The Gringos

The Gringos

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gringos, by B. M. Bower This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
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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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 se?orita'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 of the Mission which the padres founded among the sand hills beside a great, uneasy stretch of water which a dreamer might liken to a naughty child that had run away from its mother, the ocean, through a little gateway which the land left open by chance and was hiding there among the hills, listening to the