Essential Western Novels - Volume 3. Edgar Rice Burroughs

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СКАЧАТЬ Another "lady", at the hint that a gridiron might be used instead of the frying-pan for the venison, seeing an army officer present, remarked, "If you can't eat what we eat, you can go without. Don't see the use of troops anyhow. We pay for you. Understand Sitting Bull is going to Canada to fight Fenians. He will find somebody to fight there—never did here!" As the woman was paid five times the worth of her victuals, and as she, her "par" and her "mar" could not have remained twelve hours in their cabin had the military post near by been withdrawn, her sarcasms were a little ill-considered. These much-isolated people look upon themselves as Nature's aristocracy. Perhaps if Robinson Crusoe were a king, they might be feudal barons. Their social standing is sustained only by lack of neighbors. But on their own dunghill they have none to overcrow them.

      The occasional traveller who may have been told that there were ranches on his trail, and that he need not take tents or camp equipage for cooking, will, if he be new to these people, or have regard for his digestion, find to his disgust that during his stay he is a vassal at the castle of Giant Despair. He is alluded to by his host as a "tender-foot,"—a word which is supposed to sum up everything that is contemptible. He may have scaled Alps or marched with armies, but a "tender-foot" he will be in the estimation of his host, until he may be forced by circumstances to live a hundred miles further out than any one else, or unless he learns to carry food to his mouth with his knife. On the other hand, the only term of opprobrium which can be felt by these people is that of "Missourian." Why this should be so construed it is difficult to say; but the name seems to imply all that is worthless and disagreeable. Settlers from Virginia and from Georgia are sure on first acquaintance to inform you of their place of nativity with a pride which assumes that to have been born there furnishes them with blue blood; but the Missourian only mentions the last place he tarried at on his journey to "the setting sun" as the spot he hails from. Some of these good people, particularly those who left Missouri during the war, seem to forget that fifteen years have passed since that conflict ended. Their isolation has given them plenty of time and opportunity to brood over the wrongs of the South, with none to assuage their wrath; and they are still as bitter against "abolitionists" and "Lincoln's hirelings" as in the days when such things were.

      The miners and prospectors are a much more agreeable class. Their summer is passed amid wild scenery and in a country abounding in game, in pursuit of a fortune which may possibly be attained by one among a hundred. These men find a fascination in their way of life, and, though in the main unsuccessful, continue it as long as health and age permit. They pass their winter in some town where they earn enough to purchase an outfit, namely, gunpowder, coffee, flour, sugar, and bacon sufficient for the summer's campaign, and a jack, as the donkey is called, to carry the pack. Selecting a spot for their centre of operations, a small shanty is soon built, and the summer passes with much climbing, and much breaking of rock that suggests wealth, while they keep a keen eye for game and preserve a romantic belief in the speedy finding of a fortune. Such men cordially welcome the tourist, and gladly share whatever they have with him, excepting blankets, which every man is expected to carry for himself. They beguile his evening by relating quaint experiences, and hint solemnly of a spot where wealth beyond description can be found. They usually work in couples, each calling the other "pard"; and very faithful each pard is to his fellow, becoming only more attached in case of sickness or disaster. They are, as a rule, an honest and manly race, leading a life which brings out many good qualities, especially hospitality, and, in injury or illness, even of a stranger, care, kindness, and tenderness. There is no monotony in their career. Each day brings its incidents, greater or less, and is cheered by the belief that the bonanza is near at hand. Geographical distances are nothing to them. Fear they have none. It is a common sight to see a couple of "pards" on foot, driving the two jacks which carry all their worldly possessions, trudging through an Indian country, and informing you, perhaps, in answer to your inquiry, that they have come from the San Juan country in Southern Colorado, and are bound for the Bear Paw Mountains in Northern Montana, as they have heard that gold can be panned there. Many of them have paced the line of the Rocky Mountains as far as they lie within the limits of the United States.

      In gold-washings, towns spring up as rapidly as Leadville has done, but the washings being simply on the surface and soon exhausted, the population migrates to other points. The once populous town of Georgia, in the Middle Park in Colorado, which was built by gold-washers, is still standing, with its Town Hall, two theatres, and streets of log-houses, and is now without a solitary inhabitant. Of course its Town Hall and theatres were of very simple wooden construction, but they were once really used for the purposes their names imply.

      In a new town which is brevetted a "city" as soon as there is more than one house, the rumseller follows hard on the footsteps of the settler; then comes the lawyer, who immediately runs as candidate for county offices, foments grievances, and shows each man how he can get the better of his neighbor. If there be a military post near by, the officers are good game for him, they being pecuniarily responsible, and obliged to obey the laws, which seem to be so construed as to enable a sheriff to arrest a whole column of troops even if setting out on a campaign. The lawyer's process of getting money out of the military officers is easy and very simple. A practitioner secures a witness who will depose to anything, perjury being looked on more as a joke than as a crime, and so never punished. The action or suit may be for pretty much anything; it was, in one case, for the alleged illegal detention of an animal which the learned judge described as a "Rhone ox," further stating that such detention was a "poenel" offence. But the unfortunate officer who obeys the summons, however ridiculous may be the cause of action, must employ one of the horde of lawyers to defend him, so that, whichever way the suit may be decided, he at least is compelled to contribute something to the support of the frontier bar. In the Territories justice is enforced when the United States judge of the district comes on his circuit, but there is no redress or compensation for the worry and expense of litigation. If damages could be given against the concocter of the conspiracy, it would be difficult to find any property to satisfy the claim, and a hint of punishment would only cause him to remove to some other place. The army officer on the frontier has a soldier's dread of legal complications, and may be made thoroughly unhappy by suits which in the East would only be laughed at. A general idea of law is taught at West Point, but not more than one third of the commissions are held by graduates of the Military Academy, and these graduates find their general knowledge of law speedily growing rusty, while it never included the minute details of the kind of suits to which they are subjected by frontier pettifoggers. With fewer opportunities than the business man at the East of knowing the nature of court practice, they fall victims to any attorney who brazenly begins a prosecution founded on his own familiarity with legal tricks and the assumed wrongs of his client. Nothing, for example, is more common than for ranches to be damaged and hay or grain burned through the carelessness of emigrants, hunters, or other people who have camped near by, and on breaking camp have left the camp-fire to take care of itself: a wind springing up fans the embers into sparks, and these set fire to the dry grass. Now, although troops on the march are by strict orders compelled, on breaking camp, to extinguish their fires with water or by covering them with earth, the ranchman who can show a burned fence or scorched barn (knowing that during the term of his natural life he might sue anybody else but an army officer any number of times without ever actually recovering damages) immediately finds out what military command has been within some miles of his ranch during some days or weeks before the fire, and straightway goes to a lawyer and swears that the fire was set by the troops. He brings eager witnesses to show that the fire travelled just the requisite number of miles in the requisite number of days, and that the barn or house, if burnt up, was magnificent in all its appointments and of palatial proportions. Suit is begun before the nearest judge for real, imaginary, or consequential damages against the officer in command of the accused troops. This officer may know the charge to be trumped up, but he is liable to be arrested and to have his property attached; and thus he is subjected to such worry as will usually induce him to submit to the most unjust drafts on his slender purse. If the writer has dwelt at length on this feature of frontier life, it is because the abuse is keenly felt by army officers, and yet is hardly suspected at the East.

      It is a common mistake to suppose that an army officer on the frontier leads an idle life. Rarely is more than one of the three officers of a company present with it, and this СКАЧАТЬ