Napoleon Shave-tail
: The Jimmyjohn Boss And Other StoriesAugustus Albumblatt, young and new and sleek with the latest
book-knowledge of war, reported to his first troop commander at Fort
Brown. The ladies had watched for him, because he would increase the
number of men, the officers because he would lessen the number of
duties; and he joined at a crisis favorable to becoming speedily known
by them all. Upon that same day had household servants become an
extinct race. The las
commanding officer's wife that she was used to living where she could
see the cars. She added that there was no society here "fit for man or
baste at all." This opinion was formed on the preceding afternoon when
Casey, a sergeant of roguish attractions in G troop, had told her that
he was not a marrying man. Three hours later she wedded a gambler,
and this morning at six they had taken the stage for Green River, two
hundred miles south, the nearest point where the bride could see the
cars.
"Frank," said the commanding officer's wife, "send over to H troop for
York."
"Catherine," he answered, "my dear, our statesmen at Washington say
it's wicked to hire the free American soldier to cook for you. It's too
menial for his manhood."
"Frank, stuff!"
"Hush, my love. Therefore York must be spared the insult of twenty
more dollars a month, our statesmen must be re-elected, and you and I,
Catherine, being cookless, must join the general mess."
Thus did all separate housekeeping end, and the garrison began unitedly
to eat three times a day what a Chinaman set before them, when the
long-expected Albumblatt stepped into their midst, just in time for
supper.
This youth was spic-and-span from the Military Academy, with a
top-dressing of three months' thoughtful travel in Germany. "I was
deeply impressed with the modernity of their scientific attitude," he
pleasantly remarked to the commanding officer. For Captain Duane, silent
usually, talked at this first meal to make the boy welcome in this
forlorn two-company post.
"We're cut off from all that sort of thing here," said he. "I've not
been east of the Missouri since '69. But we've got the railroad across,
and we've killed some Indians, and we've had some fun, and we're glad
we're alive--eh, Mrs. Starr?"
"I should think so," said the lady.
"Especially now we've got a bachelor at the post!" said Mrs. Bainbridge.
"That has been the one drawback, Mr. Albumblatt."
"I thank you for the compliment," said Augustus, bending solemnly from
his hips; and Mrs. Starr looked at him and then at Mrs. Bainbridge.
"We're not over-gay, I fear," the Captain continued; "but the flat's
full of antelope, and there's good shooting up both canyons."
"Have you followed the recent target experiments at Metz?" inquired
the traveller. "I refer to the flattened trajectory and the obus
controversy."
"We have not heard the reports," answered the commandant, with becoming
gravity. "But we own a mountain howitzer."
"The modernity of German ordnance--" began Augustus.
"Do you dance, Mr. Albumblatt?" asked Mrs. Starr.
"For we'll have a hop and all be your partners," Mrs. Bainbridge
exclaimed.
"I will be pleased to accommodate you, ladies."
"It's anything for variety's sake with us, you see," said Mrs. Starr,
smoothly smiling; and once again Augustus bent blandly from his hips.
But the commanding officer wished leniency. "You see us all," he
hastened to say. "Commissioned officers and dancing-men. Pretty
shabby--"
"Oh, Captain!" said a lady.
"And pretty old."
"Captain!" said another lady.
"But alive and kicking. Captain Starr, Mr. Bainbridge, the Doctor and
me. We are seven."
Augustus looked accurately about him. "Do I understand seven, Captain?"
"We are seven," the senior officer repeated.
Again Mr. Albumblatt counted heads. "I imagine you include the ladies,
Captain? Ha! ha!"
"Seven commissioned males, sir. Our Major is on sick-leave, and two of
our Lieutenants are related to the President's wife. She can't bear them
to be exposed. None of us in the church-yard lie--but we are seven."
"Ha! ha, Captain! That's an elegant double entendre on Wordsworth's
poem and the War Department. Only, if I may correct your addition--ha!
ha!--our total, including myself, is eight." And Augustus grew as
hilarious as a wooden nutmeg.
The commanding officer rolled an intimate eye at his wife.
The lady was sitting big with rage, but her words were cordial still:
"Indeed, Mr. Albumblatt, the way officers who have influence in
Washington shirk duty here and get details East is something I
can't laugh about. At one time the Captain was his own adjutant and
quartermaster. There are more officers at this table to-night than
I've seen in three years. So we are doubly glad to welcome you at Fort
Brown."
"I am fortunate to be on duty where my services are so required, though
I could object to calling it Fort Brown." And Augustus exhaled a new
smile.
"Prefer Smith?" said Captain Starr.
"You misunderstand me. When we say Fort Brown. Fort Russell, Fort Et
Cetera, we are inexact. They are not fortified."
"Cantonment Et Cetera would be a trifle lengthy, wouldn't it?" put in
the Doctor, his endurance on the wane.
"Perhaps; but technically descriptive of our Western posts. The Germans
criticise these military laxities."
Captain Duane now ceased talking, but urbanely listened; and from time
to time his eye would scan Augustus, and then a certain sublimated
laugh, to his wife well known; would seize him for a single voiceless
spasm, and pass. The experienced Albumblatt meanwhile continued,
"By-the-way, Doctor, you know the Charite, of course?"
Doctor Guild had visited that great hospital, but being now a goaded man
he stuck his nose in his plate, and said, unwisely: "Sharrity? What's
that?" For then Augustus told him what and where it was, and that
Krankenhaus is German for hospital, and that he had been deeply
impressed with the modernity of the ventilation. "Thirty-five cubic
metres to a bed in new wards," he stated. "How many do you allow,
Doctor?"
"None," answered the surgeon.
"Do I understand none, Doctor?"
"You do, sir. My patients breathe in cubic feet, and swallow their doses
in grains, and have their inflation measured in inches."
"Now there again!" exclaimed Augustus, cheerily. "More antiquity to be
swept away! And people say we young officers have no work cut out for
us!"
"Patients don't die then under the metric system?" said the Doctor.
"No wonder Europe's overcrowded," said Starr.
But the student's mind inhabited heights above such trifling. "Death,"
he said, "occurs in ratios not differentiated from our statistics." And
he told them much more while they booked at him over their plates. He
managed to say 'modernity' and 'differentiate' again, for he came from
our middle West, where they encounter education too suddenly, and it
would take three generations of him to speak clean English. But with
all his polysyllabic wallowing, he showed himself keen-minded, pat with
authorities, a spruce young graduate among these dingy Rocky Mountain
campaigners. They had fought and thirsted and frozen; the books that he
knew were not written when they went to school; and so far as war is to
be mastered on paper, his equipment was full and polished while theirs
was meagre and rusty.
And yet, if you know things that other and older men do not, it is as
well not to mention them too hastily. These soldiers wished that they
could have been taught what he knew; but they watched young Augustus
unfolding himself with a gaze that might have seemed chill to a less
highly abstract thinker. He, however, rose from the table pleasantly
edified by himself, and hopeful for them. And as he left them,
"Good-night, ladies and gentlemen," he said; "we shall meet again."
"Oh yes," said the Doctor. "Again and again."
"He's given me indigestion," said Bainbridge.
"Take some metric system," said Starr.
"And lie flat on your trajectory," said the Doctor.
"I hate hair parted in the middle for a man," said Mrs. Guild.
"And his superior eye-glasses," said Mrs. Bainbridge.
"His staring conceited teeth," hissed Mrs. Starr.
"I don't like children slopping their knowledge all over me," said the
Doctor's wife.
"He's well brushed, though," said Mrs. Duane, seeking the bright side.
"He'll wipe his feet on the mat when he comes to call."
"I'd rather have mud on my carpet than that bandbox in any of my
chairs," said Mrs. Starr.
"He's no fool," mused the Doctor. "But, kingdom come, what an ass!"
"Well, gentlemen," said the commanding officer (and they perceived a
flavor of the official in his tone), "Mr. Albumblatt is just twenty-one.
I don't know about you; but I'll never have that excuse again."
"Very well, Captain, we'll be good," said Mrs. Bainbridge.
"And gr-r-ateful," said Mrs. Starr, rolling her eyes piously. "I
prophecy he'll entertain us."
The Captain's demeanor remained slightly official; but walking home, his
Catherine by his side in the dark was twice aware of that laugh of his,
twinkling in the recesses of his opinions. And later, going to bed, a
little joke took him so unready that it got out before he could suppress
it. "My love," said he, "my Second Lieutenant is grievously mislaid in
the cavalry. Providence designed him for the artillery."
It was wifely but not right in Catherine to repeat this strict
confidence in strictest confidence to her neighbor, Mrs. Bainbridge,
over the fence next morning before breakfast. At breakfast Mrs.
Bainbridge spoke of artillery reinforcing the post, and her husband
giggled girlishly and looked at the puzzled Duane; and at dinner Mrs.
Starr asked Albumblatt, would not artillery strengthen the garrison?
"Even a light battery," pronounced Augustus, promptly, "would be absurd
and useless."
Whereupon the mess rattled knives, sneezed, and became variously
disturbed. So they called him Albumbattery, and then Blattery, which is
more condensed; and Captain Duane's official tone availed him nothing
in this matter. But he made no more little military jokes; he disliked
garrison personalities. Civilized by birth and ripe from weather-beaten
years of men and observing, he looked his Second Lieutenant over, and
remembered to have seen worse than this. He had no quarrel with the
metric system (truly the most sensible), and thinking to leaven it with
a little rule of thumb, he made Augustus his acting quartermaster. But
he presently indulged his wife with the soldier-cook she wanted at home,
so they no longer had to eat their meals in Albumblatt's society; and
Mrs. Starr said that this showed her husband dreaded his quartermaster
worse than the Secretary of War.
Alas for the Quartermaster's sergeant, Johannes Schmoll, that routined
and clock-work German! He found Augustus so much more German than he
had ever been himself, that he went speechless for three days. Upon his
lists, his red ink, and his ciphering, Augustus swooped like a bird
of prey, and all his fond red-tape devices were shredded to the winds.
Augustus set going new quadratic ones of his own, with an index and
cross-references. It was then that Schmoll recovered his speech and
walked alone, saying, "Mein Gott!" And often thereafter, wandering among
the piled stores and apparel, he would fling both arms heavenward and
repeat the exclamation. He had rated himself the unique human soul at
Fort Brown able to count and arrange underclothing. Augustus rejected
his laborious tally, and together they vigiled after hours, verifying
socks and drawers. Next, Augustus found more horseshoes than his papers
called for.
"That man gif me der stomach pain efry day," wailed Schmoll to Sergeant
Casey. "I tell him, 'Lieutenant, dose horseshoes is expendable. We don't
acgount for efry shoe like they was men's shoes, und oder dings dot is
issued.' 'I prefer to cake them cop!' says Baby Bismarck. Und he smile
mit his two beaver teeth."
"Baby Bismarck!" cried, joyfully, the rosy-faced Casey. "Yo-hanny, take
a drink."
"Und so," continued the outraged Schmoll, "he haf a Board of Soorvey on
dree-pound horseshoes, und I haf der stomach pain."
"It was buckles the next month. The allowance exceeded the expenditure,
Augustus's arithmetic came out wrong, and another board sat on buckles.
"Yo-hanny, you're lookin' jaded under Colonel Safetypin." said Casey.
"Have something?"
"Safetypin is my treat," said Schmoll; "und very apt."
But Augustus found leisure to pervade the post with his modernity. He
set himself military problems, and solved them; he wrote an essay on
"The Contact Squadron"; he corrected Bainbridge for saying "throw back
the left flank" instead of "refuse the left flank"; he had reading-room
ideas, canteen' ideas, ideas for the Indians and the Agency, and
recruit-drill ideas, which he presented to Sergeant Casey. Casey gave
him, in exchange, the name of Napoleon Shave-Tail, and had his whiskey
again paid for by the sympathetic Schmoll.
"But bless his educated heart," said Casey, "he don't learn me nothing
that'll soil my innercence!"
Thus did the sunny-humored Sergeant take it, but not thus the mess.
Had Augustus seen himself as they saw him, could he have heard Mrs.
Starr--But he did not; the youth was impervious, and to remove his
complacency would require (so Mrs. Starr said) an operation, probably
fatal. The commanding officer held always aloof from gibing, yet often
when Augustus passed him his gray eye would dwell upon the Lieutenant's
back, and his voiceless laugh would possess him. That is the picture I
retain of these days--the unending golden sun, the wide, gentle-colored
plain, the splendid mountains, the Indians ambling through the flat,
clear distance; and here, close along the parade-ground, eye-glassed
Augustus, neatly hastening, with the Captain on his porch, asleep you
might suppose.
One early morning the agent, with two Indian chiefs, waited on the
commanding officer, and after their departure his wife found him
breakfasting in solitary mirth.
"Without me," she chided, sitting down. "And I know you've had some good
news."
"The best, my love. Providence has been tempted at last. The wholesome
irony of life is about to function."
"Frank, don't tease so! And where are you rushing now before the cakes?"
"To set our Augustus a little military problem, dearest. Plain living
for to-day, and high thinking be jolly well--"
"Frank, you're going to swear, and I must know!"
But Frank had sworn and hurried out to the right to the Adjutant's
office, while his Catherine flew to the left to the fence.
"Ella!" she cried. "Oh, Ella!"
Mrs. Bainbridge, instantly on the other side of the fence, brought
scanty light. A telegram had come, she knew, from the Crow Agency in
Montana. Her husband had admitted this three nights ago; and Captain
Duane (she knew) had given him some orders about something; and could
it be the Crows? "Ella, I don't know," said Catherine. "Frank talked all
about Providence in his incurable way, and it may be anything." So the
two ladies wondered together over the fence, until Mrs. Duane, seeing
the Captain return, ran to him and asked, were the Crows on the
war-path? Then her Frank told her yes, and that he had detailed
Albumblatt to vanquish them and escort them to Carlisle School to learn
German and Beethoven's sonatas.
"Stuff, stuff, stuff! Why, there he does go!" cried the unsettled
Catherine. "It's something at the Agency!" But Captain Duane was gone
into the house for a cigar.
Albumblatt, with Sergeant Casey and a detail of six men, was in truth
hastening over that broad mile which opens between Fort Brown and the
Agency. On either side of them the level plain stretched, gray with
its sage, buff with intervening grass, hay-cocked with the smoky,
mellow-stained, meerschaum-like canvas tepees of the Indians, quiet as a
painting; far eastward lay long, low, rose-red hills, half dissolved in
the trembling mystery of sun and distance; and westward, close at hand
and high, shone the great pale-blue serene mountains through the vaster
serenity of the air. The sounding hoofs of the troops brought the
Indians out of their tepees to see. When Albumblatt reached the Agency,
there waited the agent and his two chiefs, who pointed to one lodge
standing apart some three hundred yards, and said, "He is there." So
then Augustus beheld his problem, the military duty fallen to him from
Providence and Captain Duane.
It seems elementary for him who has written of "The Contact Squadron."
It was to arrest one Indian. This man, Ute Jack, had done a murder among
the Crows, and fled south for shelter. The telegram heralded him, but
with boundless miles for hiding he had stolen in under the cover of
night. No welcome met him. These Fort Brown Indians were not his friends
at any time, and less so now, when he arrived wild drunk among their
families. Hounded out, he sought this empty lodge, and here he was,
at bay, his hand against every man's, counting his own life worthless
except for destroying others before he must himself die.
"Is he armed?" Albumblatt inquired, and was told yes.
Augustus considered the peaked cone tent. The opening was on this side,
but a canvas drop closed it. Not much of a problem--one man inside a
sack with eight outside to catch him! But the books gave no rule for
this combination, and Augustus had met with nothing of the sort in
Germany. He considered at some length. Smoke began to rise through the
meeting poles of the tepee, leisurely and natural, and one of the chiefs
said:
"Maybe Ute Jack cooking. He hungry."
"This is not a laughing matter," said Augustus to the by-standers, who
were swiftly gathering. "Tell him that I command him to surrender," he
added to the agent, who shouted this forthwith; and silence followed.
"Tell him I say he must come out at once," said Augustus then; and
received further silence.
"He eat now," observed the chief. "Can't talk much."
"Sergeant Casey," bellowed Albumblatt, "go over there and take him out!"
"The Lootenant understands," said Casey, slowly, "that Ute Jack has got
the drop on us, and there ain't no getting any drop on him."
"Sergeant, you will execute your orders without further comment."
At this amazing step the silence fell cold indeed; but Augustus was in
command.
"Shall I take any men along, sir?" said Casey in his soldier's machine
voice.
"Er--yes. Er--no. Er--do as you please."
The six troopers stepped forward to go, for they loved Casey; but he
ordered them sharply to fall back. Then, looking in their eyes, he
whispered, "Good-bye, boys, if it's to be that way," and walked to the
lodge, lifted the flap, and fell, shot instantly dead through the heart.
"Two bullets into him," muttered a trooper, heavily breathing as the
sounds rang. "He's down," another spoke to himself with fixed eyes; and
a sigh they did not know of passed among them. The two chiefs looked at
Augustus and grunted short talk together; and one, with a sweeping lift
of his hand out towards the tepee and the dead man by it, said, "Maybe
Ute Jack only got three--four--cartridges--so!" (his fingers counted
it). "After he kill three--four--men, you get him pretty good." The
Indian took the white man's death thus; but the white men could not yet
be even saturnine.
"This will require reinforcement," said Augustus to the audience. "The
place must be attacked by a front and flank movement. It must be knocked
down. I tell you I must have it knocked down. How are you to see where
he is, I'd like to know, if it's not knocked down?" Augustus's voice was
getting high.
"I want the howitzer," he screeched generally.
A soldier saluted, and Augustus chattered at him.
"The howitzer, the mountain howitzer, I tell you. Don't you hear me? To
knock the cursed thing he's in down. Go to Captain Duane and give him my
compliments, and--no, I'll go myself. Where's my horse? My horse, I tell
you! It's got to be knocked down."
"If you please, Lieutenant," said the trooper, "may we have the Red
Cross ambulance?"
"Red Cross? What's that for? What's that?"
"Sergeant Casey, sir. He's a-lyin' there."
"Ambulance? Certainly. The howitzer--perhaps they're only flesh wounds.
I hope they are only flesh wounds. I must have more men--you'll come
with me."
From his porch Duane viewed both Augustus approach and the man stop
at the hospital, and having expected a bungle, sat to hear; but at
Albumblatt's mottled face he stood up quickly and said, "What's the
matter?" And hearing, burst out: "Casey! Why, he was worth fifty of--Go
on, Mr. Albumblatt. What next did you achieve, sir?" And as the tale was
told he cooled, bitter, but official.
"Reinforcements is it, Mr. Albumblatt?"
"The howitzer, Captain."
"Good. And G troop?"
"For my double flank movement I--"
"Perhaps you'd like H troop as reserve?"
"Not reserve, Captain. I should establish--"
"This is your duty, Mr. Albumblatt. Perform it as you can, with what
force you need."
"Thank you, sir. It is not exactly a battle, but with a, so-to-speak,
intrenched--"
"Take your troops and go, sir, and report to me when you have arrested
your man."
Then Duane went to the hospital, and out with the ambulance, hoping that
the soldier might not be dead. But the wholesome irony of life reckons
beyond our calculations; and the unreproachful, sunny face of his
Sergeant evoked in Duane's memory many marches through long heat and
cold, back in the rough, good times.
"Hit twice, I thought they told me," said he; and the steward surmised
that one had missed.
"Perhaps," mused Duane. "And perhaps it went as intended, too. What's
all that fuss?"
He turned sharply, having lost Augustus among his sadder thoughts; and
here were the operations going briskly. Powder-smoke in three directions
at once! Here were pickets far out-lying, and a double line of
skirmishers deployed in extended order, and a mounted reserve, and men
standing to horse--a command of near a hundred, a pudding of pompous,
incompetent, callow bosh, with Augustus by his howitzer, scientifically
raising and lowering it to bear on the lone white tepee that shone in
the plain. Four races were assembled to look on--the mess Chinaman, two
black laundresses, all the whites in the place (on horse and foot, some
with their hats left behind), and several hundred Indians in blankets.
Duane had a thought to go away and leave this galling farce under the
eye of Starr for the officers were at hand also. But his second thought
bade him remain; and looking at Augustus and the howitzer, his laugh
would have returned to him; but his heart was sore for Casey.
It was an hour of strategy and cannonade, a humiliating hour, which Fort
Brown tells of to this day; and the tepee lived through it all. For it
stood upon fifteen slender poles, not speedily to be chopped down by
shooting lead from afar. When low bullets drilled the canvas, the chief
suggested to Augustus that Ute Jack had climbed up; and when the bullets
flew high, then Ute Jack was doubtless in a hole. Nor did Augustus
contrive to drop a shell from the howitzer upon Ute Jack and explode
him--a shrewd and deadly conception; the shells went beyond, except one,
that ripped through the canvas, somewhat near the ground; and Augustus,
dripping, turned at length, and saying, "It won't go down," stood
vacantly wiping his white face. Then the two chiefs got his leave to
stretch a rope between their horses and ride hard against the tepee. It
was military neither in essence nor to see, but it prevailed. The tepee
sank, a huge umbrella wreck along the earth, and there lay Ute Jack
across the fire's slight hollow, his knee-cap gone with the howitzer
shell. But no blood had flown from that; blood will not run, you know,
when a man has been dead some time. One single other shot had struck
him--one through his own heart. It had singed the flesh.
"You see, Mr. Albumblatt," said Duane, in the whole crowd's hearing,
"he killed himself directly after killing Casey. A very rare act for
an Indian, as you are doubtless aware. But if your manoeuvres with his
corpse have taught you anything you did not know before, we shall all be
gainers."
"Captain," said Mrs. Starr, on a later day, "you and Ute Jack have ended
our fun. Since the Court of Inquiry let Mr. Albumblatt off, he has not
said Germany once--and that's three months to-morrow."
More
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Betty Morena was sitting in a rustic chair before an open fire, smoking a cigarette. She was a short woman, so slenderly, even narrowly built, as to appear overgrown, and she was a mature woman so immaturely shaped and featured as to appear hardly... Mother Emeritus
THE Louders lived on the second floor, at the head of the stairs, in the Lossing Building. There is a restaurant to the right; and a new doctor, every six months, who is every kind of a healer except "regular," keeps the permanent boarders in gossip... Moving The Herd
Four thousand weary cattle crawled up the long ridge which divides Chin Coulee from Quitter Creek. Pink, riding point, opposite the Silent One, twisted round in his saddle and looked back at the slow-moving river of horns and backs veiled in a gray ... Moya's Highwayman
Dinner at the Lodge was just finished. It was the one hour of the day when anything like formality obtained. Each one dropped into breakfast when he or she pleased. Luncheon rarely found them together. But Lady Jim insisted that dinner should be a... Mr Boggs Is Disgusted
The herd gained twelve miles by dark and would pass through the northern fence by noon of the next day, for Cook's axe and monkey wrench had been put to good use. For quite a distance there was no fence: about a mile of barb wire had been pulled loo... Mr Cassidy Cogitates
While Hopalong tried to find his horse, Ben Ferris pushed forward, circling steadily to the east and away from the direction of Hoyt's corners, which was as much a menace to his health and happiness as the town of Grant, twenty miles to his rear. If... Mr Cassidy Meets A Woman
The work of separating the cattle into herds of the different brands was not a big contract, and with so many men it took but a comparatively short time, and in two days all signs of the rustlers had faded. It was then that good news went the rou... Mr Holden Drops In
Mr. Cassidy dismounted and viewed the building with open disgust, walking around it to see what held it up, and when he finally realized that it was self-supporting his astonishment was profound. Undoubtedly there were shacks in the United States in... Mr Townsend Marshal
Mr. Cassidy went to the ranch and lived like a lord until shame drove him away. He had no business to live on cake and pie and wonderful dishes that Mrs. Ferris and her sister literally forced on him, and let Buck's mission wait on his convenience. ... Mr Trendley Assumes Added Importance
That the rustlers were working under a well organized system was evident. That they were directed by a master of the game was ceaselessly beaten into the consciousness of the Association by the diversity, dash and success of their raids. No one, ... Mr Verinder Complains
Jack Kilmeny followed the pathway which wound through the woods along the bank of the river. Occasionally he pushed through a thick growth of young willows or ducked beneath the top strand of a neglected wire fence. Beyond the trees lay a clear... Mr Verinder Is Treated To A Surprise
The morning after the seizing of the ore Verinder came to breakfast in a mood so jubilant that he could not long keep to himself the cause of his exultation. Kilmeny and Farquhar were away on a hunting trip, and none of the ladies except Moya was ... Mrs Lansell's Lecture
When the excitement had somewhat abated, and Miss Hayes was convinced that her idol was really there, safe, and with his usual healthy appetite, and when a messenger had been started out to recall the searchers, Dorman was placed upon a chair befo... Mrs Ripley's Trip
"And in winter the winds sweep the snows across it." Thn night was in windy November, and the blast, threatening rain, roared around the poor little shanty of "Uncle Ripley," set like a chicken trap on the vast Iowa prairie. Uncle Ethan was mendin... Murder
"How do you think you'd like to live in Crawling Water?" Wade looked whimsically at Helen, as she picked her way with the grace of a kitten through the dust of the main street. Carefully though she walked, her shoes and the bottom of her skirt w... Napoleon Shave-tail
Augustus Albumblatt, young and new and sleek with the latest book-knowledge of war, reported to his first troop commander at Fort Brown. The ladies had watched for him, because he would increase the number of men, the officers because he would les... Naza! Naza! Naza!
It was a waiting day at Fort Chippewayan. The lonesome, far-northern Hudson's Bay Trading Post seldom saw such life. Tepees dotted the banks of the Slave River and lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores. Near the boat landing a group of chief... Nemesis
On the second day following Flemister's visit to Angels, Lidgerwood was called again to Red Butte to another conference with the mine-owners. On his return, early in the afternoon, his special was slowed and stopped at a point a few miles east of ... Nerve
With a deep sigh, Buck lifted his face from the water and regarded her gratefully. "That just about saved my life," he murmured. Mary Thorne carefully set down the improvised water-bucket, its contents much depleted, and taking out her handke... Nerves And Intuition
"Mr. Gael," said Joan standing before him at the breakfast-table, "I'm a-goin' to work." She was pale, gaunt, and imperturbable. He gave her a quick look, one that turned to amusement, for Joan was really as appealing to his humor as a child. S... Night Fishing
Jack Kilmeny crossed the river by the rope ferry and followed the trail that ran up. He took the water above the Narrows, about a mile and a half from camp. The mosquitoes were pretty bad near the willows along the shore, but as he got out farther... Night Prowling At Frayne
In the full of the September moon the war-bands of the Sioux had defied agents and peace chiefs, commissioners and soldiers, and started their wild campaign in northern Wyoming. In the full of the October moon the big chief of the whites had swept... No Dream To Wake From
For a long while after she had left him, he lay still, stretched in his chair. His eyes were fixed steadily upon the open window and the sunshine outside. There he watched the movement of the leaves upon the green cottonwoods. What had she said to... North Of Fifty-three
Big George was drinking, and the activities of the little Arctic mining camp were paralysed. Events invariably ceased their progress and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of public consequence stirred except the quicksilver,... Not Even Powder-burnt
Houck stood over the prostrate man, the smoking revolver in his hand, on his lips a cruel twist and in his throat a wolfish snarl. June, watching him with eyes held in a fascination of terror, felt that at any moment he might begin pumping shots... Not Guilty Guilty
Ridgway's answer to the latest move of Simon Harley was to put him on trial for his life to answer the charge of having plotted and instigated the death of Vance Edwards. Not without reason, the defense had asked for a change of venue, alleging the ... Notes By Flood And Field
PART I--IN THE FIELD It was near the close of an October day that I began to be disagreeably conscious of the Sacramento Valley. I had been riding since sunrise, and my course through the depressing monotony of the long level landscape affected... Now Dang It Ride!
Indians are Indians, though they wear the green sweater and overalls of civilization and set upon their black hair the hat made famous by John B. Stetson. You may meet them in town and think them tamed to stupidity. You may travel out upon their res... Oak Spring
Moze and Don and Sounder straggled into camp next morning, hungry, footsore and scarred; and as they limped in, Jones met them with characteristic speech: "Well, you decided to come in when you got hungry and tired? Never thought of how you fooled m... Off His Range
Bruce stood before the blackboard in the Bartlesville station studying the schedule. A train went west at 11.45. The first train went east at 11.10. He hesitated a moment, then the expression of uncertainty upon his face hardened into decision. He... Old Acquaintances
"You wanted to see me?" The voice had the soft, slow intonation of the South, and it held some quality that haunted the memory. Or so Melissy thought afterward, but that may have been because of its owner's appeal to sympathy. "If you are Mis... Old Friends
Into the depths of her scorching self-contempt came his blithe "Good-morning, neighbor." Her heart leaped, but before she looked around Moya made sure no tales could be read in her face. Her eyes met his with quiet scorn. "I was wondering if ... Old Jezebel On The Rampage
"Old Jezebel is a woman. For years she keeps her appointed trail until the accumulation of her strength breaks all bounds and she sweeps sand and men before her." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. ... Old Tom
At daybreak our leader routed us out. The frost mantled the ground so heavily that it looked like snow, and the rare atmosphere bit like the breath of winter. The forest stood solemn and gray; the canyon lay wrapped in vapory slumber. Hot biscuit... Old Ways And New
Progress is like the insidious change from youth to old age, except that progress does not mean decay. The change that is almost imperceptible and yet inexorable is much the same, however. You will see a community apparently changeless as the years ... Old Wives Tales
Down the winding trail of Snake River bluff straggled a blanketed half dozen of old Wolfbelly's tribe, the braves stalking moodily in front and kicking up a gray cloud of dust which enveloped the squaws behind them but could not choke to silence the... Oldring's Knell
Some forty hours or more later Venters created a commotion in Cottonwoods by riding down the main street on Black Star and leading Bells and Night. He had come upon Bells grazing near the body of a dead rustler, the only incident of his qu... Oleson
"Say, ain't that Andy and Mig following along behind?" Cal asked after a minute of watching the approach. "Sure, it is. Now what--" "They're drivin' 'em, by cripes!" Big Medicine, under the stress of the moment, returned to his usual bellowing ton... On A Strange Range
Two tired but happy punchers rode into the coast town and dismounted in front of the best hotel. Putting up their horses as quickly as possible they made arrangements for sleeping quarters and then hastened out to attend to business. Buck had been k... On Blacksnake's Trail
At first, they could see little, for not much light filtered through the small door and window. Then details of the interior began to grow more distinct in the hut's one room. A tarp had been tacked over the dirt ceiling to keep scorpions and cent... On Grand Tour
The sun had set and all the golden twilight was hazy with the dust suspended in swirl and strata over the ugly roofs. In the canvas-faced main street the throng and noise had increased rather than diminished at the approach of dusk. Although clatt... On Guard
The man whose soul held no love of the poetic sat for two or three hours on the threshold of the bunkhouse door, his gaze on the ranchhouse. He was considering his "reputation," and he had reached the conclusion that Barbara Morgan had reason to f... On Into The Wilderness
Great as the shock of the sudden attack and his narrow escape was, Ree gave only a little yell of surprise and anger, and ran in the direction from which the shot had come, drawing his pistol as he went. He found no one. Though utterly regardless ... On Lonely Mountain Roads
"What's happened, Ree?" The tone in which John asked the question, satisfied Kingdom that his friend knew nothing of the shooting. Better than this, however, it satisfied the Indian who knelt silently nearby, still listening, that the boy he ha... On The Back Trail
"Just you two wait a minute!" It was Tom Dillon who uttered the words, as he saw Link Merwell and Job Haskers turn to where their horses were tethered. "You bet they'll wait!" exploded Abe Blower, wrathfully. He stepped forward and seized Mer... On The Chisholm Trail
From the sweeps of high country bordering close upon Santa Fe, it was no easy journey to the Chisholm Trail, even for a trail-eating horse of Blizzard's caliber. But The Kid had taken his time. His ultimate destination, unless fate altered his pla... On The Just And The Unjust
The quarantine guards returned to their camp. Our plans were suddenly and completely upset, and not knowing which way to turn, Sponsilier and I, slightly crestfallen, accompanied the guards. It was already late in the evening, but Captain Ullmer too... On The Way West
"Off at last!" "Hurrah for the West!" "And the Landslide Mine, Roger, don't forget that!" "What a splendid day for beginning the trip!" "Say, we make quite a crowd, don't we?" "Wonder if the train will be on time, Dave?" "I suppose ... On To Black Cat Camp
"You go!" cried Dave. "I thought you had given up prospecting," exclaimed Roger. "Not but that we'd be glad to have you along," put in Phil, hastily. "Well, I have given up prospecting," answered Mr. Dillon, with that broad smile still on h... On To The Siwash
"Who all was doin' the talkin' last night?" asked Frank next morning, when we were having a late breakfast. "Cause I've a joke on somebody. Jim he talks in his sleep often, an' last night after you did finally get settled down, Jim he up in his slee... One Game Hombre
Hardy's gang did not attempt another rush. They had learned their lesson. Keeping under cover, they continued firing steadily, however, and their bullets began to do damage. Every crack and chink was a target. In the afternoon, more riders arr...