Notes by Flood and Field Page #4

"Notes by Flood and Field" is a collection of short stories and sketches by Bret Harte, set against the backdrop of the American West during the Gold Rush. Known for his vivid characters and rich storytelling, Harte captures the struggles, humor, and eccentricities of life in mining camps and frontier towns. Through his unique narrative style, he explores themes of humanity, morality, and the diverse experiences of those drawn to the promise of wealth and adventure. The book showcases Harte's mastery of regional literature, blending a sense of place with keen social observations.

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teeth and black eyes of Pepita, who slipped into the corridor as we
entered.

It was no pleasant matter to disclose particulars of business which
would deprive the old senor of the greater part of that land we had
just ridden over, and I did it with great embarrassment. But he listened
calmly--not a muscle of his dark face stirring--and the smoke curling
placidly from his lips showed his regular respiration. When I had
finished, he offered quietly to accompany us to the line of demarcation.
George had meanwhile disappeared, but a suspicious conversation in
broken Spanish and English, in the corridor, betrayed his vicinity.
When he returned again, a little absent-minded, the old man, by far
the coolest and most self-possessed of the party, extinguished his
black-silk cap beneath that stiff, uncomely sombrero which all native
Californians affect. A serape thrown over his shoulders hinted that he
was waiting. Horses are always ready saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in
half an hour from the time of our arrival we were again "loping" in the
staring sunlight.

But not as cheerfully as before. George and myself were weighed down by
restraint, and Altascar was gravely quiet. To break the silence, and by
way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him that there might be further
intervention or appeal, but the proffered oil and wine were returned
with a careless shrug of the shoulders and a sententious "QUE
BUENO?--Your courts are always just."

The Indian mound of the previous night's discovery was a bearing
monument of the new line, and there we halted. We were surprised to find
the old man Tryan waiting us. For the first time during our interview
the old Spaniard seemed moved, and the blood rose in his yellow cheek. I
was anxious to close the scene, and pointed out the corner boundaries as
clearly as my recollection served.

"The deputies will be here tomorrow to run the lines from this initial
point, and there will be no further trouble, I believe, gentlemen."

Senor Altascar had dismounted and was gathering a few tufts of dried
grass in his hands. George and I exchanged glances. He presently arose
from his stooping posture, and advancing to within a few paces of Joseph
Tryan, said, in a voice broken with passion:

"And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put you in possession of my land
in the fashion of my country."

He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points.

"I don't know your courts, your judges, or your CORREGIDORES. Take the
LLANO!--and take this with it. May the drought seize your cattle till
their tongues hang down as long as those of your lying lawyers! May it
be the curse and torment of your old age, as you and yours have made it
of mine!"

We stepped between the principal actors in this scene, which only the
passion of Altascar made tragical, but Tryan, with a humility but ill
concealing his triumph, interrupted:

"Let him curse on. He'll find 'em coming home to him sooner than the
cattle he has lost through his sloth and pride. The Lord is on the side
of the just, as well as agin all slanderers and revilers."

Altascar but half guessed the meaning of the Missourian, yet
sufficiently to drive from his mind all but the extravagant power of his
native invective.

"Stealer of the Sacrament! Open not!--open not, I say, your lying, Judas
lips to me! Ah! half-breed, with the soul of a coyote!--car-r-r-ramba!"

With his passion reverberating among the consonants like distant
thunder, he laid his hand upon the mane of his horse as though it had
been the gray locks of his adversary, swung himself into the saddle and
galloped away.

George turned to me:

"Will you go back with us tonight?"

I thought of the cheerless walls, the silent figures by the fire, and
the roaring wind, and hesitated.

"Well then, goodby."

"Goodby, George."

Another wring of the hands, and we parted. I had not ridden far when I
turned and looked back. The wind had risen early that afternoon, and was
already sweeping across the plain. A cloud of dust traveled before it,
and a picturesque figure occasionally emerging therefrom was my last
indistinct impression of George Tryan.

PART II--IN THE FLOOD

Three months after the survey of the Espiritu Santo Rancho, I was again
in the valley of the Sacramento. But a general and terrible visitation
had erased the memory of that event as completely as I supposed it had
obliterated the boundary monuments I had planted. The great flood of
1861-62 was at its height when, obeying some indefinite yearning, I took
my carpetbag and embarked for the inundated valley.

There was nothing to be seen from the bright cabin windows of the
GOLDEN CITY but night deepening over the water. The only sound was the
pattering rain, and that had grown monotonous for the past two weeks,
and did not disturb the national gravity of my countrymen as they
silently sat around the cabin stove. Some on errands of relief to
friends and relatives wore anxious faces, and conversed soberly on
the one absorbing topic. Others, like myself, attracted by curiosity
listened eagerly to newer details. But with that human disposition to
seize upon any circumstance that might give chance event the exaggerated
importance of instinct, I was half-conscious of something more than
curiosity as an impelling motive.

The dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water, and a leaden sky greeted
us the next morning as we lay beside the half-submerged levee of
Sacramento. Here, however, the novelty of boats to convey us to the
hotels was an appeal that was irresistible. I resigned myself to a
dripping rubber-cased mariner called "Joe," and, wrapping myself in a
shining cloak of the like material, about as suggestive of warmth as
court plaster might have been, took my seat in the stern sheets of his
boat. It was no slight inward struggle to part from the steamer that to
most of the passengers was the only visible connecting link between
us and the dry and habitable earth, but we pulled away and entered the
city, stemming a rapid current as we shot the levee.

We glided up the long level of K Street--once a cheerful, busy
thoroughfare, now distressing in its silent desolation. The turbid water
which seemed to meet the horizon edge before us flowed at right angles
in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature had revenged herself on
the local taste by disarraying the regular rectangles by huddling houses
on street corners, where they presented abrupt gables to the current, or
by capsizing them in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds were gliding in
and out of low-arched doorways. The water was over the top of the
fences surrounding well-kept gardens, in the first stories of hotels
and private dwellings, trailing its slime on velvet carpets as well as
roughly boarded floors. And a silence quite as suggestive as the
visible desolation was in the voiceless streets that no longer echoed

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