The Honk-honk Breed
: THE TWO GUN MAN: Arizona Nights
It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather had been
favourable; the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried up, the
beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in short, there was
nothing to do. Sang had given us a baked bread-pudding with raisins in
it. We filled it--in a wash basin full of it--on top of a few
incidental pounds of chile con, baked beans, soda biscuits, "air
tights," and other
shady side of the blacksmith's shop where we could watch the ravens on
top the adobe wall of the corral. Somebody told a story about ravens.
This led to road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started
Windy Bill.
"Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the
great-granddaddy of all the bullsnakes up at Lead in the Black Hills.
I was only a kid then. This wasn't no such tur'ble long a snake, but
he was more'n a foot thick. Looked just like a sahuaro stalk. Man
name of Terwilliger Smith catched it. He named this yere bullsnake
Clarence, and got it so plumb gentle it followed him everywhere. One
day old P. T. Barnum come along and wanted to buy this Clarence
snake--offered Terwilliger a thousand cold--but Smith wouldn't part
with the snake nohow. So finally they fixed up a deal so Smith could
go along with the show. They shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage
car, but after a while Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and
starts to crawl back to find his master. Just as he is half-way
between the baggage car and the smoker, the couplin' give way--right on
that heavy grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence
wound his head 'round one brake wheel and his tail around the other,
and held that train together to the bottom of the grade. But it
stretched him twenty-eight feet and they had to advertise him as a
boa-constrictor."
Windy Bill's story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to reminiscence
the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as follows:
Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery, and
some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and improbable.
Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin' events my special
pleasure and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of the only chanst I ever
had to ring in business and pleasure and hobby all in one grand
merry-go-round of joy. It come about like this:
One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the beach at Santa Barbara
watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with my year's
wages, when a little squinch-eye round-face with big bow spectacles
came and plumped down beside me.
"Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin' back his hat, "that if
the horsepower delivered by them waves on this beach in one single hour
could be concentrated behind washin' machines, it would be enough to
wash all the shirts for a city of four hundred and fifty-one thousand
one hundred and thirty-six people?"
"Can't say I ever did," says I, squintin' at him sideways.
"Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the food a
man eats in the course of a natural life could be gathered together at
one time, it would fill a wagon-train twelve miles long?"
"You make me hungry," says I.
"And ain't it interestin' to reflect," he goes on, "that if all the
finger-nail parin's of the human race for one year was to be collected
and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in size the pyramid
of Cheops?"
"Look yere," says I, sittin' up, "did YOU ever pause to excogitate that
if all the hot air you is dispensin' was to be collected together it
would fill a balloon big enough to waft you and me over that Bullyvard
of Palms to yonder gin mill on the corner?"
He didn't say nothin' to that--just yanked me to my feet, faced me
towards the gin mill above mentioned, and exerted considerable pressure
on my arm in urgin' of me forward.
"You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In important
matters you are plumb decisive."
We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a
chicken sandwich.
"Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece in
this country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder over the
returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say you start with
ten hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of which allow a loss of say
six for childish accidents. At the end of the year you has eighty
chickens. At the end of two years that flock has increased to six
hundred and twenty. At the end of the third year--"
He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was
occupyin' of an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they run
stage-coaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook was on
about a thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles four rods
two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of us. It come over
one foothill and disappeared over another. I know just how long it
was, for later in the game I measured it.
Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled with
chickens. We had two kinds. That was the doin's of Tuscarora. My
pardner called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I asked him once if that
was his real name.
"It's the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says he. "I
know, for I made it myself--liked the sound of her. Parents ain't got
no rights to name their children. Parents don't have to be called them
names."
Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was these
low-set, heavyweight propositions with feathers on their laigs, and not
much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The other was a tall
ridiculous outfit made up entire of bulgin' breast and gangle laigs.
They stood about two foot and a half tall, and when they went to peck
the ground their tail feathers stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky
called 'em Japanese Games.
"Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that in
weight about ninety per cent of 'em is breast meat. Now my idee is,
that if we can cross 'em with these Cochin Chiny fowls we'll have a
low-hung, heavyweight chicken runnin' strong on breast meat. These Jap
Games is too small, but if we can bring 'em up in size and shorten
their laigs, we'll shore have a winner."
That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The theery was
bully, but she didn't work out. The first broods we hatched growed up
with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little short necks, perched up
on laigs three foot long. Them chickens couldn't reach ground nohow.
We had to build a table for 'em to eat off, and when they went out
rustlin' for themselves they had to confine themselves to sidehills or
flyin' insects. Their breasts was all right, though--"And think of
them drumsticks for the boardinghouse trade!" says Tusky.
So far things wasn't so bad. We had a good grubstake. Tusky and me
used to feed them chickens twict a day, and then used to set around
watchin' the playful critters chase grasshoppers up an' down the wire
corrals, while Tusky figgered out what'd happen if somebody was dumfool
enough to gather up somethin' and fix it in baskets or wagons or such.
That was where we showed our ignorance of chickens.
One day in the spring I hitched up, rustled a dozen of the youngsters
into coops, and druv over to the railroad to make our first sale. I
couldn't fold them chickens up into them coops at first, but then I
stuck the coops up on aidge and they worked all right, though I will
admit they was a comical sight. At the railroad one of them towerist
trains had just slowed down to a halt as I come up, and the towerist
was paradin' up and down allowin' they was particular enjoyin' of the
warm Californy sunshine. One old terrapin, with grey chin whiskers,
projected over, with his wife, and took a peek through the slats of my
coop. He straightened up like someone had touched him off with a
red-hot poker.
"Stranger," said he, in a scared kind of whisper, "what's them?"
"Them's chickens," says I.
He took another long look.
"Marthy," says he to the old woman, "this will be about all! We come
out from Ioway to see the Wonders of Californy, but I can't go nothin'
stronger than this. If these is chickens, I don't want to see no Big
Trees."
Well, I sold them chickens all right for a dollar and two bits, which
was better than I expected, and got an order for more. About ten days
later I got a letter from the commission house.
"We are returnin' a sample of your Arts and Crafts chickens with the
lovin' marks of the teeth still onto him," says they. "Don't send any
more till they stops pursuin' of the nimble grasshopper. Dentist bill
will foller."
With the letter came the remains of one of the chickens. Tusky and I,
very indignant, cooked her for supper. She was tough, all right. We
thought she might do better biled, so we put her in the pot over night.
Nary bit. Well, then we got interested. Tusky kep' the fire goin' and
I rustled greasewood. We cooked her three days and three nights. At
the end of that time she was sort of pale and frazzled, but still
givin' points to three-year-old jerky on cohesion and other
uncompromisin' forces of Nature. We buried her then, and went out back
to recuperate.
There we could gaze on the smilin' landscape, dotted by about four
hundred long-laigged chickens swoopin' here and there after
grasshoppers.
"We got to stop that," says I.
"We can't," murmured Tusky, inspired. "We can't. It's born in 'em;
it's a primal instinct, like the love of a mother for her young, and it
can't be eradicated! Them chickens is constructed by a divine
providence for the express purpose of chasin' grasshoppers, jest as the
beaver is made for buildin' dams, and the cow-puncher is made for
whisky and faro-games. We can't keep 'em from it. If we was to shut
'em in a dark cellar, they'd flop after imaginary grasshoppers in their
dreams, and die emaciated in the midst of plenty. Jimmy, we're up agin
the Cosmos, the oversoul--" Oh, he had the medicine tongue, Tusky had,
and risin' on the wings of eloquence that way, he had me faded in ten
minutes. In fifteen I was wedded solid to the notion that the bottom
had dropped out of the chicken business. I think now that if we'd shut
them hens up, we might have--still, I don't know; they was a good deal
in what Tusky said.
"Tuscarora Maxillary," says I, "did you ever stop to entertain that
beautiful thought that if all the dumfoolishness possessed now by the
human race could be gathered together, and lined up alongside of us,
the first feller to come along would say to it 'Why, hello, Solomon!'"
We quit the notion of chickens for profit right then and there, but we
couldn't quit the place. We hadn't much money, for one thing, and then
we, kind of liked loafin' around and raisin' a little garden truck,
and--oh, well, I might as well say so, we had a notion about placers in
the dry wash back of the house you know how it is. So we stayed on,
and kept a-raisin' these long-laigs for the fun of it. I used to like
to watch 'em projectin' around, and I fed 'em twict a day about as
usual.
So Tusky and I lived alone there together, happy as ducks in Arizona.
About onc't in a month somebody'd pike along the road. She wasn't much
of a road, generally more chuckholes than bumps, though sometimes it
was the other way around. Unless it happened to be a man horseback or
maybe a freighter without the fear of God in his soul, we didn't have
no words with them; they was too busy cussin' the highways and
generally too mad for social discourses.
One day early in the year, when the 'dobe mud made ruts to add to the
bumps, one of these automobeels went past. It was the first Tusky and
me had seen in them parts, so we run out to view her. Owin' to the
high spots on the road, she looked like one of these movin' picters, as
to blur and wobble; sounded like a cyclone mingled with cuss-words, and
smelt like hell on housecleanin' day.
"Which them folks don't seem to be enjoyin' of the scenery," says I to
Tusky. "Do you reckon that there blue trail is smoke from the machine
or remarks from the inhabitants thereof?"
Tusky raised his head and sniffed long and inquirin'.
"It's langwidge," says he. "Did you ever stop to think that all the
words in the dictionary stretched end to end would reach--"
But at that minute I catched sight of somethin' brass lyin' in the
road. It proved to be a curled-up sort of horn with a rubber bulb on
the end. I squoze the bulb and jumped twenty foot over the remark she
made.
"Jarred off the machine," says Tusky.
"Oh, did it?" says I, my nerves still wrong. "I thought maybe it had
growed up from the soil like a toadstool."
About this time we abolished the wire chicken corrals, because we
needed some of the wire. Them long-laigs thereupon scattered all over
the flat searchin' out their prey. When feed time come I had to
screech my lungs out gettin' of 'em in, and then sometimes they didn't
all hear. It was plumb discouragin', and I mighty nigh made up my mind
to quit 'em, but they had come to be sort of pets, and I hated to turn
'em down. It used to tickle Tusky almost to death to see me out there
hollerin' away like an old bull-frog. He used to come out reg'lar,
with his pipe lit, just to enjoy me. Finally I got mad and opened up
on him.
"Oh," he explains, "it just plumb amuses me to see the dumfool at his
childish work. Why don't you teach 'em to come to that brass horn, and
save your voice?"
"Tusky," says I, with feelin', "sometimes you do seem to get a glimmer
of real sense."
Well, first off them chickens used to throw back-sommersets over that
horn. You have no idee how slow chickens is to learn things. I could
tell you things about chickens--say, this yere bluff about roosters
bein' gallant is all wrong. I've watched 'em. When one finds a nice
feed he gobbles it so fast that the pieces foller down his throat like
yearlin's through a hole in the fence. It's only when he scratches up
a measly one-grain quick-lunch that he calls up the hens and stands
noble and self-sacrificin' to one side. That ain't the point, which
is, that after two months I had them long-laigs so they'd drop
everythin' and come kitin' at the HONK-HONK of that horn. It was a
purty sight to see 'em, sailin' in from all directions twenty foot at a
stride. I was proud of 'em, and named 'em the Honk-honk Breed. We
didn't have no others, for by now the coyotes and bob-cats had nailed
the straight-breds. There wasn't no wild cat or coyote could catch one
of my Honk-honks, no, sir!
We made a little on our placer--just enough to keep interested. Then
the supervisors decided to fix our road, and what's more, THEY DONE IT!
That's the only part in this yarn that's hard to believe, but, boys,
you'll have to take it on faith. They ploughed her, and crowned her,
and scraped her, and rolled her, and when they moved on we had the
fanciest highway in the State of Californy.
That noon--the day they called her a job--Tusky and I sat smokin' our
pipes as per usual, when way over the foothills we seen a cloud of dust
and faint to our ears was bore a whizzin' sound. The chickens was
gathered under the cottonwood for the heat of the day, but they didn't
pay no attention. Then faint, but clear, we heard another of them
brass horns:
"Honk! honk!" says it, and every one of them chickens woke up, and
stood at attention.
"Honk! honk!" it hollered clearer and nearer.
Then over the hill come an automobeel, blowin' vigorous at every jump.
"My God!" I yells to Tusky, kickin' over my chair, as I springs to my
feet. "Stop 'em! Stop 'em!"
But it was too late. Out the gate sprinted them poor devoted chickens,
and up the road they trailed in vain pursuit. The last we seen of 'em
was a mingling of dust and dim figgers goin' thirty mile an hour after
a disappearin' automobeel.
That was all we seen for the moment. About three o'clock the first
straggler came limpin' in, his wings hangin', his mouth open, his eyes
glazed with the heat. By sundown fourteen had returned. All the rest
had disappeared utter; we never seen 'em again. I reckon they just
naturally run themselves into a sunstroke and died on the road.
It takes a long time to learn a chicken a thing, but a heap longer to
unlearn him. After that two or three of these yere automobeels went by
every day, all a-blowin' of their horns, all kickin' up a hell of a
dust. And every time them fourteen Honk-honks of mine took along after
'em, just as I'd taught 'em to do, layin' to get to their corn when
they caught up. No more of 'em died, but that fourteen did get into
elegant trainin'. After a while they got plumb to enjoyin' it. When
you come right down to it, a chicken don't have many amusements and
relaxations in this life. Searchin' for worms, chasin' grasshoppers,
and wallerin' in the dust is about the limits of joys for chickens.
It was sure a fine sight to see 'em after they got well into the game.
About nine o'clock every mornin' they would saunter down to the rise of
the road where they would wait patient until a machine came along. Then
it would warm your heart to see the enthusiasm of them. With, exultant
cackles of joy they'd trail in, reachin' out like quarter-horses, their
wings half spread out, their eyes beamin' with delight. At the lower
turn they'd quit. Then, after talkin' it over excited-like for a few
minutes, they'd calm down and wait for another.
After a few months of this sort of trainin' they got purty good at it.
I had one two-year-old rooster that made fifty-four mile an hour behind
one of those sixty-horsepower Panhandles. When cars didn't come along
often enough, they'd all turn out and chase jack-rabbits. They wasn't
much fun at that. After a short, brief sprint the rabbit would crouch
down plumb terrified, while the Honk-honks pulled off triumphal dances
around his shrinkin' form.
Our ranch got to be purty well known them days among automobeelists.
The strength of their cars was horse-power, of course, but the speed of
them they got to ratin' by chicken-power. Some of them used to come
way up from Los Angeles just to try out a new car along our road with
the Honk-honks for pace-makers. We charged them a little somethin',
and then, too, we opened up the road-house and the bar, so we did purty
well. It wasn't necessary to work any longer at that bogus placer.
Evenin's we sat around outside and swapped yarns, and I bragged on my
chickens. The chickens would gather round close to listen.
They liked to hear their praises sung, all right. You bet they sabe!
The only reason a chicken, or any other critter, isn't intelligent is
because he hasn't no chance to expand.
Why, we used to run races with 'em. Some of us would hold two or more
chickens back of a chalk line, and the starter'd blow the horn from a
hundred yards to a mile away, dependin' on whether it was a sprint or
for distance. We had pools on the results, gave odds, made books, and
kept records. After the thing got knowed we made money hand over fist.
The stranger broke off abruptly and began to roll a cigarette.
"What did you quit it for, then?" ventured Charley, out of the hushed
silence.
"Pride," replied the stranger solemnly. "Haughtiness of spirit."
"How so?" urged Charley, after a pause.
"Them chickens," continued the stranger, after a moment, "stood around
listenin' to me a-braggin' of what superior fowls they was until they
got all puffed up. They wouldn't have nothin' whatever to do with the
ordinary chickens we brought in for eatin' purposes, but stood around
lookin' bored when there wasn't no sport doin'. They got to be just
like that Four Hundred you read about in the papers. It was one
continual round of grasshopper balls, race meets, and afternoon
hen-parties. They got idle and haughty, just like folks. Then come
race suicide. They got to feelin' so aristocratic the hens wouldn't
have no eggs."
Nobody dared say a word.
"Windy Bill's snake--" began the narrator genially.
"Stranger," broke in Windy Bill, with great emphasis, "as to that
snake, I want you to understand this: yereafter in my estimation that
snake is nothin' but an ornery angleworm!"
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But whatever wild schemes were hatching in the heads of the three lads nothing seemed to come of them. Days followed one another in such peaceful routine that Dorothy felt ashamed of her fears, as well as ashamed of her composure regarding Jim ... The Heritage Of The Desert
"MESCAL'S far out in front by this time. Depend on it, Hare," went on Naab. "That trick was the cunning Indian of her. She'll ride Silvermane into White Sage to-morrow night. Then she'll hide from Snap. The Bishop will take care of her. She'll be ... The Hermit's Warning
As it was now after midday, we concluded to eat our lunch before going any further, so, sitting down on the rocks, we produced the bread and cold bacon we had brought with us and prepared to refresh ourselves. Observing this, Socrates, who had flo... The Honk-honk Breed
It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather had been favourable; the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried up, the beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in short, there was nothing to do. Sang had given us a baked bre... The Honorable Thomas B Pelton
It was next morning that Steve came into Ridgway's offices with a copy of the Rocky Mountain Herald in his hands. As soon as the president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company was through talking with Dalton, the superintendent of the Taurus, about the... The Hoodoo Outfit
Pop Daggett hesitated and glanced uneasily toward the door. "I warned yuh, didn't I, the Shoe-Bar was a hoodoo outfit?" he evaded. Stratton shook some tobacco into a cigarette-paper and jerked the draw-string with his teeth. "Sure you did, ... The Hospitality Of Travennes
Mr. Buck Peters rode into Alkaline one bright September morning and sought refreshment at the Emporium. Mr. Peters had just finished some business for his employer and felt the satisfaction that comes with the knowledge of work well done. He exp... The Idyl Of Red Gulch
Sandy was very drunk. He was lying under an azalea bush, in pretty much the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long he had been lying there he could not tell, and didn't care; how long he should lie there was a matter equa... The Indiscretion Of Elsbeth
The American paused. He had evidently lost his way. For the last half hour he had been wandering in a medieval town, in a profound medieval dream. Only a few days had elapsed since he had left the steamship that carried him hither; and the accents... The Intruder
After closing the door through which she had entered, Barbara Morgan slipped the fastenings into place and stood, an ear pressed against the door, listening for sounds that would tell her Harlan had followed her. But beyond the door all was silenc... The Invisible Hand
Jane received a letter from Bishop Dyer, not in his own handwriting, which stated that the abrupt termination of their interview had left him in some doubt as to her future conduct. A slight injury had incapacitated him from seeking anothe... The Jack-pot
As Uncle Bill Griswold came breathless from the raging whiteness outside with an armful of bark and wood, the two long icicles hanging from the ends of his mustache made him look like an industrious walrus. He drew the fuel beside the tiny, sheet-... The Jimmyjohn Boss
I One day at Nampa, which is in Idaho, a ruddy old massive jovial man stood by the Silver City stage, patting his beard with his left hand, and with his right the shoulder of a boy who stood beside him. He had come with the boy on the branch tr... The Judge Ignores Particulars
"Do you often have these visitations?" Ogden inquired of Judge Henry. Our host was giving us whiskey in his office, and Dr. MacBride, while we smoked apart from the ladies, had repaired to his quarters in the foreman's house previous to the servic... The Judgment Of God
The man who had entered with such violence upon so violent a scene, stood waiting till the smoke of Pierre's discharge had cleared away, then, still holding his gun in readiness, he stepped across the room and bent over the fallen man. "I've ki... The Jump
He brought Satan back to a hand canter, and so he pulled around the next curve of the gulch and saw the trap squarely in front. He came to a full halt. For he saw a tall, strong barbed-wire fence stretching across the stream-bed, and beyond the fenc... The Kid Has Ideas Of His Own
The Old Man sat out in his big chair on the porch, smoking and staring dully at the trail which led up the bluff by way of the Hog's Back to the benchland beyond. Facing him in an old, cane rocking chair, the Honorable Blake smoked with that air of ... The Kid Is Used For A Pawn In The Game
Did you ever stop to think of the tremendous moral lesson in the Bible tale of David and Goliath? And how great, human issues are often decided one way or the other by little things? Not all crises are passed in the clashing of swords and the boom o... The Kid Learns Some Things About Horses
The Kid--Chip's Kid and the Little Doctor's--was six years old and big for his age. Also he was a member in good standing of the Happy Family and he insisted upon being called Buck outside the house; within it the Little Doctor insisted even more st... The Killer
Lidgerwood had found little difficulty in getting on the companionable side of Dawson, so far as the heavy-muscled, silent young draftsman had a companionable side; and an invitation to the family dinner-table at the Dawson cottage on the low mesa... The King Of The Big Horn Country
Two months before this time Helen Messiter had been serenely teaching a second grade at Kalamazoo, Michigan, notwithstanding the earnest efforts of several youths of that city to induce her to retire to domesticity "What's the use of being a schoolm... The Kingdom Of Joy
A prince of the Kingdom of Joy rode the Piceance trail on a morning glad with the song of birds and the rippling of brooks. Knee to knee with him rode his princess, slim and straight, the pink in her soft smooth cheeks, a shy and eager light in th... The Knife
In every community, be it never so small, there are undesirable citizens; and, while the little party was still at breakfast on the following morning, three such members of society came around the cabin and let fall their packs, greeting the occup... The Lady From The Past
Stratton's first feeling was that the girl must have made a mistake. In a dazed fashion he stepped forward and helped her out of the buckboard, but this was a more or less mechanical action and because she so evidently expected it. As he took her ... The Land Of The Musk-ox
A far cry it was from bright June at Port Chippewayan to dim October on Great Slave Lake. Two long, laborious months Rea and Jones threaded the crooked shores of the great inland sea, to halt at the extreme northern end, where a plunging rivulet ... The Last Frontier
Many men were in debt to the trader at Flambeau, and many counted him as a friend. The latter never reasoned why, except that he had done them favors, and in the North that counts for much. Perhaps they built likewise upon the fact that he was eve... The Last Herd
Over gray No-Man's-Land stole down the shadows of night. The undulating prairie shaded dark to the western horizon, rimmed with a fading streak of light. Tall figures, silhouetted sharply against the last golden glow of sunset, marked the rounded cr... The Leopardess
Pierre stood before the cheap bureau of his ugly hotel bedroom turning a red slip of cardboard about in his fingers. The gas-jet sputtering above his head threw heavy shadows down on his face. It was the face of hopeless, heartsick youth, the musc... The Letter In The Chaps
Though hours may drag themselves into the past so sluggishly that one is fairly maddened by the snail's pace of them, into the past they must go eventually. Jean had sat and listened to the wheels of the Golden State Limited clank over the cryptic ... The Light Of Western Stars
Blinded, like a wild creature, Madeline Hammond ran to her room. She felt as if a stroke of lightning had shattered the shadowy substance of the dream she had made of real life. The wonder of Danny Mains's story, the strange regret with which she ha... The Little Missouri
A week later we crossed the Belle Fourche, sometimes called the North Fork of the Big Cheyenne. Like its twin sister on the south, it was a mountain river, having numerous affluents putting in from the Black Hills, which it encircled on the north an... The Living Dead
"Oh, I want to go back to the Rio Grande! The Rio! That's where I long to be!" The words, sung in a soft and musical tenor, died away and changed to a plaintive whistle, leaving the scene more lonely than ever. For a few moments n... The Long Arm Of Power
Presently Corrigan lit a cigar, biting the end off carefully, to keep it from coming in contact with his bruised lips. When the cigar was going well, he looked at Braman. "What is Trevison?" Pale, still dizzy from the effects of the blow on t... The Long Arm Of The Law
From the first the wound healed rapidly, for Vic's blood was perfectly pure, the mountain air a tonic which strengthened him, and his food and care of the best. The high-powered rifle bullet whipped cleanly through his shoulder, breaking no bone and... The Long Trail
The round-up crew started early the next morning, just about sun-up. Senor Johnson rode first, merely to keep out of the dust. Then followed Torn Rich, jogging along easily in the cow-puncher's "Spanish trot" whistling soothingly to quiet the horse... The Long Way Round
Miss Allen turned to yell encouragingly to the Kid, and she saw that he was going on slowly, his head turned to watch her. She told him to wait where he was, and she would come around the mountain and get him and take him home. "Do you hear me, baby... The Lost Landslide Mine
"They cut the ropes! See, here is where it was done, on this jagged rock!" As Dave spoke he pointed to a sharp edge of stone. Beneath it were bits of rope, showing how the fetters had been sawed in twain. "One of 'em must have got loose and t... The Lost Mine Of The Padres
In the cool, starry evenings the campers sat around a blazing fire and told and listened to stories thrillingly fitted to the dark crags and the wild solitude. Monty Price had come to shine brilliantly as a storyteller. He was an atrocious liar, ... The Love Of Poleon Doret
To the girl crouching at the stern of Runnion's boat it seemed as if this day and night would never end. It seemed as if the procession of natural events must have ceased, that there was no longer any time, for she had been suffering steadily for ...