Francis Brett Harte was born in the East, but moved west and changed his life to become a writer. Harte's works were said to, ". . . express the matter [humor] briefly but more or less essentially, the power of laughing not only at things, but also with them." (Chesterson 339). He prospered as a writer with his work "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is one of, if not the, defining short stories for the Western genre. It takes stereotypical characters and places them in a typical western situation. This is a form of local color. Local color is the use of dialect, scenery, and stereotyped characters in a story. Harte primarily uses stereotypical characters as a form of local color in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by is portrayal of the naive innocents, the golden hearted prostitutes, and the reserved gambler.
             Tom Simson and Piney Woods are prime examples of stereotypical innocents by their naivety, their ingenuousness, and even their sleeping habits. They are the newly wed couple of the story. One way of telling their innocence is by their how naive they are. Tom Simson assumes that one of the prostitutes traveling with the outcasts is married to the gambler. He also, does not realize that he is sending his virgin wife to sleep next to women less pure. Piney is the major example of ingenuousness by the way she giggled, and the how she was hiding behind the trees blushing. After she overcame her doubt she began to talk. Harte described her talking as an "impulsive girlish fashion." (Harte 416) Once sleeping, Tom sleeps with a good
             humored grin across his freckled face, while his wife slept next to her frail sisters as though she was being guarded by angels.
             Although the prostitutes have a horrible persona they are still stereotyped by their true golden hearted demeanor. When you first meet The Duchess and Mother Shipton they come across harshly
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