as 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 eye