Fiction Books

HOW THE LAW GOT INTO THE CHAPARRAL "You have heard about the Texas Rangers?" said the Deacon to me one night in the San Antonio Club. "Yes? Well, come up to my rooms, and I will introduce you to one of the old originals—dates 'way back in the 'thirties'—there aren't many of them left now—and if we can get him to talk, he will tell you stories that will make your... more...

I. Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, What country should we give her? Instead of any on the earth, The civic Heavens receive her. II. And here among the English tombs In Tuscan ground we lay her, While the blue Tuscan sky endomes Our English words of prayer. III. A little child!—how long she lived, By months, not years, is reckoned: Born in one July, she survived Alone to see a second. IV.... more...

OVERWORK AND RECREATION—OUTING AND OUTERS HOW TO DO IT, AND WHY THEY MISS IT t does not need that Herbert Spencer should cross the ocean to tell us that we are an overworked nation; that our hair turns gray ten years earlier than the Englishman's; or, "that we have had somewhat too much of the gospel of work," and, "it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation." It is all... more...

There is no country where there are so many people asking what is "proper to do," or, indeed, where there are so many genuinely anxious to do the proper thing, as in the vast conglomerate which we call the United States of America. The newness of our country is perpetually renewed by the sudden making of fortunes, and by the absence of a hereditary, reigning set. There is no aristocracy here... more...

CHAPTER ONE Allan Finds A Champion "I cannot carry your message, Sir Knight." Quiet-spoken was the lad, though his heart held a moment's fear as, scowling and menacing, the knight who sat so easily the large horse, flamed fury at his refusal. "And why can you not? It is no idle play, boy, to flaunt SirPellimore. Brave knights have found the truth of this at bitter cost."... more...

CHAPTER I.HOW I FIRST MET WITH CAPTAIN COFFIN.It was in the dusk of a July evening of the year 1813 (July 27, to be precise) that on my way back from the mail-coach office, Falmouth, to Mr. Stimcoe's Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen, No. 7, Delamere Terrace, I first met Captain Coffin as he came, drunk and cursing, up the Market Strand, with a rabble of children at his heels. I have reason to... more...

CHAPTER I CHEROKEE WARFARE It has been said by certain historians that, after the American War of Independence, British agents were employed not only to poison the minds of those Siouan and Iroquoian tribes that dwelt on the United States side of the Boundary, but even to keep them supplied with rifles and ammunition. Be that as it may, it is certainly a fact that, in 1793, the Cherokee and Seneca... more...

Preface. The story of the war in which the power of the great Mahratta confederacy was broken is one of the most stirring pages of the campaigns which, begun by Clive, ended in the firm establishment of our great empire in the Indian Peninsula. When the struggle began, the Mahrattas were masters of no small portion of India; their territory comprising the whole country between Bombay and Delhi, and... more...

CHAPTER I. "May a thunderbolt strike you!" The imprecation suited the rough fellow who uttered it. He had pointed out of doors as he spoke, and scarcely lowered the strange tones of his voice, yet of all the rabble who surrounded him only two persons understood his meaning—a fading, sickly girl, and the red-haired woman, only a few years her senior, who led the swearing man by a chain, like a... more...

I. THE TASTE OF THE MEAT In the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By the time he was at college he had become Chris Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd of San Francisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he was known by no other name than Smoke Bellew. And this history of the evolution of his name is the history of his evolution. Nor would it have happened had he not had a fond mother and an... more...