THE THREE PARTNERS

By Bret Harte




PROLOGUE.


The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it had
kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, showing
through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the interstices of
broken boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly out again like
sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept down the whole
mountain side, and began its usual struggle with the shadows upclimbing
from the valley, only to lose itself in the end and be absorbed in the
all-conquering darkness. Yet for some time the pines on the long slope
of Heavy Tree Hill murmured and protested with swaying arms; but as the
shadows stole upwards, and cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel
were swallowed up, a complete silence followed. Only the sky remained
visible--a vast concave mirror of dull steel, in which the stars did not
seem to be set, but only reflected.

A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remained open to
the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an invisible figure,
afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire it was stirring. At first
only this figure brooding over the hearth was shown, but as the flames
leaped up, two other figures could be seen sitting motionless before it.
When the door was shut, they acknowledged that interruption by slightly