a poem – I think in the Spectator– on Artemus Ward, in which the bard apostrophised the light-hearted merriment of the Western American; a very fortunate thing to say, because the Western American is externally a most serious person, never merry, never witty, but always humorous. Mr. Beck was quite grave, though at the moment as happy as that other grave and thoughtful person who has made a name in the literature of humour – Panurge – when he escaped half-roasted from the Turk's Serai.
"I ought," he said, "to sit down and cry, like the girl on the prairie."
"Why ought you to cry?"
"I guess I ought to cry because I've lost my rifle and everything except my Luck" – here he pulled at the steel chain – "in that darned long stern chase."
"You can easily get a new rifle," said Jack.
"With dollars," interrupted Mr. Beck. "As for them, there's not a dollar left – nary a red cent; only my Luck."
"And what is your Luck?"
"That," said Mr. Beck, "I will tell you by-and-by. Perhaps it's your Luck, too, young boss," he added, thinking of a shot as fortunate to himself as William Tell's was to his son.
He pulled the box attached to the steel chain round to the front, and looked at it tenderly. It was safe, and he heaved a sigh.
The way wound up a valley – a road marked only, as has been said, by deep ruts along its course. Behind the travellers the evening sun was slowly sinking in the west; before them the peaks of the Sierra lifted their heads, coloured purple in the evening light; and on either hand rose the hill-sides, with their dark foliage in alternate "splashes" of golden light and deepest shade.
It wanted but a quarter of an hour to sunset when Mr. Gilead P. Beck pointed to a township which suddenly appeared, lying at their very feet.
"Empire City, I reckon."
A good-sized town of wooden houses. They were all alike and of the same build as that affected by the architects of doll's houses; that is to say, they were of one story only, had a door in the middle, and a window on either side. They were so small, also, that they looked veritable dolls' houses.
There were one or two among them of more pretentious appearance, and of several stories. These were the hotels, billiard-saloons, bars, and gambling-houses.
"It's a place bound to advance, sir," said Mr. Beck proudly. "Empire City, when I first saw it, which is two years ago, was only two years old. It is only in our country that a great city springs up in a day. Empire City will be the Chicago of the West."
"I see a city," said Captain Ladds; "can't see the people."
It was certainly curious. There was not a soul in the streets; there was no smoke from the chimneys; there was neither carts nor horses; there was not the least sign of occupation.
Mr. Gilead P. Beck whistled.
"All gone," he said. "Guess the city's busted up."
He pushed aside the brambles which grew over what had been a path leading to the place, and hurried down. The others followed him, and rode into the town.
It was deserted. The doors of the houses were open, and if you looked in you might see the rough furniture which the late occupants disdained to carry away with them. The two Englishmen dismounted, gave their reins to the servants, and began to look about them.
The descendants of Og, king of Bashan, have left their houses in black basalt, dotted about the lava-fields of the Hauran, to witness how they lived. In the outposts of desert stations of the East, the Roman soldiers have left their barracks and their baths, their jokes written on the wall, and their names, to show how they passed away the weary hours of garrison duty. So the miners who founded Empire City, and deserted it en masse when the gold gave out, left behind them marks by which future explorers of the ruins should know what manner of men once dwelt there. The billiard saloon stood open with swinging doors; the table was still there, the balls lay about on the table and the floor; the cues stood in the rack; the green cloth, mildewed, covered the table.
"Tommy," said the younger, "we will have a game to-night."
The largest building in the place had been an hotel. It had two stories, and was, like the rest of the houses, built of wood, with a verandah along the front. The upper story looked as if it had been recently inhabited; that is, the shutters were not dropping off the hinges, nor were they flapping to and fro in the breeze.
But the town was deserted; the evening breeze blew chilly up its vacant streets; life and sound had gone out of the place.
"I feel cold," said Jack, looking about him.
They went round to the back of the hotel. Old iron cog-wheels lay rusting on the ground with remains of pumps. In the heart of the town behind the hotel stretched an open space of ground covered with piles of shingle and intersected with ditches.
Mr. Beck sat down and adjusted one of the thorns which served as a temporary shirt-stud.
"Two years ago," he said, "there were ten thousand miners here; now there isn't one. I thought we should find a choice hotel, with a little monty or poker afterwards. Now no one left; nothing but a Chinaman or two."
"How do you know there are Chinamen?"
"See those stones?"
He pointed to some great boulders, from three to six feet in diameter. Some operation of a mystical kind had been performed upon them, for they were jagged and chipped as if they had been filed and cut into shape by a sculptor who had been once a dentist and still loved the profession.
"The miners picked the bones of those rocks, but they never pick quite clean. Then the Chinamen come and finish off. Gentlemen, it's a special Providence that you picked me up. I don't altogether admire the way in which that special Providence was played up to in the matter of the bar; but a Christian without a revolver alone among twenty Chinamen – "
He stopped and shrugged his shoulders.
"They'd have got my Luck," he concluded.
"Chief, I don't like it;" said the younger man. "It's ghostly. It's a town of dead men. As soon as it is dark the ghosts will rise and walk about – play billiards, I expect. What shall we do?"
"Hotel," growled the chief. "Sleep on floor – sit on chairs – eat off a table."
They entered the hotel.
A most orderly bar: the glasses there; the bright-coloured bottles: two or three casks of Bourbon whisky; the counter; the very dice on the counter with which the bar-keeper used to "go" the miners for drinks. How things at once so necessary to civilised life and so portable as dice were left behind, it is impossible to explain.
Everything was there except the drink. The greasers tried the casks and examined the bottles. Emptiness. A miner may leave behind him the impedimenta, but the real necessaries of life – rifle, revolver, bowie, and cards – he takes with him. And as for the drink, he carries that away too for greater safety, inside himself.
The English servant looked round him and smiled superior.
"No tap for beer, as usual, sir," he said. "These poor Californians has much to learn."
Mr. Gilead P. Beck looked round mournfully.
"Everything gone but the fixin's," he sighed. "There used to be good beds, where there wasn't more'n two at once in them; and there used to be such a crowd around this bar as you would not find nearer'n St. Louis City."
"Hush!" said Jack, holding up his hand. There were steps.
Mr. Beck pricked up his ears.
"Chinamen, likely. If there's a row, gentlemen, give me something, if it's only a toothpick, to chime in with. But that's not a Chinese step; that's an Englishman's. He wears boots, but they are not miner's boots; he walks firm and slow, like all Englishmen; he is not in a hurry, like our folk. And who but an Englishman would be found staying behind in the Empire City when it's gone to pot?"
The footsteps came down the stairs.
"Most unhandsome of a ghost," said the younger man, "to walk before midnight."
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