The Buckskin Shirt

EER pardner.

“This is my furst leter. I kno all about how you saved muther on the desert from the injuns, so she named me after you in grattitude. each time Crismus comes she says you send me something and call me little pardner. so i guess we are. i want to play injun but aint got no buckskin shirt like buflo bill wore. if you see Santy Klaus loafin around out there tell him. muther says he lives somewhere, near you. goodbye Willie Smith Parks.

“ps. ain't this a long letter.”

The big, gaunt man read it with chucklings and interpolations of “God bless his little heart” or “Ain't he a brick, durn him; ain’t he a brick!”

The half-written, half-printed missive was familiar to him through many readings, for it had been his evening custom now for several weeks to scan its pages before commencing the herculean task which he had set himself—the making of the shirt.

He relighted his pipe, carefully folded and religiously replaced the letter in his safety vault, a baking-powder can on a shelf. In this can, too, was his store of gold-dust, his only reward for months of isolation and toil.

With a sigh of touching profundity, he once more bent over a bundle of buckskin, which lay in crumpled folds beneath his clumsy, toil-worn hands. When he straightened up, after intense study of the lines on which miners’ shirts are made, its crude design became visible.

He was lank and huge. His skin was wrinkled by desert suns and winter winds. He was wholly unprepossessing until one came to look deeply into the eyes that at first glance were merely pieces of blue-gray steel, set into the dun color of his face. The more one looked the deeper they became. Then, if his face contorted itself into a mass of crisscrossed wrinkles, the eyes became wells of kindliness and gladness; and the man was beautiful. After that you forgot to look anywhere else.

His habitation was a mere shack of a cabin, perched on the edge of a bluff away off up in the tops of the Sierras, where winter snows lie deep, where the wind croons through fir-trees watching over splendid loneliness; and where the lean, gray wolf has come into his own again, after the passing of a civilization. It was a day’s hard snow-shoeing in winter, and an equally long tramp in summer to the nearest neighbor.

A black hole in the hillside, deserted since those earlier argonauts had gone their ways, had lured him to the place with gleaming invitations. From its overlooked crannies he drove a meager “Stake.”

It was late autumn now, and the snow had covered over that forgotten city in the cañon below; and blanketed in white the old camp cemetery. On this night and other nights the wind sang varying tunes, and drove the snow like spray against the cabin window from a sea of unbroken white.

But neither the night nor the hole in the hillside was of interest to the man in the cabin, who alternated little pieces of whistled tunes with half-whispered soliloquies; and occasionally, when the problem became very perplexing, thrust his fingers through his shock of hair, and swore great, meaningless oaths.

For seven years now the gaunt one had never failed in a Christmas remembrance, the only one he gave, and to a stranger’s child. For seven years, luck with him or against him, he had sent this Christmas offering. Once, down in Tucson, he had been in such straits that he had to pawn his silver-mounted saddle to gain the wherewithal to buy a gewgaw for this little boy. But as he said at the time when he mailed it, he had “made good. And what’s the use in havin’ a little pardner named after you, if you don’t give him his’n on Christmas?”

But this was the hardest year of all. The most difficult task. Not a squaw within a hundred miles. Indians all gone. Nobody much who knew how to tan buck. Ought to have beads on it, but that couldn’t be done. Wished he had learned beadwork. Never cut nor sewed a boy’s shirt in all his life. How big was a seven-year-old, anyhow! But “Sure as shootin’, there was a real Buffalo Bill shirt goin’ back East this year.”

So through this winter’s evening and many others he worked steadily, and looked forward to that fast approaching time when he must venture out from the wilderness and away to the abode of men, in order that he might express with due formality his annual gift.

On the night of its completion as he held it to the light it proved a wonderful creation. Never was such a tan, and never did finer claws grace a neckpiece. Its thrums were of the thinnest, and a quill or two lent chic. True, the sewing was a trifle irregular in stitch, and there were places that looked rather crude, but it was “A mighty strong shirt, and them stitches was all put in thar to stay. You bet it was a strong shirt.”

There came the night of the starting. Fresh thongs to the shoes, the homely lunch, and the packing of the precious bundle that was to bring gladness to those two Easterners. The buckskin shirt and the meager supply of gold-dust were rolled into a tight little wad and carefully bound around with strips of flour sack.

The wind was not wearied of the night when the moccasined feet were slipped into the rawhide thongs, the diminutive pack thrust over sinewy shoulders, and the belt tightened for the day’s journey. Out through the singing pines, which bade him a friendly good-by, up to the crest of the divide where undergrowth and barren rock were rendered a plain by the leveling snow, he went, and the morning sun broke upon his traveling.

So sang the fiddles of midnight, as he reached Indian Spring, the stage terminus, stiff, tired, and sore. The opening of the pack, the expenditure of a portion of the hard-earned dust, and the participation in a dance where “ladies’ were distinguished by bandanna handkerchiefs tied ’round muscular male left arms, came as a matter of course, and an exhilarating dissipation after all those weary days of toil and weary nights of effort in the hills.

“Sandy must hev somethin’ mighty precious in that bundle of hissen,” was the comment of the stage agent as he received a wad of buckskin with reiterated instructions to keep it safeguarded.

But neither through the hours of night nor in the early dawn, when he mounted by preference the vacant seat by the stage-driver, did “Whistling Sandy” vouchsafe an explanation of the whys and wherefores of his burden, None but an observant eve could have detected when he bound his tiny “poke” of gold inside the little shirt, that in his estimation the latter was the more precious. Nor could any one have observed that this solicitude was continued at Forest Hill, where the steaming horses and sleigh from Indian Spring gave place to fresh ponies and wheels.

Away off down the divide, through ever-decreasing snow and over wind-swept, rock-strewn spots, the stage clumsily rattled. Its inside passengers, consisting of a traveling man for an Eastern mining-machine house and a large, fat woman, who had been a cook at an upland mining-camp, bumped hither and yon as the vehicle found declivities.

Every now and then the driver, as he threw his lash out over the leaders, complained, in the whispering voice of the West, about the responsibilities that had been thrust upon him in this trip.

“Here comes a clean-up from the Golconda—twenty thousand, anyhow—and for the fust time in a year they ain’t no Wells-Fargo man along to watch the job. Last time this thing happened they stuck us up and poor old Tom Smith gits shot off’n the box for forgettin’ to shove up his hands when a gent with a handkerchief tied over the lower half of his mug makes a gentle request.”

Sandy involuntarily thrust his hand around the buckskin shirt, which, together with the scant store of wealth, reposed within the sagging folds of his blue flannel shirt.

Great heavens! He had never thought of this before. Suppose they should be held up on this trip? He wouldn’t mind the loss of his poke or any other valuable possession of his own, but the shirt! Why, if the highwaymen got that, his “little pardner” ’way back East would wait disappointed on that fast-approaching Christmas day. “But, shucks! they wa’n’t goin’ to be no hold-up,” and he lighted his pipe.

Even in the land of certainty the unusual happens. So it was that as they rounded the turn of dread Dead-Man’s Curve, there came crisply out in the morning air the command “Halt and hands up! The brakes for yours!”

Sandy, for the instant bewildered, caught a kaleidoscopic glance of two masked men on the hillside above the mountain-road, a menacing figure near the head of the leaders, a pointed rifle, and the driver’s frantic efforts to pull up. Like a flash came the thought of his mission and the necessity for escape.

The whip lay before him. Without a thought of consequences and regardless of the recklessness of his action, he seized the whip, sprang to his feet in the box, and sent the long lash curling, quivering, and viciously snapping across the palpitant flanks of the maddened leaders. At the top of his voice he urged the horses into continued speed, swearing with only such oaths as come to the man of the frontier when meeting a crisis.

The driver, astonished, released his foot from the brake and thoughtlessly rose to a half-standing posture. A rifle on the hillside cracked with a spiteful suddenness, and in a huddled heap the driver dropped forward, liberating the reins from his hands, The terrified horses threw themselves into the traces, the coach gave a leap ahead, and, driverless and aimless on the mountain-shelf, the race was on.

Again a rifle sang from the hillside, and one of the wheel-horses dropped, stricken so suddenly by death that its body blocked the way, threw the other wheel-horse out of the road, and brought the stage to an abrupt standstill, Even as the wheels ceased turning, the rifle spoke again, carrying death to the other wheel-horse. The leaders, surging upon the tugs, broke loose from the blocking burden, and went clattering down the road to the echo of pursuing shots.

A gaunt man, rifle in hand, jumped cometlike from the seat beside the dead driver and sought protection and barricade behind the body of a fallen horse. A black barrel was thrust forth from his place of hiding, and instantly carried a messenger of death to the nearest outlaw.

The other two, surprised, balked, and angered, jumped to cover behind convenient boulders, and sent a volley toward the battered old white hat which showed itself above the quivering loins of the dying wheeler. There came no shot in reply. Sandy was biding his time.

From within the coach came asthmatic screams: from the erstwhile cook, and shouts of “Ve surrenders! Ve surrenders!” from her traveling companion. These cries finally subsided into snivelings and moans as the unfortunate travelers sought the security of the stage-coach floor.

Out on the snow of the roadside the body of the dying outlaw twitched convulsively. From Sandy’s fortress, as he lay, it seemed fantastic. Even when that prone figure, with a last movement, twisted upon its back and rested quietly with an unheeding face turned upward to the morning sun, Sandy felt no pity. It was part of the game, and the game was one which must be played to a finish. He knew, as did the others, that there would be no compromise here. It was to the death.

As he watched with steely eyes aflame with battle-light, he counted his chances, but felt no weakening and no fear. Over and over again, between his clenched teeth, he muttered: “They can’t win, damn ’em, they can’t win. They got Jack, but they can’t get me. If he’d been game from the jump we'd have all pulled through.”

A sudden movement on the hillside caught his attention.

There was a swift rush of a black form silhouetted against the whiteness as one of the robbers, adopting new tactics, sought a vantage-point higher on the mountain, from which he might shoot down to the road. Quick as a flash and with deadly certainty, Sandy’s rifle recognized the danger, gave answer, and another huddled heap was added to the morning’s tragedy. Down the hill it came, tumbling grotesquely, displacing stones in its journey, and finding a resting-place within a few feet of its comrade.

Sandy chuckled grimly. “There’s just one more,” he said to himself, “and mebbe I kin get him to lay down his hand.

“Hey, there!” he shouted, “I don’t wanter kill you, and I reckon you don’t care in nowise particular about gettin’ me. If you’ve got enough already, you kin chuck your guns over in front of that rock, h’ist your hands, and come down here where we can palaver.”

A shot was the only reply. “A pretty game cuss, I reckon,” said Sandy, as the bullet ripped through the top of his hat, carrying with it a neatly mown lock of red hair.

“Whew, some good shootin’, I calkerlate.” Then he began to try, after carefully withdrawing his rifle, to gain a position of ’vantage from farther up the side of the fallen beast. As he crawled forward upon his side, he inadvertently exposed himself, and the last outlaw lost no time in seizing the opportunity.

A spurt of flame shot like lightning from the hillside battle-ground. Sandy felt a paralyzing shock, and released his hold on his rifle, which fell and clattered out of reach.

“He got me! He got me!” Sandy murmured over and over to himself. His hand sought his breast and came away redly stained. He was helpless, but through his mind flashed a recollection of an old Indian strategy, and at once he simulated death.

A long interval of silence followed.

A head appeared above the outlaw’s refuge. From around the corner of the rock protruded a part of a face. Still no shot from the traveler crouched behind the dead wheeler. Emboldened by this, the outlaw cautiously got on his feet and peered toward his enemy. Satisfied that he had nothing to fear, he advanced into the open.

Over the field of tragedy he strode, the lust of gold still upon him. He reached the box of the stage, shifted his rifle to the hollow of his arm, and stretched out a grasping hand toward the coveted loot.

The prescience which is every man’s inheritance caused him to turn toward his fallen adversary.

From behind that barricade of flesh, upon his knees, resting dizzily on one arm and weakly seeking steadiness of aim was the supposed dead man. The outlaw’s rifle and a heavy Colt’s rang in unison. The robber spun upon his heel, dropping his weapon. Slowly he settled to his knees, and then, as though tired, fell forward upon his face. He was not alone in relinquishment.

As if he, too, were wearied of the struggle, Sandy had twisted over on his side, his pistol dropping from nerveless fingers, and one arm distorted under him.

To the ears of the frightened passengers in the coach there came the welcome sound of clattering hoofs and excited voices from down the road. A cavalcade of furiously riding men swung around a curve and made upon them.

“Lucky that only one horse went over the cliff and that we met the other leader,” said the foremost man, as his spurred heels rang on the ground, and his mount, with steaming flanks, came to a dejected halt. While two of the men listened to the frightened explanations of the passengers, the others grouped themselves about the prone figure of Sandy. They lifted him to an easier position and set to work to revive him with gathered snow.

His eyes opened as though from sleep, and his uninjured arm sought the blood-stained breast.

“Must get this to express,” he murmured. ‘Won't get there in time, unless I do. Christmas most here. Had to fight for it, and can’t fall down now.”

“Well, I’m damned,” said one of the men. “This is all that saved that hole from letting his life out. He'll get well, all right.”

To the amazement of the curious group, he held in the air and shook out of its foldings a tiny buckskin shirt, stained with blood and perforated through its wadded thickness with a bullet meant to kill,

Again the winds caressed the hill-tops, laid loving hands on the fir-trees, and played dancing tunes for the wild flowers that carpeted the domes back of Sandy’s home. Everything seemed good to him in this spring world of his. It was an old world, too, and one whose buffets and scant rewards he had faced uncomplainingly. But to-night, he thought, what more could a man want than this? He reviewed in order the facts that unexpected treasures of gold had been found, that new friends had been made, and, greatest of all, that a letter was lying on his lap. It read: