The San Francisco call., 1895-07-28

and so the game was unusually steep, pro-
longed and absorbing. Besides that there
was a sensation. A half-drowned China
man, one of six who had suddenly disap-
peared few days before, taking one of
their number in haDdcart, fast on his
they said, has returned. True, they had
not called in doctor" with his earth
and other simple remedies, but they
had taken pains to tell everybody
that they were in great haste to
get the dying man, who had been
crushed in landslide, out of the noun
tains before he died. The stage driver had
party near Shasta City they had a yellow
flag displayed above the cart, indicating
smallpox.
Well. the story now was that the hand
cart had held the biggest nugget in it that
had ever seen the light of day in Califor-
MIA, besides lot of other and smaller
nuggets, all taken the week before from
China Camp Greek, near town. The half
drowned Chinaman had begged his way
back from where he had scrambled out
from the overturned canoe in the Sacra-
mento River, leaving his dead com panions,
and now was compelled to tell the truth
to the magistrate in the hope of getting
back his abandoned claim and cabin;
hopeless hope.
place next morning at about daylight,
when the great poker game was at high
water mark.
The lost Frenchman, the man who once
had three tombstones when he was not
entitled to even so much as one, walked In,
sat down in corner with shotgun on
his lap and waited, but waited not long, to
see that crowd melt into thin air.
Jones had long since gone far, far away;
had become Senator, great and greatly
honored United States Senator. Colonel
Short was a man of resources, when not
blinded by the little blind boy in his pure
platonic love.
He did not wait to see the crowd go. He
set virtuous example, and was first to
leave He had business at his store. Later,
as the gray dawn came, the late widow saw
| that he was burning at least two candles,
and, maybe. many letters.
The stage left at sunrise each morning.
A mile from Trinity Center, in the midst
of a cloud of dust, the horses were thrown
hack on their launches and man clam
bered up without a word and took his
place with the driver.
Certainly Senator Jones would give his
old ''pardh of poker and Trinity great
place. The country needed him abroad,
and abroad he needed the country.
Did you ever know man to go to Jones
and get the promise of place? or, rather,
did you ever know man who didn't go to
Jones and get the promise of placer
One year two years, five years, ten, fif
teen. Short grew short in every sense.
Possibly he was as tall as ever, but he
seemed only about half his usual height
and twice his usual thickness. He had
thought he could play poker. 1t cost him
much to find out that he did not know the
first thing about that delusive chimera.
He had believed he knew little bit about
ha
knew less even about politics than about
poker.
At last, grown desperate by disappoint-
ments, he made open quarrel and protest
with Jones. Jones blandly referred him
to the Civil Service examination commit
tee.
"Me mel He'll and blazesl Did Bay
ard have to put up with that Civil Service
examination2"
At last, word came that the ubiquitous
Frenchman had kindly laid aside his shot
gun and consented, so far as he could con-
sent, to let the tombstone still standing in
the garden, with some alterations of dates,
record his many and manly virtues.
"Jones is not bad man, except that he
is such a dreadful liar about Offices" said
the retiring colonel at the Palace, as he
drew out the little check from Washing
ton letter with the Senator's name at
tached. "Yes, boys" he cried to some old
cronies, "back-goin' for old Trinity. By
George, ] can see the stately old sugar
pines nodding their plumes to welcome
me. can see the rabbits dancing in the
dusty road as the partridge whistles at
sundown from the chaparral bill for him
to dance. / can see the large-eyed, timid
deer step daintily out in the dusty stage
road and look up and down, and then pass
across unharmed. / can hear the rustic
of the COOL sweet waters over the cobble-
stones and sands of gold; and / am going
to get gold, gold, gold as of old. Come
along with me, boys Why, bless me! it
used to cost month to get there, and all
sorts of trial and privation, while now we
can go in no time, live on nothing and be
like lords as of old. Same skies, same
mountains, same rivers, same sweet air
and spicy smell of wood and carpet of
pine quills. Glad I didn't get a place
after all. We will open the old China
Camp Creek with grand sluice! We
will-goodnesssl what will we not do?"
And so the little fat Colonel Short pulled
together few of his old companions.
They, too, thought the mines of old Trinity
still the sweetest, healthiest, happiest,
dearest place on EARTH and so had only
wanted leader and some one to put up
stake
And what a happy, hilarious old party it
was that trundled out of Redding in the
old stage drawn by the six dusty old
horses!
Let who will rebuke the obese and short
old man with his short memory and all
other sorts of shorts. He was a pure and
clean old fellow from the first, entirely
platonic in his love, for his heart was in
his stomach, as with many another man,
and the widow knew it. And all those old
fellows, now his following knew that his
love for the rotund little old woman, now
so old and fat you could scarcely see her
little black eyes, was from the first en-
tirely chivalrous and platonic, else they
had not been at his side. Let US rather
honor his loyalty to the old love, the old
mountains, rivers, pines and all that makes
old Trinity a paradise.
She was fixing things up as the stage
was nearing Trinity. The marble tables2
She had not only rhe two from the shed,
but the one from the garden. God bless
herl for it had fallen down soon after they
had dug the new grave by it.
They chatted of the widow and her
waste of tom mbstones. The merriest stage
full and stagetopful of old boys that the
world ever saw or heard of. Old heads,
hatless hairless, bobbed in and out and
about each window and blossomed on the
top as thick as they could stick, while hats
swung in the air and the old fellows
vowed with one voice to live and die in
dear old Trinity, tombstones or no tomb