Justin Wingate, Ranchman

The fire ravaged a large part of the mesa range. In the valley it did small damage, for the farmers checked it there by flooding the canals and laterals with the water they had...

Lucy Davison was seldom absent from Justin’s mind; and he was thinking of her as he drove to town to make some purchases for Pearl, who, though married, was still the housekeepe...

At a late hour that same evening a messenger handed Justin a note. It was from Sibyl. She was waiting for him in the lobby, and had a carriage in the street.

The conflicting interests had so shaped themselves before Justin went to Denver that he knew it would be impossible for him to vote on certain questions with the representatives...

In his room at the hotel, Justin re-read that little memorandum book many times that night, and tried to accommodate his mind to its new environment. It was a difficult task. Bu...

As the photograph wagon was halted at the gate which led to the ranch house grounds Lucy Davison spoke to Justin, from the rear of the wagon. Her tones were solicitous, and anxi...

The feeling which hallowed the mere local surroundings of love held its place tenaciously in Justin’s heart and seemed not likely to pass away. It was no sickly sentimentality,...

Before swinging out of the saddle in front of the little school house which was serving as a church, Curtis Clayton, physician and philosopher, looked over the valley which held...

Mary Jasper did not know that she went to Denver because she had read Pearl Newcome’s romances; but so it was. She was in love with Ben, and expected to become his wife by and b...

“So steady and firm, leaning low to the mane, With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein, Rode we on; Reaching low, breathing loud, as a creviced wind blows; Yet we spo...

Harkness and Clayton had come to Denver; Clayton to “hold up the hands” of Justin, guessing what he would be called on to encounter, and Harkness to see the “sights” in this tim...

Clayton was standing idly in front of his hotel. Sibyl Dudley and Mary Jasper were driving by in the cool bright sunshine of the late afternoon. Sibyl glanced keenly at the well...

Though Justin Wingate was no longer connected with the Davison ranch he was not the less concerned when he beheld the sudden flare of flame near the head of the cañon and the cl...

Justin had found Sloan Jasper one of the most troublesome of the water users. Jasper was almost as hard to please as William Sanders; and only the day before Sanders had denounc...

When jack-screws and moving teams had done their work in the town of Paradise but one house remained, the minister’s, and that only because Curtis Clayton had purchased it and m...

On her way home for a brief visit at the close of the summer, which she had spent in the East, Lucy Davison stopped in Denver, to visit Mary Jasper, from whom she had received g...

The result of this quarrel was that Justin was banished temporarily from the ranch, though it was not assigned as the reason for his exile. Fogg had been forced to take a flock...

The next morning Justin rode over to the ranch house to see Lucy. He desired to know how she felt about his sudden elevation, by which Ben had been thrust down. Near the crossin...

Among those who were first to welcome Justin on his return to Paradise Valley were Steve and Pearl Harkness. They came to Clayton’s with their little daughter, of whom they were...

She was mounted on a spirited bay horse, which she had obtained in the town, and was riding out to make a call on Mary Jasper. She drew her horse in, when she beheld Clayton, an...

Lemuel Fogg was very much astonished when he received a call from Sibyl Dudley, who invaded the privacy of his room without taking the trouble to announce her coming. Fogg did n...

The knowledge of why Mary had returned so suddenly came first to Justin through Sloan Jasper himself. Jasper met Justin as he rode along the trail the next day, and told him all...

Justin Wingate tip-toed softly to and fro in front of the improvised book shelves and looked at the formidable array of books which, together with some furniture, had arrived fo...

Lemuel Fogg made other visits to Paradise Valley, as the seasons came and went, and Justin learned to look forward with pleasure to his coming. Always he stayed over night, and...

Philip Davison saw Lucy before she returned to Paradise Valley and learned from her the strange story which had been told by William Sanders. From Fogg and others he had already...

The colony from the East had been established, and the harnessed water was doing the will of man. At the head of the valley, where the cultivated fields began to widen into a gr...

Philip Davison, conveyed to his home in Paradise Valley, hovered between life and death, attended by Doctor Clayton and waited upon by Lucy and Justin. Fogg lent a hand with hea...

Justin shot up into a tall youth; he was beginning to feel that he was almost a man; and love had come to him, as naturally and simply as the bud changes into the flower. It flu...

The threatened rainstorm broke, bringing early night, as Justin reached home. Lemuel Fogg was at the ranch house with Davison. Fogg’s shining photograph wagon had been brought o...

Sibyl Dudley searched for both Curtis Clayton and William Sanders. When she could not find them, she reasoned that they had gone back to Paradise Valley, and sent them letters u...

One day there came, across the level lands, a wave of horsemen and hounds in a rabbit hunt, the baying of the dogs breaking sharply on the peaceful calm of the valley. Justin ru...

Philip Davison had an accession of strength after that and sat at his desk through the whole of one afternoon, thinking and writing. When Justin made his customary call in the m...

Coming one forenoon from the kitchen, where she had been instructing the new cook installed in the position Pearl had held so long, Lucy observed Justin walking in a dejected ma...

“I hope I shan’t see her,” said Clayton, nervously. He had received the news in his study, where he had been writing. Now he laid down his pen. “I hope it isn’t her intention to...

Justin was startled by the changes which had come to Paradise Valley in the closing weeks of his long isolation in the mountains. Steve Harkness and Pearl Newcome were married,...

He ceased to annoy Lucy Davison, and even in time affected to overlook the humiliation to which he felt Justin had subjected him; but deep in his heart he nursed both for Philip...

Justin made that call on Philip Davison in much trepidation, and broached the subject with stammering hesitation and flushed face. Davison was non-committal, until he had heard...

much what you are. So I do not see that I can blame you in all things, but I do blame you for the pig-headed obstinacy and foolishness you showed in Denver. You had a great oppo...

Making the rounds of the house one night before retiring, Lucy came upon Ben Davison rummaging through the desk in his father’s room. The drawers of the desk had been pulled out...