The Fourth Of July In 4

[Copyright, 1889, by American Press Association.] Business took me out to California a couple of years before the Transcontinental railroad was opened, and, after a fortnight in San Francisco, I found it would be necessary for me to go away up toward the northern end of the state to examine some hydraulic mining property, in which parties whom I represented had an interest. Of ■ course, I kept my object to myself and passed for sirnply a "tenderfoot" vaguely "prospecting around for an opening." Day after day I rode on the box of the stage with tbe driver, whom I conciliated with burnt offerings and libations - cigars and brandy - and from whom in return I got not a little useful and entertaining information. One afternoon, while we were slowly toiling up the steep slope of a mountain, he remarked: "There'll be great doin's in Júpiter." I thought he must be dreaming, though his eyes were wide open and he kept flicking the offwheeler mechanically. "On the Fourth," ho added after a pause. "Indeed!" I responded, interrogatively, amused and curious as to the course his fancy was taking. "Yes," he went on, "goin' to have a sham battle; Americans and British; and wind up with a dance. Abner Joyce schemed it all out. People comin' from fifty miles 'round to take a hand in." I soon found tliat Si Ransom, the driver, was talking of mundane and not planetary affairs, and that the Júpiter he meant was a little settlement, up ainong the mountains, started orginally as a mining camp, but now the promising center of an agricultural community. While ho was telling me about it we carne to a f ork in the road and there were two sign boards: THIS WAY TO HOQBACK, And 7 MILES TO 11. "Looks funny, don't it?" comniented Si, with a grin; "But that was the way Abner Joyce seed fit to put it up. Swore he'd make the ignorant cusses 'bout here learn one planet's sign; an' I guess he did. Even the greasers that come along this way now know that stands for Júpiter." I made up my mind that I would stop over and see how a small town with so surprisingly large a name celebrated Independence day. As a result of somewhat extended observation, I am inclined to think that earneet patriotism - or, perhaps, I had better say intense Amerioanism - does not flourish so vigorously in the "effete civilization" of the east as in the untrammeled freedom of the west. And you find it more pronounced among the mountains than down in the valleys. Appreciative love for our glorious land grows with knowledge of its grandeur and beauty. And how can they help their hearts swelling with affection for and pride in our country's starry banner, who live close up to where the heavens spread it? But I have never anywhere else found patriotism at quite such a white heat as it was just then in that little California town. Si took out of the boot of the stage and delivered to the local committee of arrangements several big rolls of red, white and blue flannel, the nearest approximation he had been able to make toward fiUing their order for bunting which had been intrusted to him. It was a great deal more expensive, so they were perfectly satisfied. Nothing was too good for Fourth of July. ( Within tl hour aftex jny arpival old Bradley, landlord of the Golden Eagla hotel, where I stopped, had told me all about the arrangements for the celeteation and enlisted my co-operation in carry ing theni out, as he was rather overweighted with the buiden of details, Abner Joyce, the originator and moving spirit of the affair, having been inopportunely "taken down with a fever." Joyce, I learned, was an eccentric Yankee, who chose to consider himself the local schoolmaster, and was so recognized by everybody. It was quite true that there were, as yet, no children there for him to teach, but he was on the ground and ready to receive them when they should come. He had announced himself as a schoolmaster when he carne there among the earliest arrivals to work a "rocker" on Grizzly Run, and it was at his insistance that the name of Júpiter was given to the camp that had subsequently developed into the town. Everybody liked and respected him, so that his present illness was deeply regretted for his own sake as well as the consequent deprivation of his directing genius suffered by the enthusiastic celebrants. How sick he was may be inf erred from an incident that occurred the day before my arrival. Opinions were divided among the committee as to the number of stars that should appear in the field of the flag to be borne by the Continental soldiers in the sham battle, and there was nobody who had a clear idea of how an English flag ought to look. They went to him to decide both questions, and found him in II bed, red, glaring and delirious with fever. When they asked liim about the stars he howled: "As many as there are in the firmament!" and when they just mentioned the English flag the sulphurous decorations of his speech completely shrouded any Information it might have contained. Having liad, like all New Yorkere, far too many opportunities to become familiar with the British flag, through its predominance among the shipping in our harbor, I was enafcled to teil them how it was made, and the other matter they had already settled by deciding on thirteen. We had a great deal of difficulty in getting a British army. There were in all 137 men enrolled for service, and they all wanted to be in the patriot forces. Yet it was fully recognized that there ought to be a larger British than American army in order that the final victory of the latter should appear in properly bright and historically correct colors. Bradley finally settled the matter in an autocratie fashion, that was reluctantly accepted by all. He wrote the word "British" on eighty slips of paper, "Continentals" on fifteen and "Patrióte" on forty-two. Then he chucked them all together into a powder keg, shook them up and made each man draw an assignment of place in the coming strife, from which allotment by chance no appeal was allowed. The respective forces elected their own officers. "Are the blank cartridges made?" I innocently asked Bradley. "Blank nothin'," he replied, with evident surprise at such a question; "the boys all use fixed ammunition and it would be no end of trouble to change it." "But," I remonstrated, "it will be terribly dangerous to have all those fellows puxnping lead out in the excitement of even a sham battle." "Well," he responded with calm indifference, "some accidenta may happen, but if they do, why, they'll only make the racket seem more natural like and give an air of eamestness to the exhilaration." "At the expense of human life." "No fellow ever gets killed without his time has come; and if it has, a bean dropping off a shelf will do him up just as fine as a cannoñ ball could." Notwithstanding his fatalistic philosophy I did succeed in getting him to promise that he would request, and even urge, the men to snoot up in the air, "though," he remarked, "I've no doubt Bome of them may, in the excitement, forget themselves, and taking aim, just from forcé of habit, unthinkingly and innocently plug a friend and neighbor." An Irishman named Michael Garrity camo in from a prospecting tour the evening of the 3d, and was wild with eagerness to be enlisted in the patriot army, but even Bradley thought he was "too excitable to be pernútted to mix in the proceedings if the health of others was any consideration." By dint of great persuasión Michael was induced to forego the pleasure of "taking a pop at even a sham Englishman," and to lend his invaluable aid in certain work Bradley and I had cut out for us as soon as the tide of battle should have swept through the town. When that was satisfactorily settled I started out for a stroll. Just outside the town a young woman entering the road from a steep mountain path aocosted me, demanding: "Are you the stranger who is helping Bradley get up the fight to-morrow?" I admitted that I was doing what I could in that direction, and, although I said nothing of the sorit, I could not help thinking what a superb Goddess of Liberty she would make in an allegorical tableau if we had time to arrange such a thing. She had a magnificent Juno like form, fine regular features, full of expression, and a natural grace of movement and attitude worthy of a goddess. "I am glad that I niet you without having to send after you to the hotel, as I expected I would have to," she said. I was so much surprised that I could only stammer some stupid nonsense about either way being good enough for me, which she of course took no notice of and went on: "There is soruething I wanted to speak to you about - something you must attend to. Two young men have, as I happen to know, agreed to make the sham fight to-morrow the cover for a deadly duel, in earnest, between them. Chance has helped them by putting one on the American and the other on the British side, just as they hoped for. While others will be banging away in the air, just to make a noise, they will be aiming to kill each other. You must find some way to prevent it." "Is it not possible that you may be mistaken? How do you know that they entertain any such purpose?" Her handsome face flushed deeply as she replied, with a little embarrassment: (J "Each has been to see me, for what he knew might le the last time, and though neither betrayed the purpose in words, I was conscious of it." I comprehended. They were rivals for her love, a prize well worth risking life for in the estimation of such f earless and resolute young men as abounded in that country. I could do no less than promise that I would do what I could to prevent the carrying out of their deadly purpose; but really I did not suppose that anything I could say would have the slightest effect in influencing them. She told me who they were, and when I got back to the hotel I found them both there, in the bar room, drinking and talking together in the friendliest fashion possible, to all outward seeming. Surely, I thought, the girl is mistaken. Still, as I had promised her that I would speak to them, I did so, having first learned from Bradley, who pointed them out to me, that they were, as they appeared to be, friends. They walked off a little to one side with me at my request, and I said lightly, feeling that my task was much easier than I had anticipated it would be: '1 am glad to see that you two are friends, as from something I have heard I rather fancied that such might not be the case." They both eyed me very Bharply for a minute of very uncomfortable silence, and then the one whose name I had been told was Jim asked, with that intonation of studiously punctilious politenesa whicb one soon learns to uuderstand as [COHIUTOIB OK MVIMTH PÁ6BJ INDEPENDENCE DAY. Independence Day has come; Squeak theflfe and beat the drum! Let the faltest pig be bied And quick twist off the rooster's headl Let the cannons off with vim, Boom ! Turn ! Fuzzle lum ! Dingo Bini ! fits! ' y-; !?#. Saíd ia i {belt Sdeeelintí,, U . . tl? All stvtswtyedLTtS C ' [CONTINÜED FKOSf SIXTH PAGE.] a very diJigerous symptom in a western dialogue! "May I be permitted to iiiquire what has given rise to such a suppositionï" "Why, certainly," I replied, a little uneasily ; "I had been told that you actually contemplated a duel to-morrow." "Ah!" exclaimed the one known as Bill, in a tone of surprise, and then he continued, in a tone so obsequiously courteous that it had a sort of blood curdlmg effect, "Excuse me, but may I venture to ask who has told you so?" Manifestly delay in explicit explanation would be likely to eventuate speedily in trouble, and I answered promptly: "A very beautiful young wonian, well known to both of you, who, deeming that by so doing she might save a brave man's life, asked me to speak to you and remonstrate with you against what her woman's intuition caused her to fear was your joint purpose." _They looked at each other with expressións that seemed to say each to the other, "He is not to blame," and then Bill said with a smile: "That's all right. But there is no occasion for you to mix up in this affair. Jim and I are friends, however things turn out, and we know what we're about, don't we, Jim?" "Cert," assented Jim curtly, addingto me, "There ain't any hard feelings between BUI and me, stranger, but we've just laid out to shoot this match off in a way that will settle it without Mary getting talked about. And she won't be, for nobody will be any the wiser about it if you keep your head shut, which I would if I were you, for it ain't likely we'll both be wiped out." I realized that although it was not offensively uttered there was in his words a decided threat of unpleasant consequences if I did not keep silence. That, I think, would not have deterred me from speaking if by so doing I could have accomplished anything, but I well knew that I could not. Their minds were made up. If the whole community had known what they purposed, nobody would have thought it his business to interfera. . If the ownership of a mining claim had been at issue they would probably have tossed a "doublé eagle" or "cut the cards" to decide it. But the stake here was, in the eyes of both, worth more than all the mining claims in the mountains, and they made their game one worthy of its dignity - life or death, for love. We sauntered back to the bar and took a drink together. As I raised my glass I bowed slightly to each and said, "Whichever." They looked at each other, smiled, touched their glasses, repeated "Whichever," and drank. They understood me. We had drank to the health of whichever one should have the luck to come out alive. The sun arose brilliantly on the morning of the Fourth, and the people of Júpiter, vvho had got up long before him, were f uil of the excited bustle of final preparation of details. It was Abner Joyce's day for a chili, but he had himself helped out and perched up where he could overlook a good share of the proceedings, hoping to get soiac satisfaction out of theni before the fever struck him and made him delirious. About 11 o'clock in the forenoon, dropping shots in the canyon away up to the northeast told that the skirmishers of the British line were advancing and the very small Continental guard falling back before them. Soon the latter were driven through the town in f uil retreat, pursued by the victorious British, whose red flannel blouses and red flannel covered hats made quite an imposing show. The Continental uniforma were simply white flannel facings pinned on the jackets, and floured hats cocked up to three pointed shape with pins. As the British went through the town they fired a log house, stuffed with pine tops and other combustible material, that had been constructed for the purpose. The rapid discharges of the guns, the shouts of the men and the thick, black smoke from the burning house blown across the scène, gave a startling realism to the mimic battle. From all directions then carne the patriot volunteers, supposedly called by the sounds of strife from their peaceful avocations, to defend their homes from the ruthless invaders. Out of town they, too, swept, firing and yelling, in pursuit of the British, and among them went Abner Joyce, who had forgotten that he was sick. The explosión of a lot of dynamite cartridges planted in stumps added the effect of cannon to the uproar. As soon as the battle had moved on Bradley, Garrity and myself set to work hoisting a triumphal arch of light poles covered with red, white and blue flannel streamers and trimmed with evergreens that had been prepared in advance and ingenioualy rigged with hoisting tackle so that we three could handle it. Then we ran up an enormous American flag on tha tall liberty pole before the hotel, and the stroug mountain breeze spread out its glorious stars and stripes as stiff as a board. Hardly were our labora completed when the sound of a drum and fife, coming from the west, heralded the approach of the patriot forces and their prisoners, the British, who liad, according to the programme, surrendered at a point half a míle out of town. At the f oot of ths liberty pole the little procession halted and the English oolonel, speaking for his men, gave fitting expression to their penitence for having borne arms against a people who were striving to be free, and announced their readiness to forthwith and forever repudiate allegiance to the king of England, if the Continental army would accept them as recruits. Abner Joyce - whose excitement, exertions and an opportune pull at somebody's flask had quite broken his chili - had leaped into the part of Gen. Washington, for which he had originally been "cast," and, in response to the English colonel, made such an Independence day oration as raised his hearers to the wildest enthusiasm of patriotic delight. Then the two armies mingled f raternally; the English flag was i'aised half mast high, union jack down; an effigy of Benedict Arnold was hanged and then consumed in the still smoldering embers of the burned house, and the proceedings wound up with a feast and a dance that lasted all night. Much to my surprise only one casualty was reported. My quondam f riend Jim had had his right arm pierced by a bullet. The wound was a very severe one, but not dangerous, and he had the nerve to show himself for a little while at the dance, but he was very pale, silent and distraught, so much so that it was remarked by some that he "seemed strangely broke up, just for a little thing like that." I knew what they did not, that the ache in his heart prevented his feeling the hurt of his arm. He danced once with Mary. Then he went away, giving his lef t hand to Bill, who stood by the door as he passed out. The next morning when I took the stage to continue my journey I found that Jim was a fellow passenger. His right arm was done up in splints and tied to his breast. "Going away," he said to me, with a sad smile. Manfully accepting the fortunes of war, he was going, never to return.