Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1878-03-05
"Who was my Quiet Friend 2"
BY BRET HARTE.

"Stranger!" The voice was not loud,
but clear and penetrating. l looked
vainIy up and down the narrow darken-
ing trail. No one in the fringe of alder
ahead: no one on the quilted slope be-
hind:
80! stranger!'
This time a little impatiently. The
California vocative, "O," always means
business.
I looked up and perceived for the first
time, on the ledge, thirty feet above me,
another trail parallel with my own,
looking down on me through the buck
eve bushes small man on a black
horse.
Five things to be here noted by the
circumspect mountaiEeer. First, the
locality-lonely and inaccessible and
away from the regular faring of team
sters and miners. Secondly, the stran-
GERS superior knowledge of the road
from the fact that the other trail was
unknown to the ordinary traveller
Thirdly, that be was well ark1ea and
equipped. Fourthly, that any distrust
or timidity arising from the contempla-
ton of these facts had better be kept to
oneself.
All this passed rapidly through my
mind as I returned his salutation.
"Got any tobacco ?" he asked.
I had, and signified the fact, holding
up the pouch inquiringly.
"All right, Til come down. Ride on,
I'll line We on the slide"
''The slide?" Here was new geo-
graphical discovery as odd as the second
trail. I had ridden over the trail a dozen
times and seen no communication be-
tween the ledge and the trail. Never
theless [ went a hundred yards or so,
when there was a sharp cracking in
the underbrush, shower of stones on
the trail, and my friend plunged through
the bushes to my side down grade that
I should scarcely have dared to lead my
horse. There was no doubt he was an
ACCOMPLISHED rider-anOther fact to be
noted.
AS he ranged beside me found was
not mistaken as to his size he was quite
under the medium height, and but for a
pair of cold grey eyes was rather com !,
monplace in features.
you've got a good horse there" I
suggested.
He was filling his pipe from MY pouch
and looked up little surprised, and
said, "Of course" He then puffed
away with the nervous eagerness of a
man long deprived of that sedative.-
Finally, between the puffs, he asked me
whence [ came.
I replied from Lagrange"
He looked at me for few moments
curiously, but on my adding that had
only halted there for a few hours he said :
II thought knew every man between
Lagrange and Indian Spring, but some
how 1 sorter disremember your face and
your hame.'
Not particularly caring that he should
remember either, / replied, half laugh
ingly, that as lived the other side of
Indian Spring, it was quite natural. He
took the rebuff-if such it was-so qui-
etly, that as an act of mere perfunctory
politeness, I asked him where he came
FROM"
Lagrange"
"And are you going to
"Well! that depends pretty much on
how things can pan out, and whether I
can make the rifle" He let his hand
rest quite unconsciously on the leather
bolster of his dragoon revolver, yet with
a strong suggestion to me of his ability
"to make the rifle" if he wanted to. and
added: "But just now I was reck'nin'
on taking little pasear with you."
lueTc WIS uOCuluS OucuSlVc Ill LIS
speech, save its familiarity and the re-
Election, perhaps, that whether object
ed or not, he was quite able to do as he
said. I only replied that if our pasear
was prolonged beyond Heavytree Hill, I
should have to borrow his beast. To my
surprise, he replied quietly. "That'sso," !"
adding that the horse was at my disposal
when he wasn't using it, and half of it
when he was. "Dick has carried double
many a time before this" he continued,
"and kin do it again; when your mus
tang gives out, I'll give you lift, and
room to spare"
IT could not help smiling at the idea
of appearing before the boys at Red
Gulch en- croupe with the stranger; but
neither could help being oddly affected
by the suggestion that his horse had
done double duty before "0n what oe-
casion, and why e'' was a question
kept to myself. We were ascending the
heavy flank of the Divide; the narrow
ness of the trail obliged us to go slowly
and in file, SO that there was little
chance for conversation, had he been
disposed to satisfy my curiosity.
We toiled on in silence, the buckeye
giving place to chsnassal, the western
sun reelected again from the blank walls
beside US, binding our eyes with its
glare. The pines in the canon below
were olive CULTS of heat, over which
here and there hawk drifted lazily, OF