or for some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild,

inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate

mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been

the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that

it was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own

unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston,

addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such

Cliffords!" He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened

to be really Clifford, as "Jay-bird Charley"--an unhallowed inspiration

of the moment that clung to him ever after.



But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other

than this relative title; that he had ever existed as a separate and

distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he

left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He

never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by

a young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his

meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile

not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over

his upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He

followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast

and victory. That day week they were married by a justice of the peace,

and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be

made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy

Bar--in the gulches and barrooms--where all sentiment was modified by a

strong sense of humor.



Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason

that Tennessee, then living with his Partner, one day took occasion to

say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said,

she smiled not unkindly and chastely retreated--this time as far

as Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to

housekeeping without the aid of a justice of the peace. Tennessee's

Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his

fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee one day returned

from Marysville, without his Partner's wife--she having smiled and

retreated with somebody else--Tennessee's Partner was the first man to

shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered

in the canyon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their

indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look

in Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous

appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to

practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty.



Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar.

He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these

suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued

intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be

accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last

Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his

way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled

the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically

concluded the interview in the following words: "And now, young man,

I'll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see

your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money's a

temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was

San Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that

Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation

could wholly subdue.



This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause

against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same

fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him,

he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the

crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canyon; but at its

farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The

men looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both

self-possessed and independent; and both types of a civilization that

in the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but, in the

nineteenth, simply "reckless." "What have you got there?--I call,"

said Tennessee, quietly. "Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger,

as quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie knife. "That takes me,"

returned Tennessee; and with this gamblers' epigram, he threw away his

useless pistol, and rode back with his captor.





It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the

going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that

evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little canyon was stifling with

heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth

faint, sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day, and its fierce

passions, still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank

of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current.

Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the

express office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless

panes the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even then

deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the dark

firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with remoter

passionless stars.



The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a

judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in

their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The

law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and

personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their

hands they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they

were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their

own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any

that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged,

on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense

than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more

anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took

a grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take any

hand in this yer game," had been his invariable but good-humored reply

to all questions. The Judge--who was also his captor--for a moment

vaguely regretted that he had not shot him "on sight" that morning,

but presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial

mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said

that Tennessee's Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was

admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the

jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed

him as a relief.



For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a

square face sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose duck

"jumper" and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his aspect

under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even

ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpetbag he

was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and

inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched

had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he

advanced with great gravity, and after having shaken the hand of each

person in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious,

perplexed face on a red bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his

complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and

thus addressed the Judge:



"I was passin' by," he began, by way of apology, "and I thought I'd

just step in and see how things was gittin' on with Tennessee thar--my

pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember any sich weather before on the

Bar."



He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological

recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket handkerchief, and for

some moments mopped his face diligently.



"Have you anything to say in behalf of the prisoner?" said the Judge,

finally.



"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I come yar

as Tennessee's pardner--knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet

and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways, but

thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness

as he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez

you--confidential-like, and between man and man--sez you, 'Do you know

anything in his behalf?' and I sez to you, sez I--confidential-like, as

between man and man--'What should a man know of his pardner?'"



"Is this all you have to say?" asked the Judge impatiently, feeling,

perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize

the Court.



"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. "It ain't for me to say

anything agin' him. And now, what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants

money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old pardner.

Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches

that stranger. And you lays for HIM, and you fetches HIM; and the

honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a far-minded man, and to you,

gentlemen, all, as far-minded men, ef this isn't so."



"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have you any questions to ask

this man?"



"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner, hastily. "I play this yer hand

alone. To come down to the bedrock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has

played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer



camp. And now, what's the fair thing? Some would say more; some

would say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a

watch--it's about all my pile--and call it square!" And before a hand

could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the

carpetbag upon the table.



For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their

feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to

"throw him from the window" was only overridden by a gesture from the

Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement,

Tennessee's Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again with

his handkerchief.



When order was restored, and the man was made to understand, by the use

of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessee's offense could not be

condoned by money, his face took a more serious and sanguinary hue,

and those who were nearest to him noticed that his rough hand trembled

slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as he slowly returned the

gold to the carpetbag, as if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated

sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the

belief that he had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and

saying, "This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner,"

he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw when the Judge called him

back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say it

now." For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his

strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and,

saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner took

it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped in as I was passin' to see

how things was gettin' on," let the hand passively fall, and adding that

it was a warm night, again mopped his face with his handkerchief, and

without another word withdrew.



The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled

insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch--who, whether bigoted, weak,

or narrow, was at least incorruptible--firmly fixed in the mind of that

mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and

at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the

top of Marley's Hill.



How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how

perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported,

with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future

evildoers, in the RED DOG CLARION, by its editor, who was present, and

to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty

of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky,

the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and

promise of Nature, and above all, the infinite Serenity that thrilled

through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social

lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life,

with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the

misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the

flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the

RED DOG CLARION was right.



Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous

tree. But as they turned to disperse attention was drawn to the singular

appearance of a motionless donkey cart halted at the side of the road.

As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable "Jenny" and

the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee's Partner--used by him

in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant the owner

of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye tree, wiping the

perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he

had come for the body of the "diseased," "if it was all the same to the

committee." He didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could "wait." He

was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the

"diseased," he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added, in

his simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they

kin come." Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already

intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar--perhaps it was from something even

better than that; but two-thirds of the loungers accepted the invitation

at once.



It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of

his Partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that

it contained a rough, oblong box--apparently made from a section of

sluicing and half-filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart was

further decorated with slips of willow, and made fragrant with buckeye

blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee's Partner

drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the narrow

seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little donkey

forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace which

was habitual with "Jenny" even under less solemn circumstances. The

men--half curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredly--strolled

along beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear of the

homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road or some

present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell to the

rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the external show

of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a

funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted, from

a lack of sympathy and appreciation--not having, perhaps, your true

humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment of his own fun.



The way led through Grizzly Canyon--by this time clothed in funereal

drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in

the red soil, stood in Indian file along the track, trailing an uncouth

benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare,

surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the

ferns by the roadside as the cortege went by. Squirrels hastened to gain

a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the bluejays, spreading their

wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts of

Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's Partner.



Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a

cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines,

the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the

California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay

superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure,

which in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matrimonial felicity

had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we

approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a

recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave.



The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of

assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed

throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back and

deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He then nailed down

the board which served as a lid; and mounting the little mound of

earth beside it, took off his hat, and slowly mopped his face with his

handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech; and they

disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant.



"When a man," began Tennessee's Partner, slowly, "has been running free

all day, what's the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And

if he ain't in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do?

Why, bring him home! And here's Tennessee has been running free, and we

brings him home from his wandering." He paused, and picked up a fragment

of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: "It ain't

the first time that I've packed him on my back, as you see'd me now.

It ain't the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he

couldn't help himself; it ain't the first time that I and 'Jinny' have

waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home,

when he couldn't speak, and didn't know me. And now that it's the last

time, why"--he paused and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve--"you

see it's sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen," he added,

abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my

thanks, and Tennessee's thanks, to you for your trouble."



Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave,

turning his back upon the crowd that after a few moments' hesitation

gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy

Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee's

Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his

knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna handkerchief. But it was

argued by others that you couldn't tell his face from his handkerchief

at that distance; and this point remained undecided.





In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day,

Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had

cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a

suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on

him, and proffering various uncouth, but well-meant kindnesses. But from

that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline;

and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were

beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took

to his bed. One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in

the storm, and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the

roar and rush of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee's

Partner lifted his head from the pillow, saying, "It is time to go for

Tennessee; I must put 'Jinny' in the cart"; and would have risen from

his bed but for the restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still

pursued his singular fancy: "There, now, steady, 'Jinny'--steady, old

girl. How dark it is! Look out for the ruts--and look out for him, too,

old gal. Sometimes, you know, when he's blind-drunk, he drops down right

in the trail. Keep on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill.

Thar--I told you so!--thar he is--coming this way, too--all by himself,

sober, and his face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!"



And so they met.