Westerns Books

CHAPTER I All day the heavy train of sleepers had been climbing the long rise from the river—a monotonous stretch of treeless, short-grass plains reaching from the Missouri to the mountains. And now the train stopped again, almost noiselessly. Kate, with the impatience of girlish spirits tried by a long and tedious car journey, left her Pullman window and its continuous, one-tone picture, and walking... more...

THE LONESOME TRAIL PART ONE A man is very much like a horse. Once thoroughly frightened by something he meets on the road, he will invariably shy at the same place afterwards, until a wisely firm master leads him perforce to the spot and proves beyond all doubt that the danger is of his own imagining; after which he will throw up his head and deny that he ever was afraid—and be quite amusingly... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW. How many of us, I wonder, can look back over the misty, half-forgotten years and not see a few that stand out clear and golden, sharp-cut against the sky-line of memory? Years that we wish we could live again, so that we might revel in every full-blooded hour. For we so seldom get the proper focus on things until we look at them through the clarifying telescope of... more...

DON MANUEL INTRODUCES HIMSELF For hours Manuel Pesquiera had been rolling up the roof of the continent in an observation-car of the "Short Line." His train had wound in and out through a maze of bewildering scenery, and was at last dipping down into the basin of the famous gold camp. The alert black eyes of the young New Mexican wandered discontentedly over the raw ugliness of the camp. Towns... more...

CHAPTER I A MIGHTY LITTLE HUNTER It all commenced that bright November day of the Indian rabbit drive and hunt. The motley army of the Piute tribe was sweeping tremendously across a sage-brush valley of Nevada, their force two hundred braves in number. They marched abreast, some thirty yards apart, and formed a line that was more than two miles long. The spectacle presented was wonderful to see. Red,... more...

A PROLOGUE Exactly twenty minutes after young Benton dismounted from his big rangy black before the door of a low adobe saloon that fronted upon one of the narrow crooked streets of old Las Vegas, he glanced into the eyes of the thin-lipped croupier and laughed. "You've got 'em. Seventy-four good old Texas dollars." He held up a coin between his thumb and forefinger. "I've... more...

THE TRAGEDY Here was a small stream of water, bright, clear and cool, running its merry way among the tall pines, hurrying to the dense shade of the lower valley. The grass on its banks stood tall, lush and faintly odorous, fresh with the newly come springtime, delicately scented with the thickly strewn field flowers. The sunlight lay bright and warm over all; the sky was blue with a depth of colour... more...

CHAPTER I THE QUARRY "An Elephant of Rock, I have lain here in the desert for countless ages, watching, waiting. I wonder for what!" Musings of the Elephant. Little Jim sat at the quarry edge and dangled his legs over the derrick pit. The derrick was out of commission because once more the lift cable had parted. Big Jim Manning, Little Jim's father, was down in the pit with Tomasso, his... more...

CHAPTER I THE TRIP IN THE ERMINIE The “Erminie,” private car of “Railway Boss, Dan Ford,” stood side-tracked at Denver, and his guests within it were the happy people whom, some readers may remember, we left keeping a belated Christmas in the old adobe on the mesa, in southern California. To Dorothy, the trip thus far had been like a wonderful dream. “Just think, Alfy Babcock, of owning a... more...

CHAPTER I THE UNCONQUERED LAND Bones. Bones of dead buffalo, bones of dead horses, bones of dead men. The tribute exacted by the Kansas prairie: bones. A waste of bones, a sepulcher that did not hide its bones, but spread them, exulting in its treasures, to bleach and crumble under the stern sun upon its sterile wastes. Bones of deserted houses, skeletons of men's hopes sketched in the dimming... more...