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Updated: May 3, 2025
The last sea-song had resounded over the smooth waters of the bay; the last drunken shout, oath, and challenge were voiced; the last fight ended in helplessness and maudlin amity, and the red-shirted men were sprawled around on the moonlit deck, snoring.
"Yes and a gang from the big shanty; I seen 'em goin' in," shouted back the red-shirted foreman. The volunteers big, brawny men, who, warned by the foreman, had been binding wet cloths over their mouths, now sprang forward, peering into the gloom. Then the sound of footsteps was heard nearer nearer. Groping through the blue haze stumbled a man, his shirt sleeve shielding his mouth.
And before me would appear the red-shirted shantymen or dark-faced miners, great, free, bold fellows, driving me almost mad with the desire to seize and fix those swiftly changing groups of picturesque figures. At such times I would drop my sketch, and with eager brush seize a group, a face, a figure, and that is how my studio comes to be filled with the men of Black Rock.
A Chinaman with a huge bundle upon his head, a slatternly woman brushing the dry, powdered snow from the path, a tawdry one pattering along, her rouged face pitiful in the clear merciless light; red-shirted miners crawling like ants to the yawning shaft-mouths half way up the mountainside. This was Topaz Gulch on a certain wintry morning.
There was not wind enough for sails, but there were chopping waves, and swell enough to toss us about, and to produce bright flashes of light far out at sea. The red-shirted rowers silently bent to their long sweeps; and I lay in the tossing bow, and studied the high, receding shore.
If he had any left at this point, he was free to dispose of it under the auspices of near-Hindoos in the Indian room, of merry Swiss peasants in the Swiss room, or in other appropriately furnished apartments of red-shirted, Bret Harte miners, fur-clad Esquimaux, or languorous Spaniards.
Thus another sort of Forty-niner became in his way as significant and strong, as effective and as romantic as his brother, the red-shirted Forty-niner of the diggings.
Thus we entered the camp of Hangman's Gulch for if it had been otherwise, I am sure we would have located promptly where we had seen those red-shirted men. The camp consisted merely of a closer-knit group of tents, log shacks, and a few larger buildings constructed of a queer combination of heavy hewn timbers and canvas.
The red-shirted man, whose agitated face I had been covertly watching, instead of obeying the mate, stepped out of line and appealed to Swope. "Captain, may I speak to you now?" he asked, in a shrill, excited voice. "Eh, what's this?" exclaimed Swope, gazing down at the fellow. He lifted his hand and checked the mate, who was already about to collar his prey.
"Why do I drink, do you say?" he added, as Suzon placed the bottle and glass before him. She was silent for an instant, then she said gravely: "Perhaps because you like it; perhaps because something was left out of you when you were made, and " She paused and went no further, for a red-shirted river-driver with brass rings in his ears came close to them, and called gruffly for whiskey.
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