Overland: A Novel

In those days, Santa Fé, New Mexico, was an undergrown, decrepit, out-at-elbows ancient hidalgo of a town, with not a scintillation of prosperity or grandeur about it, except th...

He said it with a pang at his heart, for if this adorable girl went to her grandfather, the old fellow would be sure to love her and leave her his property, in which case there...

That very day Coronado made a second call on Clara and her Aunt Maria, to retract, contradict, and disprove all that he had said in favor of the isthmus and against the overland...

It was reported that the audacious and savage Apache chieftain, Manga Colorada, or Red Sleeve, under pretence of wanting to make a treaty with the Americans, had approached with...

When Coronado regained a portion of the senses which had been throttled out of him, he discovered Texas Smith standing by his side, and two dead men lying near, all rather vague...

Weber, a sunburnt German, with sandy eyelashes, blue eyes, and a scar on his cheek, had been a soldier from his eighteenth to his thirtieth year, and wore the serious, patient,...

At the shout which Coronado uttered on seeing Texas Smith's pistol aimed at Thurstane, the assassin turned his head, discovered the train, and, lowering his weapon, rode peacefu...

Her first idea was that she must take him; that the mere fact of a man asking for her gave him a species of right over her; that there was no such thing possible as answering, N...

For the second time within a week, Texas Smith found himself upon the brink of opportunity, without being able (as he had phrased it to Coronado) to do what was right.

He thundered all this out as sternly as if he were commanding troops. Because he was a man, Clara obeyed him; and notwithstanding he was a man, Mrs. Stanley obeyed him. Both wer...

An hour before the attack Texas Smith had ridden off to stalk a deer; but the animal being in good racing condition in consequence of the thin fare of this sterile region, the h...

The Apaches were discouraged by the immovability of the train, and by the steady and deadly resistance of its defenders. From first to last some twenty-five or twenty-seven of t...

When the race for life and death commenced between the emigrants and the Apaches, it seemed as if the former would certainly be able to go two miles before the latter could cove...

Thurstane found the caravan in excellent condition, the mules being tethered at the reservoir half-way up the acclivity, and the wagons parked and guarded as usual, with Weber f...

But the visionary terror had scarcely gone when a real one came. Coronado appeared--Coronado, the descendant of the great Vasquez--Coronado, whom the Moquis would destroy if the...

It must be remembered that when Mrs. Stanley carried off skipper Glover to help her investigate the religion of the Moquis, she left Coronado alone with Clara in one of the inte...

Shortly after the safe arrival of the train at the base of the Moqui bluff, and while the repulsed and retreating warriors of Delgadito were still in sight two strange Indians c...

Yes, it was a life and death race between the emigrants and the Apaches for the San Juan. Positions of defence were all along the road, but not one of them could be held for a d...

The scene was like one of Doré's most extravagant designs of abysses and shadows. The gorge through which swept this silent flight and screaming chase was not more than two hund...

Yet so well disciplined was the soul of this veteran of twenty-three, and so thoroughly had he acquired the wise soldierly habit of wearing a mask of cheer over trouble, that he...

In the time-eaten wall Clara had found a fissure through which she could watch the parley between Thurstane and the Apaches. She climbed into it from a mound of disintegrated ad...

Although Thurstane did not perceive it, his question was answered the instant it was asked. The answer started like lightning from Clara's heart, trembled through all her veins,...

It must be remembered that, while a doorway of the Casa was five feet in depth, it was only four feet wide at the base and less than thirty inches at the top, so that it was som...

"What is the matter?" asked Clara at once, taking hold of his sleeve with the tips of her fingers, in a caressing, appealing way, which was common with her when talking to those...

He was in no alarm as yet. The line, although of rawhide, was switching on the surface of the rapid current; it seemed easy enough to recover it and make a new fastening. Passin...

Here had once been the barrier of a cataract; the waters had ground through it, tumbled it down, and gnawed it to tatters; the scattered bowlders which showed through the foam w...

As Thurstane approached the cataract of the San Juan he thought of the rapids above Niagara, and of the men who had been whirled down them, foreseeing their fate and struggling...

It seemed like a push of destiny rather than a step of volition. An angel or a demon impelled him into the unknown; a supernatural portal had opened to give him passage; then it...

When the adventurers commenced their tottering march toward the shore of the Colorado, Sweeny, dragging the clumsy bearskin boat, was a few yards in advance of Thurstane and Glo...

After some minutes of dumb show they came down from their stronghold and dispersed to their dwellings. They seemed to be utterly without curiosity; the warriors put aside their...

Leaving Thurstane in the desert, we return to Clara in the desert. It will be remembered that she stood on the roof of the Casa Grande when her lover was swept oarless down the...

"Look a hyer!" remonstrated Smith, "ain't you pannin' me out a leetle too fine? It mought 'a' been this way, an' it mought 'a' been that. But I've no business to point if I can'...

Slowly he opened his eyes, to see nothing but long grasses close to his face, and through them a haze of mountains and sky. His first moments of wakening were so far from being...

The chase after the spare mules carried Texas Smith several miles from the scene of the ambush, so that when he at last caught the frightened beasts, he decided not to go back a...

It was a tone of astonishment, of perplexity, of regret, of protest; it seemed to declare, Here is a terrible injustice, and I will none of it. Coronado was delighted; in a brea...

Opening the door softly and with tremulous fingers, Coronado looked out upon an old gray-headed man, short and paunchy in build, with small, tottering, uneasy legs, skin mottled...

The first person whom Coronado met when he reached the house was Aunt Maria, oscillating from one invalid to the other in such fright and confusion that she did not know whether...

At noon the Lolotte, a broad-beamed, flat-floored brig of light draught and good sailing qualities, hove up her anchor and began beating out of the Bay of San Francisco, with Co...

As it was, he could not sleep for misery; festering at heart because of that letter of rejection; almost maddened by his supposed discovery that she would not speak to him, yet...

The first object that he saw, or could see, was Clara, curled up in a chair which was lashed to the mast, and secured in it by a lanyard. As he paused at the foot of the stairwa...

The captain shouted something in reply, but although he put his hands to his mouth for a speaking trumpet, his words were inaudible, and he would not have been understood had he...

The consequence was that, although Ralph Thurstane and Clara Van Diemen had only been two days in Monterey and had gone through no forms of publication, they were actually being...