It was late that night when I reached the herd. Before I parted with my employer we had carefully reviewed the situation in its minutest details. Since the future could not be fore...
The next morning, which was Sunday, the machinations of Big Medicine took Pink down to the creek behind the bunk-house. "What's hurtin' yuh?" he asked curiously, when he came to wh...
After closing the door through which she had entered, Barbara Morgan slipped the fastenings into place and stood, an ear pressed against the door, listening for sounds that would t...
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 mad...
Within forty-eight hours of the coming of Trooper Kennedy with his "rush" despatches to Fort Frayne, the actors in our little drama had become widely separated. Webb and his sturdy...
The doctor started at the heels of the corporal, but was distanced long before he reached the scene. The sergeant of the guard was hammering on the front door of Blake's quarters;...
The solitary rider stood for a moment in silhouette against the somber sky-line, his keen eyes searching the lowering clouds. "Getting its back up for a blizzard," he muttered to h...
He brought Satan back to a hand canter, and so he pulled around the next curve of the gulch and saw the trap squarely in front. He came to a full halt. For he saw a tall, strong ba...
In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. She had a quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complexion, and a certain languid grace which passed eas...
The old hunter walked so swiftly that I had to run to keep up with him. The trail led up the creek, now on one side, again on the other, and I was constantly skipping from stone to...
The house that Prosper Gael had built for himself and for the woman whom Joan came to think of as the "tall child," stood in a canyon, a deep, secret fold of the hills, where a cli...
On this same evening a scene of no little significance was taking place at Las Palmas. Ed Austin was entertaining callers, and these were none other than Tad Lewis and Adolfo Urbin...
At the last camp, just north of the Platte, Bud's two black sheep balked. Bud himself, worn by sleepless nights and long hours in the saddle, turned furiously when Jerry announced...
ON the anniversary of the night Mescal disappeared the mysterious voice which had called to Hare so often and so strangely again pierced his slumber, and brought him bolt upright i...
A slight accident occurred at the jail, one so unimportant that Scanlan the jailer did not think it worth reporting to his chief. Blackwell, while eating, knocked a glass from the...
Nightfall of a weary day had come. Camp Sandy, startled from sleep in the dark hour before the dawn, had found topic for much exciting talk, and was getting tired as the twilight w...
Maud Upper was the first girl of her own age that Joan had ever seen. Joan went in terror of her and Maud knew this and enjoyed her ascendancy over an untamed creature twice her si...
By reason of having been the first to see the strange foot-prints, and having come upon them, too, in the gray light of the early morning, when alone in the forest solitudes, John...
Every detail of the killing of Jim Pickett remained vivid in Ruth's recollection. She felt that she would never forget it. But her horror gradually abated, and at the end of a week...
Houck rode away next morning after breakfast, but not before he had made a promise June construed as a threat. "Be back soon, girl." Her eyes were on the corral, from which her fat...
"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. Car...
At the prison door, Kid Wolf was met by a squad of ten soldiers. It was the firing squad. The Texan fell in step with them and was marched around the building to the bullet-scarred...
Domestic wrecks may be a subject taboo in polite conversation, but Joe De Barr was not excessively polite, and he had, moreover, a very likely hope that Marie would yet choose to r...
When the spirit of a man is once broken, he becomes useless. On the trail it is necessary to have some diversion from hard work, long hours, and exposure to the elements. With man...
Melissy saw the two prisoners brought in, though she could not tell at that distance who they were. Her watch told her that it was four-thirty. She had slept scarcely at all during...
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...
From his seat on the top of a high ridge, Gordon Wade looked into the bowl-shaped valley beneath him, with an expression of amazement on his sun-burned face. Pouring through a narr...
At the very moment that the tramp of twenty thousand feet turned toward the State-house, the report of the bribery investigating committee was being read to the legislature met in...
"Looks like you'd say somethin' about them pancakes instead of settin' there shovelin'." "Haven't I told you regular every morning for six months that they was great pancakes? Coul...
"Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones forbidding dispute. "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages germinating in heaven certainly got off on the w...