Biography
Merwin: The Life of Bret Harte.
Pemberton: Life of Bret Harte.
Criticism
Woodberry: America in Literature.
NOTES TO "THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT"
This story was first published in The Overland Monthly of San Francisco in 1869.
Page [134]. Poker Flat: an actual place in Sierra County, California. The name is typical of a large class of western geographic names bestowed by rough uneducated men when the West was new. moral atmosphere: these western mining towns in 1850 in a region which had just become a part of the United States as a result of the War with Mexico, were largely unorganized and without regularly constituted government. The bad element did as it pleased until the better people got tired. Then a "vigilance committee" would be organized, which would either drive out the undesirables, as in this story, or would execute the entire lot.
[135]. sluice robber: one way of separating gold from the gravel and sand in which it is found is to put the mixture into a slanting trough, called a sluice, through which water is run. As these sluices were sometimes of considerable length, it was not a difficult matter for a man to rob one.
[136]. Parthian: the Parthians inhabited a part of ancient Persia. It was their custom when retreating to continue to shoot arrows at their enemy.
[142]. Covenanter: one of that body of Scotchmen who had bound themselves by a solemn covenant or agreement in the seventeenth century to uphold the Presbyterian faith. This act required force of character, since it was in defiance of King Charles I, and this force was shown in the vigor of their hymns.
[144]. Iliad: the ancient Greek epic poem, ascribed to Homer, which tells the story of the war of the Greeks against Troy. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), an English poet, who rather freely translated the poem.
[147]. Derringer: a pistol, so called from the name of the inventor.