SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE’S(在伊格斯的雪团)

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SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

SNOW-BOUND AT

EAGLE'S

by Bret Harte

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

CHAPTER I

For some moments profound silence and darkness had accompanied a

Sierran stage-coach towards the summit. The huge, dim bulk of the

vehicle, swaying noiselessly on its straps, glided onward and upward as if

obeying some mysterious impulse from behind, so faint and indefinite

appeared its relation to the viewless and silent horses ahead. The

shadowy trunks of tall trees that seemed to approach the coach windows,

look in, and then move hurriedly away, were the only distinguishable

objects. Yet even these were so vague and unreal that they might have

been the mere phantoms of some dream of the half-sleeping passengers;

for the thickly-strewn needles of the pine, that choked the way and

deadened all sound, yielded under the silently-crushing wheels a faint

soporific odor that seemed to benumb their senses, already slipping back

into unconsciousness during the long ascent. Suddenly the stage stopped.

Three of the four passengers inside struggled at once into upright

wakefulness. The fourth passenger, John Hale, had not been sleeping,

and turned impatiently towards the window. It seemed to him that two of

the moving trees had suddenly become motionless outside. One of them

moved again, and the door opened quickly but quietly, as of itself.

"Git down," said a voice in the darkness.

All the passengers except Hale started. The man next to him moved

his right hand suddenly behind him, but as quickly stopped. One of the

motionless trees had apparently closed upon the vehicle, and what had

seemed to be a bough projecting from it at right angles changed slowly

into the faintly shining double-barrels of a gun at the window.

"Drop that!" said the voice.

The man who had moved uttered a short laugh, and returned his hand

empty to his knees. The two others perceptibly shrugged their shoulders

as over a game that was lost. The remaining passenger, John Hale,

fearless by nature, inexperienced by habit, awaking suddenly to the truth,

conceived desperate resistance. But without his making a gesture this

was instinctively felt by the others; the muzzle of the gun turned

spontaneously on him, and he was vaguely conscious of a certain

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

contempt and impatience of him in his companions.

"Git down," repeated the voice imperatively.

The three passengers descended. Hale, furious, alert, but helpless of

any opportunity, followed. He was surprised to find the stage- driver and

express messenger standing beside him; he had not heard them dismount.

He instinctively looked towards the horses. He could see nothing.

"Hold up your hands!"

One of the passengers had already lifted his, in a weary, perfunctory

way. The others did the same reluctantly and awkwardly, but apparently

more from the consciousness of the ludicrousness of their attitude than

from any sense of danger. The rays of a bull's-eye lantern, deftly

managed by invisible hands, while it left the intruders in shadow,

completely illuminated the faces and figures of the passengers. In spite

of the majestic obscurity and silence of surrounding nature, the group of

humanity thus illuminated was more farcical than dramatic. A scrap of

newspaper, part of a sandwich, and an orange peel that had fallen from the

floor of the coach, brought into equal prominence by the searching light,

completed the absurdity.

"There's a man here with a package of greenbacks," said the voice,

with an official coolness that lent a certain suggestion of Custom House

inspection to the transaction; "who is it?" The passengers looked at each

other, and their glance finally settled on Hale.

"It's not HIM," continued the voice, with a slight tinge of contempt on

the emphasis. "You'll save time and searching, gentlemen, if you'll tote it

out. If we've got to go through every one of you we'll try to make it pay."

The significant threat was not unheeded. The passenger who had first

moved when the stage stopped put his hand to his breast.

"T'other pocket first, if you please," said the voice.

The man laughed, drew a pistol from his hip pocket, and, under the

strong light of the lantern, laid it on a spot in the road indicated by the

voice. A thick envelope, taken from his breast pocket, was laid beside it.

"I told the d--d fools that gave it to me, instead of sending it by express, it

would be at their own risk," he said apologetically.

"As it's going with the express now it's all the same," said the

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

inevitable humorist of the occasion, pointing to the despoiled express

treasure-box already in the road.

The intention and deliberation of the outrage was plain enough to

Hale's inexperience now. Yet he could not understand the cool

acquiescence of his fellow-passengers, and was furious. His reflections

were interrupted by a voice which seemed to come from a greater distance.

He fancied it was even softer in tone, as if a certain austerity was relaxed.

"Step in as quick as you like, gentlemen. You've five minutes to wait,

Bill."

The passengers reentered the coach; the driver and express messenger

hurriedly climbed to their places. Hale would have spoken, but an

impatient gesture from his companions stopped him. They were evidently

listening for something; he listened too.

Yet the silence remained unbroken. It seemed incredible that there

should be no indication near or far of that forceful presence which a

moment ago had been so dominant. No rustle in the wayside "brush,"

nor echo from the rocky canyon below, betrayed a sound of their flight.

A faint breeze stirred the tall tips of the pines, a cone dropped on the stage

roof, one of the invisible horses that seemed to be listening too moved

slightly in his harness. But this only appeared to accentuate the profound

stillness. The moments were growing interminable, when the voice, so

near as to startle Hale, broke once more from the surrounding obscurity.

"Good-night!"

It was the signal that they were free. The driver's whip cracked like a

pistol shot, the horses sprang furiously forward, the huge vehicle lurched

ahead, and then bounded violently after them. When Hale could make

his voice heard in the confusion--a confusion which seemed greater from

the colorless intensity of their last few moments' experience--he said

hurriedly, "Then that fellow was there all the time?"

"I reckon," returned his companion, "he stopped five minutes to cover

the driver with his double-barrel, until the two other men got off with the

treasure."

"The TWO others!" gasped Hale. "Then there were only THREE

men, and we SIX."

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

The man shrugged his shoulders. The passenger who had given up

the greenbacks drawled, with a slow, irritating tolerance, "I reckon you're

a stranger here?"

"I am--to this sort of thing, certainly, though I live a dozen miles from

here, at Eagle's Court," returned Hale scornfully.

"Then you're the chap that's doin' that fancy ranchin' over at Eagle's,"

continued the man lazily.

"Whatever I'm doing at Eagle's Court, I'm not ashamed of it," said

Hale tartly; "and that's more than I can say of what I've done--or

HAVEN'T done--to-night. I've been one of six men over-awed and

robbed by THREE."

"As to the over-awin', ez you call it--mebbee you know more about it

than us. As to the robbin'--ez far as I kin remember, YOU haven't

onloaded much. Ef you're talkin' about what OUGHTER have been done,

I'll tell you what COULD have happened. P'r'aps ye noticed that when

he pulled up I made a kind of grab for my wepping behind me?"

"I did; and you wern't quick enough," said Hale shortly.

"I wasn't quick enough, and that saved YOU. For ef I got that pistol

out and in sight o' that man that held the gun--"

"Well," said Hale impatiently, "he'd have hesitated."

"He'd hev blown YOU with both barrels outer the window, and that

before I'd got a half-cock on my revolver."

"But that would have been only one man gone, and there would have

been five of you left," said Hale haughtily.

"That might have been, ef you'd contracted to take the hull charge of

two handfuls of buck-shot and slugs; but ez one eighth o' that amount

would have done your business, and yet left enough to have gone round,

promiskiss, and satisfied the other passengers, it wouldn't do to kalkilate

upon."

"But the express messenger and the driver were armed," continued

Hale.

"They were armed, but not FIXED; that makes all the difference."

"I don't understand."

"I reckon you know what a duel is?"

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

"Yes."

"Well, the chances agin US was about the same as you'd have ef you

was put up agin another chap who was allowed to draw a bead on you, and

the signal to fire was YOUR DRAWIN' YOUR WEAPON. You may be

a stranger to this sort o' thing, and p'r'aps you never fought a duel, but

even then you wouldn't go foolin' your life away on any such chances."

Something in the man's manner, as in a certain sly amusement the

other passengers appeared to extract from the conversation, impressed

Hale, already beginning to be conscious of the ludicrous insufficiency of

his own grievance beside that of his interlocutor.

"Then you mean to say this thing is inevitable," said he bitterly, but

less aggressively.

"Ez long ez they hunt YOU; when you hunt THEM you've got the

advantage, allus provided you know how to get at them ez well as they

know how to get at you. This yer coach is bound to go regular, and on

certain days. THEY ain't. By the time the sheriff gets out his posse

they've skedaddled, and the leader, like as not, is takin' his quiet cocktail at

the Bank Exchange, or mebbe losin' his earnings to the sheriff over draw

poker, in Sacramento. You see you can't prove anything agin them unless

you take them 'on the fly.' It may be a part of Joaquim Murietta's band,

though I wouldn't swear to it."

"The leader might have been Gentleman George, from up-country,"

interposed a passenger. "He seemed to throw in a few fancy touches,

particlerly in that 'Good night.' Sorter chucked a little sentiment in it.

Didn't seem to be the same thing ez, 'Git, yer d--d suckers,' on the other

line."

"Whoever he was, he knew the road and the men who travelled on it.

Like ez not, he went over the line beside the driver on the box on the down

trip, and took stock of everything. He even knew I had those greenbacks;

though they were handed to me in the bank at Sacramento. He must have

been hanging 'round there."

For some moments Hale remained silent. He was a civic-bred man,

with an intense love of law and order; the kind of man who is the first to

take that law and order into his own hands when he does not find it

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

existing to please him. He had a Bostonian's respect for respectability,

tradition, and propriety, but was willing to face irregularity and

impropriety to create order elsewhere. He was fond of Nature with these

limitations, never quite trusting her unguided instincts, and finding her as

an instructress greatly inferior to Harvard University, though possibly not

to Cornell. With dauntless enterprise and energy he had built and stocked a

charming cottage farm in a nook in the Sierras, whence he opposed, like

the lesser Englishman that he was, his own tastes to those of the alien West.

In the present instance he felt it incumbent upon him not only to assert his

principles, but to act upon them with his usual energy. How far he was

impelled by the half-contemptuous passiveness of his companions it

would be difficult to say.

"What is to prevent the pursuit of them at once?" he asked suddenly.

"We are a few miles from the station, where horses can be procured."

"Who's to do it?" replied the other lazily. "The stage company will

lodge the complaint with the authorities, but it will take two days to get

the county officers out, and it's nobody else's funeral."

"I will go for one," said Hale quietly. "I have a horse waiting for me

at the station, and can start at once."

There was an instant of silence. The stage-coach had left the

obscurity of the forest, and by the stronger light Hale could perceive that

his companion was examining him with two colorless, lazy eyes.

Presently he said, meeting Hale's clear glance, but rather as if yielding to a

careless reflection,--

"It MIGHT be done with four men. We oughter raise one man at the

station." He paused. "I don't know ez I'd mind taking a hand myself,"

he added, stretching out his legs with a slight yawn.

"Ye can count ME in, if you're goin', Kernel. I reckon I'm talkin' to

Kernel Clinch," said the passenger beside Hale with sudden alacrity.

"I'm Rawlins, of Frisco. Heerd of ye afore, Kernel, and kinder spotted

you jist now from your talk."

To Hale's surprise the two men, after awkwardly and perfunctorily

grasping each other's hand, entered at once into a languid conversation on

the recent election at Fresno, without the slightest further reference to the

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

pursuit of the robbers. It was not until the remaining and undenominated

passenger turned to Hale, and, regretting that he had immediate business at

the Summit, offered to accompany the party if they would wait a couple of

hours, that Colonel Clinch briefly returned to the subject.

"FOUR men will do, and ez we'll hev to take horses from the station

we'll hev to take the fourth man from there."

With these words he resumed his uninteresting conversation with the

equally uninterested Rawlins, and the undenominated passenger subsided

into an admiring and dreamy contemplation of them both. With all his

principle and really high-minded purpose, Hale could not help feeling

constrained and annoyed at the sudden subordinate and auxiliary position

to which he, the projector of the enterprise, had been reduced. It was true

that he had never offered himself as their leader; it was true that the

principle he wished to uphold and the effect he sought to obtain would be

equally demonstrated under another; it was true that the execution of his

own conception gravitated by some occult impulse to the man who had not

sought it, and whom he had always regarded as an incapable. But all this

was so unlike precedent or tradition that, after the fashion of conservative

men, he was suspicious of it, and only that his honor was now involved he

would have withdrawn from the enterprise. There was still a chance of

reasserting himself at the station, where he was known, and where some

authority might be deputed to him.

But even this prospect failed. The station, half hotel and half stable,

contained only the landlord, who was also express agent, and the new

volunteer who Clinch had suggested would be found among the stable-

men. The nearest justice of the peace was ten miles away, and Hale had

to abandon even his hope of being sworn in as a deputy constable. This

introduction of a common and illiterate ostler into the party on equal terms

with himself did not add to his satisfaction, and a remark from Rawlins

seemed to complete his embarrassment.

"Ye had a mighty narrer escape down there just now," said that

gentleman confidentially, as Hale buckled his saddle girths.

"I thought, as we were not supposed to defend ourselves, there was no

danger," said Hale scornfully.

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

"Oh, I don't mean them road agents. But HIM."

"Who?"

"Kernel Clinch. You jist ez good as allowed he hadn't any grit."

"Whatever I said, I suppose I am responsible for it," answered Hale

haughtily.

"That's what gits me," was the imperturbable reply. "He's the best

shot in Southern California, and hez let daylight through a dozen chaps

afore now for half what you said."

"Indeed!"

"Howsummever," continued Rawlins philosophically, "ez he's

concluded to go WITH ye instead of FOR ye, you're likely to hev your

ideas on this matter carried out up to the handle. He'll make short work

of it, you bet. Ef, ez I suspect, the leader is an airy young feller from

Frisco, who hez took to the road lately, Clinch hez got a personal grudge

agin him from a quarrel over draw poker."

This was the last blow to Hale's ideal crusade. Here he was--an

honest, respectable citizen--engaged as simple accessory to a lawless

vendetta originating at a gambling table! When the first shock was over

that grim philosophy which is the reaction of all imaginative and sensitive

natures came to his aid. He felt better; oddly enough he began to be

conscious that he was thinking and acting like his companions. With this

feeling a vague sympathy, before absent, faintly showed itself in their

actions. The Sharpe's rifle put into his hands by the stable-man was

accompanied by a familiar word of suggestion as to an equal, which he

was ashamed to find flattered him. He was able to continue the

conversation with Rawlins more coolly.

"Then you suspect who is the leader?"

"Only on giniral principles. There was a finer touch, so to speak, in

this yer robbery that wasn't in the old-fashioned style. Down in my

country they hed crude ideas about them things--used to strip the

passengers of everything, includin' their clothes. They say that at the

station hotels, when the coach came in, the folks used to stand round with

blankets to wrap up the passengers so ez not to skeer the wimen. Thar's a

story that the driver and express manager drove up one day with only a

SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S

copy of the Alty Californy wrapped around 'em; but thin," added Rawlins

grimly, "there WAS folks ez said the hull story was only an advertisement

got up for the Alty."

"Time's up."

"Are you ready, gentlemen?" said Colonel Clinch.

Hale started. He had forgotten his wife and family at Eagle's Court,

ten miles away. They would be alarmed at his absence, would perhaps

hear some exaggerated version of the stage coach robbery, and fear the

worst.

"Is there any way I could send a line to Eagle's Court before

daybreak?" he asked eagerly.

The station was already drained of its spare men and horses. The

undenominated passenger stepped forward and offered to take it himself

when his business, which he would despatch as quickly as possible, was

concluded.

"That ain't a bad idea," said Clinch reflectively, "for ef yer hurry you'll

head 'em off in case they scent us, and try to double back on the North

Ridge. They'll fight shy of the trail if they see anybody on it, and one

man's as good as a dozen."

Hale could not help thinking that he might have been that one man,

and had his opportunity for independent action but for his rash proposal,

but it was too late to withdraw now. He hastily scribbled a few lines to

his wife on a sheet of the station paper, handed it to the man, and took his

place in the little cavalcade as it filed silently down the road.

They had ridden in silence for nearly an hour, and had passed the

scene of the robbery by a higher track. Morning had long ago advanced

its colors on the cold white peaks to their right, and was taking possession

of the spur where they rode.

"It looks like snow," said Rawlins quietly.

Hale turned towards him in astonishment. Nothing on earth or sky

looked less likely. It had been cold, but that might have been only a

current from the frozen peaks beyond, reaching the lower valley. The

ridge on which they had halted was still thick with yellowish-green

summer foliage, mingled with the darker evergreen of pine and fir.

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SNOW-BOUNDATEAGLE'S1SNOW-BOUNDATEAGLE'SbyBretHarteSNOW-BOUNDATEAGLE'S2CHAPTERIForsomemomentsprofoundsilenceanddarknesshadaccompaniedaSierranstage-coachtowardsthesummit.Thehuge,dimbulkofthevehicle,swayingnoiselesslyonitsstraps,glidedonwardandupwardasifobeyingsomemysteriousimpulsefrombehind,sofaintand...

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