Before I could answer there came up a man carrying a shotgun in one hand, and a wild goose over his shoulder.  Following him was a darky with a goose over each shoulder.  I threw some dry sticks on my fire, and it flamed up showing me the faces of the group.  Buckner Gowdy, or as everybody in Monterey County always called him, Buck Gowdy, stood before us smiling, powerful, six feet high, but so big of shoulder that he seemed a little stooped, perfectly at ease, behaving as if he had always known all of us.  He wore a little black mustache which curled up at the corners of his mouth like the tail feathers of a drake.  His clothes were soaked and gaumed up with mud from his tramping and crawling through the marshes; but otherwise he looked as fresh as if he had just risen from his bed, while the negro seemed ready to drop.

When Buck Gowdy spoke, it was always with a little laugh, and that slight stoop toward you as if there was something between him and you that was a sort of secret—­the kind of laugh a man gives who has had many a joke with you and depends on your knowing what it is that pleases him.  His eyes were brown, and a little close together; and his head was covered with a mass of wavy dark hair.  His voice was rich and deep, and pitched low as if he were telling you something he did not want everybody to hear.  He swore constantly, and used nasty language; but he had a way with him which I have seen him use to ministers of the gospel without their seeming to take notice of the improper things he said.  There was something intimate in his treatment of every one he spoke to; and he was in the habit of saying things, especially to women, that had all sorts of double meanings—­meanings that you couldn’t take offense at without putting yourself on some low level which he could always vow was far from his mind.  And there was a vibration in his low voice which always seemed to mean that he felt much more than he said.

“My name’s Gowdy,” he said; “all you people going west for your health?”

“I,” said the black-bearded man, “am Doctor Bliven; and I’m going west, I’m going west, not only for my health, but for that of the community.”

“Glad to make your acquaintance,” said Gowdy; “and may I crave the acquaintance of our young Argonaut here?”

“Let me present Mr.—­” said Doctor Bliven, “Mr.—­Mr.—­”

“Vandemark,” said I.

“Let me present Mr. Vandemark,” said the doctor, “a very obliging young man to whom I am already under many obligations, many obligations.”

Buckner Gowdy took my hand, bringing his body close to me, and looking me in the eyes boldly and in a way which was quite fascinating to me.

“I hope, Mr. Vandemark,” said he, “that you and Doctor Bliven are going to settle in the neighborhood to which I am exiled.  Where are you two bound for?”

“I expect to open a drug store and begin the practise of medicine,” said the doctor, “at the thriving town of Monterey Centre.”