In an example of situational irony, the miners at Roaring Camp name Cherokee Sal’s baby “the Luck” and, despite experiencing short-term financial luck after the baby’s birth, ultimately end up losing their homes and/or dying in a flood not long after. In other words, the presence of “the Luck” at Roaring Camp turns out to be anything but lucky, as the community is brought down in a massive flood at the end of the story.
The situational irony comes across in the following passage, as the surviving members of Roaring Camp find Kentuck and the Luck after the flood:
It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed and bruised, but still holding the Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms. As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was cold and pulseless. “He is dead,” said one. Kentuck opened his eyes. “Dead?” he repeated feebly. “Yes, my man, and you are dying too.”
The irony here is primarily in the juxtaposition of the baby being referred to as “the Luck of Roaring Camp” in the same paragraph that he is pronounced dead, and that the person holding him is described as "cruelly crushed and bruised." Here, Harte is poignantly communicating the fleeting nature of luck—though the men wanted to hold onto the baby (and their new fortunes) forever, that is not the nature of luck. He is also highlighting the brutal conditions of the Old West in his depiction of a flood casually destroying an entire community.
In an example of situational irony, the most masculine and hardened outlaw at Roaring Camp (Kentuck) immediately fawns over the newborn baby Luck. The irony comes across in the following passage, when Kentuck first meets the baby:
As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek. “The d—d little cuss!” he said, as he extricated his finger, with, perhaps, more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously.
The irony of this moment is primarily centered on the juxtaposition of Kentuck’s gruff and hardened nature—his cheek is described as “weather-beaten” and he calls the baby a “damned little cuss”—with his gentle and caring impulses, such as “extricate[ing] his finger” from the baby “with, perhaps, more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing” and holding the finger that the baby grabbed onto “a little apart from its fellows as he went out,” likely because he was so emotionally touched by the interaction.
That Kentuck “looked foolish and embarrassed” and even “blushed” when the baby reached out for his finger shows that he is not used to this kind of intimacy. With this subtly ironic scene, Harte is communicating to readers that even the toughest criminals are able to transform via the love of an innocent child. It’s after this initial moment that all of the men of Roaring Camp ultimately let down their guards and come to love baby Luck and each other more deeply, letting go of their hypermasculine facades in the process.
