Hope Hathaway: A Story of Western Ranch Life

The three months' school had begun in earnest. Each day Hope found new interest in her small class and in her surroundings. She readily learned to dispense with all the comforts...

In a short time the horses were saddled and the two girls dashed past the stable buildings and the rough assortment of men who stood silently about, past their watchful, alert e...

Captain Bill Henry, foreman of the Bar O outfit, and head by choice of the season's round up, had just ridden into camp. Most of the men were in the cook-tent when he turned his...

Hathaway's home-ranch spread itself miles over an open valley on the upper Missouri. As far as the eye reached not a fence could be seen, yet four barbed-wires, stretched upon g...

"I wish there was a shorter cut to get home," said the girl wearily. "I'm just about tired. Climbing mountains is a little out of my line. I wonder how long it will take to get...

They met Livingston and his charge just as they reached the dimly marked trail that led up a gulch toward Sydney's camp. At the invitation extended for dinner the sheep-man drov...

Upon the highest ridge between the camp and old Peter's basin Hope and the twins met Ned riding slowly along, his sturdy little legs drawn up into the straps of a man's saddle....

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day. School had been dismissed and the dozen children of various sizes were straggling homeward. Hope stood beside her horse pat...

"Left 'bout noon," replied McCullen. "No, he ain't tired; ain't even warm, be you, old man? Just jogged along easy all the way an' took my time. No great rush, anyhow. Cattle 'r...

It seemed an interminable time to Hope, although it was in reality less than an hour, before the breathing of the two sleepers assured her that she could leave the tent in safety.

At six o'clock on this afternoon in May the sun was still high above the mountain tops. By the time Edward Livingston reached his ranch buildings and saddled his horse to go to...

Late one afternoon during the following week Livingston drove up to Harris' ranch and helped from his buggy a small, fair-haired girl who looked with wonderment at the squalid l...

Hope's anxiety to reach the ranch could not have been great, for she walked slowly along the dark, gray stretch of road, vaguely dreaming the while, and offering excuses to hers...

It was fully half a mile to Livingston's house. The trail showed plainly in the moonlight, winding in ghostly fashion through thick underbrush, and crossed in several places by...

Livingston stood alone beside the fresh mound, hatless, with head bowed in deep meditation. His men had returned to their respective duties, having shown their last kindness tow...

"That's a little example I'll let you work out for yourself," replied his teacher. "You're awfully stupid in arithmetic, Dave, and it's too bad, for in cases of coyotes' bounty...

Clarice, still hysterical, only sobbed and was quite incoherent in her explanation. Hope looked stern, as though facing an unpleasant problem which baffled her for the time. Lou...

"I'll tell you what I'd do 'bout it, if I was you," said Shorty Smith to the twins, several days later, as he handed back a folded sheet of paper. "I'd git your teacher to read...

Larry O'Hara rode up to Sydney's camp late one afternoon, some two or three weeks later, and finding the place deserted went in the cook-tent and made himself at home. It had be...

"It is a long road," observed Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "I had no idea it was so far. So these are the foot-hills of the mountains. Is this Harris place very much farther?"

She stood up, listening. From the distance came the low rumble of a wagon. The men were returning. For some time she kept her face from him, in attitude intent upon the distant...

"You bad girl," cried Clarice Van Rensselaer from the table, "why did you run away? See this nice dinner spoiling for you! I've regained my good nature, which is lucky for you,...

A group composed principally of cowboys, squaw-men, and breeds squatted and lounged outside of Joe Harris' house. Numerous tousley-headed boys, with worn overalls and bare feet,...

In the cool of evening, between dark and moonrise, the time when night is blackest, and shadows hang like a pall over mountain top and crag, a small group of men might have been...

"Don't let him know you think so," returned Hope. "He's spoiled badly enough now." She turned to the man who rode on her opposite side. "He's from the ranch--one of the guests f...

"I thought," she said, "you never visited the Grandons, Clarice, particularly since Harriet made her alliance with the titleless duke." Mrs. Van Rensselaer smiled behind the lac...

Upon the slope of a great grass-covered hill, among other hills, larger and grass-covered also, stood a small log school-house. A hundred yards away, between this isolated build...

All the small ranchers and disreputable stragglers about that immediate vicinity were of one opinion in regard to the new sheep-man. This particular section of the country promi...

"You must think me rude," apologized Hope, entering the tent as quickly as she had left it, and seating herself directly beside Livingston. "I surely didn't intend to be gone so...

Then she knew that he was going straight into the very jaws of death. If it had been a trap set for him it could not have been any surer. In a sheep-shed far below, close to the...

goin' to make it a go. You see I 'lowed to meet her here when the round-up come 'round to these parts, but here's she's done run off to Canada with some o' her folks, and I ain'...