The Gringos

The Gringos

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gringos, by B. M. Bower This
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Title: The Gringos
Author: B. M. Bower
Release Date: April 25, 2004 [EBook #12139]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GRINGOS ***

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THE GRINGOS
A STORY OF THE OLD CALIFORNIA DAYS IN 1849
BY B.M. BOWER

1913
WIth Illustrations By Anton Otto Fischer
[Illustration: "Gringos are savages and worse than savages."]

AUTHOR'S NOTE
I wish to make public acknowledgment of the assistance I have
received from George W. Lee, a "Forty-niner" who has furnished me
with data, material, and color which have been invaluable in the writing
of this story.

CONTENTS
I. THE BEGINNING OF IT
II. THE VIGILANTES
III. THE THING THEY CALLED JUSTICE
IV. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE OAK
V. HOSPITALITY
VI. THE VALLEY
VII. THE LORD OF THE VALLEY
VIII. DON ANDRES WANTS A MAJORDOMO
IX. JERRY SIMPSON, SQUATTER
X. THE FINEST LITTLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD
XI. AN ILL WIND

XII. POTENTIAL MOODS
XIII. BILL WILSON GOES VISITING
XIV. RODEO TIME
XV. WHEN CAMP-FIRES BLINK
XVI. "FOR WEAPONS I CHOOSE RIATAS"
XVII. A FIESTA WE SHALL HAVE
XVIII. WHAT IS LOVE WORTH?
XIX. ANTICIPATION
XX. LOST! TWO HASTY TEMPERS
XXI. FIESTA DAY
XXII. THE BATTLE OF BEASTS
XXIII. THE DUEL OF RIATAS
XXIV. FOR LOVE AND A MEDAL
XXV. ADIOS

List of Illustrations
"Gringos are savages and worse than savages"
He twisted in the saddle and sent leaden answer to the spiteful barking
of the guns
Mrs. Jerry took the señorita's hand and smiled up at her
"An accident it must appear to those who watch"

The Gringos
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF IT
If you would glimpse the savage which normally lies asleep, thank God,
in most of us, you have only to do this thing of which I shall tell you,
and from some safe sanctuary where leaden couriers may not bear
prematurely the tidings of man's debasement, watch the world below.
You may see civilization swing back with a snap to savagery and
worse--because savagery enlightened by the civilization of centuries is
a deadly thing to let loose among men. Our savage forebears were but
superior animals groping laboriously after economic security and a
social condition that would yield most prolifically the fruit of all the
world's desire, happiness; to-day, when we swing back to something
akin to savagery, we do it for lust of gain, like our forebears, but we do
it wittingly. So, if you would look upon the unlovely spectacle of
civilized men turned savage, and see them toil painfully back to lawful
living, you have but to do this:
Seek a spot remote from the great centers of our vaunted civilization,
where Nature, in a wanton gold-revel of her own, has sprinkled her
river beds with the shining dust, hidden it away under ledges, buried it
in deep canyons in playful miserliness and salved with its potent glow
the time-scars upon the cheeks of her gaunt mountains. You have but to
find a tiny bit of Nature's gold, fling it in the face of civilization and
raise the hunting cry. Then, from that safe sanctuary which you have
chosen, you may look your fill upon the awakening of the primitive in
man; see him throw off civilization as a sleeper flings aside the cloak
that has covered him; watch the savages fight, whom your gold has
conjured.
They will come, those savages; straight as the arrow flies they will
come, though mountains and deserts and hurrying rivers bar their way.
And the plodding, law-abiding citizens who kiss their wives and hold

close their babies and fling hasty, comforting words over their
shoulders to tottering old mothers when they go to answer the hunting
call--they will be your savages when the gold lust grips them. And the
towns they build of their greed will be but the nucleus of all the crime
let loose upon the land. There will be men among your savages; men in
whom the finer stuff outweighs the grossness and the greed. But to save
their lives and that thing they prize more than life or gold, and call by
the name of honor or friendship or justice--that thing which is the
essence of all the fineness in their natures--to save that and their lives
they also must fight, like savages who would destroy them.
* * * * *
There was a little, straggling hamlet born