Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE DEN OF DISGUISES As Johnny Thompson stood in the dark doorway of the gray stone court-yard he shivered. He was not cold, though this was Siberia—Vladivostok—and a late winter night. But he was excited. Before him, slipping, sliding, rolling over and over on the hard packed snow of the narrow street, two men were gripped in a life and death struggle. They had been struggling thus for... more...

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RED HAIRBranches Park,November 3. I wonder so much if it is amusing to be an adventuress, because that is evidently what I shall become now. I read in a book all about it; it is being nice looking and having nothing to live on, and getting a pleasant time out of life—and I intend to do that! I have certainly nothing to live on, for one cannot count £300 a year; and I am extremely pretty, and I know... more...

CHAPTER I DELLA SPEAKS HER MIND Della Wetherby tripped up the somewhat imposing steps of her sister's Commonwealth Avenue home and pressed an energetic finger against the electric-bell button. From the tip of her wing-trimmed hat to the toe of her low-heeled shoe she radiated health, capability, and alert decision. Even her voice, as she greeted the maid that opened the door, vibrated with the joy... more...

I There was no Burlingame in the Sixties, the Western Addition was a desert of sand dunes and the goats gambolled through the rocky gulches of Nob Hill. But San Francisco had its Rincon Hill and South Park, Howard and Fulsom and Harrison Streets, coldly aloof from the tumultuous hot heart of the City north of Market Street. In this residence section the sidewalks were also wooden and uneven and the... more...

Chapter I The Cañon Waring picketed his horse in a dim angle of the Agua Fria Cañon, spread his saddle-blanket to dry in the afternoon sun, and, climbing to a narrow ledge, surveyed the cañon from end to end with a pair of high-power glasses. He knew the men he sought would ride south. He was reasonably certain that they would not ride through the cañon in daylight. The natural trail through the... more...

Chester Pelton retracted his paunch as far as the breakfast seat would permit; the table, its advent preceded by a collection of mouth-watering aromas, slid noiselessly out of the pantry and clicked into place in front of him. "Everything all right, Miss Claire?" a voice floated out after it from beyond. "Anything else you want?" "Everything's just fine, Mrs. Harris,"... more...

I.  WHAT WAS SEEN FROM THE WINDOW OVERLOOKING THE DOWN In the days of high-waisted and muslin-gowned women, when the vast amount of soldiering going on in the country was a cause of much trembling to the sex, there lived in a village near the Wessex coast two ladies of good report, though unfortunately of limited means.  The elder was a Mrs. Martha Garland, a landscape-painter’s widow, and the... more...

CHAPTER 1 The Monkey and the Turtle. [2] One day a Monkey met a Turtle on the road, and asked, "Where are you going?" "I am going to find something to eat, for I have had no food for three whole days," said the Turtle. "I too am hungry," said the Monkey; "and since we are both hungry, let us go together and hunt food for our stomachs' sake." They soon became good... more...

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. The author of Fanny, Burns, Marco Bozzaris, etc., was born at Guilford in Connecticut, in August, 1795, and in his eighteenth year removed to the city of New-York. He evinced a taste for poetry and wrote verses at a very early period; but the oldest of his effusions I have seen are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and "Croaker & Co.," published in the... more...