It was a rough life enough, and rough
enough board and lodging. I was left entirely to myself. Smith I
scarcely ever saw, nor did I know when he was in the house. I have often
thought he was far away, and have been surprised to see him walking out
of his room, locking the door behind him and putting the key in his
pocket; and on several occasions when I fancied he was busy in his room,
I have seen him come in with his boots covered with dust and dirt. So
far as work went I enjoyed a complete sinecure; I had nothing to do but
to walk about the valley, to eat, and to sleep. With one thing and
another I grew accustomed, to the life, and managed to make myself
pretty comfortable, and by degrees I began to venture farther away from
the house, and to explore the country. One day I had contrived to get
into a neighboring valley, and suddenly I came upon a group of men
sawing timber. I went up to them, hoping that perhaps some of them might
be Englishmen; at all events they were human beings, and I should hear
articulate speech, for the old man I have mentioned, besides being half
blind and stone deaf, was wholly dumb so far as I was concerned. I was
prepared to be welcomed in a rough and ready fashion, without much, of
the forms of politeness, but the grim glances and the short gruff
answers I received astonished me. I saw the men glancing oddly at each
other, and one of them who had stopped work began fingering a gun, and I
was obliged to return on my path uttering curses on the fate which had
brought me into a land where men were more brutish than the very brutes. The solitude of the life began to oppress me as with a nightmare, and a
few days later I determined to walk to a kind of station some miles
distant, where a rough inn was kept for the accommodation of hunters and
tourists. English gentlemen occasionally stopped there for the night,
and I thought I might perhaps fall in with some one of better manners
than the inhabitants of the country. I found as I had expected a group
of men lounging about the door of the log-house that served as a hotel,
and as I came nearer I could see that heads were put together and looks
interchanged, and when I walked up the six or seven trappers stared at
me in stony ferocity, and with something of the disgust that one eyes a
loathsome and venomous snake. I felt that I could bear it no longer, and
I called out:--

"Is there such a thing as an Englishman here, or any one with a little
civilization?" One of the men put his hand to his belt, but his neighbor checked him
and answered me. "You'll find we've got some of the resources of civilization before very
long, mister, and I expect you'll not fancy them extremely. But anyway,
there's an Englishman tarrying here, and I've no doubt he'll be glad to
see you. There you are, that's Mr. D'Aubernoun." A young man, dressed like an English country squire, came and stood at
the door, and looked at me. One of the men pointed to me and said:--

"That's the individual we were talking about last night. Thought you
might like to have a look at him, squire, and here he is." The young fellow's good-natured English face clouded over, and he
glanced sternly at me, and turned away with a gesture of contempt and
aversion. "Sir," I cried, "I do not know what I have done to be treated in this
manner. You are my fellow-countryman, and I expected some courtesy." He gave me a black look and made as if he would go in, but he changed
his mind, and faced me. "You are rather imprudent, I think, to behave in this manner. You must
be counting on a forbearance which cannot last very long; which may last
a very short time, indeed. And let me tell you this, sir, you may call
yourself an Englishman and drag the name of England through the dirt,
but you need not count on any English influence to help you. If I were
you, I would not stay here much longer." He went into the inn, and the men quietly watched my face, as I stood
there, wondering whether I was going mad. The woman of the house came
out and stared at me as if I were a wild beast or a savage, and I turned
to her, and spoke quietly. "I am very hungry and thirsty, I have walked a long way. I have plenty
of money. Will you give me something to eat and drink?" "No, I won't," she said. "You had better quit this." I crawled home like a wounded beast, and lay down on my bed. It was all
a hopeless puzzle to me. I knew nothing but rage and shame and terror,
and I suffered little more when I passed by a house in an adjacent
valley, and some children who were playing outside ran from me
shrieking. I was forced to walk to find some occupation. I should have
died if I had sat down quietly in Blue Rock Park and looked all day at
the mountains; but wherever I saw a human being I saw the same glance of
hatred and aversion, and once as I was crossing a thick brake I heard a
shot, and the venomous hiss of a bullet close to my ear. One day I heard a conversation which astounded me; I was sitting behind
a rock resting, and two men came along the track and halted. One of them
had got his feet entangled in some wild vines, and swore fiercely, but
the other laughed, and said they were useful things sometimes. "What the hell do you mean?" "Oh, nothing much. But they 're uncommon tough, these here vines, and
sometimes rope is skerse and dear." The man who had sworn chuckled at this, and I heard them sit down and
light their pipes. "Have you seen him lately?" asked the humorist. "I sighted him the other day, but the darned bullet went high. He's got
his master's luck, I expect, sir, but it can't last much longer. You
heard about him going to Jinks's and trying his brass, but the young
Britisher downed him pretty considerable, I can tell you." "What the devil is the meaning of it?" "I don't know, but I believe it'll have to be finished, and done in the
old style, too. You know how they fix the niggers?" "Yes, sir, I've seen a little of that. A couple of gallons of
kerosene'll cost a dollar at Brown's store, but I should say it's cheap
anyway." They moved off after this, and I lay still behind the rock, the sweat
pouring down my face. I was so sick that I could barely stand, and I
walked home as slowly as an old man, leaning on my stick. I knew that
the two men had been talking about me, and I knew that some terrible
death was in store for me. That night I could not sleep. I tossed on the
rough bed and tortured myself to find out the meaning of it all. At last
in the very dead of night I rose from the bed, and put on my clothes,
and went out. I did not care where I went, but I felt that I must walk
till I had tired myself out. It was a clear moonlight night, and in a
couple of hours I found I was approaching a place of dismal reputation
in the mountains, a deep cleft in the rocks, known as Black Gulf Cañon. Many years before, an unfortunate party of Englishmen and Englishwomen
had camped here and had been surrounded by Indians.