Overland Red

Overland Red, by Henry Herbert Knibbs

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Title: Overland Red A Romance of the Moonstone Ca?on Trail
Author: Henry Herbert Knibbs
Illustrator: Anton Fischer
Release Date: November 11, 2006 [EBook #19763]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: (page 123) OVERLAND LIMITED!]
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OVERLAND RED
A ROMANCE OF THE MOONSTONE CA?ON TRAIL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANTON FISCHER
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
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COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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To I. J. K.
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CONTENTS
THE ROAD xi I. THE PROSPECTOR 3 II. WATER 10 III. RAGGED ROMANCE 14 IV. "ANY ROAD, AT ANY TIME, FOR ANYWHERE" 25 V. "CAN HE RIDE?" 39 VI. ADVOCATE EXTRAORDINARY 48 VII. THE GIRL WHO GLANCED BACK 60 VIII. THE TEST 72 IX. A CELESTIAL ENTERPRISE 88 X. "PERFECTLY HARMLESS LITTLE OLE TENDERFOOT" 98 XI. DESERT LAW 110 XII. "FOOL'S LUCK" 125 XIII. THE RETURN 132 XIV. "CALL IT THE 'ROSE GIRL'" 141 XV. SILENT SAUNDERS 157 XVI. BLUNDER 163 XVII. GUESTS 177 XVIII. A RED EPISODE 185 XIX. "TO CUT MY TRAIL LIKE THAT" 202 XX. THE LED HORSE 211 XXI. BORROWED PLUMES 223 XXII. THE YUMA COLT 231 XXIII. SILENT SAUNDERS SPEAKS 247 XXIV. "LIKE SUNSHINE" 254 XXV. IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS 262 XXVI. SPECIAL 273 XXVII. THE RIDERS 278 XXVIII. GOPHERTOWN 288 XXIX. TOLL 299 XXX. TWO ROSES 305 XXXI. NIGHT 320 XXXII. MORNING 332 XXXIII. A SPEECH 345
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ILLUSTRATIONS
OVERLAND LIMITED! (page 123) Frontispiece THE GIRL'S LEVEL GRAY EYES STUDIED THE TRAMP'S FACE 16 "IT'S A CLEAN-UP" 296 "CAN'T I HAVE ANOTHER ONE, ROSE GIRL?" 340
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The Road
Through the San Fernando Valley, toward the hills of Calabasas runs that old road, El Camino Real of the early Mission days.
And now replicas of old Mission bells, each suspended in solitary dignity from a rusted iron rod, mark intervals along the dusty way, once a narrow trail worn by the patient feet of that gentle and great padre, Jun��pero Serra,--a trail from the San Gabriel Valley to the shores of Monterey. A narrow trail then, but, even then, to him it was broad in its potential significance of the dawn of Grace upon the mountain shores of Heaven's lost garden, California.
Not far from one iron-posted bell in the valley, El Camino Real falters, to find, eventually, a lazy way round the low foothills, as though reluctant to lift its winding length over the sharp pitch of the Canajo Pass, beyond.
Near this lone bell another road, an offspring of old El Camino Real, runs quickly from its gray and patient sire. Branching south in hurried turns and multiple windings it climbs the rolling hills, ever dodging the rude-piled masses of rock, with scattered brush between, but forever aspiring courageously through the mountain sage and sunshine toward its ultimate green rest in the shadowy hills.
In the sweet sage is the drone of bees, like the hum of a far city. The thinning, acrid air is tinged with the faint fragrance of sunburnt shrubs and grasses.
With the sinuous avoidings of a baffled snake the road turns and turns upon itself until its earlier promise of high adventuring seems doubtful. As often as not it climbs a semi-barren dun stretch of sunbaked earth dotted with stubby cacti--passes these dwarfed grotesques, and attempts the narrowing crest of the ca?on-wall, to swing abruptly back to the cacti again, gaining but little in its upward trend.
Impatient, it finally plunges dizzily round a sharp, outstanding angle of rock and down into the unexpected enchantment of Moonstone Ca?on. Here the gaunt cliffs rise to great wild gardens, draped with soft rose and poignant red amid drowsy undertones of gray and green and gold. Dots of vivid colors flame and fade and pass to ledges of dank, vineclad rock and drifts of shale, as the road climbs again.
At the next turn are the indistinct voices of water, commingling in a monotone--and the road ceases to be, as the cool silver of a mountain stream cuts through it, with seemingly inconsequential meanderings, but with the soft arrogance of a power too great to be denied. And the indistinct voices, left behind, fade to unimaginable sounds as the stream patters down its gravelly course, contented beyond measure with its own adventuring.
Patiently the road takes up its way, moving in easier sweeps through a widening valley, but forever climbing.
Again and again, fetlock deep across it runs the stream, gently persistent and forever murmuring its happy soliloquies.
Here and there the road passes quickly through a blot of shade,--a group of