In the Carquinez Woods (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Harte—who once rode shotgun on a stagecoach—knew the prospectors, gamblers, and gold-hearted frontier gals who won the West. The collection of treasures, published in 1896 includes “A Blue Grass Penelope,” “Left Out on Lone Star Mountain,” “A Ship of ’49,” “An Apostle of the Tules,” “Devil’s Ford,” and “A Secret of Telegraph Hill.”