Two days later, Charlie married the Widow Schmitt
"Rattlesnake Dick"
IV
"Again swings the lash on the high mountain trail,
And the pipe of the packer is scenting the gale;
For the trails are all open, the roads are all free,
And the highwayman's whistle is heard on the lea."
- Bret Harte.
We were riding one day under the Digger pines, down an abandoned old
road toward Mountaineer House. As usual, my spirited half-Arab, as white
as she was fleet, had put me far in the lead. She loved a race as well
as I did, but she ran it to suit herself. If I tried to interpose any
theories of my own, she calmly took the bit in her teeth and after that
I devoted most of my energies to hanging on!
Mammy Kate, own daughter of Nancy Gooch of Coloma, would scold when I
came home with torn skirt and a bump on my forehead: "Now, den, look at
dat chile! Been hoss-racin' agin su'ah as Moses was in Egypt! I shall
suttenly enjine yo' fathah to done gin' yo' plow-hoss to ride so yo's
gwi' git beat wiff yo' racin', and quit.
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