The Sheriff Introduces Himself
: Bucky O'connorBear-trap Collins, presuming on the new intimacy born of an exciting
experience shared in common, stepped across the aisle, flung aside Miss
Wainwright's impedimenta, and calmly seated himself beside her. She
was a young woman capable of a hauteur chillier than ice to undue
familiarity, but she did not choose at this moment to resent his
assumption of a footing that had not existed an hour ago. Picturesque
and unconven
picturesque and engaging manners. She had, besides, other reasons for
wanting to meet him, and they had to do with a sudden suspicion that
flamed like tow in her brain. She had something for which to thank
him--much more than he would be likely to guess, she thought--and she
was wondering, with a surge of triumph, whether the irony of fate had
not made his pretended consideration for her the means of his undoing.
"I am sorry you lost so much, Miss Wainwright," he told her.
"But, after all, I did not lose so much as you. Her dark, deep-pupiled
eyes, long-lashed as Diana's, swept round to meet his coolly.
"That's a true word. My reputation has gone glimmering for fair, I
guess." He laughed ruefully. "I shouldn't wonder, ma'am, when election
time comes round, if the boys ain't likely to elect to private life the
sheriff that lay down before a bunch of miscreants."
"Why did you do it?"
His humorous glance roamed round the car. "Now, I couldn't think it
proper for me to shoot up this sumptuous palace on wheels. And wouldn't
some casual passenger be likely to get his lights put out when the band
began to play? Would you want that Boston church to be shy a preacher,
ma'am?"
Her lips parted slightly in a curve of scorn. "I suppose you had your
reasons for not interfering."
"Surely, ma'am. I hated to have them make a sieve of me."
"Were you afraid?"
"Most men are when Wolf Leroy's gang is on the war path."
"Wolf Leroy?"
"That was Wolf who came in to see they were doing the job right. He's
the worst desperado on the border--a sure enough bad proposition, I
reckon. They say he's part Spanish and part Indian, but all pisen.
Others say he's a college man of good family. I don't know about that,
for nobody knows who he really is. But the name is a byword in the
country. People lower their voices when they speak of him and his
night-riders."
"I see. And you were afraid of him?"
"Very much."
Her narrowed eyes looked over the strong lines of his lean face and
were unconvinced. "I expect you found a better reason than that for not
opposing them."
He turned to her with frank curiosity. "I'd like real well to have you
put a name to it."
But he was instantly aware that her interest had been side tracked.
Major Mackenzie had entered the car and was coming down the aisle.
Plainer than words his eyes asked a question, and hers answered it.
The sheriff stopped him with a smiling query: "Hit hard, major?"
Mackenzie frowned. "The scoundrels took thirty thousand from the express
car, I understand. Twenty thousand of it belonged to our company. I was
expecting to pay off the men next Tuesday."
"Hope we'll be able to run them down for you," returned Collins
cheerfully. "I suppose you lay it to Wolf Leroy's gang?"
"Of course. The work was too well done to leave any doubt of that." The
major resumed his seat behind Miss Wainwright.
To that young woman the sheriff repeated his unanswered question in the
form of a statement. "I'm waiting to learn that better reason, ma'am."
She was possessed of that spice of effrontery more to be desired than
beauty. "Shall we say that you had no wish to injure your friends?"
"My friends?"
Her untender eyes mocked his astonishment. "Do I choose the wrong word?"
she asked, with an audacity of a courage that delighted him. "Perhaps
they are not your friends--these train robbers? Perhaps they are mere
casual acquaintances?"
His bold eyes studied with a new interest her superb, confident
youth--the rolling waves of splendid Titian hair, the lovely, subtle
eyes with the depths of shadowy pools in them, the alluring lines of
long and supple loveliness. Certainly here was no sweet, ingenuous youth
all prone to blushes, but the complex heir of that world-old wisdom the
weaker sex has shaped to serve as a weapon against the strength that
must be met with the wit of Mother Eve.
"You ce'tainly have a right vivid imagination, ma'am," he said dryly.
"You are quite sure you have never seen them before?" her velvet voice
asked.
He laughed. "Well, no--I can't say I am."
"Aren't you quite sure you have seen them?"
Her eyes rested on him very steadily.
"You're smart as a whip, Miss Wainwright. I take off my hat to a young
lady so clever. I guess you're right. About the identity of one of those
masked gentlemen I'm pretty well satisfied."
She drew a long breath. "I thought so."
"Yes," he went on evenly, "I once earmarked him so that I'd know him
again in case we met."
"I beg pardon. You--what?"
"Earmarked him. Figure of speech, ma'am. You may not have observed that
the curly-headed person behind the guns was shy the forefinger of
his right hand. We had a little difficulty once when he was resisting
arrest, and it just happened that my gun fanned away his trigger
finger." He added reminiscently:
"A good boy, too, Neil was once. We used to punch together on the
Hashknife. A straight-up rider, the kind a fellow wants when Old Man
Trouble comes knocking at the door. Well, I reckon he's a miscreant now,
all right."
"They knew YOU--at least two of them did."
"I've been pirootin' around this country, boy and man, for fifteen
years. I ain't responsible for every yellow dog that knows me," he
drawled.
"And I noticed that when you told them not to rob the children and not
to touch me they did as you said."
"Hypnotism," he suggested, with a smile.
"So, not being a child, I put two and two together and draw an
inference."
He seemed to be struggling with his mirth. "I see you do. Well, ma'am,
I've been most everything since I hit the West, but this is the first
time I've been taken for a train robber."
"I didn't say that," she cried quickly.
"I think you mentioned an inference." The low laugh welled out of him
and broke in his face. "I've been busy on one, too. It's a heap nearer
the truth than yours, Miss Mackenzie."
Her startled eyes and the swift movement of her hand toward her heart
showed him how nearly he had struck home, how certainly he had shattered
her cool indifference of manner.
He leaned forward, so close that even in the roar of the train his low
whisper reached her. "Shall I tell you why the hold-ups didn't find more
money on your father or in the express car, Miss Mackenzie?"
She was shaken, so much so that her agitation trembled on her lips.
"Shall I tell you why your hand went to your breast when I first
mentioned that the train was going to be held up, and again when your
father's eyes were firing a mighty pointed question at you?"
"I don't know what you mean," she retorted, again mistress of herself.
Her gallant bearing compelled his admiration. The scornful eyes, the
satirical lift of the nostrils, the erect, graceful figure, all flung
a challenge at him. He called himself hard names for putting her on the
rack, but the necessity to make her believe in him was strong within
him.
"I noticed you went right chalky when I announced the hold-up, and I
thought it was because you were scared. That was where I did you an
injustice, ma'am, and you can call this an apology. You've got sand.
If it hadn't been for what you carry in the chamois skin hanging on the
chain round your neck you would have enjoyed every minute of the little
entertainment. You're as game as they make them."
"May I ask how you arrived at this melodramatic conclusion?" she asked,
her disdainful lip curling.
"By using my eyes and my ears, ma'am. I shouldn't have noticed your
likeness to Major Mackenzie, perhaps, if I hadn't observed that there
was a secret understanding between you. Now, whyfor should you be
passing as strangers? I could guess one reason, and only one. There have
twice been attempted hold-ups of the paymaster of the Yuba reservoir.
It was to avoid any more of these that Major Mackenzie took charge
personally of paying the men. He has made good up till now. But there
have been rumors for months that he would be held up either before
leaving the train or while he was crossing the desert. He didn't want to
be seen taking the boodle from the express company at Tucson. He would
rather have the impression get out that this was just a casual visit. It
occurred to him to bring along some unsuspected party to help him out.
The robbers would never expect to find the money on a woman. That's why
the major brought his daughter with him. Doesn't it make you some uneasy
to be carrying fifty thousand in small bills sewed in your clothes and
hung round your neck?"
She broke into musical laughter, natural and easy. "I don't happen to
have fifty thousand with me."
"Oh, well, say forty thousand. I'm no wizard to guess the exact figure."
Her swift glance at him was almost timid.
"Nor forty thousand," she murmured.
"I should think, ma'am, you'd crinkle more than a silk-lined lady
sailing down a church aisle on Sunday."
A picture in the magazine she was toying with seemed to interest her.
"I expect that's the signal for 'Exit Collins.' I'll say good-by till
next time, Miss Mackenzie."
"Oh, is there going to be a next time?" she asked, with elaborate
carelessness.
"Several of them."
"Indeed!"
He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote.
"I ain't the son of a prophet, but I'm venturing a prediction," he
explained.
She had nothing to say, and she said it competently.
"Concerning an investment in futurities I'm making," he continued.
Her magazine article seemed to be beginning, well.
"It's a little guess about how this train robbery is coming out. If you
don't mind, I'll leave it with you." He tore the page out, put it in an
empty envelope, sealed the flap, and handed it to her.
"Open it in a month, and see whether my guess is a good one."
The dusky lashes swept round indolently. "Suppose I were to open it
to-night."
"I'll risk it," smiled the blue eyes.
"On honor, am I?"
"That's it." He held out a big, brown hand.
"You're going to try to capture the robbers, are you?"
"I've been thinking that way--with the help of Lieutenant Bucky
O'Connor, I mean."
"And I suppose you've promised yourself success."
"It's on the knees of chance, ma'am. We may get them. They may get us."
"But this prediction of yours?" She held up the sealed envelope.
"That's about another matter."
"But I don't understand. You said--" She gave him a chance to explain.
"It ain't meant you should. You'll understand plenty at the proper
time."
He offered her his hand again. "We're slowing down for Apache.
Good-by--till next time."
The suede glove came forward, and was buried in his handshake.
He understood it to be an unvoiced apology of its owner for her
suspicions, and his instinct was correct. For how could her doubts hold
their ground when he had showed himself a sharer in her secret and a
guardian of it? And how could anything sinister lie behind those
frank, unwavering eyes or consist with that long, clean stride that was
carrying him so forcefully to the vestibule?
At Apache no telegrams were found waiting for those who had been
expecting them. Communication with the division superintendent at Tucson
uncovered the fact that no message of the hold-up had yet reached him.
It was an easy guess for Collins to find the reason.
"We're in the infant class, major," he told Mackenzie, with a sardonic
laugh. "Leroy must have galloped down the line direct to the station
after the hold-up. Likely enough he went into the depot just as we went
out. That gives him the other hour or two he needs to make his getaway
with the loot. Well, it can't be helped now. If I can only reach Bucky
there's one chance in fifty he can head them off from crossing into
Sonora. Soon as I can get together a posse I'll take up the trail from
the point of the hold-up. But they'll have a whole night's start on me.
That's a big handicap."
From Apache Collins sent three dispatches. One was to his deputy,
Dillon, at Tucson. It read:
"Get together at once posse of four and outfit same for four days."
Another went to Sabin, the division superintendent:
"Order special to carry posse with horses from Tucson to Big Gap. Must
leave by midnight. Have track clear."
The third was a notification to Lieutenant O'Connor, of the Arizona
Rangers, of the hold-up, specifying time and place of the occurrence.
The sheriff knew it was not necessary to add that the bandits were
probably heading south to get into Sonora. Bucky would take that for
granted and do his best to cover the likely spots of the frontier.
It was nearly eleven when the Limited drew in to Tucson. Sabin was on
the platform anxiously awaiting their arrival. Collins reached him even
before the conductor.
"Ordered the special, Mr. Sabin?" he asked, in a low voice.
The railroad man was chewing nervously on an unlit cigar. "Yes, sheriff.
You want only an engine and one car, I suppose."
"That will be enough. I've got to go uptown now and meet Dillon.
Midnight sharp, please."
"Do you know how much they got?" Sabin whispered.
"Thirty thousand, I hear, besides what they took from the passengers.
The conductor will tell you all about it. I've got to jump to be ready."
A disappointment awaited him in the telegrapher's room at the depot. He
found a wire, but not from the person he expected. The ranger in charge
at Douglas said that Lieutenant O'Connor was at Flag staff, but pending
that officer's return he would put himself under the orders of Sheriff
Collins and wait for instructions.
The sheriff whistled softly to himself and scratched his head. Bucky
would not have waited for instructions. By this time that live wire
would have finished telephoning all over Southern Arizona and would
himself have been in the saddle. But Bucky in Flagstaff, nearly three
hundred miles from the battlefield, so far as the present emergency
went, might just as well be in Calcutta. Collins wired instructions to
the ranger and sent a third message to the lieutenant.
"I expect I'll hear this time he's skipped over to Winslow," he told
himself, with a rueful grin.
The special with the posse on board drew out at midnight sharp. It
reached the scene of the holdup before daybreak. The loading board was
lowered and the horses led from the car and picketed. Meanwhile two
of the men lit a fire and made breakfast while the others unloaded the
outfit and packed for the trail. The first faint streaks of gray dawn
were beginning to fleck the sky when Collins and Dillon, with a lantern,
moved along the railroad bed to the little clump of cottonwoods where
the outlaws had probably lain while they waited for the express. They
scanned this ground inch by inch. The coals where their camp-fire
had been were still alive. Broken bits of food lay scattered about.
Half-trampled into the ground the sheriff picked up a narrow gold
chain and locket. This last he opened, and found it to contain a tiny
photograph of a young mother and babe, both laughing happily. A close
search failed to disclose anything else of interest.
They returned to their companions, ate breakfast, and saddled. It was
by this time light enough to be moving. The trail was easy as a printed
map, for the object of the outlaws had been haste rather than secrecy.
The posse covered it swiftly and without hesitation.
"Now, I wonder why this trail don't run straight south instead of
bearing to the left into the hills. Looks like they're going to cache
their stolen gold up in the mountains before they risk crossing into
Sonora. They figure Bucky'll be on the lookout for them," the sheriff
said to his deputy.
"I believe you've guessed it, Val. Stands to reason they'll want to get
rid of the loot soon as they can. Oh, hell!"
Dillon's disgust proved justifiable, for the trail had lost itself in a
mountain stream, up or down which the outlaws must have filed. A month
later and the creek would have been dry. But it was still spring. The
mountain rains had not ceased feeding the brook, and of this the outlaws
had taken advantage to wipe out their trail.
The sheriff looked anxiously at the sky. "It's fixin' to rain, Jim.
Don't that beat the Dutch? If it does, that lets us out plenty."
The men they were after might have gone either upstream or down. It was
impossible to know definitely which, nor was there time to follow both.
Already big drops of rain were splashing down.
"We'll take a chance, and go up. They're probably up in the hills
somewhere right now," said Collins, with characteristic decision.
He had guessed right. A mile farther upstream horses had clambered to
the bank and struck deeper into the hills. But already rain was falling
in a brisk shower. The posse had not gone another quarter of a mile
before the trail was washed out. They were now in a rough and rocky
country getting every minute steeper.
"It's going to be like lookin' for a needle in a haystack, Val," Dillon
growled.
Collins nodded. "We ain't got one chance in a hundred, Jim, but I reckon
we'll take that chance."
For three days they blundered around in the hills before they gave it
up. The first night, about dusk, the pursuers were without knowing it
so warm that one of the bandits lay with his rifle on a rock rim not
a stone's throw above them as they wound through a little ravine. But
Collins got no glimpse of the robbers. At last he reluctantly gave the
word to turn back. Probably the men he wanted had already slipped down
to the plains and across to Mexico. If not, they might play hide and
seek with him a month in the recesses of these unknown mountains.
Next morning the sheriff struck a telephone wire, tapped it, got Sabin
on the line, told him of his failure and that he was returning to
Tucson. About the middle of the afternoon the dispirited posse reached
its sidetracked special.
A young man lay stretched full length on the loading board, with a
broad-brimmed felt hat over his eyes. He wore a gray flannel shirt and
corduroy trousers thrust into half-leg laced boots. At the sound of
voices he turned lazily on his side and watched the members of the posse
swing wearily from their saddles. An amiable smile, not wholly free of
friendly derision, lit his good-looking face.
"Oh, you sheriff," he drawled.
Collins swung round, as if he had been pricked with a knife point. He
stared an instant before he let out a shout of welcome and fell upon the
youth.
"Bucky, by thunder!"
The latter got up nimbly in time to be hospitably thumped and punched.
He was a lithe, slender young fellow, of medium height, and he carried
himself lightly with that manner of sunburned competency given only by
the rough-and-tumble life of the outdoors West.
While the men reloaded the car he and the sheriff stood apart and talked
in low tones. Collins told what he knew, both what he had seen and
inferred, and Bucky heard him to the end.
"Yes, it ce'tainly looks like one of Wolf Leroy's jobs," he agreed.
"Nobody else but Leroy would have had the nerve to follow you right up
to the depot and put the kibosh on sending those wires. He's surely game
from the toes up. Think of him sittin' there reading the newspaper half
an hour after he held up the Limited!"
"Did he do that, Bucky?" The sheriff's tone conceded admiration.
"He did. He's the only train robber ever in the business that could have
done it. Oh, the Wolf's tracks are all over this job."
"No doubt about that. I told you I recognized York Neil by him being shy
that trigger finger I fanned off down at Tombstone. Well, they say he's
one of the Wolf's standbys."
"Yes. I warned him two months ago that if he didn't break away he'd die
sudden. Somehow I couldn't persuade him he was an awful sick man right
then. You saw four of these hold-ups in all, didn't you, Val?"
"Four's right. First off Neil, then the fellow I took to be the Wolf.
After he went out a bowlegged fellow came in, and last a slim little kid
that was a sure enough amateur, the way his gun shook."
"Any notion how many more there were?"
"I figured out two more. A big gazabo in a red wig held up Frost, the
engineer. He knew it was a wig because he saw long black hair peeping
out around his neck. Then there must 'a' been another in charge
of blowing up the express car, a Mexican, from the description the
messenger gives of him."
Bucky nodded. "Looks like you got it figured about right, Val. The
Mexican is easy to account for. The Wolf spends about half his time down
in Chihuahua and trains with some high-class greasers down there. Well,
we'll see what we'll see. I'll set my rangers at rounding up the border
towns a bit, and if I don't start anything there I'll hike down into
Mexico and see what's doing. I'll count on you to run the Arizona end of
it while I'm away, Val. The Wolf's outfit is a pretty wild one, and it
won't be long till something begins to howl. We'll keep an eye on the
gambling halls and see who is burning up money. Oh, they'll leave plenty
of smoke behind them," the ranger concluded cheerfully.
"There will be plenty of smoke if we ever do round 'em up, not to
mention a heap of good lead that will be spilled," the sheriff agreed
placidly. "Well, all I got to say is the sooner the quicker. The bunch
borrowed a mighty good.45 of mine I need in my biz. I kinder hanker to
get it back muy pronto."
"Here's hoping," Bucky nodded gayly. "I bet there will be a right lively
wolf hunt. Hello! The car's loaded. All aboard for Tucson."
The special drew out from the side track and gathered speed. Soon the
rhythmic chant of the rails sounded monotonously, and the plains on
either side of the track swam swiftly to the rear.
More
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In the shaded seclusion of her room, buried face down deep among the soft cushions on her couch, Madeline Hammond lay prostrate and quivering under the outrage she had suffered. The afternoon wore away; twilight fell; night came; and then Madeline... The Senator Gets Busy
It was daylight when the routed posse, with Race Moran in the lead, his left arm tied up in a blood-stained handkerchief, rode into Crawling Water. A bullet had pierced the fleshy part of the agent's wrist, a trifling wound, but one which gave him... The Shadowgraph
Forty-two miles south-west of Angels, at a point where all further progress seems definitely barred by the huge barrier of the great mountain range, the Red Butte Western, having picked its devious way to an apparent cul-de-sac among the foot-hill... The Shapes Of Illusion
Every day, as always, Senor Johnson rode abroad over the land. His surroundings had before been accepted casually as a more or less pertinent setting of action and condition. Now he sensed some of the fascination of the Arizona desert. He notic... The Sheep Herder's Cabin
When, in the delirium of fever, Jim Barlow strayed from his room at San Leon, the one idea in his mind was that the mountains called him. One distant peak, in especial, seemed imbued with life, using human speech and gesture--warning him to come, ... The Sheriff Introduces Himself
Bear-trap Collins, presuming on the new intimacy born of an exciting experience shared in common, stepped across the aisle, flung aside Miss Wainwright's impedimenta, and calmly seated himself beside her. She was a young woman capable of a hauteur c... The Sheriff Of El Cajon
About the middle of the forenoon of that day Madeline reached the ranch. Her guests had all arrived there late the night before, and wanted only her presence and the assurance of her well-being to consider the last of the camping trip a rare adventu... The Ship That Saw A Ghost
Very much of this story must remain untold, for the reason that if it were definitely known what business I had aboard the tramp steam-freighter Glarus, three hundred miles off the South American coast on a certain summer's day, some few years ago... The Showdown
A fire burned briskly in front of Mr. Trendley's cabin that night and several punchers sat around it occupied in various ways. Two men leaned against the wall and sang softly of the joys of the trail and the range. One of them, Lefty Allen, of t... The Shyness Of Shorty
Bailey smoked morosely as he scanned the dusty trail leading down across the "bottom" and away over the dry grey prairie toward the hazy mountains in the west. From his back-tilted chair on the veranda, the road was visible for miles, as well as ... The Sign And Seal
"The river forever flows yet she sees no farther than I who am forever silent, forever still." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. "Jim Manning, you've no right to speak to me that way," said Penelope. ... The Sign Of The Bar Shoe
Many a time has it happened in the old days of the old army that the post adjutant has begged to be allowed to go with some detachment sent after Indians. Rarely has it happened, however, that, without any request from the detachment commander or ... The Sign Of The Sunset
"BUT the man's almost dead." The words stung John Hare's fainting spirit into life. He opened his eyes. The desert still stretched before him, the appalling thing that had overpowered him with its deceiving purple distance. Near by stood a somb... The Signal Lights
In a little hill-rift about a mile back of the Lazy D Ranch was a deserted miner's cabin. The hut sat on the edge of a bluff that commanded a view of the buildings below, while at the same time the pines that surrounded it screened the shack from... The Silent Campaign
"I have seen that those humans who seek strength from Nature never fail to find it." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. Suma-theek waited eagerly. "I'll send for Uncle Benny," said Pen. "He'll leave a... The Sin-buster
In the fall, when the whole country had turned to a great cup of gold, purple-rimmed under the sky, Pierre went out into the hills after his winter meat. Joan was left alone. She spent her time cleaning and arranging the two-room cabin, and tidyin... The Sincere Spinster
I do not know with which of the two estimates--Mr. Taylor's or the Virginian's--you agreed. Did you think that Miss Mary Stark Wood of Bennington, Vermont, was forty years of age? That would have been an error. At the time she wrote the letter to ... The Sinks
"We can go through the pasture and cut off a couple of miles," said Honey when they were mounted. "I hope you don't think I'm crazy, wanting a ride at this time of day, after all the excitement we've had. But every Sunday is taken up with horse-raci... The Sioux Surrounded
In the hush of the wintry night, under a leaden sky, with snowflakes falling thick and fast and mantling the hills in fleecy white, Webb's column had halted among the sturdy pines, the men exchanging muttered, low-toned query and comment, the hors... The Sixth Man
It caused a quick turning of heads. "I don't want to put you out none," said the applicant gently. His voice was extremely gentle, and there was about him all the shrinking aloofness of the naturally timid. The deputy looked him over with quiet am... The Smoke Of The Burning
The reader will observe that the forest ranger's job is that of a man and a patriot, and such a ranger was Cavanagh, notwithstanding his foreign birth. He could ride all day in the saddle and fight fire all night. While not a trained forester, he ... The Snow-slide
The rain, which continued pretty steadily all day, Sunday, had ceased before the following morning, when, looking through the rifts in the clouds to the west we could see that a quantity of new snow had fallen on the mountains. "There'll be no ... The Soldier Finds An Untrodden Valley
During the weeks that followed Meade Burrell saw much of Necia. At first he had leaned on the excuse that he wanted to study the curious freak of heredity she presented; but that wore out quickly, and he let himself drift, content with the pleasur... The Sombre Line
AUGUST NAAB hoped that Mescal might have returned in his absence; but to Hare such hope was vain. The women of the oasis met them with gloomy faces presaging bad news, and they were reluctant to tell it. Mescal's flight had been forgotten in the s... The Song Of The Omaha
"Me, I theenk yoh not lov' me so moch as a pin," Ramon complained in soft reproach, down in the dry wash where Applehead had looked in vain for baling wire. "Sometimes I show yoh what is like the Spanish lov'. Like stars, like fire--sometimes I seen... The Spelling-match
The "Twentieth" school was built of logs hewn on two sides. The cracks were chinked and filled with plaster, which had a curious habit of falling out during the summer months, no one knew how; but somehow the holes always appeared on the boys' sid... The Spider
"Hullo. Is this Mrs. Morena?" Betty held the receiver languidly. Her face had grown very thin and her eyes were patient. They were staring now absently through the front window of Woodward Kane's sitting-room at a day of driving April rain. ... The Spinster Loses Some Sleep
Somewhere at the eastern base of the Tetons did those hoofprints disappear into a mountain sanctuary where many crooked paths have led. He that took another man's possessions, or he that took another man's life, could always run here if the law or... The Spinster Meets The Unknown
On a Monday noon a small company of horsemen strung out along the trail from Sunk Creek to gather cattle over their allotted sweep of range. Spring was backward, and they, as they rode galloping and gathering upon the cold week's work, cursed chee... The Spirit Of Manti
The Benham private car had clacked eastward over the rails three weeks before, bearing with it as a passenger only the negro autocrat. At the last moment, discovering that she could not dissuade Rosalind from her mad decision to stay at Blakeley's... The Stampede To Squaw Creek
I. Two months after Smoke Bellew and Shorty went after moose for a grubstake, they were back in the Elkhorn saloon at Dawson. The hunting was done, the meat hauled in and sold for two dollars and a half a pound, and between them they posse... The Stolen Horses
"Oh, look!" "That horse is going over the cliff!" "Take care, Phil, or he'll drag you with him!" Such were some of the cries which arose as the others looked back on the rocky trail and saw the situation. The horse with the outfit had st... The Storm Bursts
The vigilantes had entered Crawling Water at about ten o'clock, when the saloons and gambling joints were in full swing. Ribald songs and oaths from the players, drinkers, and hangers-on floated into the street, with now and then the bark of a six... The Strange Story Of Arthur Bridges
Putting down his book, Ree looked thoughtfully into Tom's face. "Of course," said he, "John and I have wondered about that--that matter--but we have considered that you had some reason for not talking of it, or telling us what it meant; and it w... The Stranger's Plan
Fisher, wild with rage, returned to the Paradise and profanely unfolded the tale of his burning wrongs to the bartender and demanded the loan of his gun, which the bartender promptly refused. The present owner of the gun liked Fisher very much for b... The Strategy Of Mr Peters
Hopalong and his companion rode into Muddy Wells at noon, and Red Connors, who leaned with Buck Peters against the side of Tom Lee's saloon, gasped his astonishment. Buck looked twice to be sure, and then muttered incredulously: "What th' heck!" ... The Strength Of The Pack
"The lone hunter finds the best hunting but he must fight and die alone." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. That night, when Iron Skull Williams stopped at Jim's tent to speak of some detail of the w... The Summons
When Wayland caught the startled look on Berrie's face he knew that she had learned from her father the contents of his telegram, and that she would require an explanation. "Are you going away?" she asked. "Yes. At least, I must go down to De... The Supervisor Of The Forest
Young Norcross, much as he admired Berrie, was not seeking to exchange her favor for her lover's enmity, and he rode away with an uneasy feeling of having innocently made trouble for himself, as well as for a fine, true-hearted girl. "What a good ... The Swoop Of The Hawk
"JACK! the saddle's slipping!" cried Mescal, clinging closer to him. "What luck!" Hare muttered through clinched teeth, and pulled hard on the bridle. But the mouth of the stallion was iron; regardless of the sawing bit, he galloped on. Hare cal... The Tables Turned
From the local eastbound a man swung to the station platform at Mesa. He was a dark, slim, little man, wiry and supple, with restless black eyes which pierced one like bullets. The depot loungers made him a focus of inquiring looks. But, in spit...