Arcata High School - Advance Yearbook (Arcata, CA)

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s 'J o Elnlh at 11112 l'Kri1 Eng. SUSIE ANDERSON, '14. It was a dark, murky night, the moon was obscured, no light was visible except that which poured from the little window of the Red Dog Inn. This was where the stragglers, the gamblers and the lucky but shiftless miners of the surrounding hills had congregated to spend the night in riotous revelry. In the furtherest corner a group of men were gathered around a roulette wheel, watching with breathless interest the revolving disk. In another corner a game of stud-poker was being carried on. The curses of the gamblers, mingled with the blue smoke of the strong tobacco, made the air seem bluer than it really Was. A few who were already over- come by liquor were hanging on the greasy bar, shaking dice, and the bar- keeper watched them with greedy in- terest through his small, half-closed eyes, as he aimlessly' wiped a sticky glass with a dirty piece of towel. Suddenly the door opened and in staggered an old settler, his face worn and haggard, his eyes staring into vacancy. He made his way to the Sixteen bar and demanded, Something hot! Rake,-something that'l1 feel like five yards of barb-wire goin, down. A hush fell over the noisy crowd and the old man sat back in a chair. I'm a goner, boys: I'm a goner, I sure am. Oh, you needn't laugh, Pedro, you peg-legged cub, it's serious this timeg I never spent such a night since I hit Lucky Cut, no I haint. Yu' know that thar old shaft that runs up yonder under my shack? Well, that's the place, that isf' He paused dra- matically, for he saw that they were impressed. What a motley gang they formed! But in spite of their rugged appear- once, no one could wish for a more attentive audience. Over at one side stood Buck Lewis, who but a minute before had had eyes for nothing else except the little spotted cubes as they fell incessantly on the liquor be- smeared bar, now the dice box had dropped from his hand and he stood there with his mouth open, his whole attention fastened on the speaker. Pedro, the old Mexican card shark,

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Q1 i 'W w W Fifteen

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who held first hand in the game, who leered at hisecomrades through his small black fiendish eyes when he saw them make a miss-play, and twisted his long, curling mustaches till they were almost torn from his pocket- marked face when he thought that he was going to lose, had now forgotten the game entirely. He tried his best to conceal his intense interest behind the leathern mask of his face, but in vain. Go on, you old blow-hard, he yelled impatiently, and thus admon- ished the settler began: For the last two weeks I've heard a noise there-kind of er knockin'-- just a little, you know. I ne'er thought much on it at first, 'lowin' it might be that thar loose dirt a cavin' in agin like it did before when I was a. work- in' up on the hind shaft. But, blast my buttons, boys, I turned in early this evenin' becuz I got pretty well fagged out tryin' to dig that thar slough up the gully. Befor'en I got half-way snoozed off, bang! went a muffled blast, right under my bunk, -sounded about ten feet down. The first thing that popped into my head was 'Merino's Gang.' They've been hangin' out up on Split Ridge for some time back and rememberin' the dust they kicked up for me last fall, I knew sure it were them. He said he'd come back, and sure enough thar he were. Me, not wantin' to be caught single-handed by a gang of murderin' cut-throats, I jest tell yu' what, it didn't take me long to get to Sam Pike's lay-out. I went up the side of that thar canyon like a streak of greased lightnin' and down the other like as if I was shot out,of a sixteen inch cannon. Sam, he was in bed and all was still ex- cept for that thar durned ornery dog o' his'ng he set up a howl fitten to bust the canyon,'and Sam he yelled at him. I went in, and when Sam heard who it was and found out the trouble, he got his men together with their guns quicker'n no time and the seven of us made our way up the hill jest like sneakin' bob-cats, each one of us thinkin' of the swag of government money we could play with I if we fetched the gang out alive. At the mouth of the shaft all was quiet, we got out our darkened lan- tems to look fur tracks, but thar warn't any. Them thar fellers knew their biz and had left no tracks. Well, we went up a ways-'bout fifty rods, --when we heard a noise, as if they'd got out a hunk of dirt. I can swar now I heard 'em talk. We all stopped, all but that thar dare-devil, half- breed Cock-Eyed Bob, he said he'd fetch 'em. They'd played him dirt onct and he didn't furgit it, nor 'the reward neither, he didn't. Well, in he went, and the rest of us, We jest waited, holding our breathsg I just thought I'd bust, I was that strung up. We didn't hear much except that thar knockin', but that was enough. All of 'er sudden out comes Cock-Eyed Bob, lookin' as if he'd been pulled through a hole in a bad quarter. He never said a single word, just sat down on an old rail and hung his head, jest like as if he was bereft of reason. - The rest of us, thinkin' that the scare had crazed him, left him sittin' thar and crept on up the back holeg I tell you what, we didn't make a rum- pus, we didn't. The old settler lowered his voice to a husky whisper and leaned far over in his chair, pointing to a knot hole in the floor. That thar noise was right in front of us now, and we Seventeen