All day and all night he used to play
at faro an' a heap o' other games. Nobody couldn't tell how
he made his money hold out, nor whar he got it from; but
sartin sure the crowd reckoned as haow Jim was considerable
of a loafer. One day a blacksmith as lives up Broad Street,
said he found out the way he done it, and ast me to come with
him and show up Jim for cheatin'. Naow, whether it was as
Jim suspicioned the blacksmith I cain't say, but he didn't
cheat, and lost his money in consequence. This riled him
bad, so wantin' to get quit of the blacksmith he began a
quarrel. The blacksmith was a quick-tempered man, and after
some language struck Jim in the mouth. Jim jumps up, and
whippin' out his revolver, shoots the t'other man dead on the
spot. I was the first to lay hold on him, but ef it hadn't
'a' been for me they'd 'a' torn him to pieces.
'"Send for Judge Parker," says some.
'"Let's try him here," says others.
'"I don't want to be tried at all," says Jim. "You all know
bloody well as I shot the man. And I knows bloody well as
I'll hev to swing for it. Gi' me till daylight, and I'll die
like a man."
'But we wasn't going to hang him without a proper trial; and
as the trial lasted two hours, it - '
'Two hours! What did you want two hours for?'
'There was some as wanted to lynch him, and some as wanted
him tried by the reg'lar judges of the Crim'nal Court. One
of the best speakers said lynch-law was no law at all, and no
innocent man's life was safe with it. So there was a lot of
speakin', you bet. By the time it was over it was just
daylight, and the majority voted as he should die at onc't.
So they took him to the horse-market, and stood him on a
table under the big elm. I kep' by his side, and when he was
getting on the table he ast me to lend him my revolver to
shoot the foreman of the jury. When I wouldn't, he ast me to
tie the knot so as it wouldn't slip. "It ain't no account,
Jim," says I, "to talk like that. You're bound to die; and
ef they didn't hang yer I'd shoot yer myself."
'"Well then," says he, "gi' me hold of the rope, and I'll
show you how little I keer for death." He snatches the cord
out o' my hands, pulls hisself out o' reach o' the crowd, and
sat cross-legged on the bough. Half a dozen shooters was
raised to fetch him down, but he tied a noose in the rope,
put it round his neck, slipped it puty tight, and stood up on
the bough and made 'em a speech. What he mostly said was as
he hated 'em all. He cussed the man he shot, then he cussed
the world, then he cussed hisself, and with a terr'ble oath
he jumped off the bough, and swung back'ards and for'ards
with his neck broke.'
'An Englishman,' I reflected aloud.
He nodded. 'You're a Britisher, I reckon, ain't yer?'
'Yes; why?'
'Wal, you've a puty strong accent.'
'Think so?'
'Wal, I could jest tie a knot in it.'
This is a vulgar and repulsive story. But it is not fiction;
and any picture of Californian life in 1850, without some
such faithful touch of its local colour, would be inadequate
and misleading.
CHAPTER XXXII
A STEAMER took us down to Acapulco. It is probably a
thriving port now. When we were there, a few native huts and
two or three stone buildings at the edge of the jungle
constituted the 'town.' We bought some horses, and hired two
men - a Mexican and a Yankee - for our ride to the city of
Mexico. There was at that time nothing but a mule-track, and
no public conveyance of any kind. Nothing could exceed the
beauty of the scenery. Within 160 miles, as the crow flies,
one rises up to the city of Mexico some 12,000 feet, with
Popocatepetl overhanging it 17,500 feet high. In this short
space one passes from intense tropical heat and vegetation to
pines and laurels and the proximity of perpetual snows. The
path in places winds along the brink of precipitous
declivities, from the top of which one sees the climatic
gradations blending one into another. So narrow are some of
the mountain paths that a mule laden with ore has often one
panier overhanging the valley a thousand feet below it.
Constantly in the long trains of animals descending to the
coast, a slip of the foot or a charge from behind, for they
all come down the steep track with a jolting shuffle, sends
mule and its load over the ledge. We found it very difficult
in places to get out of the way in time to let the trains
pass. Flocks of parrots and great macaws screeching and
flying about added to the novelty of the scene.
The villages, inhabited by a cross between the original
Indians and the Spaniards, are about twenty miles apart. At
one of these we always stayed for the night, sleeping in
grass hammocks suspended between the posts of the verandah.
The only travellers we fell in with were a party of four
Americans, returning to the Eastern States from California
with the gold they had won there. They had come in our
steamer to Acapulco, and had left it a few hours before we
did. As the villages were so far apart we necessarily had to
stop at night in the same one.
