“‘Tis the same game he’s pulled on the gamblin’ crooks all the way from the Oregon line to Mariposa in the south.  Even gettin’ filled wit’ tanglefoot is part of the dodge.  They cannot touch him an’ the vaqueros protect him fr’m the shootin’.”

“But what about the tryout?”

“Also in the schame.  The mare was cross-shod; meanin’, two of her shoes, the near front, an’ the off hind wans, were twice as heavy as the others She could not run top speed in th’m f’r love nor gold.  Yesterday she was shod in light racin’ pads, an’ under her own jockey.  No horse on the coast could catch her.  An’ always, the smart racin’ gamblers play th’ auld man for a fool.  Such is often the end of greed.

“Pay up the dad’s gamblin’ debts, an’ bid this Knight o ’the Green Cloth a swate an’ long fare-ye-well.  Then go an’ be happy, me child.”

The Dragon and the Tomahawk

IX

“Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.”

- Bret Harte.

Certain learned archaeologists maintain that there are marked racial similarities between the American Indians and the Chinese — physical characteristics dating from unknown centuries, when the widely sundered continents were probably one.

However that may be, in the days of gold in California the greatest animosity existed between the Indians and the Chinamen.  The feeling began, presumably, through intermarriage and flourished like the celebrated milkweed vine of the foothills, which has been known to grow - I quote a ’49er, now dead, which is perhaps taking an advantage — 12 inches in a day.

The tale is told of a Chinaman crossing a suspension footbridge, high over a winter torrent, from one part of a mining camp to another.  An Indian ran to meet him.  John Chinaman started back as quickly as he could on the swaying bridge.  The faster Indian caught him, and, though miners on both shores sought to save the unfortunate “Chink” by a rain of bullets, it was too long range, and the Indian threw him to certain death in the river.

But the Indians did not always win, and this, then, is the tale of an encounter between Hop Sing and Digger Dan.

“In a game which held accountin’,
On an old Sierra mountain — "

* * * * *

“Whassa malla, to-o much nail-o ketchem clo’e (clothes)?” snorted Hop Sing, coming around to the side verandah with two pins in his hand, to where Miss Jo Halstead was embroidering an antimacassar in bright worsteds.

“Oh, Sing, did you hurt your hand?” she cried.

“’Nother boy heap mad.”

“Another boy?  Aren’t you doing the washing?”

“No do.  Me — " but Jo had gone to the back yard.  She found the tallest Chinaman she had ever seen, meekly bending to the washing, and quickly obeying the sharp orders rained upon his queue-circled poll by Hop Sing.