West Wind Drift | Page 9

result being a nobby
assortment of splotches that looked for all the world like hives after the
blood got back into them again. You see, I was chief magistrate,
executioner ex-officio, chief of police, jury commissioner--in fact, an
all-around potentate. Sort of Pooh-bah, you know. For serious offences,
such as wife beating, wife stealing, or having more than one wife at a
time, we were not so lenient. The offender, on conviction, was strung
up by the thumbs and used as a target by amateurs who desired to
become proficient in the use of the cattle-adder. Murderers were
attended to a trifle more expeditiously. They were strung up by the
neck."
"Good God, man,--do you mean to say you hung men in that off-hand
fashion?" cried Captain Trigger, aghast.
"Not without a fair trial, sir. No innocent man was ever hung. There
was no such thing as circumstantial evidence in that camp. The guilty
man was always taken red-handed. We had good laws and they were
rigidly enforced. There was no other way, sir. Short, sharp and decisive.

It's the best way. Men understand that sort of thing and honest men
approve of the method. You see, gentlemen, we had a hard lot of
characters to deal with. I wish to add, however, that before I had been
up there six months we had a singularly law-abiding and self-respecting
camp. Crime was not tolerated, not even by the men who had once been
criminals. If two men quarrelled, they were allowed to fight it out fairly
and squarely in any way they could agree upon. Knives, hatchets and
all other messy weapons were barred. It was either fists, pistols or rifles
at a fairly long range, and under the strictest rules. Duels were fought
according to Hoyle, and were witnessed by practically every one in
camp. You will perceive that Copperhead Camp was no place for a
coward or a bluffer or a bully. It takes a brave man to fight a duel with
a chap who may be only half as big as he is, but who can shoot like the
devil. So you see, Captain Trigger, the cat-o'-nine-tails has no terror for
me."
Mr. Mott regarded the young man with wide-open, somewhat
incredulous eyes.
"You don't look like a fire-eating, swashbuckling party to me," he said.
"I am the most peaceable chap you've ever seen, Mr. Mott. You needn't
be alarmed. I'm not going to bite a hole in the ship and scuttle her.
Moreover, I am a very meek and lowly individual on board this ship.
There's a lot of difference between being in supreme command with all
kinds of authority to bolster you up and being a rat in a trap as I am
now. Up in Copperhead Camp I was a nabob, here I'm a nobody. Up
there I was the absolute boss of five or six hundred men,--I won't say I
could boss the women,--and I made 'em all walk chalk without once
losing step. There were murderers and crooks, blacklegs and gunmen in
my genial aggregation, men whose true names we never knew, men
who were wanted in every part of the civilized world. The only place
on earth, I suppose, where they could feel reasonably at home was in
that gosh-awful nowhere that we called Copperhead Camp. You can't
handle such men with mittens. And there were good men there as
well,--good, strong, righteous men. They were the leaven that made the
whole thing palatable. Without them I could have had no authority. But

I dare say I am boring you. The present situation is the one we're
interested in, not the lordly past of your humble and, I trust, obedient
servant."
His smile was most engaging, but back of it the two seamen read
strength, decision, integrity. The gay, bantering, whilom attitude of this
unusual young man was not assumed. It was not a pose. He was not a
dare-devil, nor was he a care-free, unstable youth who had matured
abruptly in the exercise of power. On the contrary, he was,--and
Captain Trigger knew it,--the personification of confidence, an optimist
to whom victory and defeat are equally unavoidable and therefore to be
reckoned as one in the vast scheme of human endeavour; a fighter who
merely rests on his arms but never lays them down; a spirit that absorbs
the bitters and the sweets of life with equal relish.
Captain Trigger was not slow in making up his mind. This
clean-minded, clean-bodied American with the confident though
respectful smile, was a chap after his own heart.
"I hardly know what to do with you, Percival," he said, a scowl of
genuine perplexity in his eyes. "You are not an ordinary transgressor.
You are a gentleman. You have exercised an authority perhaps
somewhat similar