Many men were in debt to the trader at Flambeau, and many counted
him as a friend. The latter never reasoned why, except that he had
done them favors, and in the North that counts for much. Perhaps
they built likewise upon the fact that he was ever the same to all,
and that, in days of pl ...
Room service at the Ajax is of a quality befitting the newest, the
largest, and the most expensive hotel in Dallas. While the
standard of excellence is uniformly high, nevertheless some extra
care usually attaches to a breakfast ordered from the Governor's
suite--most elegant and most exp ...
Four cowboys inclined their bodies over the barbed-wire fence
which marked the dividing-line between the Centipede Ranch and
their own, staring mournfully into a summer night such as only
the far southwestern country knows. Big yellow stars hung thick
and low-so low that it seemed they mi ...
A fitful breeze played among the mesquite bushes. The naked earth,
where it showed between the clumps of grass, was baked plaster
hard. It burned like hot slag, and except for a panting lizard
here and there, or a dust-gray jack-rabbit, startled from its
covert, nothing animate stirred up ...
It was a crisp November night. The artificial brilliance of
Broadway was rivalled by a glorious moonlit sky. The first autumn
frost was in the air, and on the side-streets long rows of
taxicabs were standing, their motors blanketed, their chauffeurs
threshing their arms to rout the cold. ...
The train from Palermo was late. Already long, shadowy fingers were
reaching down the valleys across which the railroad track meandered.
Far to the left, out of an opalescent sea, rose the fairy-like Lipari
Islands, and in the farthest distance Stromboli lifted its smoking
cone above the ...
In all probability your first view of the valley of the Yumuri
will be from the Hermitage of Montserrate, for it is there that
the cocheros drive you. Up the winding road they take you, with
the bay at your back and the gorge at your right, to the crest of
a narrow ridge where the chapel ...
The trail to Kalvik leads down from the northward mountains over the
tundra which flanks the tide flats, then creeps out upon the salt ice of
the river and across to the village. It boasts no travel in summer, but by
winter an occasional toil-worn traveller may be seen issuing forth from
...
Billings rode in from the Junction about dusk, and ate his supper in
silence. He'd been East for sixty days, and, although there lurked
about him the hint of unwonted ventures, etiquette forbade its
mention. You see, in our country, that which a man gives voluntarily
is ofttimes later d ...
Those marks on my arm? Oh! I got 'em playin' horse-thief. Yes,
playin'. I wasn't a real one, you know--Well, I s'pose it was sort
of a queer game. Came near bein' my last too, and if Black Hawk
hadn't been the best horse in Texas the old Colonel would've killed
me sure. He chased me ...
Why he chose Buffalo Paul Anderson never knew, unless perhaps it
had more newspapers than Bay City, Michigan, and because his ticket
expired in the vicinity of Buffalo. For that matter, why he should
have given up an easy job as the mate of a tugboat to enter the
tortuous paths of journal ...
"The science of salesmanship is quite as exact as the science of
astronomy," said Mr. Gross, casting his eyes down the table to see
that he had the attention of the other boarders, "and much more
intricate. The successful salesman is as much an artist in his line as
the man who paints pic ...
Mr. William Hyde was discharged from Deer Lodge Penitentiary a changed
man. That was quite in line with the accepted theory of criminal
jurisprudence, the warden's discipline, and the chaplain's prayers.
Yes, Mr. Hyde was changed, and the change had bitten deep; his
humorous contempt for ...
The last place I locked wheels with Mike Butters was in Idaho. I'd
just sold a silver-lead prospect and was proclaimin' my prosperity
with soundin' brass and ticklin' symbols. I was tuned up to G and
singin' quartettes with the bartender--opery buffet, so to speak--when
in Mike walked. It ...
Bill had finished panning the concentrates from our last clean-up,
and now the silver ball of amalgam sizzled and fried on the shovel
over the little chip-fire, while we smoked in the sun before the
cabin. Removed from the salivating fumes of the quicksilver, we
watched the yellow tint g ...
Big George was drinking, and the activities of the little Arctic
mining camp were paralysed. Events invariably ceased their progress
and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of
public consequence stirred except the quicksilver, which was retiring
fearfully into its b ...
It had snowed during the night, but toward morning it had grown cold;
now the sled-runners complained and the load dragged heavily. Folsom,
who had been heaving at the handle-bars all the way up the Dexter
Creek hill, halted his dogs at the crest and dropped upon the sled,
only too glad o ...
"Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones
forbidding dispute. "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages
germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot. He meant
pardnerships. The same works ain't got capacity for both, no more'n
you can build a sp ...
On his way down-town Phillips stopped at a Subway news-stand and
bought all the morning papers. He acknowledged that he was vastly
excited. As he turned in at the stage door he thrilled at sight of
the big electric sign over the theater, pallid now in the morning
sunshine, but symbolizing ...
Up from the valley below came the throb of war drums, the faint rattle
of shots, and the distant cries of painted horsemen charging. From
my vantage-point on the ridge I had an unobstructed view of the
encampment, a great circle of tepees and tents three miles in
circumference, cradled in ...
Coming down coast from the Kotzebue country they stumbled onto the
little camp in the early winter, and as there was food a plenty, of
its kind, whereas they had subsisted for some days on puree of seal
oil and short ribs of dog, Captain and Big George decided to winter.
A maxim of the no ...
Bailey smoked morosely as he scanned the dusty trail leading down
across the "bottom" and away over the dry grey prairie toward the
hazy mountains in the west.
Pierre "Feroce" showed disapproval in his every attitude as plainly as
disgust peered from the seams in his dark face; it lurked in his scowl
and in the curl of his long rawhide that bit among the sled dogs. So
at least thought Willard, as he clung to the swinging sledge.
The storm broke at Salmon Lake, and we ran for Slisco's road-house.
It whipped out from the mountains, all tore into strips coming
through the saw-teeth, lashing us off the glare ice and driving us up
against the river banks among the willows. Cold? Well, some! My
bottle of painkiller ...
The Mission House at Togiak stands forlornly on a wind-swept Alaskan
spit, while huddled around it a swarm of dirt-covered "igloos" grovel
in an ecstacy of abasement.
Louis Mitchell knew what the telegram meant, even though it was brief
and cryptic. He had been expecting something of the sort ever since
the bottom dropped out of the steel business and prices tobogganed
forty dollars a ton. Nevertheless, it came as an undeniable shock, for
he had hoped ...
This is the tale of a wrong that rankled and a great revenge. It is
not a moral story, nor yet, measured by the modern money code, is it
what could be called immoral. It is merely a tale of sharp wits
which clashed in pursuit of business, therefore let it be considered
unmoral, a word wit ...