Ben Blair The Story of a Plainsman

Scotty Baker was not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden intruded into his range of vision....

How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. The sun was shining down as brightly...

Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it was very early in the morning. The...

Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by. Only the relentless sun and rain had fast...

Out on the street once more, Ben Blair looked about him as one awakening from a dream. From the darkened arch of a convenient doorway he watched the endless passing throng with...

The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day. Ben Blair was accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before the city proper was thoroughly awake. In t...

When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, stretched himself full-length upon the floo...

It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker awoke; and even then she did not at once rise. A physical listlessness, very unusual to her, lay upon her like...

Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the seventeenth of January--the ranchers did not soon forget the date--a warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tu...

Mr. Rankin moved back from a well-discussed table, and, the room being conveniently small, tilted his chair back against the wall. The protesting creak of the ill-glued joints u...

"And it seems mighty good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole months without a man about the hou...

Ten miles out on the prairies,--not lands plane as a table, as they are usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous amplitude--stood a rough shack, calle...

Within the Baker home three persons, a woman and two men, were sitting beside a well-discussed table in the perfect content that follows a good meal. Strange to say, in this fro...

The chance to sell his stock, ostensibly his reason for delaying departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had anticipated. Within a week after the hunt--in the...

Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is, alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man Friday," an undersized and very black...

Florence got her dogs promptly. They were two big mouse-colored grayhounds, with tails like rats and protruding ribs. They were named "Racer" and "Pacer," and were warranted by...

A distinct path, in places almost a beaten road, connected the Box R and the Baker ranches. Along it a tall slim youth was riding a buckskin pony. He was clean-shaven and clean-...

Late the same evening, in the billiard-room of the "Loungers Club" Clarence Sidwell met one Winston Hough, seemingly by chance, though in fact very much the reverse. Big and blo...

Clarence Sidwell--Chad, his friends called him--leaned farther back in the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his well-creased trousers so there might be no t...

Some men acquire involuntary prominence by being democratic amid aristocratic surroundings. Others, on the contrary, but with the same result, continue to live the life to which...

Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch cattle graze at the will of their o...

Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the eternal law of necessity,--the nec...

When Ben Blair again woke to consciousness the sunlight was pouring upon him steadily. He was in a strange bed in a strange room; and he looked about him perplexedly. Amid the u...

"Papa," said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, "let's go somewhere, away from folks, for a...

Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his establishment was the wildest, partook most o...

Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was putting things in readiness for breakfast...

"If you do," flamed Florence, "I'll never forgive you! You're--horrid, if you are my father. I--" She took refuge in tears. "Oh, you ought to be ashamed to treat your daughter so!"