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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Ah, love of God! what misfortune has befallen Chino!" Then in English, and with a swift leap of surprise and dismay: "Ah, Meester Lockwude, air you hurt? Eh, tell me-a! Ah, it is too draidful!" "No, no," gasped Lockwood, as he dragged Chino's unconscious body to the bed Felice had just left. "No; I I've shot him. We met there on the trail."
His downcast figure attracted the careless attention of one of the men. "Here boys!" he yelled, snatching off his hat. "This ain't so damn funny for Chino here!" He passed the hat among the crowd. They tossed in gold, good-naturedly, abundantly, with a laugh. Nobody knows what amount was dumped into the astounded Chino's old sombrero; but the mare was certainly not worth over fifteen dollars.
I should not have been a bit surprised if they had carried the idea of extraction to a finish; but the counsel for defence interposed, waiving the point. He did not want the fun to come to that sort of a termination. Prosecution then offered the evidence of Chino's brand. Now that old mare was branded from muzzle to tail, and on both sides.
Just then, as Lockwood snatched open a certain drawer of his desk where he kept his revolver, he heard from down the road, in the direction of Chino's cabin, Felice's voice singing: "To the war I must go, To fight for my country and you, dear." Lockwood stopped short, his arm at full stretch, still gripping tight the revolver that he had half pulled from the drawer stopped short and listened.
Now somebody, probably for a joke, "lifted" this ancient wreck from poor Chino on the ground that it had never been Chino's property anyway. Chino, with childlike faith in the dignity of institutions, brought the matter before the weekly court. That body took charge with immense satisfaction. It appointed lawyers for the prosecution and the defence. Prosecution started to submit Chino's claim.
He leaned back and closed his eyes wearily, aware only of a hideous swirl of pain, of intolerable anxiety as to Chino's wound, and, most of all, of a mere blur of confusion wherein the sights and sounds of the last few hours tore through his brain with the plunge of a wild galloping such as seemed to have been in his ears for years and years. But as he lay thus he heard a step at his side.
I remember defence acknowledged that in that multiplicity of lines the figure of Chino's brand could be traced; but pointed to the stars of the heavens and the figures of their constellations to prove what could be done by a vivid imagination in evolving fancy patterns. By this time it was late, and court was adjourned until next week.
No evidence was offered or asked as to the extent of the man's guilt, or indeed if he was guilty at all! The meeting had a grim sense of humour, and enjoyed nothing more than really elaborate foolery. Such as, for example, the celebrated case of Pio Chino's bronco. Pio Chino was a cargador running a train of pack-mules into some back-country camp.
Things were done "for all they were worth" in Placer County, California. When a man worked, he worked hard; when he slept, he slept soundly; when he hated, he hated with primeval intensity; and when he loved he grew reckless. It was all one that Felice was Chino's wife. Lockwood swore between his teeth that she should be his wife.
Every evening, when not otherwise engaged, Lockwood threw a saddle over one of the horses and rode in to Iowa Hill for the mail, returning to the mine between ten and eleven. On one of these occasions, as he drew near to Chino's cabin, a slim figure came toward him down the road and paused at his horse's head.
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