The Trail of '98. Robert W. Service

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СКАЧАТЬ returned to the paternal roof, weary of my rôle. The fatted calf awaited me. Nevertheless, I am sick again for the unhallowed swine-husks. Meet me in 'Frisco about the end of February, and I will a glorious proposition unfold. Don't fail. I must have a partner and I want you. Look for a letter in the General Delivery."

      There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained friendless and unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had learned something.

      The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so easy to drift!

      I was sick of the whole business.

CHAPTER X

       Table of Contents

      What with steamer fare and a few small debts to settle, I found when I landed in San Francisco that once more I was flatly broke. I was arrestively seedy, literally on my uppers, for owing to my long tramp my boots were barely holding together. There was no letter for me, and perhaps it was on account of my disappointment, perhaps on account of my extreme shabbiness, but I found I had quite lost heart. Looking as I did, I would not ask any one for work. So I tightened my belt and sat in Portsmouth Square, cursing myself for the many nickels I had squandered in riotous living.

      Two days later I was still drawing in my belt. All I had eaten was one meal, which I had earned by peeling half a sack of potatoes for a restaurant. I slept beneath the floor of an empty house out the Presidio way.

      On this day I was drowsing on my bench when some one addressed me.

      "Say, young fellow, you look pretty well used up."

      I saw an elderly, grey-haired man.

      "Oh no!" I said, "I'm not. That's just my acting. I'm a millionaire in disguise, studying sociology."

      He came and sat by me.

      "Come, buck up, kid, you're pretty near down and out. I've been studyin' you them two days."

      "Two days," I echoed drearily. "It seems like two years." Then, with sudden fierceness:

      "Sir, I am a stranger to you. Never in my life before have I tried to borrow money. It is asking a great deal of you to trust me, but it will be a most Christian act. I am starving. If you have ten cents that isn't working lend it to me for the love of God. I'll pay you back if it takes me ten years."

      "All right, son," he said cheerfully; "let's go and feed."

      He took me to a restaurant where he ordered a dinner that made my head swim. I felt near to fainting, but after I had had some brandy, I was able to go on with the business of eating. By the time I got to the coffee I was as much excited by the food as if I had been drinking wine. I now took an opportunity to regard my benefactor.

      He was rather under medium height, but so square and solid you felt he was a man to be reckoned with. His skin was as brown as an Indian's, his eyes light-blue and brightly cheerful, as from some inner light. His mouth was firm and his chin resolute. Altogether his face was a curious blend of benevolence and ruthless determination.

      Now he was regarding me in a manner entirely benevolent.

      "Feel better, son? Well, go ahead an' tell me as much of your story as you want to."

      I gave an account of all that had happened to me since I had set foot on the new land.

      "Huh!" he ejaculated when I had finished. "That's the worst of your old-country boys. You haven't got the get-up an' nerve to rustle a job. You go to a boss an' tell him: 'You've no experience, but you'll do your best.' An American boy says: 'I can do anything. Give me the job an' I'll just show you.' Who's goin' to be hired? Well, I think I can get you a job helpin' a gardener out Alameda way."

      I expressed my gratitude.

      "That's all right," he said; "I'm glad by the grace of God I've been the means of givin' you a hand-up. Better come to my room an' stop with me till somethin' turns up. I'm goin' North in three days."

      I asked if he was going to the Yukon.

      "Yes, I'm goin' to join this crazy rush to the Klondike. I've been minin' for twenty years, Arizona, Colorado, all over, an' now I am a-goin' to see if the North hasn't got a stake for me."

      Up in his room he told me of his life.

      "I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been everything from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for two years, thinking to get my pass to Hell at any moment."

      "Ever killed any one?" I queried.

      He was beginning to pace up and down the room.

      "Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot. … There was a time when I could draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there was lots that could give me cards and spades. Quiet men, too, you would never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was the worst. Meek, friendly, decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they didn't know Fear, an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know lots of them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land, would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like them—but Lord be praised, I'm a saved man."

      I was deeply interested.

      "I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the evil of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard, known as 'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation. Once I used to gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the card-table after sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand dollars. I knew they'd handed me out 'cold turkey,' but I took my medicine.

      "Right then I said I'd be a crook too. I learned to play with marked cards. I could tell every card in the deck. I ran a stud-poker game, with a Jap an' a Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white men, an' less likely to lose their nerve. It was easy money, like taking candy from a kid. Often I would play on the square. No man can bluff strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a quiver of the eyelash, maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a month till I found the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him till the sweat pricked through his brow. He was my meat. I went after the men that robbed me, an' I went one better. Here, shuffle this deck."

      He produced a pack of cards from a drawer.

      "I'll never go back to the old trade. I'm saved. I trust in God, but just for diversion I keep my hand in."

      Talking to me, he shuffled the pack a few times.

      "Here, I'm dealing; what do you want? Three kings?"

      I nodded.

      He СКАЧАТЬ