God's Ravens
: Main-travelled RoadsI
CHICAGO has three winds that blow upon it. One comes from the
East, and the mind goes out to the cold gray-blue lake. One from
the North, and men think of illimitable spaces of pinelands and
maple-clad ridges which lead to the unknown deeps of the arctic
woods.
But the third is the West of Southwest wind, dry, magnetic, full of
smell of unmeasured miles of growing grain in sum
ripening corn and wheat in autumn. When it comes in winter the
air glitters with incredible brilliancy. The snow of the country
dazzles and flames in the eyes; deep blue shadows everywhere
stream like stains of ink. Sleigh bells wrangle from early morning
till late at night, and every step is quick and alert. In the city,
smoke dims its clarity, but it is welcome.
But its greatest moment of domination is spring. The bitter gray
wind of the East has held unchecked rule for days, giving place to
its brother the North wind only at intervals, till some day in March
the wind of the southwest begins to blow. Then the eaves begin to
drip. Here and there a fowl (in a house that is really a prison)
begins to sang the song it sang on the farm, and toward noon its
song becomes a chant of articulate joy.
Then the poor crawl out of their reeking hovels on the South and
West sides to stand in the sun-the blessed sun-and felicitate
themselves on being alive. Windows of sickrooms are opened, the
merry small boy goes to school without his tippet, and men lay off
their long ulsters for their beaver coats. Caps give place to hats,
and men women pause to chat when they meet each other the
street. The open door is the sign of the great change of wind.
There are imaginative souls who are stirred yet deeper by this
wind-men like Robert Bloom, to whom come vague and very
sweet reminiscences of farm life when the snow is melting and the
dry ground begins to appear. To these people the wind comes from
the wide unending spaces of the prairie West. They can smell the
strange thrilling odor of newly uncovered sod and moist brown
plowed lands. To them it is like the opening door of a prison.
Robert had crawled downtown and up to his office high in the Star
block after a month's sickness. He had resolutely pulled a pad of
paper under his hand to write, but the window was open and that
wind coming in, and he could not write-he could only dream.
His brown hair fell over the thin white hand which propped his
head. His face was like ivory with dull yellowish stains in it. His
eyes did not see the mountainous roofs humped and piled into vast
masses of brick and stone, crossed and riven by streets, and swept
by masses of gray-white vapor; they saw a little valley circled by
low-wooded bluffs-his native town in Wisconsin.
As his weakness grew his ambition fell away, and his heart turned
back to nature and to the things he had known in his youth, to the
kindly people of the olden time. It did not occur to him that the
spirit of the country might have changed.
Sitting thus, he had a mighty longing come upon him to give up
the struggle, to go back to the simplest life with his wife and two
boys. Why should he tread in the mill, when every day was taking
the lifeblood out of his heart?
Slowly his longing took resolution. At last he drew his desk down,
and as the lock clicked it seemed like the shutting of a prison gate
behind him.
At the elevator door he met a fellow editor. "Hello, Bloom! Didn't
know you were down today."
"I'm only trying it. I'm going to take a vacation for a while."
"That's right, man. You look like a ghost."
"He hadn't the courage to tell him he never expected to work there
again. His step on the way home was firmer than it had been for
weeks. In his white face his wife saw some subtle change.
"What is it, Robert?"
"Mate, let's give it up."
"What do you mean?"
"The struggle is too hard. I can't stand it. I'm hungry for the country
again. Let's get out of this."
"Where'll we go?"
"Back to my native town-up among the Wisconsin hills and
coulees. Go anywhere, so that we escape this pressure-it's killing
me. Let's go to Bluff Siding for a year. It will do me good-may
bring me back to life. I can do enough special work to pay our
grocery bill; and the Merrill place-so Jack tells me-is empty. We
can get it for seventy-five dollars for a year. We can pull through
some way."
"Very well, Robert."
"I must have rest. All the bounce has gone out of me, Mate," he
said with sad lines in his face. "Any extra work here is out of the
question. I can only shamble around-an excuse for a man."
The wife had ceased to smile. Her strenuous cheerfulness could
not hold before his tragically drawn and bloodless face.
"I'll go wherever you think best, Robert It will be just as well for
the boys. I suppose there is a school there?"
"Oh, yes. At any rate, they can get a year's schooling in nature."
"Well-no matter, Robert; you are the one to be considered." She
had the self-sacrfficing devotion of the average woman. She
fancied herself hopelessly his inferior.
They had dwelt so long on the crumbling edge of poverty that they
were hardened to its threat, and yet the failure of Robert's health
had been of the sort which terrifies. It was a slow but steady
sinking of vital force. It had its ups and downs, but it was a
downward trail, always downward. The time for sell-deception had
passed.
His paper paid him a meager salary, for his work was prized only
by the more thoughtful readers of the Star.
In addition to his' regular work he occasionally hazarded a story
for the juvenile magazines of the East. In this way he turned the
antics of his growing boys to account, as he often said to his wife.
He had also passed the preliminary stages of literary success by
getting a couple of stories accepted by an Eastern magazine, and
he still confidently looked forward to seeing them printed.
His wife, a sturdy, practical little body, did her part in the bitter
struggle by keeping their little home one of the most attractive on
the West Side, the North Side being altogether too high for them.
In addition, her sorely pressed brain sought out other ways of
helping. She wrote out all her husband's stories on the typewriter,
and secretly she had tried composing others herself, the results
being queer dry little chronicles of the doings of men and women,
strung together without a touch of literary grace.
She proposed taking a large house and rerenting rooms, but Robert
would not hear to it. "As long as I can crawl about we'll leave that
to others."
In the month of preparation which followed he talked a great deal
about their venture.
"I want to get there," he said, "just when the leaves are coming out
on the trees. I want to see the cherry trees blossom on the hillside.
The popple trees always get green first."
At other times he talked about the people. "It will be a rest just to
get back among people who aren't ready to tread on your head in
order to lift themselves up. I believe a year among those kind,
unhurried people will glve me all the material I'll need for years.
I'll write a series of studies somewhat like Jefferies'-or Barrie's-
only, of course, I'll be original. I'll just take his plan Of telling
about the people I meet and their queer ways, so quaint and good."
"I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out Of silence to say.
"I don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my going
will let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the whole
thing today: 'I can say, "Sorry to see you go, Bloom," because your
going doesn't concern me. I'm not in line of succession, but some
of the other boys don't feel so. There's no divinity doth hedge an
editor; nothing but law prevents the murder of those above by
those below.'"
"I don't like Mr. Mason when he talks like that," said the wife.
"Well-I don't." He didn't tell her what Mason said when Robert
talked about the good simple life of the people in Bluff Siding:
"Oh, bosh, Bloom! You'll find the struggle of the outside world
reflected in your little town. You'll find men and women just as
hard and selfish in their small way. It'll be harder to bear, because
it will all be so petty and pusillailmous."
It was a lovely day in late April when they took the train out of the
great grimy terrible city. It was eight o'clock, but the streets were
muddy and wet, a cold East wind blowing off the lake.
With clanging bell the train moved away, piercing the ragged gray
formless mob of houses and streets (through which railways
always run in a city). Men were hurrying to work, and Robert
pitied them, poor fellows, condemned to do that thing forever.
In an hour they reached the prairies, already clothed upon faintly
with green grass and tender springing wheat. The purple-brown
squares reserved for the corn looked deliciously soft and warm to
the sick man, and he longed to set his bare feet into it.
His boys were wild with delight. They had the natural love of the
earth still in them, and correspondingly cared little for the city.
They raced through the cars like colts. They saw everything. Every
blossoming plant, every budding tree, was precious to them all.
All day they rode. Toward noon they left the sunny prairie land of
northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, and entered upon the hill
land of Madison and beyond. As they went North, the season was
less advanced, but spring was in the fresh wind and the warm
sunshine.
As evening drew on, the hylas began to peep from the pools, and
their chorus deepened as they came on toward Bluff Siding, which
seemed very small, very squalid, and uninteresting, but Robert
pointed at the circling wine-colored wall of hills and the warm
sunset sky.
"We're in luck to find a hotel," said Robert. "They burn down every
three months."
They were met by a middle-aged man and conducted across the
road to a hotel, which had been a roller-skating rink in other days,
and was not prepossessing. However, they were ushered into the
parlor, which resembled the sitting room of a rather ambitious
village home, and there they took seats, while the landlord
consulted about rooms.
The wife's heart sank. From the window she could see several of
the low houses, and far off just the hills which seemed to make the
town so very small, very lonely. She was not given time to shed
tears. The children clamored for food, tired and cross.
Robert went out into the office, where he sigued his name under
the close and silent scrutiny of a half dozen roughly clad men, who
sat leaning against the wall. They were merely workingmen to
him, but in Mrs. Bloom's eyes they were dangerous people.
The landlord looked at the name as Robert wrote. "Your boxes are
all here," he said.
Robert looked up at him in surprise. "What boxes?"
"Your household goods. They came in on No.9."
Robert recovered himself. He remembered this was a village
where everything that goes on-everything-is known.
The stairway rose picturesquely out of the office to the low
second story, and wp these stairs they tramped to' their tiny rooms,
which were like cells.
"Oh, Mamma, ain't it queer?" cried the boys.
"Supper is all ready," the landlord's soft, deep voice aunounced a
few moments later, and the boys responded with whoops of
hunger.
They were met by the close scrutiny of every boarder as they
entered, and they heard also the muttered cornments and
explanations.
"Family to take the Merrill house."
"He looks purty well fiaxed out, don't he?"
They were agreeably surprised to find everything neat and clean
and wholesome. The bread was good and the butter delicious.
Their spirits revived.
"That butter tastes like old times," said Robert. "li's fresh. It's really
butter."
They made a hearty meal, and the boys, being filled up, grew
sleepy. After they were put to bed Robert said, "Now, Mate, let's
go see the house."
They walked out arm in arm like lovers. Her sturdy form steadied
him, though he would not have acknowledged it. The red flush was
not yet gone from the west, and the hills still kept a splendid tone
of purple-black. It was very clear, the stars were out, the wind
deliciously soft. "Isn't it still?" Robert aimost whispered.
They walked on under the budding trees up the hill, till they came
at last to the small frame house set under tall maples and locust
trees, just showing a feathery fringe of foliage.
"This is our home," said Robert.
Mate leaned on the gate in silence. Frogs were peeping. The smell
of spring was in the air. There was a magnificent repose in the
hour, restful, recreating, impressive.
"Oh, it's beautiful, Robert! I know we shall like it."
"We must like it," he said.
II
First contact with the people disappointed Robert. In the work of
moving in he had to do with people who work at day's work, and
the fault was his more than theirs. He forgot that they did not
consider their work degrading. They resented his bossing. The
drayman grew rebellious.
"Look a-here, my Christian friend, if you'll go 'long in the house
and let us alone it'll be a good job. We know what we're about."
This was not pleasant, and he did not perceive the trouble. In the
same way he got foul of the carpenter and the man who plowed his
garden. Some way his tone was not right. His voice was cold and
distant. He generally found that the men knew better than he
what was to be done and how to do it; and sometimes he felt like
apologizing, but their attitude had changed till apology was
impossible.
He had repelled their friendly advances because he considered
them (without meaning to do so) as workmen, and not as
neighbors. They reported, therefore, that he was cranky and rode a
high horse.
"He thinks he's a little tin god on wheels," the drayman said.
"Oh, he'll get over that," said McLane. "I knew the boy's folks
years ago-tip-top folks, too. He ain't well, and that makes him a
little crusty."
"That's the trouble-he thinks he's an upper crust," said Jim Cullen,
the drayman.
At the end of ten days they were settled, and nothing remained to
do but plan a little garden and-get well. The boys, with their
unspoiled natures, were able to melt into the ranks of the
village-boy life at once, with no more friction than was indicated
by a couple of rough-and-tumble fights. They were sturdy fellows,
like their mother, and these fights gave them high rank.
Robert got along in a dull, smooth way with his neighbors. He was
too formal with them. He met them only at the meat shop and the
post office. They nodded genially and said, "Got settled yet?" And
he replied, "Quite comfortable, thank you." They felt his coldness.
Conversation halted when he came near and made him feel that he
was the subject of their talk. As a matter of fact, he generally was.
He was a source of great speculation with them. Some of them had
gone so far as to bet he wouldn't live a year. They all seemed
grotesque to him, so work-scarred and bent and hairy. Even the
men whose names he had known from childhood were queer to
him. They seemed shy and distant, too, not like his ideas of them.
To Mate they were almost caricatures. "What makes them look
so-so 'way behind the times, Robert?"
"Well, I suppose they are," said Robert. "Life in these coulees goes
on rather slower than in Chicago. Then there are a great many
Welsh and Germans and Norwegians living way up the coulees,
and they're the ones you notice. They're not all so." He could be
generous toward them in general; it was in special cases where he
failed to know them.
They had been there nearly two weeks without meeting any of
them socially, and Robert was beginning to change his opinion
about them. "They let us severely alone," he was saying one night
to his wife.
"It's very odd. I wonder what I'd better do, Robert. I don't know the
etiquette of these small towns. I never lived in one before, you
know. Whether I ought to call first-and, good gracious, who'll I call
on? I'm in the dark."
"So am I, to tell the truth. I haven't lived in one of these small
towns since I was a lad. I have a faint recollection that
introductions were absolutely necessary. They have an etiquette
which is as binding as that of McAilister's Four Hundred, but what
it is I don't know."
"Well, we'll wait."
"The boys are perfectly at home," said Robert with a little
emphasis on boys, which was the first indication of his
disappointment. The people he had failed to reach.
There came a knock on the door that startled them both. "Come
in," said Robert in a nervous shout.
"Land sakes! did I scare ye? Seem so, way ye yelled," said a
high-keyed nasal voice, and a tall woman came in, followed by an
equally stalwart man.
"How d'e do, Mrs. Folsom? My wife, Mr. Folsom."
Folsom's voice was lost in the bustle of getting settled, but Mrs.
Folsom's voice rose above the clamor. "I was tellin' him it was
about time we got neighborly. I never let anybody come to town a
week without callin' on 'em. It does a body a heap o' good to see a
face outside the family once in a while, specially in a new place.
How do you like up here on the hill?"
"Very much. The view is so fine."
"Yes, I s'pose it is. Still, it ain't my notion. I don't like to climb
hills well enough. Still, I've heard of people buildin' just for the
view. It's all in taste, as the old woman said that kissed the cow."
There was an element of shrewdness and sell-analysis in Mrs.
Folsom which saved her from being grotesque. She knew she was
queer to Mrs. Bloom, but she did not resent it. She was still young
in form and face, but her teeth were gone, and, like so many of her
neighbors, she was too poor to replace them from the dentist's. She
wore a decent calico dress and a shawl and hat.
As she talked her eyes took in every article of furniture in the
room, and every little piece of fancywork and bric-a-brac. In fact,
she reproduced the pattern of one of the tidies within two days.
Folsom sat dumbly in his chair. Robert, who met him now as a
neighbor for the first time, tried to talk with him, but failed, and
turned himself gladly to Mrs. Folsom, who delighted him with her
vigorous phrases.
"Oh, we're a-movin', though you wouldn't think it. This town is
filled with a lot of old skinflints. Close ain't no name for 'em. Jest
ask Folsom thar about 'em. He's been buildin' their houses for 'em.
Still, I suppose they say the same thing o' me," she added with a
touch of humor which always saved her. She used a man's phrases.
"We're always ready to tax some other feller, but we kick like
mules when the tax falls on us," she went on. "My land! the fight
we've had to git sidewalks in this town!"
"You should be mayor."
"That's what I tell Folsom. Takes a woman to clean things up.
Well, I must run along. Thought I'd jest call in and see how you all
was. Come down when ye kin."
"Thank you, I will."
After they had gone Robert turned with a smile: "Our first formal
call."
"Oh, dear, Robert, what can I do with such people?"
"Go see 'em. I like her. She's shrewd. You'll like her, too."
"But what can I say to such people? Did you hear her say 'we
fellers' to me?"
Robert laughed. "That's nothing. She feels as much of a man, or
'feller,' as anyone. Why shouldn't she?"
"But she's so vulgar."
"I admit she isn't elegant, but I think she's a good wife and
mother."
"I wonder if they're all like that?"
"Now, Mate, we must try not to offend them. We must try to be
one of them."
But this was easier said than done. As he went down to the post
office and stood waiting for his mail like the rest, he tried to enter
into conversation witb them, but mainly they moved away from
him. William McTurg nodded at him and said, "How de do?" and
McLane asked how he liked his new place, and that was about all.
He couldn't reach them. They suspected him. They had only the
estimate of the men who had worked for him; and, while they were
civil, they plainly didn't need him in the slightest degree, except as
a topic of conversation.
He did not improve as he had hoped to do. The spring was wet and
cold, the most rainy and depressing the valley had seen in many
years. Day after day the rain clouds sailed in over the northern hills
and deluged the flat little town with water, till the frogs sang in
every street, till the main street mired down every team that drove
into it.
The corn rotted in the earth, but the grass grew tall and
yellow-green, the trees glistened through the gray air, and the hills
were like green jewels of incalculable worth, when the sun shone,
at sweet infrequent intervals.
The cold and damp struck through into the alien's heart. It seemed
to prophesy his dark future. He sat at his desk and looked out into
the gray rain with gloomy eyes-a prisoner when he had expected to
be free.
He had failed in his last venture. He had not gained any power-he
was reaily weaker than ever. The rain had kept him confined to the
house. The joy he had anticipated of tracing out all his boyish
pleasure haunts was cut off. He had relied, too, upon that as a
source of literary power.
He could not do much more than walk down to the post office and
back on the pleasantest days. A few people called, but he could
not talk to them, and they did not call again.
In the meanwhile his little bank account was vanishing. The boys
were strong and happy; that was his only comfort. And his wife
seemed strong, too. She had little time to get lonesome.
He grew morbid. His weakness and insecurity made him jealous of
the security and health of others.
He grew almost to hate the people as he saw them coming and
going in the mud, or heard their loud hearty voices sounding from
the street. He hated their gossip, their dull jokes. The flat little
town grew vulgar and low and desolate to him.
Every little thing which had amused him now annoyed him. The
cut of their beards worried him. Their voices jarred upon him.
Every day or two he broke forth to his wife in long tirades of
abuse.
"Oh, I can't stand these people! They don't know any-thing. They
talk every rag of gossip into shreds. Taters, fish, hops; hops, fish,
and taters. They've saved and pinched and toiled till their souls are
pinched and ground away. You're right. They are caricatures. They
don't read or think about anything in which I'm interested. This life
is nerve-destroying. Talk about the health of the village life! it
destroys body and soul. It debilitates me. It will warp us both down
to the level of these people."
She tried to stop him, but he went on, a flush of fever on his cheek:
"They degrade the nature they have touched. Their squat little
town is a caricature like themselves. Everything they touch they
belittle. Here they sit while side-walks rot and teams mire in the
streets."
He raged on like one demented-bitter, accusing, rebellious. In such
a mood he could not write. In place of inspiring him, the little
town and its people seemed to undermine his power and turn his
sweetness of spirit into gall and acid. He only bowed to them now
as he walked feebly among them, and they excused it by referring
to his sickness. They eyed him each time with pitying eyes; "He's
failin' fast," they said among themselves.
One day, as he was returning from the post office, he felt blind for
a moment and put his hand to his head. The wold of vivid green
grew gray, and life rceded from him into illimitable distance. He
had one dim fading glimpse of a shaggy-bearded face looking
down at him, and felt the clutch of an iron-hard strong arm under
him, and then he lost hold even on so much consciousness.
He came back slowly, rising out of immeasurable deeps toward a
distant light which was like the mouth of a well filled with clouds
of misty vapor. Occasionally he saw a brown big hairy face
floating in over this lighted horizon, to smile kindly and go away
again. Others came with shaggy beards. He heard a cheery tenor
voice which he recognized, and then another face, a big brown
smiling face; very lovely it looked now to him-almost as lovely as
his wife's, which floated in from the other side.
"He's all right now," said the cheery tenor voice from the big
bearded face.
"Oh, Mr. McTurg; do you think so?"
"Ye-e-s, sir. He's all right. The fever's left him. Brace up, old man.
We need ye yit awhile." Then all was silent agam.
The well mouth cleared away its mist again, and he saw more
clearly. Part of the time he knew he was in bed staring at the
ceiling. Part of the time the well mouth remained closed in with
clouds.
Gaunt old women put spoons of delicious broth to his lips, and
their toothless mouths had kindly lines about them. He heard their
high voices sounding faintly.
"Now, Mis' Bloom, jest let Mis' Folsom an' me attend to things out
here. We'll get supper for the boys, an' you jest go an' lay down.
We'll take care of him. Don't worry. Bell's a good hand with sick."
Then the light came again, and he heard a robin singing, and a
catbird squalled softly, pitifully. He could see the ceiling again. He
lay on his back, with his hands on his breast. He felt as if he had
been dead. He seemed to feel his body as if it were an alien thing.
"How are you, sir?" called the laughing, thrillingly hearty voice of
William McTurg.
He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn't move. He tried to speak,
but his dry throat made no noise.
The big man bent over him. "Want 'o change place a little?"
He closed his eyes in answer.
A giant arm ran deftly under his shoulders and turned him as if he
were an infant, and a new part of the good old world burst on his
sight. The sunshine streamed in the windows through a waving
screen of lilac leaves and fell upon the carpet in a priceless flood
of radiance.
There sat William McTurg smiling at him. He had no coat on and
no hat, and his bushy thick hair rose up from his forehead like
thick marsh grass. He looked to be the embodiment of sunshine
and health. Sun and air were in his brown face, and the perfect
health of a fine animal was in his huge limbs. He looked at Robert
with a smile that brought a strange feeling into his throat. It made
him try to speak; at last he whispered.
The great figure bent closer: "What is it?"
"Thank-you."
William laughed a low chuckle. "Don't bother about thanks. Would
you like some water?"
A tall figure joined William, awkwardiy.
"Hello, Evan!"
"How is he, Bm?"
"He's awake today."
"That's good. Anything I can do?"
"No, I guess not. An he needs is somethin' to eat."
"I jest brought a chicken up, an' some jell an' things the women
sent. I'll stay with him till twelve, then Folsom will come in."
Thereafter he lay hearing the robins laugh and the orioles whistle,
and then the frogs and katydids at night. These men with greasy
vests and unkempt beards came in every day. They bathed him,
and helped him to and from the bed. They helped to dress him and
move him to the window, where he could look out on the blessed
green of the grass.
O God, it was so beautiful! It was a lover's joy only to live, to look
into these radiant vistas again. A catbird was singing in the currant
hedge. A robin was hopping across the lawn. The voices of the
children sounded soft and jocund across the road. And the
surshine-"Beloved Christ, Thy sunshine falling upon my feet!" His
soul ached with the joy of it, and when his wife came in she found
him sobbing like a child.
They seemed never to weary in his service. They lifted him about
and talked to him in loud and hearty voices which roused him like
fresh winds from free spaces.
He heard the women busy with things in the kitchen. He often saw
them loaded with things to eat passing his window, and often his
wife came in and knelt down at his bed.
"Oh, Robert, they're so good! They feed us like Gods ravens."
One day, as he sat at the window fully dressed for the fourth of
fifth time, William McTurg came up the walk.
"Well, Robert, how are ye today?"
"First-rate, William," he smiled. "I believe I can walk out a little if
you'll help me."
"All right, sir."
And he went forth leaning on William's arm, a piteous wraith of a
man.
On every side the golden June sunshine fell, filling the valley from
purple brim to purple brim. Down over the hill to the west the light
poured, tangled and glowing in the plum and cherry trees, leaving
the glistening grass spraying through the elms and flinging
streamers of pink across the shaven green slopes where the cattle
fed.
On every side he saw kindly faces and heard hearty voices: "Good
day, Robert. Glad to see you out again." It thrilled him to hear
them call him by his first name.
His heart swelled till he could hardly breathe. The passion of
living came back upon him, shaking, uplifting him. His pallid lips
moved. His face was turned to the sky.
"O God, let me live! It is so beautiful! O God, give me strength
again! Keep me in the light of the sun! Let me see the green grass
come and go!"
He turned to William with trembling lips, trying to speak:
"Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now."
But William did not understand him.
"There! there!" he said soothingly. "I guess you're gettin' tired." He
led Robert back and put him to bed.
"I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out," William said
to him as Robert lay there smiling up at him.
"Oh, I'm all right now," the sick man said.
"Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone, "we knew our
neighbors now, don't we? We never can hate or ridicule them
again."
"Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again-to me."
More
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Everyman's Share
"This switching-engine mystery opens up a field that I've been trying to get into for some little time, Mac," the superintendent began, after the half-hour had elapsed and the trainmaster had returned to the private office. "Sit down and we'll thr... Exit The King
They bedded that night under the great vault-roof where twinkle a million stars. There were three of the outlaw's men with him, and both Mcwilliams and his friend noticed that they slept a little apart from their chief. There were other indicatio... Exposed To The Sunlight
It was a month before Trevison went to town, again. Only once during that time did he see Rosalind Benham, for the Blakeleys had vacated, and goods and servants had arrived from the East and needed attention. Rosalind presided at the Bar B ranchho... Failure
Smaltz was a liar, as he said, but Bruce knew that he had told the truth regarding Banule's work. He confirmed the suspicions and fears that had been in Bruce's mind for months. Therefore, when he said quietly to Banule--"You'd better go up the hi... Faith And Unfaith
At Jane Withersteen's home the promise made to Mrs. Larkin to care for little Fay had begun to be fulfilled. Like a gleam of sunlight through the cottonwoods was the coming of the child to the gloomy house of Withersteen. The big, silent h... Fay
At the home of Jane Withersteen Little Fay was climbing Lassiter's knee. "Does oo love me?" she asked. Lassiter, who was as serious with Fay as he was gentle and loving, assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was ... Fire And Firecrackers
"What's that!" "The garage on fire!" "Say, look at the blaze!" Such were some of the cries, as the boys tumbled out of bed, one after another. A bright glare of fire was dancing over the walls of the rooms. "It's some brushwood behind th... Fire!
"It was not so much his wounds as his weakness," Dr. Graham was saying, later still that autumn night, "that led to my declaring Blakely unfit to take the field. He would have gone in spite of me, but for the general's order. He has gone now in sp... First Blood
After Ridgway's cavalier refusal to negotiate a peace treaty, Simon Harley and his body-guard walked back to the offices of the Consolidated, where they arrived at the same time as the news of the enemy's first blow since the declaration of renewed ... First Blood!
Occasionally Alice Mackenzie met Collins on the streets of Tucson. Once she saw him at the hotel where she was staying, deep in a discussion with her father of ways and means of running down the robbers of the Limited. He did not, however, make the ... First Principles
Judge Lindman shivered, though a merciless, blighting sun beat down on the great stone ledge that spread in front of the opening, smothering him with heat waves that eddied in and out, and though the interior of the low-ceilinged chamber pulsed wi... First Sight Of The Foe
Ray's gallant half hundred, as has been said, took the route for the north at break of day. Before them spread the open prairie, apparently level and unbroken for full five miles to the front and either flank, the distant slopes and ridges boundin... Flemister And Others
The jocosely spectacular arrest of Barton Rufford, with its appeal to the grim humor of the desert, was responsible for a brief lull in the storm of antagonism evoked by Lidgerwood's attempt to bring order out of the chaos reigning in his small king... Flesh
I Should you chance, in crossing a certain mountain pass in southern Catalonia, to find yourself poised above a little valley against the opposite side of which lies a monastery, look to the heights above it. Should you piece out from among the... Flight
There was a girl named Joan who followed Pierre Landis because he laid his hand upon her wrist, and there was another Joan who fled up the mountain-side at sight of him, as though the fire that had once touched her shoulder had burnt its way into ... Florence Grace Hallman Speaks Plainly
Andy Green rode thoughtfully up the trail from his cabin in One Man coulee, his hat tilted to the south to shield his face from the climbing sun, his eyes fixed absently upon the yellow soil of the hillside. Andy was facing a problem that concerned ... Following A Crooked Trail
Across Dry Valley a dust cloud had been moving for hours. It rolled into Saguache at the brisk heels of a bunch of horses just about the time the town was settling itself to supper. At the intersection of Main and La Junta streets the cloud was ch... For A Good Reason
The young ladies, following the custom of Arizona in summer, were riding by the light of the stars to avoid the heat of the day. They rode leisurely, chatting as their ponies paced side by side. For though they were cousins they were getting acquain... For Once At Least Lite Had His Way
Half a mile she galloped, and met Lite coming home. She glanced over her shoulder before she pulled Pard down to a walk, and Lite's greeting, as he turned and rode alongside her, was a question. He wanted to know what was the matter with her. He ... For The Good Of The Company
All through breakfast Applehead seemed to have something weighty on his mind. He kept pulling at his streaked, reddish-gray mustache when his fingers should have been wholly occupied with his food, and he stared abstractedly at the ground after he h... For The Kiddies
Trevison dropped from Nigger at the dooryard of Levins' cabin, and looked with a grim smile at Levins himself lying face downward across the saddle on his own pony. He had carried Levins out of the Belmont and had thrown him, as he would have thro... For The World's Championship
The scene on which Helen Messiter's eyes rested that mellow Fourth of July was vivid enough to have interested a far more jaded mind than hers. Nowhere outside of Cattleland could it have been duplicated. Wyoming is sparsely populated, but the rider... Forebodings
Almost at once they struck a fresh trail, made by a number of horsemen riding in a bunch, which led diagonally across middle pasture. It was easy to follow, and Hardenberg pushed his men hard to make up for delays which were likely to come later o... Foreshadowed Events
The major commanding looked up from the morning report and surveyed the post adjutant with something of perturbation, if not annoyance, in his grim, gray eyes. For the fourth time that week had Lieutenant Field requested permission to be absent fo... Forging A Letter
The impulse which had moved Harlan to send Red Linton to the T Down ranch to enlist the services of some of his old friends had resulted from a conviction that he could not depend upon those men of the Rancho Seco outfit who had seemed to him, to ... Fort Buford
We were at our rope's end. There were a few accounts to settle in Glendive, after which we would shake its dust from our feet. Very few of the quarantine guards returned to town, and with the exception of Sheriff Wherry, none of the leading cowmen, ... Foxy
After the expulsion of the master, the Twentieth School fell upon evil days, for the trustees decided that it would be better to try "gurl" teachers, as Hughie contemptuously called them; and this policy prevailed for two or three years, with the ... Foxy's Partner
It was an evil day for Hughie when he made friends with Foxy and became his partner in the store business, for Hughie's hoardings were never large, and after buying a Christmas present for his mother, according to his unfailing custom, they were r... Friendly Enemies
Ridgway had promised Aline that he would see her soon, and when he found himself in New York he called at the big house on Fifth Avenue, which had for so long been identified as the home of Simon Harley. It bore his impress stamped on it. Its auster... Friends From The East
Three days after her return to the ranch Madeline could not discover any physical discomfort as a reminder of her adventurous experiences. This surprised her, but not nearly so much as the fact that after a few weeks she found she scarcely remembere... Friends Or Foes?
Tom Fish had a profound respect for Return Kingdom from the moment the latter threw him; but he was no less pleasant and agreeable than before, and he proved himself a valuable friend then and in days long afterward. When night came, as the wind... From The Plains To The Point
CHAPTER I. RALPH MCCREA. The sun was going down, and a little girl with big, dark eyes who was sitting in the waiting-room of the railway station was beginning to look very tired. Ever since the train came in at one o'clock she had been... From The Point To The Plains
CHAPTER I. A CADET'S SISTER. She was standing at the very end of the forward deck, and, with flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, gazing eagerly upon the scene before her. Swiftly, smoothly rounding the rugged promontory on the right, th... Fugitives From Justice
At the Lodge too an early breakfast was held, though it was five hours later than the one at the camp. The whole party was down by nine-thirty and was on the road within the hour. The morning was such a one as only the Rockies can produce. The win... Further Developments
While Harley had been in no way responsible for Pelton's murderous attack upon Yesler, public opinion held him to account. The Pinkertons who had, up till this time, been employed at the mines, were now moved to the hotel to be ready for an emergenc... Further Perplexities
Wayland, for his part, was not deceived by Siona Moore. He knew her kind, and understood her method of attack. He liked her pert ways, for they brought back his days at college, when dozens of just such misses lent grace and humor and romance to t... God's Ravens
I CHICAGO has three winds that blow upon it. One comes from the East, and the mind goes out to the cold gray-blue lake. One from the North, and men think of illimitable spaces of pinelands and maple-clad ridges which lead to the unknown deeps of ... Gold
As Lassiter had reported to Jane, Venters "went through" safely, and after a toilsome journey reached the peaceful shelter of Surprise Valley. When finally he lay wearily down under the silver spruces, resting from the strain of dragging p... Goliday's Choice
The east was streaked with pink and orange when The Kid and Harry Thomas rode into the sleeping town of Mariposa. The little Mexican city, they discovered, however, was not entirely asleep. At the northern edge of the city, on the stretch of sand... Gone
Motionless in his saddle, save for an occasional restless stamp of his horse, Bud Jessup waited patiently in front of the adobe shack at Las Vegas camp. His face was serious and thoughtful, and his glance was fixed on the open door through which c... Good Enough
"Alf" Banule, the electrical genius for whom Jennings had sent to help him rewind an armature and who therefore had taken Jennings's place as constructing engineer, had the distinction of being the only person Bruce had ever seen who could remove ... Good Indian
There is a saying--and if it is not purely Western, it is at least purely American--that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the very teeth of that, and in spite of the fact that he was neither very good, nor an Indian--nor in any sense "dead"... Good News
Pink rolled over in his bed so that he might look--however sleepily--upon his fellows, dressing more or less quietly in the cool dawn-hour. "Say, I got a letter for you, Weary," he yawned, stretching both arms above his head. "I opened it and rea... Grandmother Stark
Except for its chair and bed, the cabin was stripped almost bare. Amid its emptiness of dismantled shelves and walls and floor, only the tiny ancestress still hung in her place, last token of the home that had been. This miniature, tacked against ... Gray Envelopes
It was with more than the usual sinking of heart that Jasper let himself that evening into the beautiful house which Betty and he called their home. Joan's too expressive look had stung the old soreness of his disillusionment. He knew that the hou... Grey Molly
If her soul had been capable of enthusiasm, Marne could have made the trip on schedule time, but she was a burro good for nothing except to carry a pack well nigh half her own weight, live on forage that might have starved a goat, and smell water fi... Guardian Angels Are Riding Point
They plunged into darkness again, rode at a half trot over smooth, hard sand, Bud trusting himself wholly to Marian and to the sagacity of the two horses who could see, he hoped, much better than he himself could. His keen hearing had caught a faint... Guile Against The Wily
Bud liked to have his life run along accustomed lines with a more or less perfect balance of work and play, friendships and enmities. He had grown up with the belief that any mystery is merely a synonym for menace. He had learned to be wary of known... Hail And Farewell
Supper was served in the inner room opening from the corridor lit by a few swinging lanterns of polished horn and a dozen wax candles of sacerdotal size and suggestion. The apartment, though spacious, was low and crypt-like, and was not relieved b... Hands Up
Melissy had been up the Can del Oro for wild poppies in her runabout and had just reached the ranch. She was disposing of her flowers in ollas when Jim Budd, waiter, chambermaid, and odd jobs man at the Bar Double G, appeared in the hall with a fr... Hank's Woman
I Many fish were still in the pool; and though luck seemed to have left me, still I stood at the end of the point, casting and casting my vain line, while the Virginian lay and watched. Noonday's extreme brightness had left the river and the pl... Happy Jack
Big Medicine, Irish and Pink, racing almost abreast, heard a scream behind them and pulled up their horses with short, stiff-legged plunges. A brown horse overtook them; a brown horse, with Happy Jack clinging to the saddle-horn, his body swaying fa... Harlan Joins The Gang
At the edge of the big level, where it merged into the floor of the basin, Harlan drew Purgatory to a halt. For an instant he sat in the saddle scrutinizing a section of buffalo grass that fringed a clump of willows near the almost dry bed of the ... Harlan Rides Alone
Upon the morning of the fourth day following Haydon's visit to the Rancho Seco, a dust cloud developed on the northwestern horizon. Harlan observed the cloud; he had been watching for it since dawn, when he had emerged from the stable door, where ... Harlan Strikes
Joe Barr laughingly replied to Johnny Nelson's growled remarks about the condition of things in general and tried to soothe him, but Johnny was unsoothable. "An' I've been telling him right along that he's got the best of it," complained Jackson ... Harlan Takes Charge
Barbara could not have told why she had not acted upon her determination to ride westward to the Star ranch to acquaint John Haydon with the predicament into which the events of the past few hours had plunged her. She could not have explained why ... Harley Makes A Proposition
Apparently the head of the great trust intended to lose no time in having that business talk with Ridgway, which he had graciously promised the latter. Eaton and his chief were busy over some applications for leases when Smythe came into the room wi... Harley Scores
What Harley had sought in the subornation of Eaton had been as much the moral effect of his defection as the tangible results themselves. If he could shake the confidence of the city and State in the freebooter's victorious star, he would have done ... Harry Conroy At Home
It was late next morning when they got under way; for they had not reached camp until long after midnight, and Wooden Shoes was determined the cattle should have one good feed, and all the water they wanted, to requite them for the hard drive of the... Harry Lossing
THE note-book of Mr. Horatio Armorer, president of our street railways, contained a page of interest to some people in our town, on the occasion of his last visit. He wrote it while the train creaked over the river, and the porter of his Pullman ... Head South And Keep Going
At a lunch wagon down near the water front, Bud stopped and bought two "hot dog" sandwiches and a mug of hot coffee boiled with milk in it and sweetened with three cubes of sugar. "O-oh, boy!" he ejaculated gleefully when he set his teeth into biscuit ... Held Up By Mr Kelly
"'Traveler, what lies over the hill?'" questioned a mischievous voice. Keith, dreaming along a winding, rock-strewn trail in the canyon, looked up quickly and beheld his Heart's Desire sitting calmly upon her horse, ten feet before Redcloud's no... Her Majesty's Rancho
FIVE months brought all that Stillwell had dreamed of, and so many more changes and improvements and innovations that it was as if a magic touch had transformed the old ranch. Madeline and Alfred and Florence had talked over a fitting name, and had ... Her Name Was Rosemary
Andy Green came in from a twenty-hour ride through the Wolf Butte country and learned that another disaster had followed on the heels of the first; that miss Allen had been missing for thirty-six hours. While he bolted what food was handiest in the ... Hidden Valley
Across the desert into the hills, where the sun was setting in a great splash of crimson in the saddle between two distant peaks, a bunch of cows trailed heavily. Their tongues hung out and they panted for water, stretching their necks piteously to ... High And Dry
The counsel to don a garb smacking less of the recent East struck me as sound; for although I was not the only person here in Eastern guise, nevertheless about the majority of the populace there was an easy aggressiveness that my appearance eviden... High-water Mark
When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended dreariness was patent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open bay, were all hard facts. So were the few... Higher Than Statute Law
Wade descended the stairs of the hotel and went into the barroom, fuming with rage and chagrin because Helen had seen him in such a temper. Like most men of action, he took pride in his self-control, which seldom failed him, but the villainy of th... His Only Asset
It would be a pleasure to record that Capital found Bruce's personality so irresistible that his need of funds met with instant response, that the dashing picturesqueness of his appearance and charm of his unconventional speech and manner was so f... His Shadow Before
At ten o'clock the following morning, in a rear room of "Balleau's First Chance" saloon--which was directly across the street from the Lamo Eating-House--Luke Deveny and two other men were sitting at a card-table with bottle and glasses between th... His Stock In Trade
"The science of salesmanship is quite as exact as the science of astronomy," said Mr. Gross, casting his eyes down the table to see that he had the attention of the other boarders, "and much more intricate. The successful salesman is as much an ar... Holding The Claim
"Oh, we're that gang from th' O-Bar-O," hummed Waffles, sinking the branding-iron in the flank of a calf. The scene was one of great activity and hilarity. Several fires were burning near the huge corral and in them half a dozen irons were getti...