Despite his name, baby Luck seems far from lucky. His mother, Cherokee Sal is the town prostitute, and she dies in childbirth, orphaning baby Luck and leaving him under the care of 100 gruff, unpleasant, and even criminal men in the wilderness of the American West. And to the men, who are now suddenly in charge of a newborn, the Luck’s birth doesn’t seem all that lucky at first, either. But over the course of the story, the Luck positively transforms these men so dramatically that they do indeed come to believe that the baby’s birth was a stroke of luck—hence why they name him “the Luck.” And baby Luck does seem to be something of a good luck charm for the community, as he brings the men a newfound sense of joy, warmth, closeness, and purpose. But when the Luck dies tragically in a flood at the end of the story, readers are left wondering how lucky the Luck—or Roaring Camp itself—really was after all. Through Luck’s life and death, the story suggests that luck is fragile and fleeting; it can disappear as quickly as it arrived.
The concept of luck is central to how the men of Roaring Camp understand the world around them. When Sal is in labor, “Bets were freely offered and taken regarding the result”—that is, whether the baby will be a boy or a girl, whether Sal will survive, and whether the baby will survive. The camp is made up of “Gamblers and adventurers,” so it’s natural to the men to see life as a gamble. When the men decide on the baby’s name—Tom Luck, or “the Luck” for short—Oakhurst explains, “It’s better […] to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair.” Oakhurst is alluding to the fact that the Luck’s name has no trace of his parentage—his mother, Cherokee Sal, was a prostitute with a dishonorable reputation, and no one knows who the father is, as the story implies that most of the settlement’s men had sex with Sal. The men give the Luck a name that’s all his own rather than forcing him to be defined by his parents’ pasts—this is a “fresh deal all round,” like a freshly shuffled deck and a new set of cards delt out to the players of a card game. In other words, the men try to set up the Luck to be luckier than he perhaps would be if he’d been saddled with his mother’s reputation. Once again, the concept of luck is integral to the men’s worldviews.
Baby Luck’s birth happens quickly—as does the positive change that sweeps over the men of Roaring Camp—suggesting that luck itself comes out of nowhere. The story doesn’t follow Cherokee Sal’s pregnancy but instead skips right to her giving birth (to a baby later named “the Luck”), which is the story’s first indication that luck can crop up seemingly out of nowhere. After the Luck’s birth, “almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement.” The men clean up their foul language, dirty appearances, and rundown homes and businesses—and they begin to find more and more gold. Oakhurst proclaims that “the baby had brought ‘the luck’ to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful.” As a gambler, Oakhurst conflates success not necessarily with hard work or reaping the benefits of one’s labor, but with luck. Because the men have been successful recently (they’re financially thriving, and the men’s cleaned-up appearances and language suggests that they’re thriving on more personal levels as well), Oakhurst immediately thinks that luck has something to do with it.
But baby Luck’s life ends nearly as quickly as it began, suggesting that luck is fleeting and short-lived. After the men spend so much time sprucing up the camp, a winter flood rushes in, turning the settlement into a pile of debris. That the men can’t do anything to reverse or remedy the situation speaks to the idea that luck comes and goes quickly, and people have no control over this ebb and flow. Much to their dismay, the men discover that “the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared” in the flood—baby Luck has been swept away, and with him, the camp’s luck more generally. The word “disappeared” suggests that the men’s luck suddenly dissolved into thin air—another indication that luck is incredibly fleeting. The flood takes Kentuck’s life, too. Holding baby Luck’s body in his arms, the dying Kentuck tells his fellow men, “‘he’s a taking me with him,—tell the boys I’ve got the Luck with me now’; and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea.” Here, Kentuck is explaining that the dead baby Luck is “taking [Kentuck] with him” into death, but the story is also making a commentary about luck. Like the word “disappeared,” the phrase “drifted away” speaks to the fleeting nature of luck; no amount of Kentuck’s “clinging” can keep luck from fading away. And even though Kentuck is a “strong man,” he’s still reduced to “drift[ing] away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea”—another indication that luck comes and goes of its own accord, and that people are powerless to change it. Furthermore, baby Luck (and, by extension, the men’s luck) is described as fading away into a natural scene—dying is described as a river, while death itself is described as a sea—which suggests that it is natural for luck to fade away like this. This ebb and flow of luck, the story suggests, is part of the natural order of things, and it’s something people must accept, just as Kentuck does.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Fleeting Nature of Luck ThemeTracker
The Fleeting Nature of Luck Quotes in The Luck of Roaring Camp
Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought “the luck” to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful. “Luck” was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was unknown. “It’s better,” said the philosophical Oakhurst, “to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair.
Stumpy imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of holding “The Luck.” It was a cruel mortification to Kentuck—who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake’s, only sloughed off through decay—to be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt, and face still shining from his ablutions.
They were “flush times,”—and the Luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on strangers. No encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain wall that surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This, and a reputation for singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring Camp inviolate. The expressman—their only connecting link with the surrounding world—sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. He would say, “They’ve a street up there in ‘Roaring,’ that would lay over any street in Red Dog. They’ve got vines and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. But they’re mighty rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby.”
The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. “Water put the gold into them gulches,” said Stumpy. “It’s been here once and will be here again!” And that night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp.
In the confusion of rushing water, crushing trees, and crackling timber, and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy nearest the river-bank was gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner; but the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared.
Kentuck opened his eyes. “Dead?” he repeated feebly. “Yes, my man, and you are dying too.” A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. “Dying,” he repeated, “he’s a taking me with him,—tell the boys I’ve got the Luck with me now”; and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea.
