Classics Books

BOUND FOR THE FORT. "How many miles have we still to ride, Benson?" "About fifty, Joe. But the last half is pretty much uphill, lad." "Can we make the fort by to-morrow night?" "Well, we can try," answered the old scout, who sat astride of a coal-black horse and rode slightly in advance of his two youthful companions. "It will depend somewhat on what the weather... more...

CHAPTER I OUT FOR PRACTICE "Oh, what a splendid kick!" The yellow pigskin football went whizzing through the air, turning over and over in its erratic flight. "Wow! Look at old Sorreltop run, will you?" "He's bound to get under it, too. That's going some, fellows! Oh, shucks!" "Ha! ha! a fumble and a muff, after all! That's too bad, after such a great gallop.... more...

CHAPTER I It was the last of May in the north of England, in the year 1209. A very different England from what any boy of to-day has seen. A chilly east wind was blowing. The trees of the vast forests were all in leaf but the ash trees, and they were unfolding their buds. And along a bridle-path a few miles southwest of York a lad of fourteen was riding, while behind him followed a handsome deerhound.... more...

THE HEALTHFULNESS OF SINGING. The boy's voice, though an immature organ of delicate structure, is capable of much work, providing only that its mechanism be rightly used and not forced. Some people are unnecessarily nervous about boys; as a rule, under competent guidance, they will get nothing but good from vocal work. A cathedral organist wrote to me the other day:— "Our best solo boy, who... more...

AUTHOR'S NOTE. Captain Mayne Reid is pleased to have had the help of an American Author in preparing for publication this story of "The Boy Slaves," and takes the present opportunity of acknowledging that help, which has kindly extended beyond matters of merely external form, to points of narrative and composition, which are here embodied with the result of his own labor. The Rancho,... more...

CHAPTER I THE HAUNTED MAKE-BELIEVE "CASTLE." It was about the middle of a fall afternoon, and Friday at that, when five well-grown lads, clad in faded khaki suits that proclaimed them to be Boy Scouts, dropped down upon a moss covered log near a cold spring at which they had just quenched their thirst. The one who acted as leader, and to whom the others often deferred, answered to the name of... more...

CHAPTER I A MONKEY TRICK "I think—" began a tall, slenderly-built lad of sixteen, speaking in a somewhat indolent way; then suddenly he paused to look down through the trees to where the river gleamed below. "What's on your mind now, Rand?" his companion queried, a boy of about the same age, nearly as tall, but more stoutly built, and as light in complexion as the other was dark.... more...

CHAPTER I OVER THE DAM Three boys stood impatiently kicking the dew off the tall grass in Ring's back yard, only pausing from their scanning of the beclouded, dawn-hinting sky to peer through the lightening dusk toward the clump of cedars that hid the Fulton house. "He's not up yet, or there'd be a light showing," grumbled the short, stocky one of the three.... more...

CHAPTER I THE GOLDEN FEATHER "This was a pretty fair catch, for a change," thought Ralph Kenyon, as he tied the limp animal to his pack-saddle, and reset the trap, hoping next time to catch the dead mink's larger mate. He ran a quick, appraising eye over the load slung across Keno's broad back. "Pretty good, eh, old boy?" he added aloud, stroking the velvety nose of his dumb... more...

CHAPTER I THE MYSTERIOUS STEAMER In the wake of an easterly squall the sloop Arrow, Lemuel Vinton master and owner, was making her way along the low coast, southward, from Snipe Point, one of the islands in Florida Bay about twelve miles northeast of Key West. With every sail closehauled and drawing until the bolt ropes creaked under the strain, the Arrow laid a fairly straight course toward Key West.... more...