The Eye of Dread

"Halloo! So it's here!" Robert Kater stood by a much-littered table and looked down on a few papers and envelopes which some one had laid there during his absence. All day long...

Larry Kildene sat on a bench before a roaring fire in the room added on to the fodder shed. The chimney which Harry King had built, although not quite completed to its full heig...

Bertrand Ballard's studio was at the top of his house, with a high north window and roughly plastered walls of uncolored sand, left as Bertrand himself had put the plaster on, w...

Monday morning Elder Craigmile walked to the bank with the stubborn straightening of the knees at each step that always betokened irritation with him. Neither of the young men h...

The young man encouraged his horse, while half asleep from utter weariness and faint with hunger and thirst. The poor beast scrambled over the rocks up a steep trail that seemed...

For the first two days of Harry King's absence Madam Manovska relapsed into a more profound melancholy, and the care of her mother took up Amalia's time and thoughts so complete...

Larry Kildene went around behind the stall where he kept his own horse and returned with a hollow tube of burnt clay about a foot long. Into this he thrust a pine knot heavy wit...

While Amalia lay recovering from the sprained ankle, which proved to be a serious hurt, Madam Manovska continued to improve. She took up the duties which had before occupied Ama...

Early in the morning, while the earth was still a mass of gray shadow and mist, and the sky had only begun to show faint signs of the flush of dawn, Betty, awake and alert, crep...

The night was bitter cold after a day of fierce heat. Three people climbed the long winding trail from the plains beneath, slowly, carefully, and silently. A huge mountaineer wa...

Peter Junior made no attempt the next day to speak further to his father about his plans. It seemed to him better that he should wait until his wise mother had talked the matter...

Harry King did not at once consult an attorney, for Milton Hibbard, the only one he knew or cared to call upon for his defense, was an old friend of the Elder's and had been ret...

Father Ballard walked slowly up the path from the garden, wiping his brow, for the heat was oppressive. "Mary, my dear, I see signs of swarming. The bees are hanging out on that...

Mary and Bertrand always went early to church, for Bertrand led the choir, and it was often necessary for him to gather the singers together and try over the anthem before the s...

The winter was a cold one, and the snows fell heavily, but a way was always kept open between the cabin and the fodder shed, and also by great labor a space was kept cleared aro...

There was no picnic and nutting party the next day, owing to a downpour of rain. Betty had time to think quietly over what had happened the day before and her mind misgave her....

A week after the first snowfall Larry Kildene returned. He had lingered long after he should have taken the trail and had gone farther than he had dreamed of going when he parte...

When the two men bade Amalia and her mother good night and took their way to the fodder shed, the snow was whirling and drifting around the cabin, and the pathway was obliterated.

"I have given such thought as I have been able to the question raised by counsel last evening, and have examined authorities cited by him, and others, bearing upon the question,...

When at last Jean Craigmile returned, a glance at her face was quite enough to convince Ellen that things had not gone well. She held her peace, however, until her sister had ha...

After recapitulating all the testimony that had been brought out during the course of the trial, he closed with an earnest appeal for the State against the defendant, showing co...

As soon as the shadows hid the young man's retreating form from the Swede's watchful eye, that individual quickened his pace and presently broke into a run. Circling round a few...

"Come, Lady, come. You're slow this morning." Mary Ballard drove a steady, well-bred, chestnut mare with whom she was on most friendly terms. Usually her carryall was filled wit...

Betty Ballard stood, her slight figure drawn up, poised, erect, her head thrown back, and her eyes fixed on the Elder's face. The silence of the great audience was so intense th...

As the two men walked down toward the cabin they saw Amalia standing beside the door in the sunlight which now streamed through a rift in the clouds, gazing up at the towering m...

The letters reached their opposite destinations at about the same time. The one to Amalia closely buttoned in Larry's pocket, and the short one to himself which he read and rere...

"Leave Madam Manovska alone," he admonished Harry. "Take Amalia off for another ride, and I'll go down to the cabin, and if there's a way to set her mind at rest about her husba...

"Pleasant day. I see you're a stranger here, and I thought I might get an item from you. Carter's my name, and I'm doing the reporting for the _Mercury_. Be glad to make your ac...

On a warm day in May, a day which opens the crab-apple blossoms and sets the bees humming, and the children longing for a chance to pull off shoes and stockings and go wading in...

By Monday evening there were only two people in all the small town of Leauvite who had not heard of the tragedy, and these were Hester Craigmile and Betty Ballard. Mary doubted...

"Mr. Ballard, either my son was murdered, or he was a murderer. The crime falls upon us, and the disgrace of it, no matter how you look at it." The Elder sat in the back room at...

The day was very warm, and the jury sat without their coats. The audience, who had had time to debate and argue the question over and over, were all there ready to throng in at...

It was three years after the troops marched away from High Knob encampment before either Peter Junior or Richard Kildene were again in Leauvite, and then only Peter returned, be...

While G. B. Stiles and the big Swede were taking their drive and bargaining away Harry King's liberty, he had loitered about the town, and visited a few places familiar to him....

A smile that would have been sardonic, were it not for a few lines around the corners of his eyes which belied any sinister suspicion, spread grimly across the big man's face as...

Mary Ballard stepped down from the open porch where Amalia and the rest of the family sat behind a screen of vines, interestedly talking, and walked along the path between the r...

It was winter. The snow was blowing past the windows in blinding drifts, and the road in front of the Ballards' home was fast filling to the tops of the fences. A bright wood-fi...

Peter Junior's mind was quite made up to go his own way and leave home to study abroad, but first he would try to convert his father to his way of thinking. Then there was anoth...

After Mr. Ballard's visit to the jail, he took upon himself to do what he could for the young man, out of sympathy and friendship toward both parties, and in the cause of simple...

Two whip-poor-wills were uttering their insistent note, hidden somewhere among the thick foliage of the maple and basswood trees that towered above the spring down behind the ho...

XXVI. THE LITTLE SCHOOL-TEACHER 331 XXVII. THE SWEDE'S TELEGRAM 342 XXVIII. "A RESEMBLANCE SOMEWHERE" 354 XXIX. THE ARREST 365 XXX. THE ARGUMENT 376 XXXI. ROBERT KATER'S SUCCESS...

XIV. OUT OF THE DESERT 168 XV. THE BIG MAN'S RETURN 183 XVI. A PECULIAR POSITION 198 XVII. ADOPTING A FAMILY 208 XVIII. LARRY KILDENE'S STORY 219 XIX. THE MINE--AND THE DEPARTUR...

I. BETTY 1 II. WATCHING THE BEES 9 III. A MOTHER'S STRUGGLE 23 IV. LEAVE-TAKING 34 V. THE PASSING OF TIME 49 VI. THE END OF THE WAR 59 VII. A NEW ERA BEGINS 69 VIII. MARY BALLAR...