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Updated: May 3, 2025
The red stage, topped with red-shirted passengers, is lost to view half a dozen times in the tortuous descent, turning up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way places, and vanishing altogether within a hundred yards of the town. It is probably owing to this sudden twist in the road that the advent of a stranger at Smith's Pocket is usually attended with a peculiar circumstance.
Passed some heavy wagons bound to the mines, and met the mail-stage coming down the valley from Fairplay, with four horses at a gallop: we were luckily able to draw off and let them pass, which they did in a cloud of dust, through which could be dimly seen the long-bearded, red-shirted miners. A saw-mill at Slaight's, with two houses and some fields of oats.
And all the time that they worked, sharp eyes had watched through the bushes, and a few miles inland, in a glade surrounded by the giant trees of the Brazilian forest, red-shirted men lolled and smoked and grew fat, while they discussed around the central fire the qualities of barbecued wild oxen, roast opossum and venison, and criticized the seamanship of the Englishmen.
The little steamer neared the landing, whistled shrilly, snorted defiantly, buried her nose in the muddy bank in front of the store, and shoved out a plank. Several red-shirted strangers got off, but no one noticed them; at any other time, so large an addition to the population of Tough Case would have justified an extra spree.
At last the creek bed had been washed over and over till the red-shirted miners could find not one nugget more, and the Yellow Jacket was deserted. Then one day a poor stranded fellow, who came in too late to make enough to get out, was digging a well, and found quartz down deep and a streak of gold in it. That was the beginning of the real fame of the Yellow Jacket.
The name over the door was now "The Come All Ye," and there was a hitching rack in front to which were tethered half-a dozen saddled horses. Inside, the scene was set as he remembered it. A red-shirted bartender, his hair plastered low over his brow, leaned negligently on the bar. Scattered around the room were dance-hall girls in short skirts, and a number of cowboys.
Her truancies and vagrancies concerned them not: she was a law to herself, like the birds and squirrels. There were bearded lips to hail her wherever she went, and a blue or red-shirted arm always stretched out in any perilous pass or dangerous crossing. Her peculiar tastes were an outcome of her nature, assisted by her surroundings.
I saw that to her we were so many red-shirted firemen, dragging a wooden hose-cart; a company of burnt-cork minstrels, kicking up the dust of a village street; that we were ridiculous, lawless, absurd, and it was like a blow over my heart that one so noble-looking should be so blind and so unjust. I was swept with bitter indignation.
This was assented to, and the three crawled through the tall grass to the verge of the village, where more of a massacre than a battle was now going on. The villagers were taken at a sad disadvantage, and were surrounded evidently by superior numbers. The red-shirted chief was on the point of being clubbed by one tall savage, while desperately engaged with another.
As they circled closer to make the turn, Gregory noticed a red-shirted giant leap from the wreck of the fishing-boat into the shallow water, waving his arms wildly about his head. But the noise of the Petrel's motor drowned the voice of the infuriated fishing captain and his threats and curses were heard only by his own crew.
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