Year: 1877

"Who Was My Quiet Friend p


"Stranger


The voice was not loud, but clear and
penetrating. I looked vainly up and
down the narrow darkeHing trail. No
one in the fringe of alder ahead no one
on the quilted slope behind.


"Oh stranger p


This time little impatiently. The
Californian vocative, "Oh," always
meant business.


looked up, and perceived for the first
time, on the ledge, thirty feet above me,
another trail parallel with my own, and
looking down upon me through the
buckeye bushes small man on a black
horse.


Five things to be here noted by the
circumspect mountaineer. First, the
locality = lonely and inaccessible and
away from the regular faring of teamsters
and miners. Secondly, the stranger s
superior knowledge of the road from the
fact that the other trail was unknown to
the ordinary travelor. Thirdly, that he
was well armed and equipped. Fourthly,
that he was better mounted. Filthy,
that any distrust or timidity arising from
the contemplation of these facts had
better be kept to oneself.


All this passed rapidly through my
mind as returned his salutation.


"Got any tobacco ?" he asked.


/ had, and signified the fact, holding
up the pouch inquiringly.


CAN right, I'll come down. Ride on,
and I'll iiDe 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
between the ledge and trail. Neverthe-
less went on a hundred yards or so,
when there was sharp cracking in the
uuderbrush, shower of stones on the
trail, and my friend plunged through
the bushes to my side down a grade that
l 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 I was
not mistaken as to his size; he was quite
under the medium height, and, but, for
a pair of cold gray eyes, was rather COM
monplace in feature.


You've got good horse there" I
suggested.


He was filing his pipe from my pouch,
but 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 I came.


I replied from Lagrange"


He looked at me few moments Curl
ously, but on my adding that had only
halted there for few hours, he said: "I
thought I knew every man between La
grange and Indian Spring, but somehow
sorter dsremember your face and your
name"


Not particularly caring that he should
remember either, 1 replied, half laugh
ingly, that as I lived the other side of
Indian Spring, it was quite natural. He
took the rebuff such it was-so quiet
ly, that as an act of mere perfuuctory
politeness, asked him where he came
from.


Lagrange"


"And you are going to-


well that depends pretty much on
how things pan out, and whether 1 can
make the rifle" He let his hand rest
quite unconsciously On the leathern
holster 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 1 was reck-
min on taking little pasear with you.


There was nothing offensive in his
speech, save it's familiarity and the reAec-
tion, perhaps, that whether I objected
or not, he was quite able to do as he
said. / only replied that if our pasear
was prolonged beyond Heayytree Hill, I
should have to borrow his beast. TO
my surprise, he replied quietly: "That's
SO" adding that the horse was at my dis
posal 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 mustang gives out, I'll give you a
lift, and room to spare.


L cOuIu nOG uelp SHnunS aG tne 1uea
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. son what
occasion, and why p was question I
kept to myself. We were ascending the
long rocky flank of the Divide; the mar
rowness of the trail obliged us to pro-
ceed 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 way to chimisal, the westering
sun, reflected again from the blank walls
beside us, binding our eyes with its
glare. The pines in the canyon below
were olive CULTS of heat, over which a
hawk here and there drifted lazily, or
rising to our Level, cast a weird and
gigantic shadow of slowly moving wings
on the mountain side. The superiority
of the strangers horse led him often far
in advance, and made me hope that he
might forget me entirely, or push on,
grown weary of waiting. But regularly
he would halt by boulder, or fesppear
from setss chiasisa', where he had