Frontier Stories

Frontier Stories

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Frontier Stories, by Bret Harte This
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Title: Frontier Stories
Author: Bret Harte
Release Date: May 23, 2004 [EBook #12419]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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STORIES ***

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[Illustration: _The woman ... stood before him_]
BRET HARTE'S WRITINGS
FRONTIER STORIES

CONTENTS:
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR
IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS
AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL
A BLUE-GRASS PENELOPE

LEFT OUT ON LONE STAR MOUNTAIN
A SHIP OF '49

FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE.

CHAPTER I.
Just where the red track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward
like the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished in the blue
shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace near the
summit, hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road the
eye rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain, which
seemed to pant and quiver in the oven-like air, through rising dust, the
slow creaking of dragging wheels, the monotonous cry of tired springs,
and the muffled beat of plunging hoofs, it held out a promise of
sheltered coolness and green silences beyond. Sunburned and anxious
faces yearned toward it from the dizzy, swaying tops of stage-coaches,
from lagging teams far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of
"mountain schooners," and from scorching saddles that seemed to
weigh down the scrambling, sweating animals beneath. But it would
seem that the hope was vain, the promise illusive. When the terrace was
reached it appeared not only to have caught and gathered all the heat of
the valley below, but to have evolved a fire of its own from some
hidden crater-like source unknown. Nevertheless, instead of prostrating
and enervating man and beast, it was said to have induced the wildest
exaltation. The heated air was filled and stifling with resinous
exhalations. The delirious spices of balm, bay, spruce, juniper, yerba
buena, wild syringa, and strange aromatic herbs as yet unclassified,
distilled and evaporated in that mighty heat, and seemed to fire with a
midsummer madness all who breathed their fumes. They stung,
smarted, stimulated, intoxicated. It was said that the most jaded and
foot-sore horses became furious and ungovernable under their influence;
wearied teamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in
the ascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air, extended
their vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of objurgation. It
is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver exhausted description and
condensed its virtues in a single phrase: "Gin and ginger." This

felicitous epithet, flung out in a generous comparison with his favorite
drink, "rum and gum," clung to it ever after.
Such was the current comment on this vale of spices. Like most human
criticism it was hasty and superficial. No one yet had been known to
have penetrated deeply its mysterious recesses. It was still far below the
summit and its wayside inn. It had escaped the intruding foot of hunter
and prospector; and the inquisitive patrol of the county surveyor had
only skirted its boundary. It remained for Mr. Lance Harriott to
complete its exploration. His reasons for so doing were simple. He had
made the journey thither underneath the stage-coach, and clinging to its
axle. He had chosen this hazardous mode of conveyance at night, as the
coach crept by his place of concealment in the wayside brush, to elude
the sheriff of Monterey County and his posse, who were after him. He
had not made himself known to his fellow-passengers, as they already
knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, and a desperado; he deemed it
unwise to present himself in his newer reputation of a man who had
just slain a brother gambler in a quarrel, and for whom a reward was
offered. He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach swirled past the
brushing branches of fir, and for an instant lay unnoticed, a scarcely
distinguishable mound of dust in the broken furrows of the road. Then,
more like a beast than a man, he crept on his hands and knees into the
steaming underbrush. Here he lay still until the clatter of harness and
the sound of voices faded in the distance. Had he been followed, it
would have been difficult to detect in that inert mass of rags any
semblance to a known form or figure. A hideous, reddish mask