Salomy Jane

By Bret Harte

Western short story. According to Wikipedia: "Bret Harte (August 25, 1836[2] – May 6, 1902) was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. He was born in Albany, New York. ... He moved to California in 1853, later working there in a number of capacities, including miner, teacher, messenger, and journalist. He spent part of his life in the northern California coast town now known as Arcata, then just a mining camp on Humboldt Bay.His first literary efforts, including poetry and prose, appeared in The Californian, an early literary journal edited by Charles Henry Webb. In 1868 he became editor of The Overland Monthly, another new literary magazine, but this one more in tune with the pioneering spirit of excitement in California. His story, "The Luck of Roaring Camp," appeared in the magazine's second edition, propelling Harte to nationwide fame... Determined to pursue his literary career, in 1871 he and his family traveled back East, to New York and eventually to Boston, where he contracted with the publisher of The Atlantic Monthly for an annual salary of $10,000, "an unprecedented sum at the time." His popularity waned, however, and by the end of 1872 he was without a publishing contract and increasingly desperate. He spent the next few years struggling to publish new work (or republish old), delivering lectures about the gold rush, and even selling an advertising jingle to a soap company. In 1878 Harte was appointed to the position of United States Consul in the town of Krefeld, Germany and then to Glasgow in 1880. In 1885 he settled in London. During the thirty years he spent in Europe, he never abandoned writing, and maintained a prodigious output of stories that retained the freshness of his earlier work. He died in England in 1902 of throat cancer and is buried at Frimley."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seltzer Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781455395873

Bret Harte

Bret Harte (1836–1902) was an author and poet known for his romantic depictions of the American West and the California gold rush. Born in New York, Harte moved to California when he was seventeen and worked as a miner, messenger, and journalist. In 1868 he became editor of the Overland Monthly, a literary journal in which he published his most famous work, “The Luck of Roaring Camp.” In 1871 Harte returned east to further his writing career. He spent his later years as an American diplomat in Germany and Britain.

Book preview

SALOMY JANE BY BRET HARTE

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Westerns by Bret Harte --

Openings in the Old Trail

A Phyllis of the Sierras

Complete Poetical Works

A Protegee of Jack Hamlins

The Queen of the Pirate Isle

Sally Dows

Salomy Jane

A Sappho of Green Springs

Seleted Stories

Snow-Bound at Eagles

Stories in Light and Shadow

The Story of a Nine

Susy, a Story of the Plains

feedback welcome: [e-mail]

visit us at samizdat.com

Originally published:

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE

1910

 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY BRET HARTE

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published October 1910

1 A KISS AND AN ESCAPE     

2 THE LADY'S REFLECTIONS 

3 THE KISS REPEATED   

4 ANOTHER ESCAPE     

CHAPTER 1  A Kiss and an Escape

 Only one shot had been fired. It had gone wide of its mark,--the ringleader of the Vigilantes,--and had left Red Pete, who had fired it, covered by their rifles and at their mercy. For his hand had been cramped by hard riding, and his eye distracted by their sudden onset, and so the inevitable end had come. He submitted sullenly to his captors; his companion fugitive and horse-thief gave up the protracted struggle with a feeling not unlike relief. Even the hot and revengeful victors were content. They had taken their men alive. At any time during the long chase they could have brought them down by a rifle-shot, but it would have been unsportsmanlike, and have ended in a free fight, instead of an example. And, for the matter of that, their doom was already sealed. Their end, by a rope and a tree, although not sanctified by law, would have at least the deliberation of justice. It was the tribute paid by the Vigilantes to that order which they had themselves disregarded in the pursuit and capture. Yet this strange logic of the frontier sufficed them, and gave a certain dignity to the climax.

Ef you've got anything to say to your folks, say it now, and say it quick, said the ringleader.

Red Pete glanced around him. He had been run to earth at his own cabin