nature for a college don rather than for a country squire, and during his University career he was known essentially as a reading man.

It may be imagined, then, that when he returned home at the end of the summer term, after taking a brilliant double first, the pride and delight of his reverend parent knew no bounds, and by a series of festivities, unparalleled since the distinguished youth’s coming of age, was Lant-Hanger at large, and particularly its “County Society,” bidden to share the parental joy.

But, alas! that the latter should be so short-lived. The object of all this fun and frolic seemed in no way to relish it at all. Instead of returning home cheerful, overflowing with spirits, thoroughly enjoying life with the zest of the average young Englishman who has just scored a signal success, and sees a congenial and rose-bestrewn future before him, poor Geoffry seemed to have parted with all capacity for enjoyment. He was pale and listless, absent, bored, and – shall we own it? – at times excessively irritable, not to say peevish. His father was deeply concerned, and his mother, who read off the symptoms as briefly as the village doctor would diagnose a case of incipient scarlet fever, felt more of anger than concern.

“I really don’t know what to do about the boy,” said the Rev. Dudley, dejectedly, coming into his wife’s morning-room the day after the last of their house party had dispersed. “It’s dreadful to see the poor fellow in such low spirits. He must have been working too hard, whatever he may say to the contrary. It’s hard to part with him so soon, the dear fellow, but we positively must send him abroad to travel for the summer. Nothing like travel.”

“Try him, and see if he’ll go,” was the short reply.

“We must insist upon it. We must get medical advice – a doctor’s opinion to back us up. The boy will be ill – ill, mark me. He eats nothing. He doesn’t sleep, for I hear him moving in his rooms far into the small hours. He looks pale and pulled down, and doesn’t even care for his books. Then, when all the people were here, he would steal away from everybody, and wander about and mope by himself all day. We had some nice people, too; and pleasant, good-looking girls. Come, hadn’t we?”

“Oh, yes; a most complete party. Only one ingredient left out.”

“And that?”

“Yseulte Santorex.” And Mrs Vallance shut down the envelope she was closing with a vicious bang.

“God bless my soul! you don’t say so? Surely it hasn’t gone so far as that?”

“It has gone just as far as that abominable girl could carry it,” was the uncompromising reply. “Surely you are not simple enough to imagine that the daughter of that hybrid Spanish atheist would neglect such an opportunity? The girl has simply made a fool of him.”

“You dislike her to that extent?” said Mr Vallance, vacantly, his mind full of the woeful plight into which his son was plunged. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think her not a bad sort of girl considering the fallow in which her mind has been allowed to lie. And Geoffry might do worse.”

“Oh, yes. He might, but not much. A forward, bold, masculine minx, tramping the countryside, fishing and shooting. And she is utterly devoid of respect for her elders, and as for principle or religion – faugh! I beg leave to think, Dudley, that he hardly could do worse.”

This spitefulness on the lady’s part was not wholly devoid of excuse. For her elders, as represented by Mrs Dudley Vallance, Yseulte certainly had scant respect. And then, if she became their son’s wife, the day might come when Mrs Vallance would have to abdicate Lant Hall in her favour, whereas no such calamity could in the nature of things ever befall its reverend squire. Of course Geoffry must marry somebody or other one day; but Geoffry’s mother could contemplate such a contingency with far more equanimity than that of being dispossessed by a girl whom she detested, and whom she knew despised her.

“Well, well! we won’t say that; we won’t say quite that,” rejoined Mr Vallance. “Perhaps you are a little hard on poor Yseulte. She is young, remember, and at a thoughtless age. But she is thoroughbred in the matter of birth, and will be well off. We must not expect everything at once. And the girl is very pretty, with all her faults. I am not surprised at Geoffry’s infatuation.”

“No more am I,” was the short reply.

“Oh, but you must look at a question of this kind apart from prejudice. And then I can’t bear to see poor Geoffry simply eating his heart out like this. I am becoming seriously alarmed about him; and I tell you what it is, my dear, as he really has staked his happiness on this girl, he shall have her. I’ll see Santorex about it this very day.”

“Oh, well, if you have quite made up your mind, the sooner you do so the better,” answered his spouse, resignedly.

“Very well, then, that’s settled,” said the Rev. Dudley, with a sigh of relief.

There was just one thing they forgot, this worthy couple, namely, that before settling a matter of the kind so comfortably and out of hand, it might be necessary to obtain the concurrence of the party most concerned, to wit Yseulte Santorex herself. But that Yseulte might unhesitatingly decline the honour of the projected alliance never occurred to them for one moment, and any suggestion of the bare idea of such a contingency would have thrown them into a state of wild amazement.

During the above debate, the subject thereof was doing exactly as his father had said; wandering about by himself – and moping. Strolling down the cool mossy lane, shaded between its high nut-hedges, he found himself upon the river-bank. It was time to go home. They would be wondering what had become of him; perhaps sending everywhere in search of him. In his then morbid frame of mind, Geoffry shrank from being made a fuss over. Mechanically he turned to retrace his steps.

“Great events from little causes spring.” The little cause in this instance was a little flock of sheep, which a farmer’s lad, aided by his faithful collie, was driving into the lane from an adjacent field. The animals were kicking up a good deal of dust; Geoffry was no fonder of walking in a cloud of dust than most people. The lane was narrow, and sheep are essentially idiotic creatures; were he to try and pass these, they would, instead of making room for him, inevitably scamper on ahead as fast as their legs could carry them, thereby kicking up about ten times more dust. That decided him. He would extend his walk.

Over a rail, an unexpected flounder into a dry ditch, and he stood up to his neck in brambles and nettles. But the sting of the latter was hardly felt; for his eyes fell upon an object which set his knees trembling and his heart going like a hammer. A moment earlier and he would have missed the phenomenon which evoked this agitation, but for the sheep. What was it? Only a broad-brimmed straw hat, and beneath it a great knot of dark brown hair rippling into gold.