for his young secretary later to turn into literature. By 1868 his
reputation was so great that when Mr. A. Roman established The Overland
Monthly, he was made its first editor.

Mr. Roman impressed upon him the literary possibilities of the life of
the miners, and furnished him with incidents, tales, and pictures. "The
Luck of Roaring Camp," his first venture in this hitherto almost
untouched field, proved that Bret Harte had come into his own. His local
sketches and Mexican legends had been imitative of Irving, his stories
of Dickens; but for this he had evolved a method and a style distinctly
personal. His first success was followed up by "The Outcasts of Poker
Flat" and (in October, 1869) by the tale here reprinted; and when, in
1870, an Eastern house published his sketches in book form, his fame was
secure. In 1871 he left California, and after a few years in the East
that added little to his reputation as a writer, or as a man, secured a
consulate in Germany. In 1878 he left America forever. Till his death in
1902 he wrote on, frequently recurring to the claim where he first "got
the color," but never equaling his work during the year and a half that
he was editor of the Overland.

In 1866 Harte heard, from one who had been present, the incident that
inspired "Tennessee's Partner." Eleven years before, at Second Garrote,
a newcomer had committed a capital crime. The miners organized a court,
appointed counsel, and gave the miscreant a trial. He confessed his
guilt, and the cry arose, "Hang him!"' But "Old Man Chaffee" stepped
forward, drew a bag of gold-dust from his bosom, and said that he would
give his "pile" rather than have a lynching occur in a camp that, spite
its name, had never been so disgraced. He begged the crowd to turn the
prisoner over to the authorities and let the law take its course. Such
was the fervor of his appeal and so great were the respect and affection