Fiction Books

Now in the nooning, with the sun high overhead and the shadows huddling dispiritedly at their sides, the threat that existed in this wild desert was completely invisible. The girl, Nora Martin, said, "What I don't understand is why we were so stupid as to come here in the first place. We could have stayed on Earth and had homes and families." Becoming conscious of what she had said, she... more...

CHAPTER ONE Mr. Baker, chief mate of the ship Narcissus, stepped in one stride out of his lighted cabin into the darkness of the quarter-deck. Above his head, on the break of the poop, the night-watchman rang a double stroke. It was nine o'clock. Mr. Baker, speaking up to the man above him, asked:—"Are all the hands aboard, Knowles?" The man limped down the ladder, then said... more...

CHAPTER I THE SCHOLAR At the age of six Randall Byrne could name and bound every state in the Union and give the date of its admission; at nine he was conversant with Homeric Greek and Caesar; at twelve he read Aristophanes with perfect understanding of the allusions of the day and divided his leisure between Ovid and Horace; at fifteen, wearied by the simplicity of Old English and Thirteenth Century... more...

I MIRDATH THE BEAUTIFUL     "And I cannot touch her face    And I cannot touch her hair,    And I kneel to empty shadows—    Just memories of her grace;    And her voice sings in the winds    And in the sobs of dawn    And among the flowers at night    And from the brooks at sunrise    And from the sea at sunset,    And I answer with vain callings …"... more...

CHAPTER 1 Any man who saw you, or even heard your footsteps must be ambushed, stalked and killed, whether needed for food or not. Otherwise, so long as his strength held out, he would be on your trail. —The Twenty-Fifth Hour, by Herbert Best I was one hundred miles from Nowhere—and I mean that literally—when I spotted this girl out of the corner of my eye. I'd been keeping an extra lookout... more...

THE NIGHT OPERATOR Toddles, in the beginning, wasn't exactly a railroad man—for several reasons. First, he wasn't a man at all; second, he wasn't, strictly speaking, on the company's pay roll; third, which is apparently irrelevant, everybody said he was a bad one; and fourth—because Hawkeye nicknamed him Toddles. Toddles had another name—Christopher Hyslop Hoogan—but Big... more...

THE NIGHT-BORN It was in the old Alta-Inyo Club—a warm night for San Francisco—and through the open windows, hushed and far, came the brawl of the streets. The talk had led on from the Graft Prosecution and the latest signs that the town was to be run wide open, down through all the grotesque sordidness and rottenness of man-hate and man-meanness, until the name of... more...

I THE PRINTERY That windy autumn noon the young girls of the hat factory darted out of the loft building and came running back with cans of coffee, and bags of candy, and packages of sandwiches and cakes. They frisked hilariously before the wind, with flying hair and sparkling eyes, and crowded into the narrow entrance with the grimy pressmen of the eighth floor. Over and over again the one frail... more...

THE NINTH VIBRATION There is a place uplifted nine thousand feet in purest air where one of the most ancient tracks in the world runs from India into Tibet. It leaves Simla of the Imperial councils by a stately road; it passes beyond, but now narrowing, climbing higher beside the khuds or steep drops to the precipitous valleys beneath, and the rumor of Simla grows distant and the way is quiet, for,... more...

Preface "Uncle, why don't you write the story of your life?" So says my nephew Tom to me when he comes in and finds me sitting in a brown study before a comfortable fire. I have finally granted his request, for I have spent many an hour in relating my thrilling adventures to him and am sure that he has enjoyed them and even profited by them. Thus have I been persuaded to write this little... more...