PREFACE In venturing to prepare this little volume for the eyes of the reading public, I am fully aware of the difficulties of the subject and the inadequacy of the expressions I have been able to employ, but I have made the attempt at the request of those who have found consolation in some of the thoughts herein embodied; and the messages left by others before they passed away, embolden me to hope... more...

CHAPTER I AN EXTINCT MOUNTAIN TRIBE The Sheep Eaters were a tribe of Indians that became extinct about fifty years ago, and what remaining history there is of this tribe is inscribed upon granite walls of rock in Wyoming and Montana, and in a few defiles and canyons, together with a few arrows and tepees remaining near Black Canyon, whose stream empties into the Big Horn River. Bald Mountain still... more...

ACT I SCENE I The curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large, modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn. Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table is set out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silver cigarette-box. It is past midnight. A fumbling is heard outside the door. It is opened suddenly; JACK BARTHWICK seems to fall into the room. He stands holding by... more...

It is generally conceded that the Grand Cañon of Arizona beggars description. I shall therefore endeavor to refrain from doing so. I realize that this is going to be a considerable contract. Nearly everybody, on taking a first look at the Grand Cañon, comes right out and admits its wonders are absolutely indescribable—and then proceeds to write anywhere from two thousand to fifty thousand words,... 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...

PROLOGUE Overture; forest sounds, roaring of lions, Christian hymn faintly. A jungle path. A lion's roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes from the jungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the jungle on three legs, holding up his right forepaw, in which a huge thorn sticks. He sits down and contemplates it. He licks it. He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scraping it along the... more...

The decade of the nineties in League history bids fair to surpass, in exciting events, that of every preceding series of years known in the annals of professional base ball. The decade in question began with the players' revolt in 1890 and was followed up by the secession of the old American Association, a fatal movement, which ended in the death of that organization in the winter of 1891-92; the... more...

THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. Having left Ashbourne in the evening, we stopped to change horses at Derby, and availed ourselves of a moment to enjoy the conversation of my countryman, Dr. Butter, then physician there. He was in great indignation because Lord Mountstuart's bill for a Scotch militia[1] had been lost. Dr. Johnson was as violent against it. 'I am glad, (said he,) that... more...

HANSEL AND GRETEL In a little cottage at the edge of a forest in Germany, lived Peter, a poor broom maker, and his wife Gertrude. They had two children, Hansel and Gretel. One day Hansel and Gretel were left alone at home. Their father had gone to the village to sell brooms. Their mother was away, too. The children were left busily at work. The boy was mending brooms, the girl knitting stockings. After... more...

EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON Once on a time there was a poor husbandman who had so many children that he hadn’t much of either food or clothing to give them. Pretty children they all were, but the prettiest was the youngest daughter, who was so lovely there was no end to her loveliness. So one day, ’twas on a Thursday evening late at the fall of the year, the weather was so wild and rough... more...