Historical Books

Preface Perhaps not unnaturally in certain details there is a slight confusion or divergence in the various works that recount the heroic deeds of Daniel Boone. The men of that day were making history rather than recording what they did. There is, however, a striking uniformity in all the records as to the simple faith and almost fatalistic conviction of Daniel Boone that he was called to be a... more...

CHAPTER IA BOUT AT SINGLESTICK "Get thee down, laddie, I tell thee." This injunction, given for the third time, and in a broad north-country dialect, came from the guard of the York and Newcastle coach, a strange new thing in England. A wonderful vehicle the York and Newcastle coach, covering the eighty-six long miles between the two towns in the space of two-and-thirty hours, and as yet an... more...

CHAPTER I It would soon be Christmas and Harry Kenton, at his desk in the Pendleton Academy, saw the snow falling heavily outside. The school stood on the skirt of the town, and the forest came down to the edge of the playing field. The great trees, oak and ash and elm, were clothed in white, and they stood out a vast and glittering tracery against the somber sky. The desk was of the old kind, intended... more...

CHAPTER I A CALL TO BATTLE "Come on now, ready with those smoke bombs! Where's the Confederate army, anyhow? And you Unionists, don't look as though you were going to rob an apple orchard! Suffering snakes, you're going into battle and you're going to lick the boots off the Johnnie Rebs! Look the part! Look the part! Now, then, what about the cannon? Got plenty of powder in... more...

CHAPTER I "We've made a proper mess of things this time!" ejaculated Ross Trefusis—"or rather I have." "It can't be helped," rejoined his chum, Vernon Haye. "We've done our level best to get her off. How long is it before the tide floats her?" "A matter of seven or eight hours, worse luck. You see, it was only half ebb when we landed." Ross bent... more...

CHAPTER I A youth sat upon a log by a clear stream in the Valley of Virginia, mending clothes. He showed skill and rapidity in his homely task. A shining needle darted in and out of the gray cloth, and the rent that had seemed hopeless was being closed up with neatness and precision. No one derided him because he was engaged upon a task that was usually performed by women. The Army of Northern Virginia... more...

CHAPTER I The Settlers, and Whence They Came. There were five of them, all told; three boys and two men. I have mentioned the boys first because there were more of them, and we shall hear most from them before we have got through with this truthful tale. They lived in the town of Dixon, on the Rock River, in Lee County, Illinois. Look on the map, and you will find this place at a point where the... more...

CHAPTER I. FATE AND A RUSTY NAIL. On such an afternoon, when all the rest of the world lay in the fierce glare of the scorching sun, who could blame the children for choosing to perch themselves on the old garden wall, where it was so cool, and shady, and enticing? And who, as Kitty often asked tragically in the days and weeks that followed, could have known that by doing so "they were altering... more...

FOREWORD On a cold January morning of 1848, James Wilson Marshall picked up two yellow bits of metal, about the size and the shape of split peas, from the tail-race of the sawmill he was building on the South Fork of the American River, some forty-five miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, now Sacramento City. These two yellow pellets proved to be gold; and soon it was discovered that all the region... more...

CHAPTER I THE EYE OF THE FLEET The fleet of boats and canoes bearing supplies for the far east turned from the Mississippi into the wide mouth of the Ohio, and it seemed, for a time, that they had come into a larger river instead of a tributary. The splendid stream, called by the Indians "The Beautiful River," flowed silently, a huge flood between high banks, and there was not one among the... more...