There is a certain malady of the mind induced by too much of one
thing. Just as the body fed too long upon meat becomes a prey to
that horrid disease called scurvy, so the mind fed too long upon
monotony succumbs to the insidious mental ailment which the West
calls "cabin fever." True, it parad ...
In hot mid afternoon when the acrid, gray dust cloud kicked
up by the listless plodding of eight thousand cloven hoofs
formed the only blot on the hard blue above the Staked
Plains, an ox stumbled and fell awkwardly under his yoke, and
refused to scramble up when his negro driver shouted and
pr ...
The Happy Family, waiting for the Sunday supper call, were
grouped around the open door of the bunk-house, gossiping idly of
things purely local, when the Old Man returned from the Stock
Association at Helena; beside him on the buggy seat sat a
stranger. The Old Man pulled up at the bunk-house, ...
Progress is like the insidious change from youth to old age,
except that progress does not mean decay. The change that is
almost imperceptible and yet inexorable is much the same,
however. You will see a community apparently changeless as
the years pass by; and yet, when the years have gone and ...
"By George, look behind us! I fancy we are going to have a storm." Four
heads turned as if governed by one brain; four pairs of eyes, of varied
color and character, swept the wind-blown wilderness of tender green,
and gazed questioningly at the high-piled thunderheads above. A small
boy, with a ...
Old Applehead Furrman, jogging home across the mesa from Albuquerque, sniffed
the soft breeze that came from opal-tinted distances and felt poignantly that
spring was indeed here. The grass, thick and green in the sheltered places,
was fast painting all the higher ridges and foot-hill slopes, a ...
Without going into a deep, psychological discussion
of the elements in men's souls that breed
events, we may say with truth that the Lazy A ranch
was as other ranches in the smooth tenor of its life
until one day in June, when the finger of fate wrote
bold and black across the face of it the wo ...
A man is very much like a horse. Once thoroughly frightened by
something he meets on the road, he will invariably shy at the same
place afterwards, until a wisely firm master leads him perforce to the
spot and proves beyond all doubt that the danger is of his own
imagining; after which h ...
"What do you care, anyway?" asked Reeve-Howard philosophically.
"It isn't as if you depended on the work for a living. Why
worry over the fact that a mere pastime fails to be financially
a success. You don't need to write--"
"Rowdy" Vaughan--he had been christened Rowland by his mother, and
rechristened Rowdy by his cowboy friends, who are prone to treat with much
irreverence the names bestowed by mothers--was not happy. He stood in the
stirrups and shook off the thick layer of snow which clung, damp and
close-pack ...
Casey Ryan, hunched behind the wheel of a large, dark blue
touring car with a kinked front fender and the glass gone from
the left headlight, slid out from the halted traffic, shied
sharply away from a hysterically clanging street car, crossed the
path of a huge red truck coming in from his ri ...
The floor manager had just called out that it was "ladies' choice," and
Happy Jack, his eyes glued in rapturous apprehension upon the thin,
expressionless face of Annie Pilgreen, backed diffidently into a
corner. He hoped and he feared that she would discover him and lead
him out to danc ...
When came the famine in stock-cars on the Montana Central, and the
Flying U herd had grazed for two days within five miles of Dry Lake,
waiting for the promised train of empties, Chip Bennett, lately
promoted foreman, felt that he had trouble a-plenty. When,
short-handed as he was, two o ...
Happy Jack, coming from Dry Lake where he had been sent for the mail,
rode up to the Flying U camp just at dinner time and dismounted
gloomily and in silence. His horse looked fagged--which was unusual in
Happy's mounts unless there was urgent need of haste or he was out with
the rest of ...
Cal Emmett straightened up with his gloved hand pressed tight against
the small of his back, sighed "Hully Gee!" at the ache of his muscles
and went over to the water bucket and poured a quart or so of cool,
spring water down his parched throat. The sun blazed like a furnace
with the blo ...
There was a dead man's estate to be settled, over beyond the Bear Paws,
and several hundred head of cattle and horses had been sold to the
highest bidder, who was Chip Bennett, of the Flying U. Later, there
were the cattle and horses to be gathered and brought to the home
range; and Wear ...
It was four o'clock, and there was consternation in the round-up camp
of the Flying U; when one eats breakfast before dawn--July dawn at
that--covers thirty miles of rough country before eleven o'clock dinner
and as many more after, supper seems, for the time being, the most
important thi ...