Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1894 — ONE OF NATURE'S NOBLEMEN. [ARTICLE]

ONE OF NATURE'S NOBLEMEN.

“How lovely I” “Party as a pictur’. There ain’t nothin’ that lays over an October sunrise on these mountains. Look at the mist risin’ from that cascade t’other side of the valley. Makes a rainbow. You kinder take to this sort o’ thing, don’t you, Miss Pembroke?” “Oh, yes, indeed. I am a worshiper at the shrine of nature. One glimpse of such scenery as this is to me worth a journey across the continent,” and the truth of Miss Pembrook’s assertion was reflected in her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. They were on horseback, and had halted on a high plateau where the sunrise and this choice bit of mountain scenery had burst simultaneously upon their view. To look at these two riders one could not avoid the impression that both were somewhat out of place in each other’s society. One was a beautiful young lady, fresh from the heart of ultra-civilization, with an unmistakable air of culture and high breeding; the other was a hardy miner, whose knowledge of the world was confined to the wild, mountainous gold regions of California and Nevada. One had a slight, willowy form, displayed to good advantage in a neat-fitting habit of some rich material ; tho other revealed a tall, athletic figure, clad in garments that were coarse and unpretentious, but by no means unbecoming. They had met by the merest chance. A party of tourists from some Eastern city had stopped for a month at the little town of Blazeaway, and Miss Pembroke and her parents were of the party. Blazeaway, one year ago, had been nothing more than a mining camp, but it had grown like a mushroom in the night, as it were, and had become so popular with travelers and pleasure seekers that a passable hotel was now one of its most important institutions. In its immediate vicinity was some of the grandest scenery to be found in the whole range of the Sierra Nevadas, and this with its delightful climate and many advantages of location was the secret of its attractiveness. It so happened that Joe Langdon, the miner, became the favorite guide of this particular party on their sightseeing expeditions, during their sojourn at Blazeaway. He was a goodlooking, big-hearted, intelligent fellow, with a certain rough eloquence in his speech and manner, and a peculiarly graphic style of relating the legends and anecdotes connected with the points of interest that came under their observation. Strange to say, the proud Miss Pembroke became deeply interested in this Joe Langdon. She found him an entertaining companion, with views and ideas similar to her own, if they had only been cultivated, and she was amused rather than shocked by his simple, unpolished language. He liked poetry, and she read to him sometimes by the hour, while he listened with beaming eyes and bated breath. And while she marveled that a man so utterly without culture and learning could be fond of such things, it probably never occurred to her that it might not be so much the poetry as the musical rhythm of her own sweet voice that engaged his rapt attention. At any rate they were good friends, and when the entire male portion of the excursion party went off for a two weeks’ hunt up the Sacramento river, Miss Pembroke was left with little else to amuse herself with beside this new admirer of hers. It was certainly a great comfort to her to have him always near her, as guide and protector, when she went beyond the limits of the little town. They had risen early this morning on purpose to see the snn rise. Langdon having expatiated on the beauty of the scene as viewed from a eertain point on the mountain, Miss Pembroke went into raptures over it. “It is the most beautiful sight I ever witnessed!” she exclaimed, again and again. “How good of you to propose this morning ride, Mr. Langdon. You are always thinking of something new for my enjoyment. I must induce the rest of the party to see this before we leave here. By the way,” she added, “the gentlemen are expecting to return to-mor-row, and I presume they will propose an early departure for some other point. I am so concerned about Charley that I shall be glad “Charley who? ’ asked Joe Langdon, almost sharply. “Why, Charley Brantley. He is one of our own party, you know. You must have seen him.’’ “You mean the handsome fellow With the long moustache that kept so close to you the day we rode over to

A conscious blush reddened the lady’s cheek. “Yes,” she replied; “that was Chrley Brantley.” Langdon saw the blush and moved uneasily in the saddle. “Do you love him, Miss Pembroke?” “Sir!” “Do you love Charley Brantley?” It was a plain question, plainly put. From another person it would have been resented as a most impertinent one; but even the haughty Miss Pembroke could not get angry with this frank, simple-hearted man. With heightening color she replied: “Yes, Mr. Langdon; I don’t mfnd telling you that Ido love him. We are engaged to be married.” She was not looking at him. She did not see the gray pallor that crept slowly into his face, or the nervous manner in which he raised his hand to his throat and pulled at his collar as if it were choking him. She was looking out over the valley, too much abashed by her own confession to meet her companion’s gaze. “ I am anxious about Charley,” she said, after a whije. “ I fear his life is in danger—” Joe started and looked positively guilty. Had she read the thought that flashed lightning-like through his mind? But the girl did not see—did not know. With eyes still averted she continued: “Charley has such a temper, and he sometimes loses control of it. The day he went away he caught a man in the act of stealing his silvermounted rifle, which he valued so highly, and without pausing to consider the consequences he struck the fellow across the face with his riding whip. I have since heard that the man has sworn vengeance on him, and declared he would kill him at the firstopportunity. The thought is so terrible that I cannot drive it from my mind, and I fairly dread Charley’s return. Perhaps you could contrive to save him, Mr. Langdon—” “Eh? I—l don’t—did you speak to me. Miss Pembroke?” She looked at him now, with an expression of surprise. She saw how deathly pale he was, and with a woman’s readiness to jump at conclusions she exclaimed: “You believe it, too. You think Charley is in peril! I know you do!” “Wait a minute, Miss Pembroke,” said the miner, making a mighty effort to recover composure, and partially succeeding. “You say some feller has taken an oath he’d kill your—Charley Brantley. Who is the feller, an’ what’s his name?” “The people here call him ‘Whisky Tom.’ He is alow, dissipated halfbreed. Of course you knowjhim.” “Whisky Tom! I know liim for a drunken scamp and vagabond,” said Joe, with emphasis. “He oughter been hung long ’ago. Why, bless your heart, Whisky Tom ’ud murder his mother for a glass o’ whisky. When he says he’li kill a feller you needn’t flatter yerself that he won’t try his blamedest to do it, jest as soon as he can make a sneak on the feller. All I’m s’prised at is that he tried to steal a rifle —unless he wanted to sell it for money to buy liquor with. He never uses firearms nohow—couldn’t hire him to have anything to do with ’em. He does all his shootin’ with a bow an’ arrow, an’ he can knock a woodpecker out o’ the top of a Californy pine every clip. Why, Miss Pembroke, you’re white as a ghost!” “Oh, won’t you try and save him, Mr. Langdon?” “Save who?” “Charley. If anything like—like that should befall him it would kill me. I know it would!” It would have been hard to tell which was the paler of the two, only for the sun-bronze on the miner’s face. It was a trying ordeal through which he was passing, and for a moment it seemed as if he were turning to ice; but the big, unselfish heart melted beneath the piteous, pleading gaze of those eyes that had played such havoc with it during these sunny weeks. Joe Langdon wiped the perspiration from his brow, conscious that he was trembling, and that she would surely notice his agitation. “If so be,” he said, with another great effort to be calm—“if so be it should come in my power to do Char, ley Brantley a service, I’d do it, of course—for your sake! But come, Miss Pembroke,” he added, in a more cheerful tone, “you mustn’t let yerself think o’ sech things. I guess Mister Brantley ain’t in sech danger but what he’ll take keer of hisself all right. It’s time for us to be movin’ down the mountain. We’ll have a sharp appetite for breakfast after the ride, I reckon; but it won’t do for you to carry that white face back to the hotel. You’ll skeer everybody out of a year’s growth.” Then, after they had started off at a brisk canter, he said: “What do you say to a race, Miss Pembroke? Let’s see which o’ these horses can take the rag off the bush in a mile stretch.” And away they galloped at a reckless rate of speed, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. It was the next day after this occurrence that Joe Langdon stood leaning against the trunk of a huge tree, just beyond the limits of Blazeaway, absorbed in thought. He was alone, and he could scarcely have looked more pale and haggard if he had just risen from a long, wasting illness. “I don’t know what ails me, onless I’m goin’ starin’ mad,” he muttered to himself. “I didn’t think it ’ud strike me all of a heap to know that she loved some other man, but that’s jest what it’s done—blame my skin if it ain’t! I’m blowed if I understand myself at all. It’s the fust time I was ever kerflummixed by a woman, an’ I reckon—l reckon it’ll be—the last.” He made a movement as if to wring his hands, but seemed to check the impulse, as if he were ashamed of his weakness. “Joe Langdon, you’re a blamed fool!” he said, unconsciously speaking aloud. “You’ve got the brass of a road-agent to go failin’ in love with a fine lady like Laura Pembroke. But how can a man help it. She ain’t like other fine ladies. She makes a feller forget that he’s nothin’ but a rough cuss: an’ she couldn’t tai lr *ny

nicer to the President himself than she does to me. I don’t know what I’ve been thinking of all this time. I ain’t fit to be mentioned in the same day with her. I can’t bear to think of her going away ” “You can’t, eh?” interrupted a sneering voice. “If that is the case, it is time you were being taught a lesson I” Joe looked up with a start. Charley Brantley stood before him, tall and handsome, with an angry gleam in his black eyes. The miner felt himself growing weak to think he had committed the crowning folly of betraying his secret to this man. “So you are in love with Laura Pembroke,” continued Brantley, with cutting sarcasm. "I have heard of your persistent attention to her during my absence. And you think you can’t bear to see her go away from here. That is bad, truly.” “Wait a minute, Mr. Brantley,” said Joe, his voice husky. “You have heerd what I was foolish enough to say out loud, an’ there’s no use in my denyin’ it now. I do love Miss Pembroke, but I didn’t intend to let her know it, nor you. I know she ain’t for me; I know she’s to be your wife.” “And knowing that, you have the impudence to tell me that you love her—you, a low, miserable specimen of humanity, too ignorant to realize your own audacity!” cried Brantley, his temper getting the better of him. “You’re a scoundrel, sir—a dog—” “Stop!” If Joe Langdon’s face was pale before, it was ghastly nov. “Stop!” he repeated, and his voice was terrible from its very calmness. “There ain’t but one man on earth that can call me sech names as that, an’ live—an’ you’re that man. But you musn’t do it ag’in, sir—by the Eternal you musn’t do it ag’in, it’s only her love for you that saves you now.” “You threaten me, do you?” cried Brantley, in a white heat of passion. “You threaten me—” Whatever was in his mind to say, it remained unsaid, for at that instant Joe Langdon sprang upon him with the quickness of thought, and bore him heavily to the ground. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that Brantley was not prepared for it, but with a furious curse he struggled to his feet and drew his revolver. He was about to’fire when he heard a woman’s scream, a man’s shout, and a strong hand seized his arm and held it. “Drop that pistol!” cried a stern voice. “You wouldn’t shoot a man when he’s down I” What had happened? What did it mean? Was that Joe Langdon lying on the ground with an arrow quivering in his side? Was that Laura Pembroke kneeling beside the prostrate miner? Was this Mr. Pembroke who had grasped his arm and wrenched the pistol from his hand? Charley Brantley realized these things gradually, like a man waking from a nightmare. “You told me to'save him, Miss Pembroke,” said Joe, faintly, as the weeping girl lifted his head to her lap. “You told me to save him, an’ I’ve done it. I see’d that wretch, Whisky Tom, lurkin’ behind the bushes yonder, with his bow drawn and an arrow p’inted at Brantley. I knowed what it meant, an’ I knowed Tom never missed his aim, so I—l jumped onto Brantley and pushed him out o’ the way, an’ took the arrow myself. Good-bye; don’t cry for me. I’m glad it turned out this way. I hope you’ll be happy. Good-bye—-good-bye—” And Joe Langdon was dead. It was merely an episode; and after a handful of citizens had run the murderer down and hung him to the nearest tree, after the fashion of Western justice, the event was not long remembered. But there were two who never forgot—Mr. and Mrs. Brantley.