The Luck of Roaring Camp | Page 9

of wild honeysuckles,
azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had
suddenly awakened to the fact that there were beauty and significance
in these trifles, which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their
feet. A flake of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright
pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared
and strengthened, and were invariably put aside for The Luck. It was
wonderful how many treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that

"would do for Tommy." Surrounded by playthings such as never child
out of fairyland had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content.
He appeared to be serenely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity
about him, a contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes
worried Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is recorded
that once, having crept beyond his "corral,"--a hedge of tessellated pine
boughs, which surrounded his bed,--he dropped over the bank on his
head in the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in
that position for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was
extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other
instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the statements
of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of
superstition. "I crep' up the bank just now," said Kentuck one day, in a
breathless state of excitement, "and dern my skin if he wasn't a-talking
to a jaybird as was a-sittin' on his lap. There they was, just as free and
sociable as anything you please, a-jawin' at each other just like two
cherrybums." Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or lying
lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the birds
sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was his
nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves
golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp; she would send
wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous gum;
to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the
bumblebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumberous
accompaniment.
Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were "flush
times," and the luck was with them. The claims had yielded
enormously. The camp was jealous of its privileges and looked
suspiciously on strangers. No encouragement was given to immigration,
and, to make their seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the
mountain wall that surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This,
and a reputation for singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the
reserve of Roaring Camp inviolate. The expressman--their only
connecting link with the surrounding world--sometimes told wonderful
stories of the camp. He would say, "They've a street up there in
'Roaring' that would lay over any street in Red Dog. They've got vines

and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day.
But they're mighty rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin
baby."
With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement.
It was proposed to build a hotel in the following spring, and to invite
one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck,
who might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that
this concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical
in regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for
by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve
could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority
meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it.
And it did.
The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow
lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and
every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a
tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down
giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog
had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned.
"Water put the gold into them gulches," said Stumpy. "It's been here
once and will be here again!" And that night the North Fork suddenly
leaped over its banks and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring
Camp.
In the confusion of rushing water, crashing trees, and crackling timber,
and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the
fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp. When
the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy, nearest the river- bank, was
gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky