



Produced by Donald Lainson





THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S


By Bret Harte




CONTENTS


THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S

JOHNNYBOY

YOUNG ROBIN GRAY

THE SHERIFF OF SISKYOU

A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE

THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA

CHU CHU

MY FIRST BOOK




THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S




CHAPTER I.


Where the North Fork of the Stanislaus River begins to lose its youthful
grace, vigor, and agility, and broadens more maturely into the plain,
there is a little promontory which at certain high stages of water lies
like a small island in the stream. To the strongly-marked heroics of
Sierran landscape it contrasts a singular, pastoral calm. White and
gray mosses from the overhanging rocks and feathery alders trail their
filaments in its slow current, and between the woodland openings there
are glimpses of vivid velvet sward, even at times when the wild oats and
"wire-grasses" of the plains are already yellowing. The placid river,
unstained at this point by mining sluices or mill drift, runs clear
under its contemplative shadows. Originally the camping-ground of a
Digger Chief, it passed from his tenancy with the American rifle bullet
that terminated his career. The pioneer who thus succeeded to its
attractive calm gave way in turn to a well-directed shot from the
revolver of a quartz-prospector, equally impressed with the charm of
its restful tranquillity. How long he might have enjoyed its riparian
seclusion is not known. A sudden rise of the river one March night
quietly removed him, together with the overhanging post oak beneath
which he was profoundly but unconsciously meditating. The demijohn of
whiskey was picked up further down. But no other suggestion of these
successive evictions was ever visible in the reposeful serenity of the
spot.

It was later occupied, and a cabin built upon the spot, by one Alexander
McGee, better known as "the Bell-ringer of Angel's." This euphonious
title, which might have suggested a consistently peaceful occupation,
however, referred to his accuracy of aim at a mechanical target, where
the piercing of the bull's eye was celebrated by the stroke of a bell.
It is probable that this singular proficiency kept his investment of
that gentle seclusion unchallenged. At all events it was uninvaded. He
shared it only with the birds. Perhaps some suggestion of nest building
may have been in his mind, for one pleasant spring morning he brought
hither a wife. It was his OWN; and in this way he may be said to have
introduced that morality which is supposed to be the accompaniment and
reflection of pastoral life. Mrs. McGee's red petticoat was sometimes
seen through the trees--a cheerful bit of color. Mrs. McGee's red
cheeks, plump little figure, beribboned hat and brown, still-girlish
braids were often seen at sunset on the river bank, in company with
her husband, who seemed to be pleased with the discreet and distant
admiration that followed them. Strolling under the bland shadows of the
cotton-woods, by the fading gold of the river, he doubtless felt that
peace which the mere world cannot give, and which fades not away before
the clear, accurate eye of the perfect marksman.

Their nearest neighbors were the two brothers Wayne, who took up
a claim, and built themselves a cabin on the river bank near the
promontory. Quiet, simple men, suspected somewhat of psalm-singing, and
undue retirement on Sundays, they attracted but little attention. But
when, through some original conception or painstaking deliberation, they
turned the current of the river so as to restrict the overflow between
the promontory and the river bank, disclosing an auriferous "bar" of
inconceivable richness, and establishing their theory that it was really
the former channel of the river, choked and diverted though ages of
alluvial drift, they may be said to have changed, also, the fortunes
of the little settlement. Popular feeling and the new prosperity which
dawned upon the miners recognized the two brothers by giving the name of
Wayne's Bar to the infant settlement and its post-office. The peaceful
promontory, although made easier of access, still preserved its calm
seclusion, and pretty Mrs. McGee could contemplate through the leaves of
her bower the work going on at its base, herself unseen. Nevertheless,
this Arcadian retreat was being slowly and surely invested; more than
that, the character of its surroundings was altered, and the complexion
of the river had changed. The Wayne engines on the point above had
turned the drift and debris into the current that now thickened and ran
yellow around the wooded shore. The fringes of this Eden were already
tainted with the color of gold.

It is doubtful, however, if Mrs. McGee was much affected by this
sentimental reflection, and her husband, in a manner, lent himself to
the desecration of his exclusive domain by accepting a claim along
the shore--tendered by the conscientious Waynes in compensation for
restricting the approach to the promontory--and thus participated in
the fortunes of the Bar. Mrs. McGee amused herself by watching from
her eyrie, with a presumably childish interest, the operations of
the red-shirted brothers on the Bar; her husband, however, always
accompanying her when she crossed the Bar to the bank. Some two or three
other women--wives of miners--had joined the camp, but it was evident
that McG