It is now some generations since Josh Billings, Ned Buntline, and Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, intimate friends of Colonel William F. Cody, used to forgather in the office of Francis S. Smith, then proprietor of the New York Weekly. It was a dingy little office on Rose Street, New York, but the breath of the great outdoors stirred there when these old-timers got together. As a result of these... more...

CHAPTER I Willis Thornton Displays His Pluck Train No. 6 on the D. & P.W., two hours late at Limon, was rushing and jolting along over its rickety roadbed. The rain fell in torrents, the heavy peals of thunder seemed about to tear the car to pieces, the black and threatening clouds blotted out the landscape, and the passengers could hear nothing but the roar of the thunder and the rattle of the... more...

BUGLE BLASTS. To one who occupied a very small space in the War of the Rebellion—one who filled but a modest position among those who sought to protect the Nation’s honor and life—it is a matter of difficulty, if not hazard, to attempt to enlighten, or even entertain, such a body as that to whom this paper is addressed. Certainly no attempt will be made, in this case, to enlighten. If any thing... more...

I How the Territory Was Acquired In San Francisco in the early fifties, there was a house on the northeast corner of Stockton and Washington, of considerable architectural pretensions for the period, which was called the "Government Boarding House." The cause of this appellation was that the California senators and their families, a member of Congress and his wife, the United States marshal,... more...

The Ugly Flower Pots T was five o'clock in the afternoon. Miss Hunter, a tall, dignified-looking woman, was presiding at the afternoon tea-table in the drawing-room of Chatts Chase. Miss Amabel Hunter stood at the window in a rather muddy riding-habit, and she was speaking in her sharp, short tones to her twin sister Hester, who lay back in the depths of a large armchair, a novel open in her lap.... more...

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION Instructed in the autumn of 1912 to join the Bulgarian army, then mobilising for war against Turkey, as war correspondent for the London Morning Post, I made my preparations with the thought uppermost that I was going to a cut-throat country where massacre was the national sport and human life was regarded with no sentimental degree of respect. The Bulgarians, a generation ago,... more...

CHAPTER 1 It was the big central taproot which baffled them. They had hewed easily through the great side roots, large as branches, covered with soft brown bark; they had dug down and cut through the forest of tender small roots below; but when they had passed the main body of the stump and worked under it, they found that their hole around the trunk was not large enough in diameter to enable them to... more...

Castle Barfield, Heydon Hey, and Beacon Hargate form the three points of a triangle. Barfield is a parish of some pretensions; Heydon Hey is a village; Beacon Hargate is no more than a hamlet. There is not much that is picturesque in Beacon Hargate, or its neighbourhood. The Beacon Hill itself is as little like a hill as it well can be, and acquires what prominence it has by virtue of the extreme... more...

CHAPTER I LANDING AT HAVRE—TORTONI'S—FOLLOWTHE TRAM LINES—ORDERS FOR THE FRONT   Gliding up the Seine, on a transport crammed to the lid with troops, in the still, cold hours of a November morning, was my debut into the war. It was about 6 a.m. when our boat silently slipped along past the great wooden sheds, posts and complications of Havre Harbour. I had spent most of the twelve-hour trip... more...

STORY I BULLY AND BAWLY GO SWIMMING Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, there were two little frog boys who lived in a little pond near a nice big farm. It wasn’t very far from where Peetie and Jackie Bow-Wow, the puppy dogs, had their home, and the frogs’ house was right next door to the pen where Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble the ducks lived. There was Bully No-Tail, and his... more...