The past is full of painful memory. The future is as bleak as a sun-baked saloon sign above the watering horses. But Clarence Brant -- and love -- kept him going. He remembered how he loved his boyhood friend Susy and how he'd been separated from her by an unusual turn of events that had changed his fortunes. Now he was traveling -- to see Susy . . . and Mrs. Peyton, openly, without the disguise he'd used after the incident at the gold mines. Mrs. Peyton was beautiful. Susy was charming and spunky. In the dusty wilds of the Old West, Clarence sought them out -- for reasons of which even he was not fully aware.

Author Biography

Francis Bret Harte (1836 - 1902) was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, fiction, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories but his Gold Rush tales have been most often reprinted, adapted and admired.