eBooks Base 2000

CHAPTER III.
For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along the
Monterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range with
afternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountain
crest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances of
the morning sun. For six months that white veil which had once hidden
Lance Harriott in its folds returned without him. For that amiable
outlaw no longer needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift wave of
pursuit that had dashed him on the summit had fallen back, and the next
day was broken and scattered. Before the week had passed, a regular
judicial inquiry relieved his crime of premeditation, and showed it to
be a rude duel of two armed and equally desperate men. From a secure
vantage in a sea-coast town Lance challenged a trial by his peers, and,
as an already prejudged man escaping from his executioners, obtained a
change of venue. Regular justice, seated by the calm Pacific, found the
action of an interior, irregular jury rash and hasty.


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