Bret Harte

“ Concho struck his forehead and winked his hot eyelids. Was it the Sierras or the cursed American whisky?
Again he recommenced the ascent. At times the half-worn, half-visible trail became utterly lost in the bare black outcrop of the ridge, but his sagacious mule soon found it again, until, stepping upon a loose boulder, she slipped and fell. In vain Concho tried to lift her from out the ruin of camp kettles, prospecting pans, and picks; she remained quietly recumbent, occasionally raising her head as if to contemplatively glance over the arid plain below. ”

“ The astute Gashwiler, waiting further information, concluded to receive this fact gaily and gallantly. “A woman?—my dear Mr. Wiles,—of course! The dear creatures,” he continued, with a fat, offensive chuckle, “somehow are always making their charming presence felt. Ha! ha! A man, sir, in public life becomes accustomed to that sort of thing, and knows when he must be agreeable,—agreeable, sir, but firm! I've had my experience, sir,—my OWN experience,”—and the Congressman leaned back in his chair, not unlike a robust St. Anthony who had withstood one temptation to thrive on another. ”

“ Thatcher flushed, embarrassed, nervous,—feeling the ridiculousness of saying, “Thank you” to a dark somebody,—struck the match, beheld by its brief, uncertain glimmer Carmen de Haro beside him, burned his fingers, coughed, dropped the match, and was cast again into outer darkness.
“Let me try!”
Carmen struck a match, jumped briskly on the chair, lit the gas, jumped lightly down again, and said: “You do like to sit in the dark,—eh? So am I—sometimes—alone.” ”

“ Mr. Gashwiler paused as if a thought had struck him.
“I have thought,” he said, finally, “that some position—such as a secretaryship with me—would help you to a better appointment. Now, supposing that I make you my private secretary, giving you some important and confidential business. Eh?”
Dobbs looked at his patron with a certain wistful, dog-like expectancy, moved himself excitedly on his chair seat in a peculiar canine-like anticipation of gratitude, strongly suggesting that he would have wagged his tail if he had one. At which Mr. Gashwiler became more impressive. ”

“ The house that Royal Thatcher so informally quitted in his exodus to the promised land of Biggs was one of those oversized, under-calculated dwellings conceived and erected in the extravagance of the San Francisco builder's hopes, and occupied finally in his despair. Intended originally as the palace of some inchoate California Aladdin, it usually ended as a lodging house in which some helpless widow or hopeless spinster managed to combine respectability with the hard task of bread getting. ”

“ Why, my dear fellow, one half our business arises from the fact that men and women are in the habit of keeping letters and documents that they might—I don't say, you know, that they OUGHT, that's a question of sentiment or ethics—but that they MIGHT destroy.”
Thatcher half-mechanically took the telegram of poor Carmen and threw it in the fire. Harlowe noticed the act and smiled.
“I'll venture to say, however, that there's nothing in the bag that YOU lost that need give you a moment's uneasiness. It's only your rascal or fool who carries with him that which makes him his own detective.” ”

“ Gashwiler became dignified. “She can do nothing with us,” he said potentially.
Wiles turned his wicked eye on him. “Manuel and Miguel, who sold out to our man, are afraid of her. They were our witnesses. I verily believe they'd take back everything if she got after them. And as for Pedro, he thinks she holds the power of life and death over him.”
“Pedro! life and death,—what's all this?” said the astonished Gashwiler.
Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop. “Pedro,” he said, “was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one of the original locators.” ”

“ Thatcher had noticed this with the sensitiveness of an impoverished gentleman. But when, a few days after her lodger's sudden disappearance, a note came from him containing a draft in noble excess of all arrears and charges, the widow's heart was lifted, and the rock smitten with the golden wand gushed beneficence that shone in a new gown for the widow and a new suit for “Johnny,” her son, a new oil cloth in the hall, better service to the lodgers, and, let us be thankful, a kindlier consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then dreadfully behind in her room rent. ”

“ The lower house, under the tutelage of the gifted Gashwiler, drank deeply of Roscommon and his intoxicating claim, and passed the half-empty bottle to the Senate as Unfinished Business. But, alas! in the very rush, and storm, and tempest of the unfinishing business, an unlooked-for interruption arose in the person of a great Senator whose power none could oppose, whose right to free and extended utterance at all times none could gainsay. ”

“ Miss Carmen was cool and business-like; she had come from her uncle to “regard” the papers in the “Red-Rock Rancho” case. They were instantly produced. Carmen turned to the application for the grant. Her cheek paled slightly. With her clear memory and wonderful fidelity of perception she could not be mistaken. THE SIGNATURE OF MICHELTORENA WAS IN HER OWN HANDWRITING!
Yet she looked up to the lawyer with a smile: “May I take these papers for an hour to my uncle?”
Even an older and better man than the District Attorney could not have resisted those drooping lids and that gentle voice. ”

“ We never really understand the meaning of enlightenment until we begin to use it aggressively.
A few paces further on four figures appeared in the now gathering darkness of the trail. The stranger quickly recognized the beaming smile of Concho, foremost of the party. A quick glance at the faces of the others satisfied him that while they lacked Concho's good humor, they certainly did not surpass him in intellect. “Pedro” was a stout vaquero. “Manuel” was a slim half-breed and ex-convert of the Mission of San Carmel, and “Miguel” a recent butcher of Monterey. ”

“ Thatcher lapsed into contemplation of the fire.
“Well,” said Harlowe, finally turning to his client, “here's enough to unseat Gashwiler, or close his mouth. As to the rest, it's good reading—but I needn't tell you—no LEGAL evidence. But it's proof enough to stop them from ever trying it again,—when the existence of this record is made known. Bribery is a hard thing to fix on a man; the only witness is naturally particeps criminis;—but it would not be easy for them to explain away this rascal's record. ”

“ Hopkinson was victrix by her very audacity.
Mr. Gashwiler was flattered. The most dissolute man likes the appearance of virtue. “But graces and accomplishments like yours, dear Mrs. Hopkinson,” he said oleaginously, “belong to the whole country.” Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he endeavored to represent. “And I shall want to avail myself of all,” he added, “in the matter of the Castro claim. A little supper at Welcker's, a glass or two of champagne, and a single flash of those bright eyes, and the thing is done.” ”

“ A man must have something else in life than mere business. I find it less harmful and expensive to have my pleasure here.”
Thatcher had sunk moodily in the embracing arms of an easy chair. He was thinking deeply; he was fond of books too, and, like all men who have fared hard and led wandering lives, he knew the value of cultivated repose. Like all men who have been obliged to sleep under blankets and in the open air, he appreciated the luxuries of linen sheets and a frescoed roof. ”

“ Mr. Dobbs, though talented and praiseworthy, is poor; he may wish to realize. If some—ahem! some FRIEND—better circumstanced should choose to advance the cash to him and run the risk,—why, it would only be an act of kindness.”
“You are proverbially generous, Mr. Gashwiler,” said Wiles, opening and shutting his left eye like a dark lantern on the benevolent representative.
“Youth, when faithful and painstaking, should be encouraged,” replied Mr. Gashwiler. “I lately had occasion to point this out in a few remarks I had to make before the Sabbath school reunion at Remus. ”

“ And it is a somewhat notable fact that your true mountaineer or your gentleman who has been obliged to honestly “rough it,” does not, as a general thing, write books about its advantages, or implore their fellow mortals to come and share their solitude and their discomforts.
Thoroughly appreciating the taste and comfort of Harlowe's library, yet half-envious of its owner, and half-suspicious that his own earnest life for the past few years might have been different, Thatcher suddenly started from his seat and walked towards a parlor easel, whereon stood a picture. ”

“ Nevertheless she painted a sketch of Thatcher,—which now adorns the Company's office in San Francisco,—in which the property is laid out in pleasing geometrical lines, and the rosy promise of the future instinct in every touch of the brush. Then, having earned her “wage,” as she believed, she became somewhat cold and shy to Thatcher. Whereat that gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing only in her presence a certain meprise, which concerned her more than himself. The niece of his enemy meant nothing more to him than an interesting girl,—to be protected always,—to be feared, never. ”

“ A thought struck him and sent the color to his face. Your gentleman born is always as modest as a woman. He ran down stairs, and seizing the widowed Plodgitt, said hastily:
“You're just killing yourself here. Take a change. Come down to Monterey for a day or two with me, and bring miss De Haro with you for company.”
The old lady recognized the situation. Thatcher was now a man of vast possibilities. In all maternal daughters of Eve there is the slightest bit of the chaperone and match-maker. It is the last way of reviving the past.
She consented, and Carmen De Haro could not well refuse. ”

“ In this capital, on this languid midsummer day, in an upper room of one of its second-rate hotels, the Honorable Pratt C. Gashwiler sat at his writing-table. There are certain large, fleshy men with whom the omission of even a necktie or collar has all the effect of an indecent exposure. The Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, in his trousers and shirt, was a sight to be avoided by the modest eye. ”

“ A man of polished taste in art and literature, and possessing the means to gratify it, his luxurious home was filled with treasures he had himself collected, and further enhanced by the stamp of his appreciation. His library had not only the elegance of adornment that his wealth could bring and his taste approve, but a certain refined negligence of habitual use, and the easy disorder of the artist's workshop. ”

“ Thatcher was by nature a defender and protector; weakness, and weakness alone, stirred the depths of his tenderness,—often, I fear, only through its half-humorous aspects,—and on this plane he was pleased to place women and children. I mention this fact for the benefit of the more youthful members of my species, and am satisfied that an unconditional surrender and the complete laying down at the feet of Beauty of all strong masculinity is a cheap Gallicism that is untranslatable to most women worthy the winning. ”

“ There is on the whole really very little “honor among thieves,”—at least great ones,—and the inferior rascal succumbed at the reflection of what HE might do if he were in the other rascal's place. “See here, Wiles,” he said, relaxing his dignity with the perspiration that oozed from every pore, and made the collar of his shirt a mere limp rag. “See here, WE”—this first use of the plural was equivalent to a confession—“we must get them papers.”
“Of course,” said Wiles coolly, “if we CAN, and if Thatcher doesn't get wind of them.” ”

“ At one end of the Avenue sat the responsible High Keeper of the military honor, valor, and war-like prestige of a great nation, without the power to pay his own troops their legal dues until some selfish quarrel between Party and Party was settled. Hard by sat another Secretary, whose established functions seemed to be the misrepresentation of the nation abroad by the least characteristic of its classes, the politicians,—and only then when they had been defeated as politicians, and when their constituents had declared them no longer worthy to be even THEIR representatives. ”

“ In half an hour they came in sight of the ledge below, the crumbled furnace, and the motionless figure of Concho, wrapped in a blanket, lying prone in the sunlight.
“I told you so,—drunk!” said the President.
The Doctor looked grave, but did not speak. They dismounted and picketed their horses. Then crept on all fours to the ledge above the furnace. There was a cry from Secretary Gibbs, “Look yer. Some fellar has been jumping us, boys. See these notices.”
There were two notices on canvas affixed to the rock, claiming the ground, and signed by Pedro, Manuel, Miguel, Wiles, and Roscommon. ”

“ When the frugal meal of tortillas, frijoles, salt pork, and chocolate was over, an oven was built of the dark-red rock brought from the ledge before them, and an earthenware jar, glazed by some peculiar local process, tightly fitted over it, and packed with clay and sods. A fire was speedily built of pine boughs continually brought from a wooded ravine below, and in a few moments the furnace was in full blast. ”

“ Ten minutes before Wiles would have remained seated; but it is recorded that he rose, took the bottle from the gifted Gashwiler's fingers, helped himself FIRST, and then sat down.
“Yes, but, my boy,” said Gashwiler, now rapidly changing situations with the cooler Wiles; “yes, but, old fellow,” he added, poking Wiles with a fat forefinger, “don't you see the whole thing will be up before he gets here?”
“Yes,” said Wiles gloomily, “but those lazy, easy, honest men have a way of popping up just at the nick of time. They never need hurry; all things wait for them. ”