The Man We Didn't Hang.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1366, 17 February 1912, Page 16

The Man We Didn't Hang.

(By Joaquin Miller-) © —©

The wheels of tho coTored. wagon in wh'eh I had been born and bred wero whirling and whirling, and I must bo off. Many wero going. Boys, men, and even whole families wero off, or about to get off. for the newly-found miue9 out toward the south of us, on tho very edge of dreaded California, and I must bo one of them. Left alone, I rode to where I found a party from Oregon trying to arrange to open a placer mino in a deep wooded gulch down on the Klamath River, There were twenty-seven of them. Each man had a horse, blanket, pick, shovel and pan, a tin cup, a sheath knife, and a sun, pistols, and plenty of ammunition. They were fairly well equipped, as equipments went in those days, with mule loads of beans, bacon, coi'i'ee, sugar, and flour. They had chosen their foreman, their moderator, everything but that most important person, tho cook. I said timidly to the preacher, who was moderator: "Will you let mo cook and come in as a partner? I used to help mother cook!" "But, uiy boy, you will have to get up long before daylight. You will have to brown and grind and makß tho coffee. You will havo to cook the beans and bacon, get the wood and water, weigh and keep the gold dust and bags of gold, and stick right in camp all the time." "I'll do it. Please let mo try it." Thero iras a consultation. Tho preacher was on my side, and it was finally agreed that if I would stick to.it I could come in aa a full partner; but that if I did not stick closo to my contract I would have to loso not only the place, bnt my share of gold. I mado but one proviso: I would stick to it until they could get a better cook. I tried to believe 1 was happy; but I was thinking about my parents, and I did not sleep. We had no coffeo mill, and I had to pound up the tough coffeo, after browning it iu a frying-pan, with the poll of my hatchet on a stone; had to use a piece oi' my buckskin coat —Che tail of it, if you plensi—to pound it in. I fried the beans brown to a turn, my flapjacks were pronounced perfect, and I was in a new world. I tried to feel that I was going to get on. In a very few days the men, working all the timo from sun to sun and often by the great tamp fires till late at night, had hewn cut sluices for washing and wero soon shoveling in .gold,, gold and gold, from the deep bed rock of tho narrow little gulch with great trees hanging over-head.

We "cle.med up" every Saturday evening. The gold waa set aside by the pilo of provisions and saddles till Sunday morning, when the foreman dried it, weighed it, and divided it evenly among the twonty-cight of the camp. Tho men always 'eft their bags under tho head of their bo'ls or by the roots of tho trees where they slept l'inaliy ono Sunday there came, along with others, a bright appearing and welldieised man with an English sailor accent and hair parted in tho middle. He sang most melodiously and with great zrst. The preacher liked him, hod a talk with him, ajid, finding he was footloose and looking for a place, <isked him to stay with us and help cook till he could 'do better.

He had tho broadest-toed shoes I ever saw on any mail's font. They were almost if not quite new. The second day 1 asked hiin wliere he got them. He said San Erancisco. Remembering how the Oregonians disliked tho Californians, especially the convict and San I'raucisco sort, I advised him not to mention San Francisco, as we all had an idea it was a very bad place.

That night, or rather early next morning, I felt-him get up. I saw him, or at least I felt I saw him, go down on tiptoo tn tho .sluices with his big-toed shoes in his left hand. I felt about, got hold of a ramrod and poked the nearest sleeper, pointiug down toward the sluices. Somo men followed, and found the niun, deafened by tho rush of water, picking up tho nuggets in tho tail of the sluico and filling tho big toes of hia San Francisco shoes.

Thoy quietly led him up, putting his shoes where thoy always sat at tho gold pan, and then tied him to a treo and went back to bed.

I got up and got breakfast and then tho men got up. heard tho ugly story as they washed and ate, and got ready 'in a very few minutes to try the man for his life. It was a ead case. I pitied him with all my heart, but knew that by every rule of miner's law and equity tho man must hang. They tried him, found him guilty, and sentenced him to hang that night at "early candlo lighten/' as the preacher put it. A big oak tree 6tood, broad-boughed and stately, on the further bank, only a few steps from where tho men wero at work. He, in a dazed and helpless way, confessed he came from San Francisco, a crime in tho eyes of Oregonians to begin with. And he hopelessly admitted that he had got big-toed shoes mado on. purpose to plunder miners. They took him over to tho big tree, tied him securely, marked off tho grave, and set him to digging. I was told to help him dig his grave and not let him get away. The foreman said gruffly: "Ed, there's going to bo a hanging at early candle lighten! A hanging of some sort, sure. All the minors round about here know, and all are a-comin' to a hangin'. So if he is not hero we must hang someone else. See?"

I went over to holp the dazed, dumb sailor man with his hair parted in tho middle, and when we had dug down a few feet ho sat down on the edge, wiped his sweating face, and took out a small newspaper. It was named "The Matrimonial Noose."

Ho explained that a party of many convict men and women had como np from Australia and that some of the party had put in tho long days of that vovage printing this paper. He read somo very startling personals from the women of the party setting forth their merits and their charms. Thero was not one, with but a singlo exception, who did not boast her beauty, virtue, youth, or something of that sort.

This one exception was that of a woman who wanted to get out into tho goldmines and go to work. Tho man said sho was already over in Yreka, a big town only a day or bo distant, and was a good cook. I took the paper, told the man to keep on digging, and went down to the foreman with it. I left half-a-dozen heads together over that personal, reading and rereading it. Of course, they must hang the man; but as I, their "cook, was already half dead, what could they do? Why not one of them go and get tho woman ?

They took tho terrified, half-dond, and helpless convict over to dinner, and asked him aH sorts of questions. No, tho woman was not a bad woman, only not pretty. That was tho only fault he could be persuaded to admit.

So it was Bottled that Long Dan, or Daniel Long, as ho vas afterwards known, sot out to bring her, if he could. Wo would build hor a cabin. The wretched man with his grave only half -lug had been told that if his story about tho woman was truo, and Dan could bring hor, he would have to holp her cook. Ho meekly agreed that ho would prefer this to being hung.

I can now see that they had no intention of hanging tho mail at all. They set him to filling up his grave and to cutting cabin logs close \y to Mi at ihoy could throw up a cabin.

Tho logs being cut they pat them in place at onco, covering the cabin with oedar slats, from which they had made tho sluice 3. Then tho preacher who would marry them if they wanted to Iw or would bo _ married, said wo mnst havo a reception; eongs and "ft march around, a sort of religious procession around tho cabin with torches. And would the man we did not hang help? Would ho! With a gas{\ a breach th»t must havo reached away down to the hoels of tho big-teod shoes, he fairly danced with delighE at the idea and bogan singing this chorus:

'For a woman she can do more with a man Th.in a king and hia whole arm-oe!"

And then the preacher asked me to w.iktui Uw vifch that ohom si tho end of uch veesa, to liunr tlw ikwuui

how truly important oNo milt b» ia a camp of so man; men snd sot om sin£io woman 1 Ana this was my first offence in the lino of sang. I did not know anything at all about poetry, but I wu full of the Bible and Biblo thomos, to I first took up Sameon: Now, Samson he ttbs a mighty itrong man, A mighty ftrong man uji ho; But ho lost hii hair and be lost Ins eyes, And also his l£ber-foo! For a woman she am do more with a man Than a king and his whole arm-eo! Then I took up Daniel in the lion's <l?n; then I took tip King David and Uriah's wife, and so on. Then I concluded with the following lines about that wisest of all men: Now, Solomon he was a mighty vise man A mighty wiso man was he; Ay, Solomon he had 700 wires, And also a dyspep-sco. For a woman she caa do mora with a man Than a king and his whole arm-eel Ton should hare hand this chorus as the twenty-seven men, led by the preacher and tho man we didn't haqg, marched around that cabin and held high their blaring pitch-pino torches. What a rehearsal ! She came! Dan smuggled her into tho cabin and, with a full heart, got back and around to tho preacher and whispered that they were already engaged, and now, since the cabin was all ready, thev wanted to be married right off. 'J'nra Dan led her forth, and they wero married by torchlight, and then tho boys all went to bed, to let the poor, honest woman, who had come so far to work, have a good nighfs rest. I did not seo her till next morning. But I am frank to say that she had been bravely honest about her looks. Sho was tl - plainest woman X had ever soon. At least, this was my feeling at first glance. But she grew lo bo prettier every day as she rosted, and got up great big good dinners out of almost nothing.