"Who Was My Quiet Friend?"
The voice was not loud, but clear and penetrating. I looked vainly up and down the
narrow, darkening trail. No one in the fringe of alder ahead; no one on the gullied slope
behind.
This time a little impatiently. The California classical vocative, "O," always meant
business.
I looked up, and perceived for the first time on the ledge, thirty feet above me, another
trail parallel with my own, and looking down upon me through the buckeye bushes a
small man on a black horse.
Five things to be here noted by the circumspect mountaineer. FIRST, the locality,--lonely
and inaccessible, and away from the regular faring of teamsters and miners.
SECONDLY, the stranger's superior knowledge of the road, from the fact that the other
trail was unknown to the ordinary traveler. THIRDLY, that he was well armed and
equipped. FOURTHLY, that he was better mounted. FIFTHLY, that any distrust or
timidity arising from the contemplation of these facts had better be kept to one's self.
All this passed rapidly through my mind as I returned his salutation.
"Got any tobacco?" he asked.
I had, and signified the fact, holding up the pouch inquiringly.
"All right, I'll come down. Ride on, and I'll jine ye on the slide."
"The slide!" Here was a new geographical discovery as odd as the second trail. I had
ridden over the trail a dozen times, and seen no communication between the ledge and
trail. Nevertheless, I went on a hundred yards or so, when there was a sharp crackling in
the underbrush, a shower of stones on the trail, and my friend plunged through the bushes
to my side, down a grade that I should scarcely have dared to lead my horse. There was
no doubt he was an accomplished rider,--another fact to be noted.
As he ranged beside me, I found I was not mistaken as to his size; he was quite under the
medium height, and but for a pair of cold, gray eyes, was rather commonplace in feature.
"You've got a good horse there," I suggested.
