‘Guess you ain’t acquainted with this child?’
I said no; I had not the pleasure of knowing him.
‘I spotted you, Cap’en, just as soon as ever I seed you making tracks down the street. My gal Car’line told me how she put you through all the dance last night.’
It suddenly flashed upon me that the drayman was my partner’s papa. Here’s a lively affair! If he does not ask me my intentions, and riddle me with a six-shooter if I refuse to marry his ‘gal’ at once, I shall deem myself the most fortunate of men. I civilly said, in reply, that I found his daughter a most admirable partner.
‘I rather guess you did, Cap’en; she’s all watch-spring and whalebone, she is; can’t skeer up a smarter gal than “Car” in these parts, if you was to do your darndest. She! why, she’s worth her weight in nuggets to the man as gets her.’
I felt cold all over—I thought it was coming. ‘You must excuse me,’ I said; ‘my breakfast is waiting, and I daresay we shall meet again.’ (I knew this was an awful twister.)
‘I’m sure we shall, Cap’en. Let’s licker:’ so we adjourned to the nearest bar-room and took an ‘eye-opener,’ and so I escaped from the drayman. I drew a deep breath, and felt as if I had got clear from the claws of a grizzly bear—made for the inn as fast as I could, gobbled up a hasty breakfast, packed up my goods, and with my guide started for my camp.
Often I turned and gazed anxiously over the plain, expecting I should see the drayman, his daughter Caroline, and a priest in hot pursuit; and there and then, on the Shasta plains, I should be, _nolens volens_, linked to my fair-haired partner, for a life’s cotillon!
Such was my first, and such was my last, my only night in Yreka! ‘All’s well that ends well,’ and I trust the fair Caroline has as pleasant a remembrance of the Cap’en as he has of her!
I found my camp all right, saddled up, and am off on my perilous journey through the wilds of Oregon. The Shasta plains are vast sandy flats, half prairie, half desert, sparsely covered with withered grass, and not a bush or tree or shrub, as far as the eye could wander, had struggled into life. ’Tis true a stunted artemisia, or wild-sage bush, had fought its way inch by inch in its struggle for existence, and looked so old, dry, and parched, that your idea was, if you laid a finger on it, it would powder up like dried herbs; but whatever had been in shape of grass, or herb, or shrub, was gone, cleared bodily and entirely away by the field-crickets.