It was a vast silence of pines, redolent with balsamic breath, and
muffled with the dry dust of dead bark and matted mosses. Lying on our
backs, we looked upward through a hundred feet of clear, unbroken
interval to the first lateral branches that formed the flat canopy
above us. Here and there the fierce sun, from whose active persecution
we had just escaped, searched for us through the woods, but its keen
blade was dulled and turned aside by intercostal boughs, and its
brightness dissipated in nebulous mists throughout the roofing of the
dim, brown aisles around us. We were in another atmosphere, under
another sky; indeed, in another world than the dazzling one we had just
quitted. The grave silence seemed so much a part of the grateful
coolness, that we hesitated to speak, and for some moments lay quietly
outstretched on the pine tassels where we had first thrown ourselves.
Finally, a voice broke the silence:—
"Ask the old Major; he knows all about it!"
The person here alluded to under that military title was myself. I
hardly need explain to any Californian that it by no means followed
that I was a "Major," or that I was "old," or that I knew anything
about "it," or indeed what "it" referred to. The whole remark was
merely one of the usual conventional feelers to conversation,—a kind
of social preamble, quite common to our slangy camp intercourse.
Nevertheless, as I was always known as the Major, perhaps for no better
reason than that the speaker, an old journalist, was always called
Doctor, I recognized the fact so far as to kick aside an intervening
saddle, so that I could see the speaker's face on a level with my own,
and said nothing.
"About ghosts!" said the Doctor, after a pause, which nobody broke or
was expected to break. "Ghosts, sir! That's what we want to know.
What are we doing here in this blanked old mausoleum of Calaveras
County, if it isn't to find out something about 'em, eh?"
Nobody replied.
"Thar's that haunted house at Cave City. Can't be more than a mile or
two away, anyhow. Used to be just off the trail."
A dead silence.
The Doctor (addressing space generally) "Yes, sir; it WAS a mighty
queer story."
Still the same reposeful indifference. We all knew the Doctor's skill
as a raconteur; we all knew that a story was coming, and we all knew
that any interruption would be fatal. Time and time again, in our
prospecting experience, had a word of polite encouragement, a rash
expression of interest, even a too eager attitude of silent expectancy,
brought the Doctor to a sudden change of subject. Time and time again
have we seen the unwary stranger stand amazed and bewildered between
our own indifference and the sudden termination of a promising
anecdote, through his own unlucky interference. So we said nothing.
"The Judge"—another instance of arbitrary nomenclature—pretended to
sleep. Jack began to twist a cigarrito. Thornton bit off the ends of
pine needles reflectively.
"Yes, sir," continued the Doctor, coolly resting the back of his head
on the palms of his hands, "it WAS rather curious. All except the
murder. THAT'S what gets me, for the murder had no new points, no
fancy touches, no sentiment, no mystery. Was just one of the old
style, 'sub-head' paragraphs. Old-fashioned miner scrubs along on
hardtack and beans, and saves up a little money to go home and see
relations. Old-fashioned assassin sharpens up knife, old style; loads
old flint-lock, brass-mounted pistol; walks in on old-fashioned miner
one dark night, sends him home to his relations away back to several
generations, and walks off with the swag. No mystery THERE; nothing to
clear up; subsequent revelations only impertinence. Nothing for any
ghost to do—who meant business. More than that, over forty murders,
same old kind, committed every year in Calaveras, and no spiritual post
obits coming due every anniversary; no assessments made on the peace
and quiet of the surviving community. I tell you what, boys, I've
always been inclined to throw off on the Cave City ghost for that
alone. It's a bad precedent, sir. If that kind o' thing is going to
obtain in the foot-hills, we'll have the trails full of chaps formerly
knocked over by Mexicans and road agents; every little camp and grocery
will have stock enough on hand to go into business, and where's there
any security for surviving life and property, eh? What's your opinion,
Judge, as a fair-minded legislator?"
Of course there was no response. Yet it was part of the Doctor's
system of aggravation to become discursive at these moments, in the
hope of interruption, and he continued for some moments to dwell on the
terrible possibility of a state of affairs in which a gentleman could
no longer settle a dispute with an enemy without being subjected to
succeeding spiritual embarrassment. But all this digression fell upon
apparently inattentive ears.
"Well, sir, after the murder, the cabin stood for a long time deserted
and tenantless. Popular opinion was against it. One day a ragged
prospector, savage with hard labor and harder luck, came to the camp,
looking for a place to live and a chance to prospect. After the boys
had taken his measure, they concluded that he'd already tackled so much
in the way of difficulties that a ghost more or less wouldn't be of
much account. So they sent him to the haunted cabin. He had a big
yellow dog with him, about as ugly and as savage as himself; and the
boys sort o' congratulated themselves, from a practical view-point,
that while they were giving the old ruffian a shelter, they were
helping in the cause of Christianity against ghosts and goblins. They
had little faith in the old man, but went their whole pile on that dog.
That's where they were mistaken.
"The house stood almost three hundred feet from the nearest cave, and
on dark nights, being in a hollow, was as lonely as if it had been on
the top of Shasta. If you ever saw the spot when there was just moon
enough to bring out the little surrounding clumps of chapparal until
they looked like crouching figures, and make the bits of broken quartz
glisten like skulls, you'd begin to understand how big a contract that
man and that yellow dog undertook.
"They went into possession that afternoon, and old Hard Times set out
to cook his supper. When it was over he sat down by the embers and lit
his pipe, the yellow dog lying at his feet. Suddenly 'Rap! rap!' comes
from the door. 'Come in,' says the man, gruffly. 'Rap!' again. 'Come
in and be d—d to you,' says the man, who has no idea of getting up to
open the door. But no one responded, and the next moment smash goes
the only sound pane in the only window. Seeing this, old Hard Times
gets up, with the devil in his eye, and a revolver in his hand,
followed by the yellow dog, with every tooth showing, and swings open
the door. No one there! But as the man opened the door, that yellow
dog, that had been so chipper before, suddenly begins to crouch and
step backward, step by step, trembling and shivering, and at last
crouches down in the chimney, without even so much as looking at his
master. The man slams the door shut again, but there comes another
smash.
"This time it seems to come from inside the cabin, and it isn't until
the man looks around and sees everything quiet that he gets up, without
speaking, and makes a dash for the door, and tears round outside the
cabin like mad, but finds nothing but silence and darkness. Then he
comes back swearing and calls the dog. But that great yellow dog that
the boys would have staked all their money on is crouching under the
bunk, and has to be dragged out like a coon from a hollow tree, and
lies there, his eyes starting from their sockets; every limb and muscle
quivering with fear, and his very hair drawn up in bristling ridges.
The man calls him to the door. He drags himself a few steps, stops,
sniffs, and refuses to go further. The man calls him again, with an
oath and a threat. Then, what does that yellow dog do? He crawls
edgewise towards the door, crouching himself against the bunk till he's
flatter than a knife blade; then, half way, he stops. Then that d—d
yellow dog begins to walk gingerly—lifting each foot up in the air,
one after the other, still trembling in every limb. Then he stops
again. Then he crouches. Then he gives one little shuddering leap—not
straight forward, but up,—clearing the floor about six inches, as if—"
"Over something," interrupted the Judge, hastily, lifting himself on
his elbow.
The Doctor stopped instantly. "Juan," he said coolly, to one of the
Mexican packers, "quit foolin' with that riata. You'll have that stake
out and that mule loose in another minute. Come over this way!"
The Mexican turned a scared, white face to the Doctor, muttering
something, and let go the deer-skin hide. We all up-raised our voices
with one accord, the Judge most penitently and apologetically, and
implored the Doctor to go on. "I'll shoot the first man who interrupts
you again," added Thornton; persuasively.
But the Doctor, with his hands languidly under his head, had lost his
interest. "Well, the dog ran off to the hills, and neither the threats
nor cajoleries of his master could ever make him enter the cabin again.
The next day the man left the camp. What time is it? Getting on to
sundown, ain't it? Keep off my leg, will you, you d—d Greaser, and
stop stumbling round there! Lie down."
But we knew that the Doctor had not completely finished his story, and
we waited patiently for the conclusion. Meanwhile the old, gray
silence of the woods again asserted itself, but shadows were now
beginning to gather in the heavy beams of the roof above, and the dim
aisles seemed to be narrowing and closing in around us. Presently the
Doctor recommenced lazily, as if no interruption had occurred.
"As I said before, I never put much faith in that story, and shouldn't
have told it, but for a rather curious experience of my own. It was in
the spring of '62, and I was one of a party of four, coming up from
O'Neill's, when we had been snowed up. It was awful weather; the snow
had changed to sleet and rain after we crossed the divide, and the
water was out everywhere; every ditch was a creek, every creek a river.
We had lost two horses on the North Fork, we were dead beat, off the
trail, and sloshing round, with night coming on, and the level hail
like shot in our faces. Things were looking bleak and scary when,
riding a little ahead of the party, I saw a light twinkling in a hollow
beyond. My horse was still fresh, and calling out to the boys to
follow me and bear for the light, I struck out for it. In another
moment I was before a little cabin that half burrowed in the black
chapparal; I dismounted and rapped at the door. There was no response.
I then tried to force the door, but it was fastened securely from
within. I was all the more surprised when one of the boys, who had
overtaken me, told me that he had just seen through a window a man
reading by the fire. Indignant at this inhospitality, we both made a
resolute onset against the door, at the same time raising our angry
voices to a yell. Suddenly there was a quick response, the hurried
withdrawing of a bolt, and the door opened.
"The occupant was a short, thick-set man, with a pale, careworn face,
whose prevailing expression was one of gentle good humor and patient
suffering. When we entered, he asked us hastily why we had not 'sung
out' before.
"'But we KNOCKED!' I said, impatiently, 'and almost drove your door in.'
"'That's nothing,' he said, patiently. 'I'm used to THAT.'
"I looked again at the man's patient, fateful face, and then around the
cabin. In an instant the whole situation flashed before me. 'Are we
not near Cave City?' I asked.
"'Yes,' he replied, 'it's just below. You must have passed it in the
storm.'
"'I see.' I again looked around the cabin. 'Isn't this what they call
the haunted house?'
"He looked at me curiously. 'It is,' he said, simply.
"You can imagine my delight! Here was an opportunity to test the whole
story, to work down to the bed rock, and see how it would pan out! We
were too many and too well armed to fear tricks or dangers from
outsiders. If—as one theory had been held—the disturbance was kept
up by a band of concealed marauders or road agents, whose purpose was
to preserve their haunts from intrusion, we were quite able to pay them
back in kind for any assault. I need not say that the boys were
delighted with this prospect when the fact was revealed to them. The
only one doubtful or apathetic spirit there was our host, who quietly
resumed his seat and his book, with his old expression of patient
martyrdom. It would have been easy for me to have drawn him out, but I
felt that I did not want to corroborate anybody else's experience; only
to record my own. And I thought it better to keep the boys from any
predisposing terrors.
"We ate our supper, and then sat, patiently and expectant, around the
fire. An hour slipped away, but no disturbance; another hour passed as
monotonously. Our host read his book; only the dash of hail against
the roof broke the silence. But—"
The Doctor stopped. Since the last interruption, I noticed he had
changed the easy slangy style of his story to a more perfect, artistic,
and even studied manner. He dropped now suddenly into his old
colloquial speech, and quietly said: "If you don't quit stumbling over
those riatas, Juan, I'll hobble YOU. Come here, there; lie down, will
you?"
We all turned fiercely on the cause of this second dangerous
interruption, but a sight of the poor fellow's pale and frightened face
withheld our vindictive tongues. And the Doctor, happily, of his own
accord, went on:—
"But I had forgotten that it was no easy matter to keep these
high-spirited boys, bent on a row, in decent subjection; and after the
third hour passed without a supernatural exhibition, I observed, from
certain winks and whispers, that they were determined to get up
indications of their own. In a few moments violent rappings were heard
from all parts of the cabin; large stones (adroitly thrown up the
chimney) fell with a heavy thud on the roof. Strange groans and
ominous yells seemed to come from the outside (where the interstices
between the logs were wide enough). Yet, through all this uproar, our
host sat still and patient, with no sign of indignation or reproach
upon his good-humored but haggard features. Before long it became
evident that this exhibition was exclusively for HIS benefit. Under
the thin disguise of asking him to assist them in discovering the
disturbers OUTSIDE the cabin, those inside took advantage of his
absence to turn the cabin topsy-turvy.
"'You see what the spirits have done, old man,' said the arch leader of
this mischief. 'They've upset that there flour barrel while we wasn't
looking, and then kicked over the water jug and spilled all the water!'
"The patient man lifted his head and looked at the flour-strewn walls.
Then he glanced down at the floor, but drew back with a slight tremor.
"'It ain't water!' he said, quietly.
"'What is it, then?'
"'It's BLOOD! Look!'
"The nearest man gave a sudden start and sank back white as a sheet.
"For there, gentlemen, on the floor, just before the door, where the
old man had seen the dog hesitate and lift his feet, there!
there!—gentlemen—upon my honor, slowly widened and broadened a dark
red pool of human blood! Stop him! Quick! Stop him, I say!"
There was a blinding flash that lit up the dark woods, and a sharp
report! When we reached the Doctor's side he was holding the smoking
pistol, just discharged, in one hand, while with the other he was
pointing to the rapidly disappearing figure of Juan, our Mexican
vaquero!
"Missed him! by G-d!" said the Doctor. "But did you hear him? Did you
see his livid face as he rose up at the name of blood? Did you see his
guilty conscience in his face. Eh? Why don't you speak? What are you
staring at?"
"Was it the murdered man's ghost, Doctor?" we all panted in one quick
breath.
"Ghost be d—d! No! But in that Mexican vaquero—that cursed Juan
Ramirez!—I saw and shot at his murderer!"
