The Pleasurers
: Red Butte WesternThe freight wreck in the Crosswater Hills, coming a fortnight after
Rufford's arrest and deportation to Copah and the county jail, rudely
marked the close of the short armistice in the conflict between law and
order and the demoralization which seemed to thrive the more lustily in
proportion to Lidgerwood's efforts to stamp it out.
Thirty-two boxes, gondolas, and flats, racing down the Crosswater grades
i
Clay's big ten-wheeler, suddenly left the steel as a unit to heap
themselves in chaotic confusion upon the right-of-way, and to round out
the disaster at the moment of impact by exploding a shipment of giant
powder somewhere in the midst of the debris.
Lidgerwood was on the western division inspecting, with Benson, one of
the several tentative routes for a future extension of the Red Butte
line to a connection with the Transcontinental at Lemphi beyond the
Hophras, when the news of the wreck reached Angels. Wherefore, it was
not until the following morning that he was able to leave the
head-quarters station, on the second wrecking-train, bringing the big
100-ton crane to reinforce McCloskey, who had been on the ground with
the lighter clearing tackle for the better part of the night.
With a slowly smouldering fire to fight, and no water to be had nearer
than the tank-cars at La Guayra, the trainmaster had wrought miracles.
By ten o'clock the main line was cleared, a temporary siding for a
working base had been laid, and McCloskey's men were hard at work
picking up what the fire had spared when Lidgerwood arrived.
"Pretty clean sweep this time, eh, Mac?" was the superintendent's
greeting, when he had penetrated to the thick of things where McCloskey
was toiling and sweating with his men.
"So clean that we get nothing much but scrap-iron out of what's left,"
growled McCloskey, climbing out of the tangle of crushed cars and bent
and twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-line
embankment. Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for the
next pull: "A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won't
overbalance on you; that's about it. Now, wig it!"
"You seem to be getting along all right with the outfit you've got," was
Lidgerwood's comment. "If you can keep this up we may as well go back to
Angels."
"No, don't!" protested the trainmaster. "We can snake out these
scrap-heaps after a fashion, but when it comes to resurrecting the
195--did you notice her as you came along? We kept the fire from getting
to her, but she's dug herself into the ground like a dog after a
woodchuck!"
Lidgerwood nodded. "I looked her over," he said. "If she'd had a little
more time and another wheel-turn or two to spare, she might have
disappeared entirely--like that switching-engine you can't find. I'm
taking it for granted that you haven't found it yet--or have you?"
"No, I haven't!" grated McCloskey, and he said it like a man with a
grievance. Then he added: "I gave you all the pointers I could find two
weeks ago. Whenever you get ready to put Hallock under the hydraulic
press, you'll squeeze what you want to know out of him."
This was coming to be an old subject and a sore one. The trainmaster
still insisted that Hallock was the man who was planning the robberies
and plotting the downfall of the Lidgerwood management, and he wanted
to have the chief clerk systematically shadowed. And it was Lidgerwood's
wholly groundless prepossession for Hallock that was still keeping him
from turning the matter over to the company's legal department--this in
spite of the growing accumulation of evidence all pointing to Hallock's
treason. Subjected to a rigid cross-examination, Judson had insisted
that a part, at least, of his drunken recollection was real--that part
identifying the voices of the two plotters in Cat Biggs's back room as
those of Rufford and Hallock. Moreover, it was no longer deniable that
the chief clerk was keeping in close touch with the discharged
employees, for some purpose best known to himself; and latterly he had
been dropping out of his office without notice, disappearing, sometimes,
for a day at a time.
Lidgerwood was recalling the last of these disappearances when the
second wrecking-train, having backed to the nearest siding to admit of a
reversal of its make-up order and the placing of the crane in the lead,
came up to go into action. McCloskey shaded his eyes from the sun's
glare and looked down the line.
"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Got a new wrecking-boss?"
The superintendent nodded. "I have one in the making. Dawson wanted to
come along and try his hand."
"Did Gridley send him?"
"No; Gridley is away somewhere."
"So Fred's your understudy, is he? Well, I've got one, too. I'll show
him to you after a while."
They were walking back over the ties toward the half-buried 195. The
ten-wheeler was on its side in the ditch, nuzzling the opposite bank of
a low cutting. Dawson had already divided his men: half of them to place
the huge jack-beams and outriggers of the self-contained steam lifting
machine to insure its stability, and the other half to trench under the
fallen engine and to adjust the chain slings for the hitch.
"It's a pretty long reach, Fred," said the superintendent. "Going to try
it from here?"
"Best place," said the reticent one shortly.
Lidgerwood was looking at his watch.
"Williams will be due here before long with a special from Copah. I
don't want to hold him up," he remarked.
"Thirty minutes?" inquired the draftsman, without taking mind or eye off
his problem.
"Oh, yes; forty or fifty, maybe."
"All right, I'll be out of the way," was the quiet rejoinder.
"Yes, you will!" was McCloskey's ironical comment, when the draftsman
had gone around to the other side of the great crane.
"Let him alone," said Lidgerwood. "It lies in my mind that we are
developing a genius, Mac."
"He'll fall down," grumbled the trainmaster. "That crane won't pick up
the '95 clear the way she's lying."
"Won't it?" said Lidgerwood. "That's where you are mistaken. It will
pick up anything we have on the two divisions. It's the biggest and best
there is made. How did you come to get a tool like that on the Red Butte
Western?"
McCloskey grinned.
"You don't know Gridley yet. He's a crank on good machinery. That crane
was a clean steal."
"What?"
"I mean it. It was ordered for one of the South American railroads, and
was on its way to the Coast over the P. S-W. About the time it got as
far as Copah, we happened to have a mix-up in our Copah yards, with a
ditched engine that Gridley couldn't pick up with the 60-ton crane we
had on the ground. So he borrowed this one out of the P. S-W. yards,
used it, liked it, and kept it, sending our 60-ton machine on to the
South Americans in its place."
"What rank piracy!" Lidgerwood exclaimed. "I don't wonder they call us
buccaneers over here. How could he do it without being found out?"
"That puzzled more than two or three of us; but one of the men told me
some time afterward how it was done. Gridley had a painter go down in
the night and change the lettering--on our old crane and on this new
one. It happened that they were both made by the same manufacturing
company, and were of substantially the same general pattern. I suppose
the P. S-W. yard crew didn't notice particularly that the crane they had
lent us out of the through westbound freight had shrunk somewhat in the
using. But I'll bet those South Americans are saying pleasant things to
the manufacturers yet."
"Doubtless," Lidgerwood agreed, and now he was not smiling. The little
side-light on the former Red-Butte-Western methods--and upon
Gridley--was sobering.
By this time Dawson had got his big lifter in position, with its huge
steel arm overreaching the fallen engine, and was giving his orders
quietly, but with clean-cut precision.
"Man that hand-fall and take slack! Pay off, Darby," to the hoister
engineer. "That's right; more slack!"
The great tackling-hook, as big around as a man's thigh, settled
accurately over the 195.
"There you are!" snapped Dawson. "Now make your hitch, boys, and be
lively about it. You've got just about one minute to do it in!"
"Heavens to Betsey!" said McCloskey. "He's going to pick it up at one
hitch--and without blocking!"
"Hands off, Mac," said Lidgerwood good-naturedly. "If Fred didn't know
this trade before, he's learning it pretty rapidly now."
"That's all right, but if he doesn't break something before he gets
through----"
But Dawson was breaking nothing. Having designed locomotives, he knew to
the fraction of an inch where the balancing hitch should be made for
lifting one. Also machinery, and the breaking strains of it, were as his
daily bread. While McCloskey was still prophesying failure, he was
giving the word to Darby, the hoister engineer.
"Now then, Billy, try your hitch! Put the strain on a little at a time
and often. Steady!--now you've got her--keep her coming!"
Slowly the big freight-puller rose out of its furrow in the gravel,
righting itself to the perpendicular as it came. Anticipating the inward
swing of it, Dawson was showing his men how to place ties and rails for
a short temporary track, and when he gave Darby the stop signal, the
hoisting cables were singing like piano strings, and the big engine was
swinging bodily in the air in the grip of the crane tackle, poised to a
nicety above the steel placed to receive it.
Dawson climbed up to the main-line embankment where Darby could see him,
and where he could see all the parts of his problem at once. Then his
hands went up to beckon the slacking signals. At the lifting of his
finger there was a growling of gears and a backward racing of machinery,
a groan of relaxing strains, and a cry of "All gone!" and the 195 stood
upright, ready to be hauled out when the temporary track should be
extended to a connection with the main line.
"Let's go up to the other end and see how your understudy is making it,
Mac," said the gratified superintendent. "It is quite evident that we
can't tell this young man anything he doesn't already know about picking
up locomotives."
On the way up the track he asked about Clay and Green, the engineer and
fireman who were in the wreck.
"They are not badly hurt," said the trainmaster. "They both jumped--on
Green's side, luckily. Clay was bruised considerably, and Green says he
knows he plowed up fifty yards of gravel with his face before he
stopped--and he looked it. They both went home on 201."
Lidgerwood was examining the cross-ties, which were cut and scarred by
the flanges of many derailed wheels.
"You have no notion of what did it?" he queried, turning abruptly upon
McCloskey.
"Only a guess, and it couldn't be verified in a thousand years. The '95
went off first, and Clay and Green both say it felt as if a rail had
turned over on the outside of the curve."
"What did you find when you got here?"
"Chaos and Old Night: a pile of scrap with a hole torn in the middle of
it as if by an explosion, and a fire going."
"Of course, you couldn't tell anything about the cause, under such
conditions."
"Not much, you'd say; and yet a queer thing happened. The entire train
went off so thoroughly that it passed the point where the trouble began
before it piled up. I was able to verify Clay's guess--a rail had turned
over on the outside of the curve."
"That proves nothing more than poor spike-holds in a few dry-rotted
cross-ties," Lidgerwood objected.
"No; there were a number of others farther along also turned over and
broken and bent. But the first one was the only freak."
"How was that?"
"Well, it wasn't either broken or bent; but when it turned over it not
only unscrewed the nuts of the fish-plate bolts and threw them away--it
pulled out every spike on both sides of itself and hid them."
Lidgerwood nodded gravely. "I should say your guess has already verified
itself. All it lacks is the name of the man who loosened the fish-plate
bolts and pulled the spikes."
"That's about all."
The superintendent's eyes narrowed.
"Who was missing out of the Angels crowd of trouble-makers yesterday,
Mac?"
"I hate to say," said the trainmaster. "God knows I don't want to put it
all over any man unless it belongs to him, but I'm locoed every time it
comes to that kind of a guess. Every bunch of letters I see spells just
one name."
"Go on," said Lidgerwood sharply.
"Hallock came somewhere up this way on 202 yesterday."
"I know," was the quick reply. "I sent him out to Navajo to meet
Cruikshanks, the cattleman with the long claim for stock injured in the
Gap wreck two weeks ago."
"Did he stop at Navajo?" queried the trainmaster.
"I suppose so; at any rate, he saw Cruikshanks."
"Well, I haven't got any more guesses, only a notion or two. This is a
pretty stiff up-grade for 202--she passes here at two-fifty--just about
an hour before Clay found that loosened rail--and it wouldn't be
impossible for a man to drop off as she was climbing this curve."
But now the superintendent was shaking his head.
"It doesn't hold together, Mac; there are too many parts missing. Your
hypothesis presupposes that Hallock took a day train out of Angels, rode
twelve miles past his destination, jumped off here while the train was
in motion, pulled the spikes on this loosened rail, and walked back to
Navajo in time to see the cattleman and get in to Angels on the delayed
Number 75 this morning. Could he have done all these things without
advertising them to everybody?"
"I know," confessed the trainmaster. "It doesn't look reasonable."
"It isn't reasonable," Lidgerwood went on, arguing Hallock's case as if
it were his own. "Bradford was 202's conductor; he'd know if Hallock
failed to get off at Navajo. Gridley was a passenger on the same train,
and he would have known. The agent at Navajo would be a third witness.
He was expecting Hallock on that train, and was no doubt holding
Cruikshanks. Your guesses prefigure Hallock failing to show up when the
train stopped at Navajo, and make it necessary for him to explain to the
two men who were waiting for him why he let Bradford carry him by so far
that it took him several hours to walk back. You see how incredible it
all is?"
"Yes, I see," said McCloskey, and when he spoke again they were several
rail-lengths nearer the up-track end of the wreck, and his question went
back to Lidgerwood's mention of the expected special.
"You were saying something to Dawson about Williams and a special train;
is that Mr. Brewster coming in?"
"Yes. He wired from Copah last night. He has Mr. Ford's car--the
Nadia."
The trainmaster's face-contortion was expressive of the deepest chagrin.
"Suffering Moses! but this is a nice thing for the president of the
road to see as he comes along! Wouldn't the luck we're having make a dog
sick?"
Lidgerwood shook his head. "That isn't the worst of it, Mac. Mr.
Brewster isn't a railroad man, and he will probably think this is all in
the day's work. But he is going to stop at Angels and go over to his
copper mine, which means that he will camp right down in the midst of
the mix-up. I'd cheerfully give a year's salary to have him stay away a
few weeks longer."
McCloskey was not a swearing man in the Red Desert sense of the term,
but now his comment was an explosive exclamation naming the conventional
place of future punishment. It was the only word he could find
adequately to express his feelings.
The superintendent changed the subject.
"Who is your foreman, Mac?" he inquired, as a huge mass of the tangled
scrap was seen to rise at the end of the smaller derrick's grapple.
"Judson," said McCloskey shortly. "He asked leave to come along as a
laborer, and when I found that he knew more about train-scrapping than I
did, I promoted him." There was something like defiance in the
trainmaster's tone.
"From the way in which you say it, I infer that you don't expect me to
approve," said Lidgerwood judicially.
McCloskey had been without sleep for a good many hours, and his
patience was tenuous. The derby hat was tilted to its most contentious
angle when he said:
"I can't fight for you when you're right, and not fight against you when
I think you are wrong, Mr. Lidgerwood. You can have my head any time you
want it."
"You think I should break my word and take Judson back?"
"I think, and the few men who are still with us think, that you ought to
give the man who stood in the breach for you a chance to earn bread and
meat for his wife and babies," snapped McCloskey, who had gone too far
to retreat.
Lidgerwood was frowning when he replied: "You don't see the point
involved. I can't reward Judson for what you, yourself, admit was a
personal service. I have said that no drunkard shall pull a train on
this division. Judson is no less a drink-maniac for the fact that he
arrested Rufford when everybody else was afraid to."
McCloskey was mollified a little.
"He says he has quit drinking, and I believe him this time. But this job
I've given him isn't pulling trains."
"No; and if you have cooled off enough, you may remember that I haven't
yet disapproved your action. I don't disapprove. Give him anything you
like where a possible relapse on his part won't involve the lives of
other people. Is that what you want me to say?"
"I was hot," said the trainmaster, gruffly apologetic. "We've got none
too many friends to stand by us when the pinch comes, and we were losing
them every day you held out against Judson."
"I'm still holding out on the original count. Judson can't run an engine
for me until he has proved conclusively and beyond question that he has
quit the whiskey. Whatever other work you can find for him----"
McCloskey slapped his thigh. "By George! I've got a job right now! Why
on top of earth didn't I think of him before? He's the man to keep tab
on Hallock."
But now Lidgerwood was frowning again.
"I don't like that, Mac. It's a dirty business to be shadowing a man who
has a right to suppose that you are trusting him."
"But, good Lord! Mr. Lidgerwood, haven't you got enough to go on?
Hallock is the last man seen around the engine that disappears; he
spends a lot of his time swapping grievances with the rebels; and he is
out of town and within a few miles of here, as you know, when this
wreck happens. If all that isn't enough to earn him a little
suspicion----"
"I know; I can't argue the case with you, Mac, But I can't do it."
"You mean you won't do it. I respect your scruples, Mr. Lidgerwood. But
it is no longer a personal matter between you and Hallock: the company's
interests are involved."
Without suspecting it, the trainmaster had found the weak joint in the
superintendent's armor. For the company's sake the personal point of
view must be ignored.
"It is such a despicable thing," he protested, as one who yields
reluctantly. "And if, after all, Hallock is innocent----"
"That is just the point," insisted McCloskey. "If he is innocent, no
harm will be done, and Judson will become a witness for instead of
against him."
"Well," said Lidgerwood; and what more he would have said about the
conspiracy was cut off by the shrill whistle of a down-coming train.
"That's Williams with the special," he announced, when the whistle gave
him leave. "Is your flag out?"
"Sure. It's up around the hill, with a safe man to waggle it."
Lidgerwood cast an anxious glance toward Dawson's huge derrick-car,
which was still blocking the main line. The hoist tackle was swinging
free, and the jack-beams and outriggers were taken in.
"Better send somebody down to tell Dawson to pull up here to your
temporary siding, Mac," he suggested; but Dawson was one of those
priceless helpers who did not have to be told in detail. He had heard
the warning whistle, and already had his train in motion.
By a bit of quick shifting, the main line was cleared before Williams
swung cautiously around the hill with the private car. In obedience to
Lidgerwood's uplifted finger the brakes were applied, and the Nadia
came to a full stop, with its observation platform opposite the end of
the wrecking-track.
A big man, in a soft hat and loose box dust-coat, with twinkling little
eyes and a curling brown beard that covered fully three-fourths of his
face, stood at the hand-rail.
"Hello, Howard!" he called down to Lidgerwood. "By George! I'd totally
forgotten that you were out here. What are you trying to do? Got so many
cars and engines that you have to throw some of them away?"
Lidgerwood climbed up the embankment to the track, and McCloskey
carefully let him do it alone. The "Hello, Howard!" had not been thrown
away upon the trainmaster.
"It looks a little that way, I must admit, Cousin Ned," said the culprit
who had answered so readily to his Christian name. "We tried pretty hard
to get it cleaned up before you came along, but we couldn't quite make
it."
"Oho! tried to cover it up, did you? Afraid I'd fire you? You needn't
be. My job as president merely gets me passes over the road. Ford's your
man; he's the fellow you want to be scared of."
"I am," laughed Lidgerwood. The big man's heartiness was always
infectious. Then: "Coming over to camp with us awhile? If you are, I
hope you carry your commissary along. Angels will starve you,
otherwise."
"Don't tell me about that tin-canned tepee village, Howard--I know.
I've been there before. How are we doing over in the Timanyoni
foot-hills? Getting much ore down from the Copperette? Climb up here and
tell me all about it. Or, better still, come on across the desert with
us. They don't need you here."
The assertion was quite true. With Dawson, the trainmaster, and an
understudy Judson for bosses, there was no need of a fourth. Yet
intuition, or whatever masculine thing it is that stands for intuition,
prompted Lidgerwood to say:
"I don't know as I ought to leave. I've just come out from Angels, you
know."
But the president was not to be denied.
"Climb up here and quit trying to find excuses. We'll give you a better
luncheon than you'll get out of the dinner-pails; and if you carry
yourself handsomely, you may get a dinner invitation after we get in.
That ought to tempt any man who has to live in Angels the year round."
Lidgerwood marked the persistent plural of the personal pronoun, and a
great fear laid hold upon him. None the less, the president's invitation
was a little like the king's--it was, in some sense, a command.
Lidgerwood merely asked for a moment's respite, and went down to
announce his intention to McCloskey and Dawson. Curiously enough, the
draftsman seemed to be trying to ignore the private car. His back was
turned upon it, and he was glooming out across the bare hills, with his
square jaw set as if the ignoring effort were painful.
"I'm going back to Angels with the president," said the superintendent,
speaking to both of them. "You can clean up here without me."
The trainmaster nodded, but Dawson seemed not to have heard. At all
events, he made no sign. Lidgerwood turned and ascended the embankment,
only to have the sudden reluctance assail him again as he put his foot
on the truck of the Nadia to mount to the platform. The hesitation was
only momentary, this time. Other guests Mr. Brewster might have, without
including the one person whom he would circle the globe to avoid.
"Good boy!" said the president, when Lidgerwood swung over the high
hand-rail and leaned out to give Williams the starting signal. And when
the scene of the wreck was withdrawing into the rearward distance, the
president felt for the door-knob, saying: "Let's go inside, where we
shan't be obliged to see so much of this God-forsaken country at one
time."
One half-minute later the superintendent would have given much to be
safely back with McCloskey and Dawson at the vanishing curve of
scrap-heaps. In that half-minute Mr. Brewster had opened the car door,
and Lidgerwood had followed him across the threshold.
The comfortable lounging-room of the Nadia was not empty; nor was it
peopled by a group of Mr. Brewster's associates in the copper combine,
the alternative upon which Lidgerwood had hopefully hung the "we's" and
the "us's."
Seated on a wicker divan drawn out to face one of the wide side-windows
were two young women, with a curly-headed, clean-faced young man between
them. A little farther along, a rather austere lady, whose pose was of
calm superiority to her surroundings, looked up from her magazine to
say, as her husband had said: "Why, Howard! are you here?" Just beyond
the austere lady, and dozing in his chair, was a white-haired man whose
strongly marked features proclaimed him the father of one of the young
women on the divan.
And in the farthest corner of the open compartment, facing each other
companionably in an "S"-shaped double chair, were two other young
people--a man and a woman.... Truly, the heavens had fallen! For the
young woman filling half of the tete-a-tete chair was that one person
whom Lidgerwood would have circled the globe to avoid meeting.
More
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AUGUST NAAB'S oasis was an oval valley, level as a floor, green with leaf and white with blossom, enclosed by a circle of colossal cliffs of vivid vermilion hue. At its western curve the Colorado River split the red walls from north to south. When... The Old Hunter
I ran till I got a stitch in my side, and then slowed down to a dog-trot. The one thing to do was to get a long way ahead of my pursuers, for surely at the outset they would stick like hounds to my trail. A mile or more below the gorge I took to ... The Old Sheep-herder
The ranger was awakened in the first faint dawn by the passing of the girl's light feet as she went across the hall to her mother's room, and a moment later he heard the low murmur of her voice. Throwing off his blankets and making such scant toil... The Old Swimming Hole
"The same sand that gave birth to the coyote and the eagle gave birth to the Indian and to me. I wonder why!" MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. Little Jim and his mother were left very much alone by B... The Old Timer
About a week later, in the course of the round-up, we reached the valley of the Box Springs, where we camped for some days at the dilapidated and abandoned adobe structure that had once been a ranch house of some importance. Just at dusk one afte... The Old Trail
For another mile Wade followed the main road and then diverged sharply to the left into what was known as the old, or upper, trail. This had formerly been the valley road until made dangerous by a wash-out a year or two previous. In the following ... The Ole Virginia
The ring around the sun had thickened all day long, and the turquoise blue of the Arizona sky had filmed. Storms in the dry countries are infrequent, but heavy; and this surely meant storm. We had ridden since sun-up over broad mesas, down and ou... The Open Door
The proprietor of the Nugget and Rope, a German named Baum, not being troubled with police rules, kept the door wide open for the purpose of inviting trade, a proceeding not to the liking of his patrons for obvious reasons. Probably not one man i... The Ordeal By Fire
That action had been resolved upon, and prompt action, was now apparent. Stabber, fighting chief though he had been in the past, had had his reason for opposing the plans of this new and vehement leader; but public sentiment, stirred by vehement o... The Ore-theft
At half past five next morning Joe and I slipped out of bed, leaving Tom Connor, who had to go to work again at seven, still fast asleep. While Joe quietly prepared breakfast, I went out to examine by daylight the scene of last night's explosion. ... The Other Girl
The girl's voice stirred the benumbed youth into action again, and he followed her mechanically. His slender stock of physical strength was almost gone, but his will remained unbroken. At every rough place she came back to him to support him, to h... The Outcasts Of Poker Flat
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly ... The Outlaw Gets A Bad Break
Houck crawled through the barbed-wire fence and looked back into the park from which he had just fled. June was kneeling beside the man he had shot. Some one was running across the grass toward her. Soon the pursuit would be at his heels. He dared... The Outlaws
For the first few weeks after the change in ownership and the arrival of the new superintendent, the Red Butte Western and its nerve-centre, Angels, seemed disposed to take Mr. Howard Lidgerwood as a rather ill-timed joke, perpetrated upon a primi... The Paper A Year Old
Sang hurried out for a broom. Senor Johnson sat where he was, his heavy, square brows knit. Suddenly he stooped, seized one of the newspapers, drew near the lamp, and began to read. It was a Kansas City paper and, by a strange coincidence, was d... The Parting By The Waters
"Some day I may tell Miss Angela--but never you," had Mr. Blakely said, before setting forth on his perilous essay to find Angela's father, and with native tenacity Miss Wren the elder had remembered the words and nourished her wrath. It was stran... The Passing Of The Colt's Forty-five
The man of whom I am now to tell you came to Arizona in the early days of Chief Cochise. He settled in the Soda Springs Valley, and there persisted in spite of the devastating forays of that Apache. After a time he owned all the wells and springs ... The Penalty
While Mr. Travennes had been entertained in the manner narrated, Mr. Connors had passed the time by relating stale jokes to the uproarious laughter of his extremely bored audience, who had heard the aged efforts many times since they had first see... The Pest-house
Cavanagh had kept a keen watch over Wetherford, and when one night the old man began to complain of the ache in his bones his decision was instant. "You've got it," he said. "It's up to us to move down the valley to-morrow." Wetherford protes... The Pit
Just as Going mounted the steps on the edge of the pit the great gong struck, a roar of a hundred voices developed with the swiftness of successive explosions, the rush of a hundred men surging downward to the centre of the pit filled the air with t... The Pleasurers
The freight wreck in the Crosswater Hills, coming a fortnight after Rufford's arrest and deportation to Copah and the county jail, rudely marked the close of the short armistice in the conflict between law and order and the demoralization which se... The Poachers
One morning, as he topped the rise between the sawmill and his own station, Cavanagh heard two rifle-shots in quick succession snapping across the high peak on his left. Bringing his horse to a stand, he unslung his field-glasses, and slowly and m... The Postmistress Of Laurel Run
CHAPTER I. The mail stage had just passed Laurel Run,--so rapidly that the whirling cloud of dust dragged with it down the steep grade from the summit hung over the level long after the stage had vanished, and then, drifting away, slowly sift... The Price
MacQueen lost no time in announcing his new program. "Boys, the hanging's off. I've decided to accept West's offer for Flatray's life. It's too good to turn down." "That's what I told you all the time," growled Buck. "Well, I'm telling you ... The Priest From Monclova
That was a night of terror for the women. Although Longorio's discipline was in some ways strict, in others it was extremely lax. From some quarter his men had secured a supply of mescal, and, forgetful of Felipe's unhappy fate, they rendered the ... The Primeval Instinct
On the other side of the house Buck found the mistress of the ranch and her two guests standing in a little group beside one of the dusty, discouraged-looking flower-beds. As he appeared they all glanced toward him, and a troubled, almost frighten... The Private Car
After he went away Berrie turned to her mother with a look in which humor and awe were blent. "Am I dreaming, mother, or am I actually sitting here in the city? My head is dizzy with it all." Then, without waiting for an answer, she fervently adde... The Prodigal Son
They found the prodigal son with his sister and Laura London at the Del Mar. Repentance was writ large all over his face and manner. From Davis and from the girls he had heard the story of how Soapy Stone had intended to destroy him. His scheme of... The Promised Land
Perhaps there were ten of them--these galloping dots were hard to count--down in the distant bottom across the river. Their swiftly moving dust hung with them close, thinning to a yellow veil when they halted short. They clustered a moment, then p... The Quarry
"An Elephant of Rock, I have lain here in the desert for countless ages, watching, waiting. I wonder for what!" MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. Little Jim sat at the quarry edge and dangled his legs... The Queen Wins
She arrived breathless, distraught, instantly to drag me down beside her, from where I stood stupidly defiant. "Keep out of sight," she panted. And--"Oh, why did you do it? Why did you? I think you killed him--they'll never forgive. They'll call... The Race For Number One
I. "Huh! Get on to the glad rags!" Shorty surveyed his partner with simulated disapproval, and Smoke, vainly attempting to rub the wrinkles out of the pair of trousers he had just put on, was irritated. "They sure fit you close for a ... The Rage Of The Old Lion
"TAKE Holderness away--quick!" ordered Hare. A thin curl of blue smoke floated from the muzzle of his raised weapon. The rustlers started out of their statue-like immobility, and lifting their dead leader dragged him down the garden path with hi... The Range
After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and his hospitable family, and under the guidance of his man once more took to the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly course now, following the lead of the craggy red wall that s... The Rashness Of Shorty
Buckskin was very hot; in fact it was never anything else. Few people were on the streets and the town was quiet. Over in the Houston hotel a crowd of cowboys was lounging in the barroom. They were very quiet-a condition as rare as it was ominous... The Rawhide
First of all he unhitched the horses from the buckboard and turned them loose. Then, since he was early trained in Indian warfare, he dragged Palmer to the wagon wheel, and tied him so closely to it that he could not roll over. For, though the bro... The Real And The Make-believe
On his way down-town Phillips stopped at a Subway news-stand and bought all the morning papers. He acknowledged that he was vastly excited. As he turned in at the stage door he thrilled at sight of the big electric sign over the theater, pallid no... The Real Bucky And The False
Number seven was churning its way furiously through brown Arizona. The day had been hot, with a palpitating heat which shimmered over the desert waste. Defiantly the sun had gone down beyond the horizon, a great ball of fire, leaving behind a bril... The Rebound
A man moaned and stirred restlessly in a bunk, muttering incoherently. A stampeded herd was thundering over him, the grinding hoofs beating him slowly to death. He saw one mad steer stop and lower its head to gore him and just as the sharp horns tou... The Red Desert
In the beginning the Red Desert, figuring unpronounceably under its Navajo name of Tse-nastci--Circle-of-Red-Stones--was shunned alike by man and beast, and the bravest of the gold-hunters, seeking to penetrate to the placer ground in the hill gul... The Rell Ole Cowpuncher Goes Home
I don't suppose anything can equal the aplomb of a child that has always had his own way and has developed normally. The Kid, for instance, had been wandering in the wild places--this was the morning of the sixth day. The whole of Northern Montana w... The Remittance Man
After Windy Bill had finished his story we began to think it time to turn in. Uncle Jim and Charley slid and slipped down the chute-like passage leading from the cave and disappeared in the direction of the overhang beneath which they had spread th... The Rescue
The stranger's crisp words had their effect, since "Kid Wolf" was a name well known west of the Chisholm Trail. His reputation had been passed by word of mouth along the border until there were few who had not heard of his deeds. His very name see... The Result
"How many did you say, Craven, of those Glengarry men of yours?" Professor Gray was catechizing his nephew. "Ten of them, sir, besides the minister's son, who is going to take the full university course." "And all of them bound for the mini... The Return Of A Private
On the road leading "back to God's country" and wile and babies. I The nearer the train drew toward La Crosse, the soberer the little group of "vets" became. On the long way from New Orleans they had beguiled tedium with jokes and friendly ch... The Return Of The Excelsior
Amazed and disconcerted, Hurlstone, nevertheless, retained his presence of mind. "There must be some mistake," he said coolly; "I am certainly not the person you seem to be expecting." "Were you not sent here by Winslow?" demanded Perkins. ... The Returned Hero
It is said that no two persons see another in exactly the same light. Be that as it may, it is extremely doubtful if Uncle Bill Griswold would have immediately recognized in the debonair raconteur who held a circle breathless in the Bartlesville C... The Ride
"Stillwell!" Madeline's cry was more than the utterance of a breaking heart. It was full of agony. But also it uttered the shattering of a structure built of false pride, of old beliefs, of bloodless standards, of ignorance of self. It betrayed t... The Rider Of The Black Horse
The trail from the Diamond K broke around the base of a low hill dotted thickly with scraggly oak and fir, then stretched away, straight and almost level (except for a deep cut where the railroad gang and a steam shovel were eating into a hundred-... The Riding Of Felipe
I. FELIPE As young Felipe Arillaga guided his pony out of the last intricacies of Pacheco Pass, he was thinking of Rubia Ytuerate and of the scene he had had with her a few days before. He reconstructed it now very vividly. Rubia had been royal... The Rifle
Dawn found him over the first crest; at noon he was struggling up the slope of the second range, whose rise was not half so sharp as the upward plunge out of the Asper, but in spite of that easier ground Grey Molly could not gain. She went with shor... The Right Eye Of The Commander
The year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in a southwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered by the headlands of the blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent; its foam clung quivering to the seaward wall of... The Rio Blanco Puts In A Claim
Preparations for the drive occupied several days. The cattle were rounded up and carefully worked. Many of those that had roughed through the hard winter were still weak. Some of these would yet succumb and would increase the thirty per cent of lo... The Rodeo
It was with a feeling of some reluctance that Dave drove up to Las Palmas shortly after the lunch hour, for he had no desire to meet "Young Ed." However, to his relief, Austin did not appear, and inasmuch as Alaire did not refer to her husband in ... The Round-up
It was a crackling and roaring of fire that awakened Madeline next morning, and the first thing she saw was a huge stone fireplace in which lay a bundle of blazing sticks. Some one had kindled a fire while she slept. For a moment the curious sensati... The Round-up
This, as you well may gather, was in the summer routine. Now the time of the great fall round-up drew near. The home ranch began to bustle in preparation. All through Cochise County were short mountain ranges set down, apparently at random, lik...