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OVERLAND TALES

by

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD.







[Illustration]

San Francisco:
A. L. Bancroft & Co.
1877.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
Josephine Clifford,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

[Illustration: J. FAGAN & SON, STEREOTYPERS, PHILAD'A.]

COLLINS, PRINTER.




Dedicated

TO MY KINDEST

AND

_MOST CONSTANT READER_,

MOTHER.




PREFACE.


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, even in the stories; and the
sketches, I flatter myself, are true to life--as I saw it, at the time I
visited the places.

A number of these stories first appeared in the OVERLAND MONTHLY, but
some of them are new, and have never been published. I bespeak for them
all the attentive perusal and undivided interest of the kind reader.

THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS.

                                         PAGE
_LA GRACIOSA_,                             13

_JUANITA_,                                 53

_HETTY'S HEROISM_,                         68

_A WOMAN'S TREACHERY_,                     87

_THE GENTLEMAN FROM SISKIYOU_,            101

_SOMETHING ABOUT MY PETS_,                119

_POKER-JIM_,                              137

_THE TRAGEDY AT MOHAWK STATION_,          153

_LONE LINDEN_,                            161

_MANUELA_,                                188

_THE ROMANCE OF GILA BEND_,               204

_A LADY IN CAMP_,                         219

_THE GOLDEN LAMB_,                        237

_IT OCCURRED AT TUCSON_,                  260

_A BIT OF "EARLY CALIFORNIA"_,            274

_HER NAME WAS SYLVIA_,                    282

_CROSSING THE ARIZONA DESERTS_,           296

_DOWN AMONG THE DEAD LETTERS_,            310

_MARCHING WITH A COMMAND_,                321

_TO TEXAS, AND BY THE WAY_,               354

_MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN NEW MEXICO_,      367




OVERLAND TALES.




_LA GRACIOSA._


It was a stolid Indian face, at the first casual