Westerns Books

CHAPTER I FRONTIER DAY Lefever, if there was a table in the room, could never be got to sit on a chair; and being rotund he sat preferably sidewise on the edge of the table. One of his small feet––his feet were encased in tight, high-heeled, ill-fitting horsemen’s boots––usually rested on the floor, the other swung at the end of his stubby leg slowly in the air. This idiosyncrasy his... more...

CHAPTER I A GENTLEMAN RANKER Dan McLagan shifted his cigar, and his face lit with a grin of satisfaction. “Seventy-five per cent, of calves,” he murmured, glancing out at the sunlit yards. “Say, it’s been an elegant round-up.” Then his enthusiasm rose and found expression. “It’s the finest, luckiest ranch in Montana––in the country. Guess I’d be within my rights if I said ‘in the... more...

WILLIAM BACON'S MAN I The yellow March sun lay powerfully on the bare Iowa prairie, where the ploughed fields were already turning warm and brown, and only here and there in a corner or on the north side of the fence did the sullen drifts remain, and they were so dark and low that they hardly appeared to break the mellow brown of the fields. There passed also an occasional flock of geese, cheerful... more...

THE LINE-RIDER Day was breaking in the Panhandle. The line-rider finished his breakfast of buffalo-hump, coffee, and biscuits. He had eaten heartily, for it would be long after sunset before he touched food again. Cheerfully and tunelessly he warbled a cowboy ditty as he packed his supplies and prepared to go. "Oh, it's bacon and beans most every day,I'd as lief be eatin' prairie... more...

THE PACE Young Carmody awoke to the realization of another day. The sun of mid-forenoon cast a golden rhombus on the thick carpet, and through the open windows the autumnal air, stirred by just the suspicion of a breeze, was wafted deliciously cool against his burning cheeks and throbbing temples. He gazed about the familiar confines of the room in puffy-eyed stupidity. There was a burning thirst at... more...

CHAPTER I Night had fallen and a warm rain drifting down from the mountains hung in a mist over the railroad yards and obscured the lights of Medicine Bend. Two men dismounting from their drooping horses at the foot of Front Street threw the reins to a man in waiting and made their way on foot across the muddy square to the building which served the new railroad as a station and as division... more...

CHAPTER I DEEP CAÑON The hunter was riding leisurely up the steep mountain side above Dry Mesa. On such an ascent most city men would have preferred to climb afoot. But there was a month’s layer of tan on the hunter’s handsome, supercilious face. He balanced himself lightly on his flat English saddle, and permitted the wiry little cow pony to pick the best path over the ledges and up the stiff... more...

The Road Through the San Fernando Valley, toward the hills of Calabasas runs that old road, El Camino Real of the early Mission days. And now replicas of old Mission bells, each suspended in solitary dignity from a rusted iron rod, mark intervals along the dusty way, once a narrow trail worn by the patient feet of that gentle and great padre, Junípero Serra,—a trail from the San Gabriel Valley... 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...