From the Valley of the Missing

One afternoon in late October four lean mules, with stringy muscles dragging over their bones, stretched long legs at the whirring of their master's whip. The canalman was a sho...

Five years later the _Monarch_ was drawn up to the east bank of the Erie Canal at Syracuse. It was past midnight, and with the exception of those on Lem Crabbe's scow the occupa...

As Eli Cronk said, Scraggy Peterson left her lonely squatter home two weeks before with no companion but her vicious black cat. The woman had intervals of sanity, and during tho...

On a fashionable street in Syracuse, Floyd Vandecar, district attorney of the city, lived in a new house, built to please the delicate fancies of his pretty wife. His career had...

The years went on, with the gap still left wide in the Vandecar household. As month after month passed and nothing was heard of her children, Mrs. Vandecar gradually gave up hop...

After eating his supper, Lon, sullen and moody, looked out upon the lake, reviewing in his mind the terrible revenge he was soon to complete. He took his pipe slowly from his po...

At three o'clock the next morning a boat left the lighthouse at the head of Cayuga Lake and was rowed toward the western shores. As before, two men and a boy were in it. The lad...

Horace Shellington, newly fledged attorney and counsellor-at-law, sat in his luxurious library, his feet cocked upon the desk in true bachelor fashion. He was apparently deep in...

Flea and Flukey Cronk, followed by the yellow dog, made their way farther and farther from Ithaca. They had left the university in the distance, when a dim streak of light warne...

For two weeks Flea and Flukey lived on the fat of the land. The country afforded them haystacks, and the brooks, clear water. The children were never happier than when Squeaky's...

Flukey was too ill, as he stumbled along, to dread the outcome of their act of theft. He realized only that a beautiful lady was leading Flea to a place where her hunger could b...

"He's so good--oh, so awful good--and he ain't never had no chance with Pappy Lon. If he gets well, we'll work together, and we won't steal nothin' ever no more."

During the next two weeks, while Flukey was fighting with death, and the great Shellington mansion was as silent as a tomb, Scraggy Peterson was tramping back to the squatter co...

Fledra Cronk's school days lengthened slowly into weeks. She was making rapid strides in English, and Miss Shellington's patience went far toward keeping her mind concentrated u...

A few seconds before, when Miss Shellington had entered the house, she had seen Everett's shadow on the drawing-room curtain; but for the moment her habitual concern for Floyd o...

The next week held unutterable pain for Flea, each twenty-four hours deepening her unhappiness more and more. She made no effort to talk with Shellington, nor did she mention he...

Lem Crabbe had cunningly planned to keep Scraggy under his eye and follow her to the hiding place of their son. He realized that the lad was a man now; but so much the better. H...

From the window of the drawing-room in his home Everett threw a glance into Sleepy Hollow and listened to the wind weeping its tale of death through the barren trees. The tall m...

After Everett's departure, Ann tripped into Floyd's room in a happier state of mind than had been hers for several days. It had been her habit to kneel beside the boy at night a...

When Fledra entered the breakfast room it was evident to both Ann and Horace that she had had no sleep. Dark rings had settled under her eyes. The girl had decided that Lon woul...

Horace set his teeth firmly as he closed the door, upon Cronk. Through the door window he saw the squatter take his lumbering way down the steps, and noticed that the man paused...

Not more than two weeks after Lon had demanded the twins from Horace, Everett Brimbecomb sat in his office, brooding over the shadow that had so suddenly darkened his life. The...

"I can't understand why Horace wants to keep those children indefinitely," said Governor Vandecar to his wife one evening. "It seems their own father has turned up and asked for...

Horace Shellington took a long breath as he entered his office one morning in the latter part of March. The blustering wind that had raged all night had almost subsided, and he...

To usher Everett into her home with the same fond heart as hitherto was more than Ann could do. Dearly as she loved him, much as she desired to be his wife, it was hard to pardo...

A letter went that night from Fledra Vandecar to her husband in Albany. It was written after the woman had paced her room for several hours in inexplicable disquietude and unres...

Everett Brimbecomb had become impatient. He missed his evenings with Ann, and was tortured with the thought that Horace was with Fledra. Every day made his hatred for his former...

"May I read it?" asked the lawyer indifferently. Then, as Lon nodded, he slipped the letter deftly from the finger-marked envelop and read the contents with a smile. "It's stron...

Fledra made no attempt to write her farewells until in the evening after she had looked her last upon Floyd, and Ann had seen her to bed. An hour passed before she got up softly...

When Fledra opened her eyes the next morning she could not at first realize where she was. When she did she rose from the bed fully dressed; for she had taken off none of her cl...

"I'd hoped, Floyd, dear," she said tremblingly, "that we were all going to be happy. You must be brave and help me, won't you? If you should become ill again, I think I should d...

When Horace ushered Brimbecomb into his home, so firm was his belief that the young lawyer had been instrumental in removing Fledra that he restrained himself with difficulty fr...

"I want you to pardon me, Floyd," she begged, "but that boy of ours insisted upon coming to see you. He would have come alone, had I refused to accompany him. Will you be kind t...

During the days of the passage through the Erie Canal, Fledra had remained on the deck of the scow when it was light. The spring days were beautiful, too beautiful to be in acco...

Cronk entered the scow sullenly and sat down. Lem was sitting at the table, bending over a tin basin in which he was washing his bitten fingers. The steel hook and its leather s...

A sudden jerk of the engine as it halted at the path that led to Lon's hut brought Brimbecomb to his feet, and he hurried from the car with muttered thanks and a substantial con...

Not more than half an hour after Everett had reached Sherwoods Lane, Governor Vandecar's train came to a halt at the same place, and the party, consisting of the governor, Ann S...

To Horace Shellington it seemed many hours before the small, jerky train that ran between Auburn and Ithaca drew into the latter city. In his eagerness to reach the squatter set...

She sent no glance at Ann, nor did she see Fledra shrinking in the corner. No thought came to her weak brain save of the two men at grips with death. She staggered forward with...