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Selected Stories of Bret Harte by Bret Harte
page 49 of 413 (11%)
in the canyon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their
indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look
in Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous
appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to
practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty.

Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar.
He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these
suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued
intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be
accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last
Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his
way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled
the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically
concluded the interview in the following words: "And now, young man,
I'll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see
your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money's a
temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was
San Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that
Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation
could wholly subdue.

This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause
against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same
fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him,
he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the
crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canyon; but at its
farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The
men looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both
self-possessed and independent; and both types of a civilization that
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