The Vigilantes have run down two horse thieves in the California foothills and mean to hang them. Before they can, Salomy Jane Clay, a self-possessed backwoods girl, walks up and kisses one of the condemned men, and that kiss sets off an escape, a moonlit return to her cabin in the forest clearing, and a second kiss.
A compact, romantic Harte tale of the Gold Rush frontier, later adapted for stage and screen. Download the free EPUB.