The Project Gutenberg EBook of In a Hollow of the Hills, by Bret Harte

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Title: In a Hollow of the Hills

Author: Bret Harte

Posting Date: October 28, 2008 [EBook #2180]
Release Date: May, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS ***

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

by

Bret Bret Harte

CHAPTER I.

It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had been
preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side, which
continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed
into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as
of stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness
seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of
this sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur's
rowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of
a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a
voice, which in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent
a certain mystery to, said:--

"I can't make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway?
It's as black as Tophet, here ahead!"

"Strike a light and make a flare with something," returned a second
voice. "Look where you're shoving to--now--keep your horse off, will
ye."

There was more muffled plunging, a silence, the rustle of paper, the
quick spurt of a match, and then the uplifting of a flickering flame.
But it revealed only the heads and shoulders of three horsemen, framed
within a nebulous ring of light, that still left their horses and even
their lower figures in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped up
and died out with a few zigzagging sparks that were falling to the
ground, when a third voice, that was low but somewhat pleasant in its
cadence, said:--

"Be careful where you throw that. You were careless last time. With
this wind and the leaves like tinder, you might send a furnace blast
through the woods."

"Then at least we'd see where we were."

Nevertheless, he moved his horse, whose trampling hoofs beat out the
last fallen spark. Co