STORIES TOLD IN RANGER CAMPS 



765 



citement there, and then to Nevada, 

 and after that to Inyo, and at last over 

 beyond Panamint, a feller shot him in 

 the back and was tried and hung for it 

 by some vigilantes. But no one that I 

 ever heard of ever blamed my uncle for 

 that Madre Corte shooting over San 

 Mateo way." 



I looked at the three young tourists, 

 and they were really pale. They had 

 restless, unguided, novel-fed imagina- 

 tions ; they saw and felt all the things 

 which the ranger had left out of his 

 simple tale the chill, slow wrath of 

 boy and man ; the swift, unexpected 

 death stroke ; the dead and dying des- 

 peradoes suddenly falling clown into 

 their campfire and over the outspread 

 supper. They heard the first shots, the 

 wild cries of terror, surprise, and rage ; 

 the few ineffectual shots of reprisal and 

 the plunging of frightened horses, until 

 a red and awful silence followed tumult 

 in that green hollow of the foothills 

 fifty-five years ago. 



"It \vas murder." said one, "and I 

 should have thought that even a Cali- 

 fornia jury 'would have hung those two. 

 I cannot believe that such a boy ever 

 came out of the Green-mountain State." 



"It was mere savagery," said an- 

 other. "Your uncle could have sent for 

 an officer and arrested the trespassers." 



The third tourist was older, bronzed 

 by wider travel, trained in some wise to 

 the main differences in points of view 

 between East and West. "I think that 

 I might have liked your uncle," he said, 

 "but Brick was the real center of the 

 play. I suppose that he went into poli- 

 tics later and moved on ruthlessly to his 

 chosen ends. He certainly could take 

 care of himself." 



"Nobody knows what become of 

 Brick," said the ranger; "but my uncle 

 and the cattlemen buried them nine 

 men the next day with no help from 

 Brick. He went fishing. And after 

 he went back East, he never wrote no 

 letters to my uncle jest dropped out.'' 



"Told you so," remarked the third 

 tourist. "Brick was suited to any de- 

 structive game. The sight of that' little 

 seven hundred and fifty in California 

 slugs and gold dust simply turned his 

 predatory instincts into new channels. 



I'crhaps he went to New York and 

 slaughtered his foes in Wall Street." 



"Didn't take much stock in Brick, 

 myself, even when I first heard about 

 it," said the ranger. "But don't none 

 of you mistake about my uncle. He 

 never wronged a man. He played a 

 straight game. He helped every friend 

 of his that was down on his luck. AC- 

 CO rdin' to my views of those times, he 

 had to shoot those men or else run 

 away and leave his ranch. Before 

 morning they might have burned his 

 buildings, or cut off his ears to make 

 him tell where his money was. There 

 was no law to speak of in that neck of 

 the woods." 



The tall ranger rose with an air of 

 finality, and went to saddle his horse to 

 start up the trail with me. The tourists 

 gathered up their manifold belongings 

 and went off the other way. 



"Never again will anybody hear that 

 story from me," the ranger declared, 

 that evening after supper. Too many 

 people say : 'How very Californian !' in a 

 tone that really means, 'How very 

 wicked !' I can't see any blame coming 

 to my uncle. Is it because he sold 

 whisky when everybody drank it, or be- 

 cause he didn't get a sheriff when there 

 wasn't a sober one within fifty miles? 

 Wasn't that gang all armed? Didn't 

 he take mighty big chances?" 



"There, there!" I told him. "Go 

 slow, youngster. The mistake is yours. 

 You tell that story to tenderfeet, and 

 it seems to them brutal. Besides, it 

 belongs to a civilization in which they 

 have no part. The whole situation i- 

 beyond their comprehension. They like 

 to read in western novels of all sorts of 

 dressed-up, excited mix-ups ; your un- 

 cle's affair seems to them too cold, too 

 deadly, too simple. Now, I will gamble 

 that your uncle or the boy went down 

 and took the rest of the ham, and 

 cooked it for supper." 



"I suppose, of course, they did, if that 

 was the last ham," said the ranger, 

 "and why not ?" 



"Why not, of course, if you are of 

 the elemental sort ? The fight was over ; 

 it was supper time. Yes ; they replev- 

 ined the ham. You would have done 

 it." 



