His Royal Nibs

Sitting in the sunlight on the wide steps of the ranch house, chin cupped in her hands, her glance far off across the mountain tops, her thoughts wandering over the seas that st...

Autumn came late to Alberta that year, and in the month of November, the cattle were still upon the range. The experienced cowman in Alberta is never deceived by the long sun-la...

She had called him a cheat--a coward! She had said that she never wished to see his face again! She had driven him from O Bar O. He had gone out of her life now forever.

Holy Smoke was strong as an ox and had the reputation of phenomenal deeds done “across the line,” where to use his own boasts “they did things brown.” It is true, he had come ha...

Holy Smoke rode in ahead with orders from Bully Bill for all hands finished riding to fall to and help at the branding and the dehorning. To each man was assigned some especial...

At this time, P. D. McPherson held the title of Champion Chess Player of Western Canada. He was, however, by no means proud or satisfied with this honourable title to chess fame.

The three on the verandah jumped. That crisp summons, that peculiar inflection meant but one thing. Chess! Sandy cast a swift agonized glance about him, seeking an immediate mod...

One there was at O Bar O who could not be reconciled to Cheerio. Hilda intuitively recognized the fact that this stranger on the ranch belonged to that “upper world” of which sh...

If the orders issued from headquarters (viz. P. D. McPherson) had been implicitly obeyed, the life of the newspaper man would have been most uncomfortable. Even as it was, he wa...

Purely by accident, the wall of reserve that Hilda had reared between herself and Cheerio was, for the nonce at least, removed. Sandy had desired to go over a certain cliff, inc...

A mighty panorama of golden hills swelled like waves on all sides and vanished into cloud-like outlines of yet higher hills that zigzagged across the horizon and merged in the w...

Along the Banff National Highway, automobiles sped by in a cloud of dust, heat, noise and odour. They stopped not to offer a lift to the wayfarer along the road, for they were i...

“Well, it ain’t a crime exactly, but--well, boss, I give him an easy job to do--a kid’s job--Sandy could a done it, and I’m switched if he didn’t double over and faint dead away...

“And they saw by the red flashes of the lightning against the violet fog at six paces behind the governor, a man clothed in black and masked by a visor of polished steel, solder...

The news fled like a prairie fire. From ranch to ranch, from the trading stores that dotted the foothill country, up to Banff, where P. D.’s packhorses were carrying the tourist...

There were eighteen hundred head of calves to be vaccinated, branded, dehorned and weaned. Over the widespreading hills and meadows the cattle poured in a long unbroken stream,...

P. D. McPherson, or “P. D.” as he was better known throughout the ranching country, owner of the O Bar O, was noted for his eccentricities, his scientific experiments with stock...

P. D. was taking his “cat-nap” that evening in his “office,” a room that opened off from the dining-room, where the old rancher kept his account books and other papers connected...

Of all the emotions, whether sublime or ridiculous, that obsess the victim of that curious malady of the heart which we call Love, none is more torturing or devastating in its e...

The shooting season was at hand. At frequent intervals along the fence lines of O Bar O, big square slabs of white enamelled wood were nailed to fence posts, bearing in great bl...

Sandy made three somersaults of glee on the turf, and at his last turn-over, his head came into contact with something hard. He rubbed said head, and at the same time observed t...

Several heads bent above typewriters raised long enough to call across a word of greeting. Charley Munns, City Editor of the Calgary _Blizzard_, his desk heaped high with an ama...

The morning’s mail (brought on horseback seven miles from Morley post-office by an Indian) contained a letter that P. D. had been waiting for all of that summer. It was brief an...

As a boy, Cheerio’s inability swiftly to explain or defend himself, had resulted in many unjust punishments. He was not stupid, but became easily confused, and with the best of...

Every night, after his dinner, P. D. would take what he termed a “cat-nap.” Not even chess interrupted these short dozes on the comfortable couch by the pleasantly-crackling log...

Hard as it is to build up a reputation in a cattle country, which has its own standards of criticism as everywhere else in the world, it is not difficult to lose that reputation...

“Say, Hilda, guess what I found to-day? I didn’t reckernize it at first until he said it was his. Viper rooted it up right under his window outside the bunkhouse. Well, I found...