AT SLEEPY CAT
Nothing in nature, not even the storm itself, is so cruel as the
beauty of the after calm. In the radiance of the sunshine next day de
Spain, delirious and muttering, was taken to the hospital at Sleepy
Cat. In an adjoining room lay Nan, moaning reproaches at those who
were torturing her reluctantly back to life. Day and night the doctors
worked over the three. The town, the division, the stagemen, and the
mountain-men watched the outcome of the struggle. From as far as
Medicine Bend railroad surgeons came to aid in the fight.
De Spain cost the most acute anxiety. The crux of the battle, after
the three lives were held safe, centred on the effort to save de
Spain's arm--the one he had chosen to lose, if he must lose one, when
he strapped it to the whiffletree. The day the surgeons agreed that if
his life were to be saved the arm must come off at the shoulder a
gloom fell on the community.
In a lifetime of years there can come to the greater part of us but a
few days, a few hours, sometimes no more than a single moment, to
show of what stuff we are really made. Such a crisis came that day to
Nan. Already she had been wheeled more than once into de Spain's room,
to sit where she could help to woo him back to life. The chief
surgeon, in the morning, told Nan of the decision. In her hospital bed
she rose bolt upright. "No!" she declared solemnly. "You shan't take
his arm off!"
The surgeon met her rebellion tactfully. But he told Nan, at last,
that de Spain must lose either his arm or his life. "No," she repeated
without hesitation and without blanching, "you shan't take off his
arm. He shan't lose his life."
The blood surged into her cheeks--better blood and redder than the
doctors had been able to bring there--such blood as de Spain alone
could call into them. Nan, with her nurse's help, dressed, joined de
Spain, and talked long and earnestly. The doctors, too, laid the
situation before him. When they asked him for his decision, he nodded
toward Nan. "She will tell you, gentlemen, what we'll do."
And Nan did tell them what the two who had most at stake in the
decision would do. Any man could have done as much as that. But Nan
did more. She set herself out to save the arm and patient both, and,
lest the doctors should change their tactics and move together on the
arm surreptitiously, Nan stayed night and day with de Spain, until he
was able to make such active use of either arm as to convince her that
he, and not the surgeons, would soon need the most watching.
Afterward when Nan, in some doubt, asked the chaplain whether she was
married or single, he obligingly offered to ratify and confirm the
desert ceremony.
This affair was the occasion for an extraordinary round-up at Sleepy
Cat. Two long-hostile elements--the stage and railroad men and the
Calabasas-Morgan Gap contingent of mountain-men, for once at least,
fraternized. Warrants were pigeonholed, suspicion suspended, side-arms
neglected in their scabbards. The fighting men of both camps, in the
presence of a ceremony that united de Spain and Nan Morgan, could not
but feel a generous elation. Each party considered that it was
contributing to the festivity in the bride and the groom the very best
each could boast, and no false note disturbed the harmony of the
notable day.
Gale Morgan, having given up the fight, had left the country.
Satterlee Morgan danced till all the platforms in town gave way. John
Lefever attended the groom, and Duke Morgan sternly, but without
compunction, gave the bride. From Medicine Bend, Farrell Kennedy
brought a notable company of de Spain's early associates for the
event. It included Whispering Smith, whose visit to Sleepy Cat on this
occasion was the first in years; George McCloud, who had come all the
way from Omaha to join his early comrades in arms; Wickwire, who had
lost none of his taciturn bluntness--and so many train-despatchers
that the service on the division was crippled for the entire day.
A great company of self-appointed retainers gathered together from
over all the country, rode behind the gayly decorated bridal-coach in
procession from the church to Jeffries's house, where the feasts had
been prepared. During the reception a modest man, dragged from an
obscure corner among the guests, was made to take his place next
Lefever on the receiving-line. It was Bob Scott, and he looked most
uncomfortable until he found a chance to slip unobserved back to the
side of the room where the distinguished Medicine Bend contingent,
together with McAlpin, Pardaloe, Elpaso, and Bull Page, slightly
unsteady, but extremely serious for the grave occasion, appeared
vastly uncomfortable together.
* * * * *
The railroad has not yet been built across the Sinks to Thief River.
But only those who lived in Sleepy Cat in its really wild stage days
are entitled to call themselves early settlers, or to tell stories
more or less authentic about what then happened. The greater number of
the Old Guard of that day, as cankering peace gradually reasserted
itself along the Sinks, turned from the stage coach to the railroad
coach; some of them may yet be met on the trains in the mountain
country. Wherever you happen to find such a one, he will tell you of
the days when Superintendent de Spain of the Western Division wore a
gun in the mountains and used it, when necessary, on his wife's
relations.
Whether it was this stern sense of discipline or not that endeared him
to the men, these old-timers are, to a man, very loyal to the young
couple who united in their marriage the two hostile mountain elements.
One in especial, a white-haired old man, described by the fanciful as
a retired outlaw, living yet on Nan's ranch in the Gap, always spends
his time in town at the de Spain home, where he takes great interest
in an active little boy, Morgan de Spain, who waits for his Uncle
Duke's coming, and digs into his pockets for rattles captured along
the trail from recent huge rattlesnakes. When his uncle happens to
kill a big one--one with twelve or thirteen rings and a button--Morgan
uses it to scare his younger sister, Nan. And Duke, secretly
rejoicing at his bravado, but scolding sharply, helps him adjust the
old ammunition-belt dragged from the attic, and cuts fresh gashes in
it to make it fit the childish waist. His mother doesn't like to see
her son in warlike equipment, ambushing little Nan in the way Bob
Scott says the Indians used to do. She threatens periodically to burn
the belt up and throw the old rifles out of the house. But when she
sees her uncle and her husband watching the boy and laughing at the
parade together, she relents. It is only children, after all, that
keep the world young.
NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
HANDSOMELY BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED.
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MAVERICKS.
A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler," whose depredations
are so keenly resented by the early settlers of the range, abounds.
One of the sweetest love stories ever told.
A TEXAS RANGER.
How a member of the most dauntless border police force carried law
into the mesquit, saved the life of an innocent man after a series of
thrilling adventures, followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed
through deadly peril to ultimate happiness.
WYOMING.
In this vivid story of the outdoor West the author has captured the
breezy charm of "cattleland," and brings out the turbid life of the
frontier with all its engaging dash and vigor.
RIDGWAY OF MONTANA.
The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where politics and
mining industries are the religion of the country. The political
contest, the love scene, and the fine character drawing give this
story great strength and charm.
BUCKY O'CONNOR.
Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with
the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and
absorbing fascination of style and plot.
CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT.
A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a
bitter feud between cattle-men and sheep-herders. The heroine is a
most unusual woman and her love story reaches a culmination that is
fittingly characteristic of the great free West.
BRAND BLOTTERS.
A story of the Cattle Range. This story brings out the turbid life of
the frontier, with all its engaging dash and vigor, with a charming
love interest running through its 320 pages.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
ZANE GREY'S NOVELS
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THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS
Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton.
Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent
Mexican border of the present day. A New York society girl buys a
ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys
defend her property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her
when she is captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to
a delightful close.
DESERT GOLD
Illustrated by Douglas Duer.
Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the
desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no
farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the
border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two
prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.
RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE
Illustrated by Douglas Duer.
A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon
authority ruled. In the persecution of Jane Withersteen, a rich ranch
owner, we are permitted to see the methods employed by the invisible
hand of the Mormon Church to break her will.
THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN
Illustrated with photograph reproductions.
This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones,
known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona
desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep
canons and giant pines." It is a fascinating story.
THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT
Jacket in color. Frontispiece.
This big human drama is played in the Painted Desert. A lovely girl,
who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New
Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall
become the second wife of one of the Mormons--
Well, that's the problem of this sensational, big selling story.
BETTY ZANE
Illustrated by Louis F. Grant.
This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful
young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. Life
along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the
beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the Fort, and Betty's
final race for life, make up this never-to-be-forgotten story.
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JACK LONDON'S NOVELS
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JOHN BARLEYCORN. Illustrated by H. T. Dunn.
This remarkable book is a record of the author's own amazing
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with alcohol from boyhood, comes out boldly against John Barleycorn.
It is a string of exciting adventures, yet it forcefully conveys an
unforgetable idea and makes a typical Jack London book.
THE VALLEY OF THE MOON. Frontispiece by George Harper.
The story opens in the city slums where Billy Roberts, teamster and
ex-prize fighter, and Saxon Brown, laundry worker, meet and love and
marry. They tramp from one end of California to the other, and in the
Valley of the Moon find the farm paradise that is to be their
salvation.
BURNING DAYLIGHT. Four illustrations.
The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations
of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes
to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and
recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a
merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking
and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in
love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and
then--but read the story!
A SON OF THE SUN. Illustrated by A. O. Fischer and C. W. Ashley.
David Grief was once a light-haired, blue-eyed youth who came from
England to the South Seas in search of adventure. Tanned like a native
and as lithe as a tiger, he became a real son of the sun. The life
appealed to him and he remained and became very wealthy.
THE CALL OF THE WILD. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles
Livingston Bull. Decorations by Charles E. Hooper.
A book of dog adventures as exciting as any man's exploits could be.
Here is excitement to stir the blood and here is picturesque color to
transport the reader to primitive scenes.
THE SEA WOLF. Illustrated by W. J. Aylward.
Told by a man whom Fate suddenly swings from his fastidious life into
the power of the brutal captain of a sealing schooner. A novel of
adventure warmed by a beautiful love episode that every reader will
hail with delight.
WHITE FANG. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.
"White Fang" is part dog, part wolf and all brute, living in the frozen
north; he gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship, and
surrenders all at the last in a fight with a bull dog. Thereafter he is
man's loving slave.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
THE INSIDE OF THE CUP. Illustrated by Howard Giles.
The Reverend John Hodder is called to a fashionable church in a
middle-western city. He knows little of modern problems and in his
theology is as orthodox as the rich men who control his church could
desire. But the facts of modern life are thrust upon him; an awakening
follows and in the end he works out a solution.
A FAR COUNTRY. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
This novel is concerned with big problems of the day. As _The Inside
of the Cup_ gets down to the essentials in its discussion of religion,
so _A Far Country_ deals in a story that is intense and dramatic, with
other vital issues confronting the twentieth century.
A MODERN CHRONICLE. Illustrated by J. H. Gardner Soper.
This, Mr. Churchill's first great presentation of the Eternal
Feminine, is throughout a profound study of a fascinating young
American woman. It is frankly a modern love story.
MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys.
A new England state is under the political domination of a railway and
Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes a moment when the cause of the people
is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, to further his own
interest in a political way. The daughter of the railway president
plays no small part in the situation.
THE CROSSING. Illustrated by S. Adamson and L. Baylis.
Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie, the blazing of the Kentucky
wilderness, the expedition of Clark and his handful of followers
in Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and
Mississippi, and the treasonable schemes against Washington.
CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn.
A deft blending of love and politics. A New Englander is the hero, a
crude man who rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then
surrendered all for the love of a woman.
THE CELEBRITY. An episode.
An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities
between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman. It is the purest,
keenest fun--and is American to the core.
THE CRISIS. Illustrated with scenes from the Photo-Play.
A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with
splendid power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that
are inspiring.
RICHARD CARVEL. Illustrated by Malcolm Frazer.
An historical novel which gives a real and vivid picture of Colonial
times, and is good, clean, spirited reading in all its phases and
interesting throughout.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER
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LADDIE.
Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The
story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family,
but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love
affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of
Laddie, the older brother whom Little Sister adores, and the Princess,
an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about
whose family there hangs a mystery. There is a wedding midway in the
book and a double wedding at the close.
THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who
draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If
the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it
would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and
the Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point of
life which has come to him--there begins a romance of the rarest
idyllic quality.
FRECKLES. Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which
he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs
to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The
Angel" are full of real sentiment.
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.
Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.
The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of
the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness
towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty
of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and
unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.
Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp.
The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The
story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love.
The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature,
and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
JOHN FOX, JR'S. STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall
tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of
the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail,
and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine
but the _foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely,
piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young
engineer a madder chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."
THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come."
It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which
often springs the flower of civilization.
"Chad," the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he
came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood,
seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and
mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming
waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in
the mountains.
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of
moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the
heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two
impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's"
charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in
the love making of the mountaineers.
Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some
of Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.
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MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS
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LAVENDER AND OLD LACE.
A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone
romance finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming
of love to the young people on the staff of a newspaper--and it is
one of the prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love
stories, * * * a rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception,
full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and
spontaneity.
A SPINNER IN THE SUN.
Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which
poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and
entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always
displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos
which give a touch of active realism to all her writings. In "A
Spinner in the Sun" she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled
lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never
seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it
the glamour of romance.
THE MASTER'S VIOLIN.
A love story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German
virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents
to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude
for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the
happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he
cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the
tragedies of life and all its happy phases as can the master who has
lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his life--a
beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her
heart and home, and through his passionate love for her, he learns the
lessons that life has to give--and his soul awakes.
Founded on a fact that all artists realize.
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CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS
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WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster.
Illustrated by C. D. Williams.
One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been
written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable
and thoroughly human.
JUST PATTY, By Jean Webster.
Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.
Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious
mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention
which is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.
THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, By Eleanor Gates.
With four full page illustrations.
This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children
whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess,
seldom seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and
tenderness. A charming play as dramatized by the author.
REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic,
unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of
austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal
dramatic record.
NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that
carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday.
REBECCA MARY, By Annie Hamilton Donnell.
Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green.
This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque
little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a
pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing.
EMMY LOU: Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin.
Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton.
Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real.
She is just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is
wonderfully human.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Nan of Music Mountain, by Frank H. Spearman