Chiquita.

BEAUTIFUL! Sir, you may say so. Thar isn't her match

in the county.

Is thar, old gal,-Chiquita, my darling, my beauty?

Feel of that neck, sir,-thar's velvet! Whoa! steady,―ah, will you, you vixen !

Whoa! I say. Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces.

Morgan she ain't nothing else, and I've got the papers to prove it.

Sired by Chippewa Chief, and twelve hundred dollars won't buy her.

Briggs of Tuolumne owned her. Did you know Briggs of

Tuolumne ?—

Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out his brains down in 'Frisco ?

Hedn't no savey-hed Briggs. Thar, Jack! that'll do,quit that foolin'!

Nothin' to what she kin do, when she's got her work cut out before her.

Hosses is hosses, you know, and likewise, too, jockeys is

jockeys :

And 'tain't ev'ry man as can ride as knows what a hoss has got in him.

Know the old ford on the Fork, that nearly got Flanigan's

leaders?

Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low

water!

Well, it ain't six weeks ago that me and the Jedge and his

nevey

Struck for that ford in the night, in the rain, and the water all round us;

Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek just a bilin',

Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river. I had the grey, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey,

Chiquita ; And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of

the cañon.

Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita Buckled right down to her work, and afore I could yell to her rider,

Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standing,

And twelve hundred dollars of hoss-flesh afloat, and a driftin' to thunder!

Would ye b'lieve it? that night that hoss, that ar' filly, Chiquita,

Walked herself into her stall, and stood there, all quiet and dripping:

Clean as a beaver or rat, with nary a buckle of harness, Just as she swam the Fork,-that hoss, that ar' filly, Chiquita.

That's what I call a hoss! and-What did you say?—Oh,

the nevey?

Drownded, I reckon, leastways, he never kem back to deny it.

Ye see the derned fool had no seat,-ye couldn't have made him a rider;

And then, ye know, boys will be boys, and hosses-well, hosses is hosses!

Dow's Flat.

Dow's FLAT.

(1856.)

That's its name;

And I reckon that you

Are a stranger? The same?

Well, I thought it was true,

For thar isn't a man on the river as can't spot the place at first view.

It was called after Dow,

Which the same was an ass,

And as to the how

Thet the thing kem to pass,

Jest tie up your hoss to that buckeye, and sit ye down here

in the grass.

You see this 'yer Dow

Hed the worst kind of luck;

He slipped up somehow

On each thing thet he struck.

Why, ef he'd a straddled thet fence-rail, the derned thing

'ed get up and buck.

He mined on the bar

Till he couldn't pay rates;

He was smashed by a car

When he tunnelled with Bates;

And right on the top of his trouble kem his wife and five kids from the States.

It was rough,-mighty rough;

But the boys they stood by,
And they brought him the stuff

For a house, on the sly;

And the old woman,-well, she did washing, and took on when no one was nigh.

But this 'yer luck of Dow's
Was so powerful mean

That the spring near his house

Dried right up on the green;

And he sunk forty feet down for water, but nary a drop to be seen.

Then the bar petered out,

And the boys wouldn't stay;

And the chills got about,

And his wife fell away;

But Dow in his well kept a peggin' in his usual ridikilous way.

One day, it was June,―

And a year ago, jest―

This Dow kem at noon

To his work like the rest,

With a shovel and pick on his shoulder, and a derringer hid

in his breast.