Dick Boyle's Business Card Page #3

"Dick Boyle's Business Card" is a short story by Bret Harte, an author known for his depictions of life in the American West. The narrative centers around a humorous and satirical exploration of social status and identity through the lens of a business card that represents the ambitions and pretensions of its titular character, Dick Boyle. Set against the backdrop of a mining town, the story highlights the clash between appearances and reality, showcasing Harte's trademark wit and keen observations of human nature. With its clever commentary on commerce and social interaction, the tale reflects the broader themes of aspiration and self-presentation in the rapidly changing landscape of 19th-century America.

• Short story

								

story out of it, and could have amused any other girl with it, but he
would not force himself upon her, and again doubted if the discovery
were a matter of amusement. If it were really serious, why should he
alarm her? He resolved, however, to remain on the road, and within
convenient distance of her, until she returned to the coach; she
could not be far away. With this purpose he walked slowly on, halting
occasionally to look behind.

Meantime the coach continued its difficult ascent, a difficulty made
greater by the singular nervousness of the horses, that only with great
trouble and some objurgation from the driver could be prevented from
shying from the regular track.

"Now, wot's gone o' them critters?" said the irate Foster, straining at
the reins until he seemed to lift the leader back into the track again.

"Looks as ef they smelt suthin--b'ar or Injin ponies," suggested the
mail agent.

"Injin ponies?" repeated Foster scornfully.

"Fac'! Injin ponies set a hoss crazy--jest as wild hosses would!"

"Whar's yer Injin ponies?" demanded Foster incredulously.

"Dunno," said the mail agent simply.

But here the horses again swerved so madly from some point of the
thicket beside them that the coach completely left the track on the
right. Luckily it was a disused trail and the ground fairly good, and
Foster gave them their heads, satisfied of his ability to regain the
regular road when necessary. It took some moments for him to recover
complete control of the frightened animals, and then their nervousness
having abated with their distance from the thicket, and the trail being
less steep though more winding than the regular road, he concluded to
keep it until he got to the summit, when he would regain the highway
once more and await his passengers. Having done this, the two men stood
up on the box, and with an anxiety they tried to conceal from each other
looked down the canyon for the lagging pedestrians.

"I hope Miss Cantire hasn't been stampeded from the track by any skeer
like that," said the mail agent dubiously.

"Not she! She's got too much grit and sabe for that, unless that drummer
hez caught up with her and unloaded his yarn about that kyard."

They were the last words the men spoke. For two rifle shots cracked from
the thicket beside the road; two shots aimed with such deliberateness
and precision that the two men, mortally stricken, collapsed where they
stood, hanging for a brief moment over the dashboard before they rolled
over on the horses' backs. Nor did they remain there long, for the next
moment they were seized by half a dozen shadowy figures and with the
horses and their cut traces dragged into the thicket. A half dozen and
then a dozen other shadows flitted and swarmed over, in, and through the
coach, reinforced by still more, until the whole vehicle seemed to be
possessed, covered, and hidden by them, swaying and moving with their
weight, like helpless carrion beneath a pack of ravenous wolves. Yet
even while this seething congregation was at its greatest, at some
unknown signal it as suddenly dispersed, vanished, and disappeared,
leaving the coach empty--vacant and void of all that had given it life,
weight, animation, and purpose--a mere skeleton on the roadside. The
afternoon wind blew through its open doors and ravaged rack and box as
if it had been the wreck of weeks instead of minutes, and the level rays
of the setting sun flashed and blazed into its windows as though fire
had been added to the ruin. But even this presently faded, leaving the
abandoned coach a rigid, lifeless spectre on the twilight plain.

An hour later there was the sound of hurrying hoofs and jingling
accoutrements, and out of the plain swept a squad of cavalrymen bearing
down upon the deserted vehicle. For a few moments they, too, seemed to
surround and possess it, even as the other shadows had done, penetrating
the woods and thicket beside it. And then as suddenly at some signal
they swept forward furiously in the track of the destroying shadows.

Miss Cantire took full advantage of the suggestion "not to hurry" in her
walk, with certain feminine ideas of its latitude. She gathered a few
wild flowers and some berries in the underwood, inspected some birds'
nests with a healthy youthful curiosity, and even took the opportunity
of arranging some moist tendrils of her silky hair with something she
took from the small reticule that hung coquettishly from her girdle. It
was, indeed, some twenty minutes before she emerged into the road again;
the vehicle had evidently disappeared in a turn of the long, winding
ascent, but just ahead of her was that dreadful man, the "Chicago
drummer." She was not vain, but she made no doubt that he was waiting
there for her. There was no avoiding him, but his companionship could be
made a brief one. She began to walk with ostentatious swiftness.

Boyle, whose concern for her safety was secretly relieved at this, began
to walk forward briskly too without looking around. Miss Cantire was not
prepared for this; it looked so ridiculously as if she were chasing him!
She hesitated slightly, but now as she was nearly abreast of him she was
obliged to keep on.

"I think you do well to hurry, Miss Cantire," he said as she passed.
"I've lost sight of the coach for some time, and I dare say they're
already waiting for us at the summit."

Miss Cantire did not like this any better. To go on beside this dreadful
man, scrambling breathlessly after the stage--for all the world like an
absorbed and sentimentally belated pair of picnickers--was really TOO
much. "Perhaps if YOU ran on and told them I was coming as fast as I
could," she suggested tentatively.

"It would be as much as my life is worth to appear before Foster without
you," he said laughingly. "You've only got to hurry on a little faster."

But the young lady resented this being driven by a "drummer." She began
to lag, depressing her pretty brows ominously.

"Let me carry your flowers," said Boyle. He had noticed that she was
finding some difficulty in holding up her skirt and the nosegay at the
same time.

"No! No!" she said in hurried horror at this new suggestion of their
companionship. "Thank you very much--but they're really not worth
keeping--I am going to throw them away. There!" she added, tossing them
impatiently in the dust.

But she had not reckoned on Boyle's perfect good-humor. That gentle
idiot stooped down, actually gathered them up again, and was following!
She hurried on; if she could only get to the coach first, ignoring him!
But a vulgar man like that would be sure to hand them to her with some
joke! Then she lagged again--she was getting tired, and she could see
no sign of the coach. The drummer, too, was also lagging behind--at
a respectful distance, like a groom or one of her father's troopers.
Nevertheless this did not put her in a much better humor, and halting

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