September 25, 2025 • 16 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
An Heiress from Red Horse by Ambrose Biers, Coronado, June twentieth.
I find myself more and more interested in him. It
is not I am sure his Do you know any
noun corresponding to the adjective handsome? One does not like
to say beauty when speaking of a man. He is
(00:22):
handsome enough. Heaven knows, I should not even care to
trust you with him, faithful of all possible wives that
you are, when he looks his best, as he always does.
Nor do I think the fascination of his manner has
much to do with it. You recollect that the charm
of art inheres in that which is undefinable, And to
(00:43):
you and me, my dear irene, I fancy there is
rather less of that in the branch of art under
consideration than to girls in their first season. I fancy
I know how my fine gentleman produces many of his effects,
and could perhaps give him a pointer on heightening them. Nevertheless,
(01:06):
his manner is something truly delightful. I suppose what interests
me chiefly is the man's brains. His conversation is the
best I have ever heard, and altogether unlike any one's else,
he seems to know everything, as indeed he ought for
he has been everywhere, read everything, seen all there is
(01:27):
to see. Sometimes I think rather more than is good
for him, and had acquaintance with the queerest people. And
then his voice Irene, when I hear it, I actually
feel as if I ought to have paid at the door,
though of course it is my own door. July third,
(01:47):
I fear of my remarks about doctor burt'z have been
being thoughtless, very silly, or you would not have written
of him with such levity, not to say disrespect. Believe me, dear,
he has more dignity and seriousness of the kind I mean,
which is not inconsistent with a manner sometimes playful and
(02:09):
always charming than any of the men that you and
I ever met. And young Raynor, you know Rayner at
Monterey tells me that the men all like him, and
that he is treated with something like deference everywhere. There
is a mystery, too, something about his connection with the
Blavitsky people in northern India. Rayner either would not or
(02:33):
could not tell me the particulars I infer that doctor
Burritz is thought. Don't you dare to laugh at me?
A magician? Could anything be finer than that. An ordinary
mystery is not, of course as good as a scandal,
But when it relates to dark and dreadful practices, to
the exercise of unearthly powers, could anything be more piquant?
(02:58):
It explains too, this singular influence the man has upon me.
It is the undefinable in his art, black arts. Seriously, dear,
I quite tremble when he looks me full in the eyes,
with those unfathomable orbs of his which I have already
vainly attempted to describe to you, how dreadful. If we
(03:18):
have the power to make one fall in love, do
you know if the Bevlasky crowd have that power outside
of Sapoy. July first, The strangest thing last evening, while
Auntie was attending one of the hotel hops I hate them,
doctor Burritz called. It was scandalously late. I actually believe
(03:42):
he had talked with Auntie in the ball room and
learned from her that I was alone. I had been
all the evening contriving how to worm out of him
the truth about his connection with the thugs in Sepoy
and all of that black business. But the moment he
fixed his eyes on me, for I admitted him. I'm
ashamed to say I was helpless. I trembled, I blushed.
(04:07):
I oh ive, reen, ive reen. I love the man
beyond expression, And you know how it is yourself fancy.
I an ugly duckling from redt horse daughter. They say
of old calamity Jim certainly his heiress, with no living relation,
but an absurd old aunt who spoils me a thousand
(04:28):
and fifty ways, absolutely destitute of everything but a million
dollars and a hope in Paris. I daring to love
a god like him, My dear, if I had you here,
I could tear your hair out with mortification. I am
convinced that he is aware of my feeling, for he
(04:48):
stayed but a few moments, said nothing but what another
man might have said half as well, and pretending that
he had an engagement, went away. I learned to day
a little bird told me, the bell bird, that he
went straight to bed. How does that strike you as
evidence of exemplary habits? July seventeenth, that little wretch Rayner
(05:14):
called yesterday, and his babble almost sent me wild. He
never runs down, that is to say, when he exterminates
a score of reputations. More or less, he does not
pause between one reputation and the next. By the way
he inquired about you, and his manifestations of interest in you,
(05:36):
had I confess a good deal of v resemblance. Mister
Rayner observes no game laws like death, which he would
inflict if slander were fatal. He has all seasons for
his own. But I like him, for we knew one
another at Red Horse, when we were young and true
(05:56):
hearted and barefooted. He was known in those far fair
days as Giggles, and I, oh, I raging? Can you
ever forgive me? I was called Gunny. God knows why,
perhaps an allusion to the material of my Pinafores, Perhaps
because the name is in alliteration with Giggles. For gig
(06:18):
and I were inseparable playmates, and the miners may have
thought it a delicate compliment to recognize some kind of
relationship between us. Later we took in a third, another
of Adversity's brood, who, like Garrick, between tragedy and comedy,
had a chronic inability to adjudicate the rival claims to
(06:39):
himself of frost and famine between him and the grave.
There was seldom anything more than a single suspender and
the hope of a meal which would at the same
time support life and make it insupportable. He literally picked
up a precarious living for himself and an aged mother
by chloriding the dump. That is to say, the miners
(07:02):
permitted him to search the heaps of waist rock for
such pieces of pay ore as had been overlooked, and
these he sacked up and sold at the syndicate mill.
He became a member of our firm, Gunny Giggles and Dumps,
thenceforth through my favor, for I could not then, nor
(07:24):
can I now be indifferent to his courage and prowess
in defending against Giggles the immemorial right of his sex
to insult a strange and unprotected female myself after Old
Jim struck it in the calamity, and I began to
wear shoes and go to school, and in emulation, Giggles
(07:46):
took to washing his face and became Jack Rayner of Wells,
Fargo and Co. And old Missus Barts was herself chlorided
to her father's dumps, drifted over to San Juan Smith
and turned stage driver, and was killed by road agents
and so forth. Why do I tell you all this, dear,
(08:06):
because it is heavy on my heart, because I walk
the valley of humility, because I am subduing myself to
permanent consciousness of my unworthiness to unloose the latchet of
doctor Burtz's shoe. Because oh dear, oh dear, there's a
cousin of dumps at this hotel. I haven't spoken to him.
(08:29):
I never had any acquaintance with him. But do you
suppose he has recognized me? Do please give me in
your next your canted, sure enough opinion about it, and
say you don't think so? Do you think he knows
about me already? And that is why he left me
last evening. When he saw that, I blushed and trembled
(08:52):
like a fool under his eyes. You know, I can't
bribe all the newspapers, and I can't go back on
anybody who was good to Gunny at Red Horse, not
if I'm pitched out of society into the sea. So
the skeleton sometimes rattles behind the door. I never cared
much before, as you know, But now now it is
(09:13):
not the same Jack Rayner, I am sure of. He
will not tell him. He seems indeed to hold him
in such respect as hardly to dare speak to him
at all. And I'm a good deal that way myself.
Dear Dear, I wish I had something besides a million dollars.
If Jack were three inches taller, I'd marry him alive
(09:35):
and go back to Red Horse and wear sackcloth again
to the end of my miserable days. July twenty fifth,
we had a perfectly splendid sunset last evening, and I
must tell you all about it. I ran away from
Auntie and everybody and was walking alone on the beach.
I expect you to believe, you, infidel, that I had
(09:57):
not looked out of my window on the seaward side
of the hotel and seen him walking alone on the beach.
If you are not laws to every feeling of womanly delicacy,
you will accept my statement without question. I soon established
myself under my suns shade and had for some time
been gazing out dreamily over the sea. When he approached,
(10:19):
walking close to the edge of the water. It was
ebb tide. I assure you, the wet sand actually brightened
about his feet. As he approached me. He lifted his hat, saying,
Miss Demmont May I sit with you? Or will you
walk with me? The possibility that neither might be agreeable
seems not to have occurred to him. Did you ever
(10:42):
know such assurance? Assurance? My dear? It was gall downright,
gall Well, I didn't find it wormwood, and replied, with
my untutored red horse heart in my throat, I I
shall be pleased to do anything. Could words have been
or stupid? There are depths of fatuity in me, friend
(11:04):
of my soul, which are simply bottomless. He extended his hand, smiling,
and I delivered mine into it without a moment's hesitation.
And when his fingers closed about it to assist me
to my feet, the consciousness that it trembled made me
blush worse than the red west. I got up, however,
(11:25):
and after a while, observing that he had not let
go my hand, I pulled on it a little, but unsuccessfully.
He simply held on, saying nothing, but looking down into
my face with some kind of a smile. I didn't know,
how could I whether it was affectionate, derisive, or what,
For I did not look at him how beautiful he was,
(11:49):
with the red fires of the sunset burning in the
depths of his eyes. Do you know, dear, if the
thugs and experts of the Bavlatsky region have any special
kind of eyes? Ah, you should have seen his superb attitude,
the godlike inclination of his head as he stood over
me after I had got upon my feet. It was
(12:11):
a noble picture, but I soon destroyed it, for I
began at once to sink again to the earth. There
was only one thing for him to do, and he
did it. He supported me with an arm about my waist.
Miss demmont, are you ill? He said? It was not
an exclamation. There was neither alarm nor solicitude in it.
(12:35):
If he had added, I suppose that is about what
I am expected to say, he would hardly have expressed
his sense of the situation more clearly. His manner filled
me with shame and indignation, for I was suffering acutely.
I wrenched my hand out of his, grasped the arm
supporting me, and, pushing myself free, fell plump into the
(12:57):
sand and sat helpless. My hat had fallen off in
the struggle, and my hair tumbled about my face and
shoulders in the most mortifying way. Go from me, I cried,
half choking. Oh, please go away, you, you thug? How
dare you think that when my leg is asleep, I
(13:19):
actually said those identical words, And then I broke down
and sobbed. I've reen, I blubbered. His manner altered in
an instant. I could see that much. Threw my fingers
and hair. He dropped on one knee beside me, parted
the tangle of hair and said, in the tenderest way,
(13:39):
my poor girl, God knows I have not intended to
pain you. How should I? I who love you, I
who have loved you for for years and years. He
had pulled my wet hands away from my face and
was covering them with kisses. My cheeks were like two coals.
My whole face was flaming, and I think steaming. What
(14:04):
could I do? I hid it on his shoulder. There
was no other place. And oh, my dear friends, how
my leg tingled and thrilled, and how I wanted to kick.
We sat so for a long time. He had released
one of my hands to pass his arm about me again,
(14:24):
and I possessed myself of my handkerchief and was drying
my eyes and my nose. I would not look up
until that was done. He tried in vain to push
me a little away and gaze into my eyes. Presently,
when it was all right and it had grown a
bit dark, I lifted my head, looked him straight in
(14:45):
the eyes, and smiled my best, my level best. Dear,
What do you mean, I said, by years and years, dearest?
He replied, very gravely, very earnestly, in the absence of
the sunken cheeks, the hollow eyes, the lank hair, the
(15:07):
slouching gait, the rags, dirt and youth. Can you not
will you not understand? Gunny? I am dumps. In a moment,
I was upon my feet, and he upon his. I
seized him by the lapels of his coat and peered
into his handsome face in the deepening darkness. I was
(15:29):
breathless with excitement. And you are not dead, I asked,
hardly knowing what I said, Only dead in love, dear,
I recovered from the road agent's bullet. But this, I
fear is fatal. But about Jack, mister Rayner, don't you know?
(15:50):
I am ashamed to say, darling, that it was through
that unworthy person's invitation that I came here from Vienna.
I rein they have played it upon your affectionate friends.
Mary Jane Demons p s. The worst of it is
that there is no mystery that was an invention of
(16:11):
Jack to arouse my curiosity and interest. James is not
a thug. He solemnly assures me that, in all his wonderings,
he has never set foot in Sappoy
An Heiress from Red Horse by Ambrose Biers, Coronado, June twentieth.
I find myself more and more interested in him. It
is not I am sure his Do you know any
noun corresponding to the adjective handsome? One does not like
to say beauty when speaking of a man. He is
(00:22):
handsome enough. Heaven knows, I should not even care to
trust you with him, faithful of all possible wives that
you are, when he looks his best, as he always does.
Nor do I think the fascination of his manner has
much to do with it. You recollect that the charm
of art inheres in that which is undefinable, And to
(00:43):
you and me, my dear irene, I fancy there is
rather less of that in the branch of art under
consideration than to girls in their first season. I fancy
I know how my fine gentleman produces many of his effects,
and could perhaps give him a pointer on heightening them. Nevertheless,
(01:06):
his manner is something truly delightful. I suppose what interests
me chiefly is the man's brains. His conversation is the
best I have ever heard, and altogether unlike any one's else,
he seems to know everything, as indeed he ought for
he has been everywhere, read everything, seen all there is
(01:27):
to see. Sometimes I think rather more than is good
for him, and had acquaintance with the queerest people. And
then his voice Irene, when I hear it, I actually
feel as if I ought to have paid at the door,
though of course it is my own door. July third,
(01:47):
I fear of my remarks about doctor burt'z have been
being thoughtless, very silly, or you would not have written
of him with such levity, not to say disrespect. Believe me, dear,
he has more dignity and seriousness of the kind I mean,
which is not inconsistent with a manner sometimes playful and
(02:09):
always charming than any of the men that you and
I ever met. And young Raynor, you know Rayner at
Monterey tells me that the men all like him, and
that he is treated with something like deference everywhere. There
is a mystery, too, something about his connection with the
Blavitsky people in northern India. Rayner either would not or
(02:33):
could not tell me the particulars I infer that doctor
Burritz is thought. Don't you dare to laugh at me?
A magician? Could anything be finer than that. An ordinary
mystery is not, of course as good as a scandal,
But when it relates to dark and dreadful practices, to
the exercise of unearthly powers, could anything be more piquant?
(02:58):
It explains too, this singular influence the man has upon me.
It is the undefinable in his art, black arts. Seriously, dear,
I quite tremble when he looks me full in the eyes,
with those unfathomable orbs of his which I have already
vainly attempted to describe to you, how dreadful. If we
(03:18):
have the power to make one fall in love, do
you know if the Bevlasky crowd have that power outside
of Sapoy. July first, The strangest thing last evening, while
Auntie was attending one of the hotel hops I hate them,
doctor Burritz called. It was scandalously late. I actually believe
(03:42):
he had talked with Auntie in the ball room and
learned from her that I was alone. I had been
all the evening contriving how to worm out of him
the truth about his connection with the thugs in Sepoy
and all of that black business. But the moment he
fixed his eyes on me, for I admitted him. I'm
ashamed to say I was helpless. I trembled, I blushed.
(04:07):
I oh ive, reen, ive reen. I love the man
beyond expression, And you know how it is yourself fancy.
I an ugly duckling from redt horse daughter. They say
of old calamity Jim certainly his heiress, with no living relation,
but an absurd old aunt who spoils me a thousand
(04:28):
and fifty ways, absolutely destitute of everything but a million
dollars and a hope in Paris. I daring to love
a god like him, My dear, if I had you here,
I could tear your hair out with mortification. I am
convinced that he is aware of my feeling, for he
(04:48):
stayed but a few moments, said nothing but what another
man might have said half as well, and pretending that
he had an engagement, went away. I learned to day
a little bird told me, the bell bird, that he
went straight to bed. How does that strike you as
evidence of exemplary habits? July seventeenth, that little wretch Rayner
(05:14):
called yesterday, and his babble almost sent me wild. He
never runs down, that is to say, when he exterminates
a score of reputations. More or less, he does not
pause between one reputation and the next. By the way
he inquired about you, and his manifestations of interest in you,
(05:36):
had I confess a good deal of v resemblance. Mister
Rayner observes no game laws like death, which he would
inflict if slander were fatal. He has all seasons for
his own. But I like him, for we knew one
another at Red Horse, when we were young and true
(05:56):
hearted and barefooted. He was known in those far fair
days as Giggles, and I, oh, I raging? Can you
ever forgive me? I was called Gunny. God knows why,
perhaps an allusion to the material of my Pinafores, Perhaps
because the name is in alliteration with Giggles. For gig
(06:18):
and I were inseparable playmates, and the miners may have
thought it a delicate compliment to recognize some kind of
relationship between us. Later we took in a third, another
of Adversity's brood, who, like Garrick, between tragedy and comedy,
had a chronic inability to adjudicate the rival claims to
(06:39):
himself of frost and famine between him and the grave.
There was seldom anything more than a single suspender and
the hope of a meal which would at the same
time support life and make it insupportable. He literally picked
up a precarious living for himself and an aged mother
by chloriding the dump. That is to say, the miners
(07:02):
permitted him to search the heaps of waist rock for
such pieces of pay ore as had been overlooked, and
these he sacked up and sold at the syndicate mill.
He became a member of our firm, Gunny Giggles and Dumps,
thenceforth through my favor, for I could not then, nor
(07:24):
can I now be indifferent to his courage and prowess
in defending against Giggles the immemorial right of his sex
to insult a strange and unprotected female myself after Old
Jim struck it in the calamity, and I began to
wear shoes and go to school, and in emulation, Giggles
(07:46):
took to washing his face and became Jack Rayner of Wells,
Fargo and Co. And old Missus Barts was herself chlorided
to her father's dumps, drifted over to San Juan Smith
and turned stage driver, and was killed by road agents
and so forth. Why do I tell you all this, dear,
(08:06):
because it is heavy on my heart, because I walk
the valley of humility, because I am subduing myself to
permanent consciousness of my unworthiness to unloose the latchet of
doctor Burtz's shoe. Because oh dear, oh dear, there's a
cousin of dumps at this hotel. I haven't spoken to him.
(08:29):
I never had any acquaintance with him. But do you
suppose he has recognized me? Do please give me in
your next your canted, sure enough opinion about it, and
say you don't think so? Do you think he knows
about me already? And that is why he left me
last evening. When he saw that, I blushed and trembled
(08:52):
like a fool under his eyes. You know, I can't
bribe all the newspapers, and I can't go back on
anybody who was good to Gunny at Red Horse, not
if I'm pitched out of society into the sea. So
the skeleton sometimes rattles behind the door. I never cared
much before, as you know, But now now it is
(09:13):
not the same Jack Rayner, I am sure of. He
will not tell him. He seems indeed to hold him
in such respect as hardly to dare speak to him
at all. And I'm a good deal that way myself.
Dear Dear, I wish I had something besides a million dollars.
If Jack were three inches taller, I'd marry him alive
(09:35):
and go back to Red Horse and wear sackcloth again
to the end of my miserable days. July twenty fifth,
we had a perfectly splendid sunset last evening, and I
must tell you all about it. I ran away from
Auntie and everybody and was walking alone on the beach.
I expect you to believe, you, infidel, that I had
(09:57):
not looked out of my window on the seaward side
of the hotel and seen him walking alone on the beach.
If you are not laws to every feeling of womanly delicacy,
you will accept my statement without question. I soon established
myself under my suns shade and had for some time
been gazing out dreamily over the sea. When he approached,
(10:19):
walking close to the edge of the water. It was
ebb tide. I assure you, the wet sand actually brightened
about his feet. As he approached me. He lifted his hat, saying,
Miss Demmont May I sit with you? Or will you
walk with me? The possibility that neither might be agreeable
seems not to have occurred to him. Did you ever
(10:42):
know such assurance? Assurance? My dear? It was gall downright,
gall Well, I didn't find it wormwood, and replied, with
my untutored red horse heart in my throat, I I
shall be pleased to do anything. Could words have been
or stupid? There are depths of fatuity in me, friend
(11:04):
of my soul, which are simply bottomless. He extended his hand, smiling,
and I delivered mine into it without a moment's hesitation.
And when his fingers closed about it to assist me
to my feet, the consciousness that it trembled made me
blush worse than the red west. I got up, however,
(11:25):
and after a while, observing that he had not let
go my hand, I pulled on it a little, but unsuccessfully.
He simply held on, saying nothing, but looking down into
my face with some kind of a smile. I didn't know,
how could I whether it was affectionate, derisive, or what,
For I did not look at him how beautiful he was,
(11:49):
with the red fires of the sunset burning in the
depths of his eyes. Do you know, dear, if the
thugs and experts of the Bavlatsky region have any special
kind of eyes? Ah, you should have seen his superb attitude,
the godlike inclination of his head as he stood over
me after I had got upon my feet. It was
(12:11):
a noble picture, but I soon destroyed it, for I
began at once to sink again to the earth. There
was only one thing for him to do, and he
did it. He supported me with an arm about my waist.
Miss demmont, are you ill? He said? It was not
an exclamation. There was neither alarm nor solicitude in it.
(12:35):
If he had added, I suppose that is about what
I am expected to say, he would hardly have expressed
his sense of the situation more clearly. His manner filled
me with shame and indignation, for I was suffering acutely.
I wrenched my hand out of his, grasped the arm
supporting me, and, pushing myself free, fell plump into the
(12:57):
sand and sat helpless. My hat had fallen off in
the struggle, and my hair tumbled about my face and
shoulders in the most mortifying way. Go from me, I cried,
half choking. Oh, please go away, you, you thug? How
dare you think that when my leg is asleep, I
(13:19):
actually said those identical words, And then I broke down
and sobbed. I've reen, I blubbered. His manner altered in
an instant. I could see that much. Threw my fingers
and hair. He dropped on one knee beside me, parted
the tangle of hair and said, in the tenderest way,
(13:39):
my poor girl, God knows I have not intended to
pain you. How should I? I who love you, I
who have loved you for for years and years. He
had pulled my wet hands away from my face and
was covering them with kisses. My cheeks were like two coals.
My whole face was flaming, and I think steaming. What
(14:04):
could I do? I hid it on his shoulder. There
was no other place. And oh, my dear friends, how
my leg tingled and thrilled, and how I wanted to kick.
We sat so for a long time. He had released
one of my hands to pass his arm about me again,
(14:24):
and I possessed myself of my handkerchief and was drying
my eyes and my nose. I would not look up
until that was done. He tried in vain to push
me a little away and gaze into my eyes. Presently,
when it was all right and it had grown a
bit dark, I lifted my head, looked him straight in
(14:45):
the eyes, and smiled my best, my level best. Dear,
What do you mean, I said, by years and years, dearest?
He replied, very gravely, very earnestly, in the absence of
the sunken cheeks, the hollow eyes, the lank hair, the
(15:07):
slouching gait, the rags, dirt and youth. Can you not
will you not understand? Gunny? I am dumps. In a moment,
I was upon my feet, and he upon his. I
seized him by the lapels of his coat and peered
into his handsome face in the deepening darkness. I was
(15:29):
breathless with excitement. And you are not dead, I asked,
hardly knowing what I said, Only dead in love, dear,
I recovered from the road agent's bullet. But this, I
fear is fatal. But about Jack, mister Rayner, don't you know?
(15:50):
I am ashamed to say, darling, that it was through
that unworthy person's invitation that I came here from Vienna.
I rein they have played it upon your affectionate friends.
Mary Jane Demons p s. The worst of it is
that there is no mystery that was an invention of
(16:11):
Jack to arouse my curiosity and interest. James is not
a thug. He solemnly assures me that, in all his wonderings,
he has never set foot in Sappoy
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