Excerpt from The Complete Works of Bret Harte, Vol. 9: Buckeye and Chapparel He remembered her at once. She had come on board that morning with one Ned Stratton, a brother gambler, but neither a favourite nor intimate of Jack's. From certain indications in the pair, Jack had inferred that she was some foolish or reckless creature whom Ed had got on a string, and was spiriting away from her friends and family. With the abstract morality of this situation Jack was not in the least concerned. For himself, he did not indulge in that sort of game; the inexperience and vacillations of innocence were apt to be bothersome, and, besides, a cer tain modest doubt of his own competency to make an original selection had always made him prefer to confine his gallantries to the wives of men of greater judgment than himself who had made such selection. But it sud denly occurred to him that he had seen Stratton quickly slip off the boat at the last landing-stage. Ahli that was it; he had cast away and deserted her. It was an old story. Jack smiled. But he was not greatly amused with Stratton. She was very pale, and seemed to be clinging to the network railing, as if to support herself, although she was gazing fixedly at the yellow glancing current below, which seemed to be sucked down and swallowed in the paddle box as the boat swept on. It certainly was a fascinating sight - this sloping rapid, hurrying on to bury itself under the crushing wheels. For a brief moment Jack saw how they would seize anything floating on that ghastly incline, whirl it round in one awful revolution of the beating paddles, and then bury it, broken and shattered out of all recognition, deep in the muddy undercurrent of the stream behind them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.