Overland tales

In the book I now lay before the reader, I have collected a series of stories and sketches of journeyings through California, Arizona, and New Mexico. There is little of fiction...

Nora drew a deep breath; after a week's steady rain, the sky was clear as crystal, and the sun laughed down on hill and valley, blossoming rose and budding bush.

It was well that Don Pedro came up; Nora was almost fainting in her saddle. He did not catch the import of Don Manuel's words, but, if never before, he recognized in him now a b...

Nora's eyes had closed again during the recital, and Manuel held a lifeless form in his arms, when Sister Anna and her husband came at last. They had heard of the shooting of Do...

Old Screetah's low-roofed _adobe_ had assumed quite an air of comfort through the exertions of some good-natured soldiers, and more particularly through the manifestations of Ca...

"Just what I say;" and she enumerated her reasons for considering it her duty to return to her lonely sister and the six pining children; and it was a matter of doubt whether Jo...

I had noticed, while Constantia and Fred were clearing off the table, that she had cut him a slice from a very choice cake, toward which the child had cast longing looks. Placin...

As we enter the heart of the _cañon_, the rocky, vine-clad walls on either side seem to reassure the nervous passenger and the half-fainting lady; and the grade being very easy...

"Nearly an hour ago," answered Si Perkins, in his growling voice. He had tried hard to maintain his usual key, but his eyes rested with deep concern on his friend's face as he s...

I cannot conceal that the wood work, the furniture, and all the books, throughout the house, soon displayed ragged edges and torn surfaces; and mother (who had taken up her abod...

From the balcony of the two-story frame hotel-building a young girl was watching the sunlight sinking behind the dimly-outlined range of the Coast Mountains. Perhaps her eyes ro...

"Hold!" and he caught the girl as she sprang to open it. "Hear me out, while I have yet time to speak. It was I who brought him home, so that he might sleep quietly in the churc...

"Only a short way; but the owner of the place is a queer genius, a German, like myself, with whom no one can live in peace, they say. But I know we can, though he insists on occ...

It was Mr. Farnsworth's desire that Miss Barbara should be treated and looked upon as a child, and it would have gladdened his heart could he have seen her, in the cool of the m...

After that, an occasional letter from his brother-in-law, now at his station on the Rio Pecos, or an extra twist of the cord matrimonial, which, since the day of his marriage, s...

The day that brought us to Oatman's Flat was murky, dark, and gloomy--a day in full harmony with the character of the country we were travelling through. We descended into the F...

She answered confusedly, "I--I didn't know they were for me--and besides--I can't take them. I know I am a poor--ignorant girl--but--" a sob finished the sentence as she turned...

"You cannot believe that, Eva, any more than I could believe what Abby Hamilton told me--that you had left your aunt's house without telling me of it, purposely to avoid me and...

She was an old maid even then, dreadfully set in her ways, as people said, and the twelve years which had passed since then had made her no younger. Her ways, however set, must...

Little did she dream of the cause of what she deemed Lola's uncomplaining resignation. The girl had seen her lover, and, unspeakably wretched as he was, she could say no word to...

Then she went back to her household duties, never heeding that the sun had reached the meridian, and never pausing till material and strength together were thoroughly exhausted....

Again it was the intrepid stranger and travelling companion who came to the rescue. The captain's plan was "hatched" and carried out in a very little while. With a pair of handc...

What was it that turned his little beating heart and his puny white face to stone all at once? Was this really a Medusa on which he looked? The long ringlets seemed serpents, in...

We were now nearing Maricopa Wells and the Pimo villages. Phil was the pearl of all drivers; and he recounted traditions and legends belonging to the past of this country that e...

The remark was often made among us that the Dead Letter Office afforded the very best opportunities for making collections of autographs of celebrated people--only the authoriti...

We were always far on the day's journey before the sun was fairly up; it was very early, to be sure, and often as the tents were struck when the _générale_ was sounded, the fami...

The mules were unharnessed from the wagon at once, Charley mounted on one, Pinkan on the other, Manuel on the third, and the lieutenant on the fourth, all starting off in differ...

The line between the North and the South seems very sharply drawn in more respects than one. We were scarcely well out of Louisville before delays and stoppages commenced; and t...

The command to which we belonged was the first body of Regulars that had been sent across the Plains since the close of the war. Fort Bayard had been garrisoned by a company of...

We could already see the camp-fires in the distance, when a number of stealthily moving objects in the road attracted my attention. Toby snorted as though an Indian were already...