Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1875 — TIMID SIMS. [ARTICLE]

TIMID SIMS.

“ Timid Sims,” as he was called, was held in very inferior repute among the boys at Texas Bar because he backed down before a six-shooter. A man on Texas Bar might be lacking in many qualities, but if lie had “ the sand” it covered a multitude of sins. “ Sand” was the jocular translation for “grit.” Sand, in a locality possessing but little law and less order, was an absolute essential to a good standing in Texas Bar. Timid Sims was a pale, slender, inoffensive, dreamy character, whose general aspect and manner gave you the impression that he didn’t know exactly what he had come into the mines for; indeed, that he didn’t know exactly what he came into existence for. He had’ a body|to clothe, shelter and feed, and it was imperative that he should work to shelter, clothe and feed it. He was not strpng enoughto do an ablebodied* man’s work. No one would eßiploy him, even when hands were needed in the rivpr claims during the busiest season; a ct'cuinstance which seemed to puzzle Sims exceedingly until at last he. was plainly told by one of the rougher and more outspoken miners that he “couldn’t keep up his lick with other men anyway, and the best thing he could do was to go into a grocery store, tend bar or keep school.’’ Sims, however, -would mine. He borrowed a rocker, procured a very limited supply; of flour, pork and potatoes on credit at the store, took possession of a deserted log cabin, at the farther end of the Bar, patched up the roof with old boards which came floating down the river, and tried at night to sleep comfortably on the floor in his scanty blankets. He worked here and there along the bank, sometimes washing over “old tailings,” sometimes working some bit of a bar or riffle, exposed during a low stage of the river, which, since * “ ’49,” had been dug over a score of times. He made “six bits,” sometimes one dollar and a half, per day, often nothing. His were reckoned “Chinaman’s wages.” Taken altogether, poor Sims hardly passed for a whole man. It was not so much that he was feeble in body either, for there were others resident near him able to lift no more pounds or swing a pick hour after hour with no more vigor than he; but there was about Sims an atmosphere of weakness and self-deprecia-tion. He was always shrinking into holes and corners. He had no “ bluff,” no selfassertion. If he went into a room full Of strangers he seemed frightened at an imaginary something. With a few he became intimate, and they called him a “ clever little fellow. ” To these he clung, and desired no more acquaintances. Every stranger he seemed to regard as an enemy. He was fond of solitude, and during the summer would neglect work altogether, wandering about the Surrounding mountains. Sims had one merit. He was an indefatigable prospector, and at last struck gravel diggings on Bixel’s Flat. Had he been “ smart” he might have monopolized the entire lead. He contented himself with a modest slice at one end. Then came the able-bodied cutting and shooting men of Texas Bar. Jim Freemantle had worked a bank claim facing the flat two years previously without suspecting the diggings- which existed an eighth of a mile back. No matter. On the plea of possessing a prior claim bn Bixel’s he and his compeers argued that they had the right of “ running the first boundary lines.” Sims had already run his own, which included, so far as he could judge by external indications, a fair sjlice of the lead supposed to exist underneath. This Freemantle & Co. coveted. So they ran their lines, which clashed with those of Sims. Sims found Freemantle’s notices posted in the heart of his claim. He expostulated with him. He renewed his own notices, which~had been tom down. These were again snatched off and his boundary stakes kicked over. This was accompanied by a threat from the proprietors of the “ Conquer we must” claim that “ any more of thatsortof thing would lead to bullets.” So Sims “ took water,” andiwas obliged to take up with a fragment of the ground he had discovered. Wang Chu kept a “ China store” a little above Bixel’s Flat. Wang Chu dealt principally in gin, salt fish, tea and opium. In his leisure hours he had constructed a boat for transporting parties of his countrymen who from time to time in their migrations about the country in search of diggings might desire to cross the river. It was built after, the Chinese style of marine architecture. It was cumbrous, heavy, lop-sided and unmanageable in the most quiet waters. One aim in its construction-had been toiuse as much old lumber as possible.. When Wang Chu had finished “Tha Ark,” as the miners termed it, he painted two great eyes in the bowk Thereby he deemed he had made it a rational, living, seeing creature. When it was first set afloat there was a dedicatory burning of crackers, joss-sticks, other pow-wowing, and an increased consumption by Wang Chu and his contemporaries of gm and opium. After this the ill-starred and ungainly craft floated in its crippled and lop-sided fashion in a little bight of the river. Its passage over the Stanislaus at the lowest stage of water was accomplished with a vast amount of loud outcries and gabbling on the part of Wang Chu and his crew, who mingled their frantic paddling when in the heaviestturrent mid-stream with an incessant vociferation of contradictory orders to each other. The result was generally a lodgment of the “ Ark” a quarter of t mile below its starting point on the opposite side, and a suspension of all Wang Chu’s other business until it was

towed by hand agfllhst the current back again. All the white men on the river were agreed on one point: that the “Ark” would drown somebody ere its mission was ended. On this being told Wang Chu, as an additional precaution he pamted another eye in the stern, sacrificed a pig to some Mongolian marine deity, burnt more joss-sticks, and terminated the ceremonies with another outpouring of gin and opium. In the summer-time a California mountain river is an attenuated, feeble stream that one may ford at every few hundred yards; an alternation of rivulets, motionless pools, bowlder-covered islands and great granite bowlders rearing themselves high out of the waters. But when swollen by the long-continued rains of winter or the melting snows of the Sierras in the spring, its quiet, peaceful character vanishes; it becomes a turbulent, roaring, treacherous monster; it sets death-traps in every direction. Here a whirling eddy, smooth enough on its surface and seemingly harmless, yet possessed of invisible arms more powerful than those of the devil-fish, to suck and carry men down into its lowest depths; there a maelstrom, raging and roaring over the rocks hidden beneath. During the freshet the banks quiver and tremble as the immense power whirls and foams past, and your voice is caught from your lips and hurled into indistinctness. From “fortynine” upward every one of these mountain gold-bearing streams has claimed a long list of victims, and many a brave fellow has been caught m their deadly embrace, never to be seen afterward.

The Stanislaus was “booming” one spring afternoon at its highest water-mark when five Chinamen, encumbered with their blankets, bundles, rockers, jacks, pans and shovels, came stringing down the Park Hill trail. They stopped and refreshed themselves for a time at the China store, and then, .accompanied by Wang Chu, placed themselves and baggage in his boat to be ferried over. A quarter of a mile betow their starting place was the Black Bock, a gigantic bowlder, which for centuries had pitted itself against the stream. It ,was not more than 150 yards from the shore, and the Stanislaus at this point was not more than double that distance in width. Here the waters, suddenly narrowed to this compass betwixt rocky walls, rushed rather in a succession of great weaves or bursts than a regular current. This, in fact, was the upper entrance of the Big Canon, two miles in length, and by reason of the rocky walls and raging current no mining could ever be successfully accomplished here at the most favorable season. Directly opposite the Black Rock, on a little knoll, was the cabin of Timid Sims. He, in company with a chance partner, was working on the bank near by. Sims was always picking up the waifs, stragglers and castaways who were drifting about the country. His house and scanty larder were ever open to them. He took them as partners, and trusted them as freely as though they had come burdened with trunks full of indorsements and testimonials of good character. Sometimes they robbed him; sometimes they got drunk and made his. house a pandemonium ; sometimes they effected the same result without the aid of whisky, by gradually developing sour, surly, ferocious dispositions. The best of the lot carried the gross result in gold dust of a week’s washing to Columbia for the purpose of turning it into com, and after many days’ waiting therefor Sims received a letter from the stating that he was overwhelmed with shame and remorse, but he had given way to his besetting sin for gambling and the dust had all gone into the maw of the “ tiger.” He had not proved an able workman, either. His hands seemed never before to have grasped pick and shovel; and after a morning’s gasping labor Sims would often insist that he should remain at home during the afternoon and make himself comfortable, for it was a sore distress to see a man panting and struggling with work to which it was very clear he was unaccustomed. “ You’ll get your throat cut one of these nights by some of these chaps you’re always picking up,” was the rough and condescending advice of Jim Freemantle to Sims. Sims looked as if the idea was entirely new to him, but the next straggler coming along was as readily taken in. It was about eleven o’clock. Sims and his co-operative straggler had put through their last run of twenty-five buckets, and were “ washing down” to see how it had yielded. The sieve and apron of the rocker were -taken off. There was a great deal of sand in the bottom of the apparatus. This Sims was running off by means of successive streams of water, poured from his long-handled dipper, aided by a peculiar rapid rocking of the machine. Slowly, at the upper end, the black sand deposit assumed the shape of a point, and near the apex, one after another, came out a little run of golden yellow flakes. “Takes a good deal of dirt to make a little gold, doesn’t it?” said the straggler, “When I was on the north fork of the Tuba in ’sl I got six ounces once out of twenty-five buckets. Them was the times, though. . “There’s about two bits here, I guess,” said Sims. “ Well, that’s better than nothing; and we ain’t beholden to anyone for it either. I like a gold claim for one tiling. It pays you just the same whether you’re Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant, Republican or Democrat. I say, Tom, if tjiose Chinamen start to cross the river in that old boat of Wang Chu’s they’ll all drown.”

The boat had started, and was gliding up an eddy, in direct opposition to the course of the stream. For the immense mass of water rushing down and striking the rocks at the narrow entrance of the Big Canon caused a portion nearest shore on either side to be sent directly back full three hundred yards. For this distance there were two smooth currents running up; between them, a foaming, surging current, rushing down. By taking advantage of these upward eddies a skills ul boatman could land his craft on either side nearly opposite the point from ‘Which he had started. * ' ! •*, **’ ; Wang Chjf and his passengers sailed smoothly along until, the upper eddy be-ing-reached, the boat’s head was turned into the mid current. Then it seemed as if seized by a monster. It was whirled around like a top, shot for a second on the top of a great surge, and shot down again out of sight ana under. There was a momentary glimpse of the five men, paddling wildly and half rising from their seats; the next they were all gone. A hundred yards below, like a whale shooting out of water to blow, came the boat, boti tom up from the depths, and clinging to her was Wang Chu. It was dashed against I the Black Rock, and pressed under by the current Wang Chu sprang on the rock. The rest were never seen. Sims and the straggler gazed like men in a dream. There, before them, were still the rushing, roaring stream, the sun shining, the birds singing; all going on and having gone through it all as though nothing was happening or had happened, and in five sec-

onds four human beings snatched from life to death! But Wang Chu must be rescued. There was the poor, half-submerged creature on the rock, the ice-cold current at times dashing over him, and striving, as it were, to tear him from his hold; and between him the merciless stream which could as easily sweep away a thousand men as one. There he remained until near night. Gradually the population of Texas Bar and Bixel’s Flat accumulated on the spot. All measures to float him a line by which he might be hauled on shore proved abortive. “ I’ll swim off and take a line to him,” at last said Sims. “ No, don’t go,” said some one among the crowd; “ it’s certain death!” “I will!” said Sims. “No, you won’t—not if I can help it,” said Jim Freemantle. “You’re wrong to try it; and if you do we’re going to stop you. We’ve as good a right to stop a man from committing suicide as murder.” There was a murmur of assent from the by-standers. Sims turned away and walked toward his cabin. When again he emerged it was with a cooked six-shooter in his hand. He came straight toward the group and spoke : “You say you will stop me from swimming off to the Black Rock. , I do not intend that you shall. You have succeeded in making my life thrtroughly miserable on this flat by injustice, taunt and abuse, and now that there is a chance for getting rid of it you want to stop' me. You see you have made a mistake. You’ve put me up for a man without a grit. Well, I’m going to show you that courage runs in streaks, and it takes different circumstances in different men to draw it out. I’m courageous enough now to own that I have backed down before some of your six-shooters because I didn’t think my life was worth yon dirty little claim. But any of you w’ould risk vour lives in a dispute over a pack of cards because you’ve got a fighting reputation to keep up atany cost, and you dare not live to be called coward by some hound who would pick your pockets had he a chance. Not one of you dare go near Tom Wilson’s cabin when I nursed him through the smallpox. Not one of you dare go a prospecting as I did on the head-waters of the Owen’s River, and camp out for weeks alone fifty miles from the nearest settlement. And I’m not afraid of the river, savage as it looks; for the roar of its waters, as I’ve listened to them many a long night in my cabin, has been a kinder voice than any of yours, and if I drown I want the Stanislaus to bury me somewhere deep down in its channel, where your hands at least may never drag me out. Let me pass!” They made way for him. His face was white, hard, firm and desperate. He walked with a proud step, like a king Soing to the scaffold. All the shrinking midity, the baffled hesitation of former days had disappeared. It was another man who passed through the crowd, another being who had, as it were, suddenly risen up and usurped the body of Timid Sims.

“ He’s got the sand,” said Alick Ware. Jim Freemantle walked hastily a little ahead of the rest. “Look her, Sims,” said he, with a more kindly intonation in his voice than ever he had used in speaking to him before; “look here —come back, boy—if you go in you’re only goin’ to get drownded for a Chinaman—’tisn’t worth it anyhow—and—and we’ve made a mistake and you’re grit, that’s all. Here, take my hand.” Si ms took the proffered hand. It was but for a moment. He did not allow the grasp to detain him. “ It’s too late,” said he. “ I don’t want your kind words now. I don’t need them. I stand above you all, and I’ve known it this many a day. I’m going to prove to you that I don’t fear death. If I should turn back you’d say in less than a week I’d been playing a game of bluff. I always knew I had grit enough in me. It wanted only your scorn and that poor creature’s extremity to bring it out.” He walked for a few yards farther up the river bank, made one end of the light line he carried fast to a stake, divested himself of his upper clothing, and, holding the other end of the warp, plunged in. It was all over in a moment. Down with race-horse speed he was borne on the surging, muddy billows toward the Black Rock; down he came borne like a feather! with one arm uplifted, as he was shot past, he held out to the Chinaman the life-pre-serving line, which the poor creature eagerly grasped. But Sims could get no hold of the black and polished bowlder. The fearful current, roaring and trembling, bore him into the mouth of the Big Canon; but no one on Texas Bar after that hour ever spoke of “Timid Sims.”— N. T. World.