













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