i am going to spin you the yarn of the foundering of the fortuna exactly as an old lake captain on a huron steamer once span it for me by great manitoulin island. it is a strange and a weird story; and if i can't give you the dialect in which he told it, you must forgive an english tongue its native accent for the sake of the curious yankee tale that underlies it.
captain montague beresford pierpoint was hardly the sort of man you would have expected to find behind the counter of a small shanty bank at aylmer's pike, colorado. there was an engaging english frankness, an obvious honesty and refinement of manner about him, which suited very oddly with the rough habits and rougher western speech of the mining population in whose midst he lived. and yet, captain pierpoint had succeeded in gaining the confidence and respect of those strange outcasts of civilization by some indescribable charm of address and some invisible talisman of quiet good-fellowship, which caused him to be more universally believed in than any other man whatsoever at aylmer's pike. indeed, to say so much is rather to underrate the uniqueness of his position; for it might, perhaps, be truer to say that captain pierpoint was the only man in the place in whom any one believed at all in any[pg 145] way. he was an honest-spoken, quiet, unobtrusive sort of man, who walked about fearlessly without a revolver, and never gambled either in mining shares or at poker; so that, to the simple-minded, unsophisticated rogues and vagabonds of aylmer's pike, he seemed the very incarnation of incorruptible commercial honour. they would have trusted all their earnings and winnings without hesitation to captain pierpoint's bare word; and when they did so, they knew that captain pierpoint had always had the money forthcoming, on demand, without a moment's delay or a single prevarication.
captain pierpoint walked very straight and erect, as becomes a man of conspicuous uprightness; and there was a certain tinge of military bearing in his manner which seemed at first sight sufficiently to justify his popular title. but he himself made no false pretences upon that head; he freely acknowledged that he had acquired the position of captain, not in her britannic majesty's guards, as the gossip of aylmer's pike sometimes asserted, but in the course of his earlier professional engagements as skipper of a lake superior grain-vessel. though he hinted at times that he was by no means distantly connected with the three distinguished families whose names he bore, he did not attempt to exalt his rank or birth unduly, admitting that he was only a canadian sailor by trade, thrown by a series of singular circumstances into the position of a colorado banker. the one thing he really understood, he would tell his mining friends, was the grain-trade on the upper lakes; for finance he had but a single recommendation, and that was that if people trusted him he could never deceive them.
if any man had set up a bank in aylmer's point with an iron strong-room, a lot of electric bells, and an obtrusive display of fire-arms and weapons, it is tolerably certain that that bank would have been promptly robbed and gutted within its first week of existence by open violence.[pg 146] five or six of the boys would have banded themselves together into a body of housebreakers, and would have shot down the banker and burst into his strong-room, without thought of the electric bells or other feeble resources of civilization to that end appointed. but when a quiet, unobtrusive, brave man, like captain montague pierpoint, settled himself in a shanty in their midst, and won their confidence by his straightforward honesty, scarcely a miner in the lot would ever have dreamt of attempting to rob him. captain pierpoint had not come to aylmer's pike at first with any settled idea of making himself the financier of the rough little community; he intended to dig on his own account, and the r?le of banker was only slowly thrust upon him by the unanimous voice of the whole diggings. he had begun by lending men money out of his own pocket—men who were unlucky in their claims, men who had lost everything at monte, men who had come penniless to the pike, and expected to find silver growing freely and openly on the surface. he had lent to them in a friendly way, without interest, and had been forced to accept a small present, in addition to the sum advanced, when the tide began to turn, and luck at last led the penniless ones to a remunerative placer or pocket. gradually the diggers got into the habit of regarding this as captain pierpoint's natural function, and captain pierpoint, being himself but an indifferent digger, acquiesced so readily that at last, yielding to the persuasion of his clients, he put up a wooden counter, and painted over his rough door the magnificent notice, "aylmer's pike bank: montague pierpoint, manager." he got a large iron safe from carson city, and in that safe, which stood by his own bedside, all the silver and other securities of the whole village were duly deposited. "any one of the boys could easily shoot me and open that safe any night," captain pierpoint used to say pleasantly; "but if he did,[pg 147] by george! he'd have to reckon afterwards with every man on the pike; and i should be sorry to stand in his shoes—that i would, any time." indeed, the entire pike looked upon captain pierpoint's safe as "our bank;" and, united in a single front by that simple social contract, they agreed to respect the safe as a sacred object, protected by the collective guarantee of three hundred mutually suspicious revolver-bearing outcasts.
however, even at aylmer's pike, there were degrees and stages of comparative unscrupulousness. two men, new-comers to the pike, by name hiram coffin and pete morris, at last wickedly and feloniously conspired together to rob captain pierpoint's bank. their plan was simplicity itself. they would go at midnight, very quietly, to the captain's house, cut his throat as he slept, rob the precious safe, and ride off straight for the east, thus getting a clear night's start of any possible pursuer. it was an easy enough thing to do; and they were really surprised in their own minds that nobody else had ever been cute enough to seize upon such an obvious and excellent path to wealth and security.
the day before the night the two burglars had fixed upon for their enterprise, captain pierpoint himself appeared to be in unusual spirits. pete morris called in at the bank during the course of the morning, to reconnoitre the premises, under pretence of paying in a few dollars' worth of silver, and he found the captain very lively indeed. when pete handed him the silver across the counter, the captain weighed it with a smile, gave a receipt for the amount—he always gave receipts as a matter of form—and actually invited pete into the little back room, which was at once kitchen, bedroom, and parlour, to have a drink. then, before pete's very eyes, he opened the safe, bursting with papers, and placed the silver in a bag on a shelf by itself, sticking the key into his waistcoat pocket. "he is delivering himself up into our hands,"[pg 148] thought pete to himself, as the captain poured out two glasses of old bourbon, and handed one to the miner opposite. "here's success to all our enterprises!" cried the captain gaily. "here's success, pard!" pete answered, with a sinister look, which even the captain could not help noting in a sidelong fashion.
that night, about two o'clock, when all aylmer's pike was quietly dreaming its own sordid, drunken dreams, two sober men rose up from their cabin and stole out softly to the wooden bank house. two horses were ready saddled with mexican saddle-bags, and tied to a tree outside the digging, and in half an hour pete and hiram hoped to find themselves in full possession of all captain pierpoint's securities, and well on their road towards the nearest station of the pacific railway. they groped along to the door of the bank shanty, and began fumbling with their wire picks at the rough lock. after a moment's exploration of the wards, pete morris drew back in surprise.
"pard," he murmured in a low whisper, "here's suthin' rather extraordinary; this 'ere lock's not fastened."
they turned the handle gently, and found that the door opened without an effort. both men looked at one another in the dim light incredulously. was there ever such a simple, trustful fool as that fellow pierpoint! he actually slept in the bank shanty with his outer door unfastened!
the two robbers passed through the outer room and into the little back bedroom-parlour. hiram held the dark lantern, and turned it full on to the bed. to their immense astonishment they found it empty.
their first impulse was to suppose that the captain had somehow anticipated their coming, and had gone out to rouse the boys. for a moment they almost contemplated running away, without the money. but a second glance reassured them; the bed had not been slept in. the captain was a man of very regular habits. he made his bed in civilized[pg 149] fashion every morning after breakfast, and he retired every evening at a little after eleven. where he could be stopping so late they couldn't imagine. but they hadn't come there to make a study of the captain's personal habits, and, as he was away, the best thing they could do was to open the safe immediately, before he came back. they weren't particular about murder, pete and hiram; still, if you could do your robbery without bloodshed, it was certainly all the better to do it so.
hiram held the lantern, carefully shaded by his hand, towards the door of the safe. pete looked cautiously at the lock, and began pushing it about with his wire pick; he had hoped to get the key out of captain pierpoint's pocket, but as that easy scheme was so unexpectedly foiled, he trusted to his skill in picking to force the lock open. once more a fresh surprise awaited him. the door opened almost of its own accord! pete looked at hiram, and hiram looked at pete. there was no mistaking the strange fact that met their gaze—the safe was empty!
"what on airth do you suppose is the meaning of this, pete?" hiram whispered hoarsely. but pete did not whisper; the whole truth flashed upon him in a moment, and he answered aloud, with a string of oaths, "the cap'n has gone and made tracks hisself for madison dep?t. and he's taken every red cent in the safe along with him, too! the mean, low, dirty scoundrel! he's taken even my silver that he give me a receipt for this very morning!"
hiram stared at pete in blank amazement. that such base treachery could exist on earth almost surpassed his powers of comprehension; he could understand that a man should rob and murder, simply and naturally, as he was prepared to do, out of pure, guileless depravity of heart, but that a man should plan and plot for a couple of years to impose upon the[pg 150] simplicity of a dishonest community by a consistent show of respectability, with the ultimate object of stealing its whole wealth at one fell swoop, was scarcely within the limits of his narrow intelligence. he stared blankly at the empty safe, and whispered once more to pete in a timid undertone, "perhaps he's got wind of this, and took off the plate to somebody else's hut. if the boys was to come and catch us here, it 'ud be derned awkward for you an' me, pete." but pete answered gruffly and loudly, "never you mind about the plate, pard. the cap'n's gone, and the plate's gone with him; and what we've got to do now is to rouse the boys and ride after him like greased lightnin'. the mean swindler, to go and swindle me out of the silver that i've been and dug out of that there claim yonder with my own pick!" for the sense of personal injustice to one's self rises perennially in the human breast, however depraved, and the man who would murder another without a scruple is always genuinely aghast with just indignation when he finds the counsel for the prosecution pressing a point against him with what seems to him unfair persistency.
pete flung his lock-pick out among the agave scrub that faced the bank shanty and ran out wildly into the midst of the dusty white road that led down the row of huts which the people of aylmer's pike euphemistically described as the main street. there he raised such an unearthly whoop as roused the sleepers in the nearest huts to turn over in their beds and listen in wonder, with a vague idea that "the injuns" were coming down on a scalping-trail upon the diggings. next, he hurried down the street, beating heavily with his fist on every frame door, and kicking hard at the log walls of the successive shanties. in a few minutes the whole pike was out and alive. unwholesome-looking men, in unwashed flannel shirts and loose trousers, mostly barefooted in their[pg 151] haste, came forth to inquire, with an unnecessary wealth of expletives, what the something was stirring. pete, breathless and wrathful in the midst, livid with rage and disappointment, could only shriek aloud, "cap'n pierpoint has cleared out of camp, and taken all the plate with him!" there was at first an incredulous shouting and crying; then a general stampede towards the bank shanty; and, finally, as the truth became apparent to everybody, a deep and angry howl for vengeance on the traitor. in one moment captain pierpoint's smooth-faced villany dawned as clear as day to all aylmer's pike; and the whole chorus of gamblers, rascals, and blacklegs stood awe-struck with horror and indignation at the more plausible rogue who had succeeded in swindling even them. the clean-washed, white-shirted, fair-spoken villain! they would have his blood for this, if the united states marshal had every mother's son of them strung up in a row for it after the pesky business was once fairly over.
nobody inquired how pete and hiram came by the news. nobody asked how they had happened to notice that the shanty was empty and the safe rifled. all they thought of was how to catch and punish the public robber. he must have made for the nearest dep?t, madison clearing, on the union pacific line, and he would take the first cars east for st. louis—that was certain. every horse in the pike was promptly requisitioned by the fastest riders, and a rough cavalcade, revolvers in hand, made down the gulch and across the plain, full tilt to madison. but when, in the garish blaze of early morning, they reached the white wooden dep?t in the valley and asked the ticket-clerk whether a man answering to their description had gone on by the east mail at 4.30, the ticket-clerk swore, in reply, that not a soul had left the dep?t by any train either way that blessed night. pete morris proposed to hold a[pg 152] revolver to his head and force him to confess. but even that strong measure failed to induce a satisfactory retractation. by way of general precaution, two of the boys went on by the day train to st. louis, but neither of them could hear anything of captain pierpoint. indeed, as a matter of fact, the late manager and present appropriator of the aylmer's pike bank had simply turned his horse's head in the opposite direction, towards the further station at cheyenne gap, and had gone westward to san francisco, intending to make his way back to new york via panama and the isthmus railway.
when the boys really understood that they had been completely duped, they swore vengeance in solemn fashion, and they picked out two of themselves to carry out the oath in a regular assembly. each contributed of his substance what he was able; and pete and hiram, being more stirred with righteous wrath than all the rest put together, were unanimously deputed to follow the captain's tracks to san francisco, and to have his life wherever and whenever they might chance to find him. pete and hiram accepted the task thrust upon them, con amore, and went forth zealously to hunt up the doomed life of captain montague beresford pierpoint.
