Westerns Books

CHAPTER I SUNDOWN IN ANTELOPE Sundown Slim, who had enjoyed the un-upholstered privacy of a box-car on his journey west from Albuquerque, awakened to realize that his conveyance was no longer an integral part of the local freight which had stopped at the town of Antelope, and which was now rumbling and grumbling across the Arizona mesas. He was mildly irritated by a management that gave its passengers... more...

CHAPTER ITHE ARRIVAL OF THE MAN If the passengers on the west-bound train that pulled up at the little red wooden station at Dry Bottom at the close of a June day in 18–, were interested in the young man bearing the two suit cases, they gave no evidence of it. True, they noted his departure; with casual glances they watched him as he stepped down upon the platform; but immediately they forgot his... 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...

PRELUDE Six little slates clattered into place, and six little figures stood erect between their benches. "Right! Turn!" said the master. "March! School is dismissed"; and six pairs of bare little legs twinkled along the aisle, across the well-worn threshold, down the big stone step, and into the dusty road, warm with the rays of the Indian summer sun. The master watched them from the... more...

A PROLOGUE The grey roadster purred up the driveway, and Alice Endicott thrust the "home edition" aside and hurried out onto the porch to greet her husband as he stepped around from the garage. "Did the deal go through?" she asked, as her eyes eagerly sought the eyes of the man who ascended the steps. "Yes, dear," laughed Endicott, "the deal went through. You see before you... 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...

CHAPTER I. TWO TROOPERS. "Ray, what would you do if some one were to leave you a fortune?" "Humph! Pay for the clothes I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country.... more...

CHAPTER I Hollister stood in the middle of his room, staring at the door without seeing the door, without seeing the bulky shadow his body cast on the wall in the pale glow of a single droplight. He was seeing everything and seeing nothing; acutely, quiveringly conscious and yet oblivious to his surroundings by reason of the poignancy of his thought. A feeling not far short of terror had folded itself... more...

CONCERNING MORALS There were fifty thousand acres within view of the ranchhouse—virgin grass land dotted with sage, running over a wide level, into little hills, and so on to an upland whose rise was so gradual that it could be seen only from a distance, best from the gallery of the ranchhouse. The first tang of autumn was in the sage-scented breeze that swept the county, and the tawny valley,... more...

The Last of Ten Thousand Under the rim of Shadow Mountain, embraced like a pearl of great price by the curve of Bonanza Point and the mined-out slope of Gold Hill, the deserted city of Keno lay brooding and silent in the sun. A dry, gusty wind, swooping down through the northern pass, slammed the great iron fire-doors that hung creaking from the stone bank building, caught up a cloud of sand and dirt... more...