Sort of a Sad Case

Southland Times, Issue 19387, 10 September 1904, Page 3 (Supplement)

Sort of a Sad Case

The haze of autumn afternoon was spread liko a veil of golden gauze over the foothills of the Sierra, deepening into purple shadows in tho canons and fading into a paler but opaque blanket where it stretched away towards the west above the valley of the San Joaquin. Passengors on the coach rolling down the Yosemite stage road througli the forest caught glimpses— of tho lower hills and the shoreless sea of yellow haze beyond tkem, and regretted that they were soon to leavo the cool bracing air of the mountains and plunge beneath that sea of dust and smote into the quivering heat of the plains. They threw back their shoulders and inhaled deep draughts of air laden with the pungent odours of pine and fir, and felt that it was good to be alive. The coach rolled over the thick carpet of dust, laid by the long rainless summer upon the road, silently save for the creaking of harness and tho occasional grinding of the brake ; and the stillness of afternoon in tho forest was broken only by the tapping of a woodpecker fitting acorns into the holes he had drilled in dead trees during the summer, or by tho rustling fall of a cone from a lofty sugar pine. -Yosemito had exhaustod the exclamatory vocabulary of the garrulous and awed the judicious into reverent silence, and even the man from Philadelphia had ceased asking questions from the driver. A deer crossed the road and trotted liplttly up the mountain side, a dun shadow flitting among the red-brown trunks of the pines, and Rock Grindley only pointed towards it with his whip. The passengers whispered and gazed at the graceful animal, but made no sounds that might alarm it. They* felt the brooding silence of the Sierra, and unconsciously fell into the mood of tho autumn afternoon. Wheu the whip-liko report of a rifle shot, faint and far, but not to be mistaken, came echocless to their ears, they felt vague resentment at the intrusive sound. The coach swung around a sharp bend at tho foot of a steep grade, and t*>e horses wore at a walk, when a man stepped fra-ii behind a tree into the road and hold up his hand. He was a red-beard, d giant. maptiivc ond powerful. TTc wore only o blue shirt, open at the throat iv< 1 chest, and overalls. His feet and lis head were bare ; and his hair, tlie co'-r of the Sequoia's burk, was tousled li' c an urchin's. In his right hand he held a ritle. Rock Grindley 's foot was on the brake, and he had the team well in hand, l.i uu instant, the coach came t;o a dead stop and the passengers had the first thrill of an adventure with stage robbers, which most of them half hoped for and more than half dreaded from tho hour when they first took scat in a Californlian stage coach. At first glance the blonde giant presented a formidable figure, but the {menace of his huge form and his weapon was belied by his ruddy, jocund visage, and the passengers felt liko apologising for their tremors when they saw instead of a mask, the wide, blue eyes and frank mile of the mountaineer. " Howdy, Rock I" was the stranger's greeting to the driver. " Hello, Wes," responded Grindley. " What's up ?" *' Seen anything of an Injun as you came along ?" " Eeckion so- Feller went down into the gulch this side of Chinqucpin. Moccasin tracks crossed the road at Frenchy's oakf After him ?" ** Kind of ; but guess he's hittin' the high place an' won't como back. There's another ono in the road down by my shack. Watch out and don't run over him. Rock.'' " Accident ?" '* Kind of" " Going back ?" •' Might as well." Tho big man climbed to tho box besido the driver, and tho coach went down the grade. At intervals there was a low rumble of thie big. man's voice, unintelligible to the passengers to which the .driver responded with occasion grunts and nods ; but none of the passengers Ventured to ask questions, although their curiosity was oxcited to a keen pitch by the vague hints conveyed in the first brief colloquy. Perhaps a mil- farther on the road doubled a spur of tiie mountain and came into a straight and comparatively level stretch of a few hundred yards. Perched above the road was a cabin of unpaintcd boards, and opposite, in a clearing, was a rough shed. In the niiddlo of the road between the shacks, lay a dark, huddled object, an insistent blot in a patch of intense yellow sunlight. The passengers leaned out over the sides of the coach, stared at the dark figure, and talked in low, hushed lones, but the driver and his companion seemed j to pay np heed to it and made no comment as they approached. The leaders swerved, pricked their cars forward, and blow short blasts through their nostrils when they came near the object, and Rock Grindley spoke ttt them sharply nnd set the brake, bringing the team to a halt. Two of tho passenger jumped out and stepped quickly towards the body, while the others gazed at it in awed fascination. Wesley Lee, the red-bearded giant, descended deliberately, and walked over to the group. " Th' man is doad," announced one of the passengers, turning a keen look upon Wesley's grave countenance. " I 'lowed he might be,"- said Wes, softW* " He's been shot. Hero's a bullet hole in the back; of his head." " You don't say 1 Now, that's* curious ain't it ? Rock, this gentleman says tho diseased- is dead, an' has a hole in his head. I kind of s'picioned that myself." Rock looked calmly down at tho body, nodded, and cheerfully assented : "Deader 'n hell," was what he said. Wesley lifted tho limp figure easily in his huge arms and placed it upon tho bank at the roadside.; It had lain in tho road face downward, an awkward spravyl of the body, dreosed in a calico shirt and faded overalls, with a mass of coarse black hair covering the head and concealing the sides of the face. Laid upon its back, it was seen to bo the corpse of an evil-loohing Indian, and Rock Grldley at once recognised it and named it. "Lome George," said Rock. " Um-uh," said Wesley. " It's George, sure enough,"- '* You seem to know the man," broke in the, alert passenger, who had been taking keen note of everything. "Probably you know who murdered him. This doesn't look much like an accident." " I'm not saying he was murdered, " replied the big moirtaineer slowly, <*but it does look bad, for a fact- I ain't making any charges, stranger, but there was another Injun here, and he's skipped. Rock seen hum scootin' through tho bresli up yender. Seems like there was ground for suspicion." The inquisitive tourist agreed with significant emphasis that there was ground for suspicion, and ho might have gone on to plainer speech bat for tho driver's abrupt call of " All aboard 1" There is no arging with the autocrat of tho box about starting or stopping, and therefore the passengers climbed -quickly to their places and a crack of the whip started the team. "Tell trio Judge to send up a buckboard for the remains, or come along himself if ho wants to hold an inquest," was Wesley's parting injunction, to which Rock replied : "Right.- So long !" as the coach swung along. Uown the grade Into the shadows of the forest. The alert passenger fell into a brown study while tho others chattered excitedly .'about the grim incident of their journey fie had taken the seat beside the driver and presently he said in" a low tone :■' "Driver, ; who killed Indian George?" I" I didn't see nobody kill/ him," replied Rock in a* confidential tone. "Of course you didn't ; but what do

you think *? I think that man Wes, as you call him, shot the Indian." " Stranger," drawled Rock solemnly, (" my job is driving hosses, not thinking. When' a man forgets his job and goes to thinking, trouble begins. I had my lesson. Over on the Big Oak Flat road, com ing down Triest's Hill with a full load of tourists, I got to thinking about something that wasn't any of my business, and instead of making the turn I drove •straight off the road and landed the wh 0 10 outfit in the tops of a bunch of bull pines in tho gulch. That's the place they call ' Gridley's cut-off ' to this day. But don't let that discourage you. You keep night on thinking ; twon't disturb mo a bit." Gridiey's manner was painfully respectful, and there was no hint of asperity in his tone. The passengers smiled, being a man of discernment and some humour, and relapsed into thoughful silence. Tho result of his meditations was a resolve to stay over a day at the little settlement at the end of the day's journey, and observe the further development of tho case. He was a lawyer, and therefore interested. At the stage station the tourists found eager listeners to their story, and nono of the reticence which characterised Hock Gridley, and the little community was soon buzzing with -the news that Wes Lee had hilled the notorious Tn— ia.r> vagabond, Lame George. Not one of the tourists had ventured to make direct assertion that Wes wns responsible for the Indian's death, but tho fact seemed to be taken for granted by tho gossipers on tho hotel porch. After tho departure of the outgoing stage in tho morning there was a general movement of the village population toward tho stago company's harness shop, which was also the office of tho district's solo representative of the law, and upholder of the peace and dignity of the State of California, Judge Bruce, who exercised tho functions of Coroner, Notary, and Committing Magistrate. As the Judge, decorously deliberate, left tlio hotel to go down to his oflice, tho interested tourist joined lum, and began questioning hi-.n as to methods of proceedure. He learned that the enquiry about to be held would lm virtually an inquest', but if cause for believing that a crime had been committed should appear, it would become a preliminary hearing of tho case against tho person accused. So far it was all plain to the Kastcrn lawyer, although it seemed to him a crude system. " And where is the murderer, now ?" he asked in all simplicity. " The which *."" said th<? Judge, in a puzzled tone. " The homicide, the prisoner. T don't sco him anywhere." " Oh !'■' responded tho Judge, as if light had been thrown upon a dark subject. "You mean the man who killed tho Indian ? He will be along pretty soon ;he lives quite a few miles away you know." "Do you mean to say he is at large? Isn't he in goal, or oven under arrest ?" It was the Judge's turn to be shocked, and he obviously was when ho turned an amazed face to tho tourist, and blurted out : "In goal !. Put a man in gaol for shooting a drunken Injun ! Never heard of such a thing in all my life. No sir. Wes Lee isn't in goal ; firstly, because we havn't got any goal, and don't need none ; and secondly, becauso that's him coming over the bridge not more'n half an hour late." The big mountaineer's swinging stride soon brought him into tho group in front of the harness shop. He had attired himself in his '■' store clothes," oven to necktie and boots, his hair and beard were carefully combed, and his ruddy cheeks had a distinctly soapy shine. The preternatural gravity of his countenance, assumed in recognition of the official importance of the occaslion, lasted until his flrst " Howdy " when it Was shivered and scattered in ripples of good nature, even as the placidity of a pool is broken by a cast stone. Wes Lee shook hands with everybody, expluhj-<I that the walk of twelve miles had cons___ed an extra half-hour, because he had stopped to roll out of the road of a half-ton boulder that had fallen near Alder Creek, and proposed that all hands tako a drink before opening Court The Judge stole a furtive glance at the disapproving countenance of tho tourist, aud declined with severe dignity. When Wes and the others returned from the store, tho Court was opened and a Coroner's jury selected by the Judge. Rod- Gridley and the men who had brought in tho body of the Indian wero chosen, because, as tho Judge explained they wero ablo to identify the remains, and know many of the facts of the case, and that would save taking much testimony. The only witness called was Wesley Lee. Ho tald how Lame George aud another Indian entered his cabin and demanded whisky, being already drunk and ugly ; how he refused, and thoy threatened him, one with a pistol and tho other with an axe ; how he tried to get to tho corner where his rifle stood, and was assailed by the Indian with the axe ; how he closed in and seized the fellow round tho body and fiurlod both Indfians through tho door into -tho road. Then Wesley's story became a trifle hazy. Tho Indian with tho pistol figured in it rather vaguely ; but it was clear that the mountaineer secured his rifle and followed the drunken redskins out of the cabin. " The Injun with the six-shooter was yelling and shooting," testified Wesley, "and tho feller with the axe, Lamo George ho was talking about coming back and killing me some other time, "-ou know them Injuns, Judge, and you know they're meaner'n pizen when they're drunk." " Lamo Goorge was sure bad, 'drunk or sober," said the Judgo ; " but what this Court wants to know is whether the drunken companion shot him while flourishing a pistol with malice aforethought and intent to do bodily harm, or whether you killed him in self-defence. Did you shoot him, Wes 7" " Now, I wouldn't want to swear that I did," responded the witness meditatively. " I pulled up on him with' my Winchester, but I was kinder hurried like, and I shfouldn't bo surpnised if I shot a leetle too far to the right. Of courso, j I'm sorry, Judge.'' j Tho Court enquired if the jury desired to ask any questions or hear any more evidence- The jury allowed that it had all the evidence necessary, agreed that Lamo George dead was an improved red man, decided that nobody knew who killed him, and hazarded tho guess that his companion was guilty, being notoriously a worthless vagabond. Tho formal verdict was that a pistol shot was the cause of death. Court ailjournod, and Wesley invited the Judge and the stranger to join him in a visit to tho store. Tha Judgo declined the invitation with a wink and a grimace on the side of his face away from tho tourists, and cleared his throat to deliver a Homily on tho evils of drink. " This is a very deplorable affair, Wesley," began his Honour, smpressively. " This is sort ol a Bad case so to speak" Woaley looked as grave as he knew hlow, and eagerly assented. " Yes," he said, "it surely was sad that I didn't get tlie other one, too,"— Allan Kelly, in tho New York Evening Post.