The Law-Breakers

A girl was leaning against a solitary post, a hundred yards or so from where the descent into the valley of Leaping Creek began. All about her stretched the vast plains of grass...

The wild outbreak of excitement in Rocky Springs died out swiftly. After all, whisky-running was a mere traffic. It was a general traffic throughout the country. The successful...

The news which greeted early morning ears in Rocky Springs was of a quality calculated to upset the entire affairs of the day, and bring a perfect surfeit of grist to O'Brien's...

The morning was gloriously fine. It was aglow with the fulness of summer. Far as the eye could see the valley was bathed in a golden light which the myriad shades of green made...

The gray of dawn was slowly gladdening toward the warmer hue of day. The eastern skies lit with that pallid yellow which precedes the gold and amber of the rising sun. Somewhere...

They had just returned from a brief inspection of the little ranch for Bill's edification. The big man's enthusiasm had demanded immediate satisfaction. His headlong nature impe...

It was Big Brother Bill's third morning in the valley of Leaping Creek, and in that brief time his optimism and enthusiasm for the affairs of life in general had suffered shocks...

Stanley Fyles's extreme satisfaction was less enduring than might have been expected. Success, and the prospect of success, were matters calculated to affect him more nearly tha...

As Kate stood out from the shadow of the trees, the man approaching, looking up, beheld her, and his dark eyes gladdened with a smile of delight. His greeting came up to her on...

Helen parted from her sister at the little old Meeting House. But first she characteristically admonished her for offering herself a sacrifice on the altar of the moral welfare...

It was late at night. The yellow lamplight left hard faces almost repulsive under the fantastic shadows it so fitfully impressed upon them. The low-ceiled room, too, gained in i...

It was growing dark. Away in the west a pale stream of light was fading smoothly out, absorbed by the velvet softness of the summer night. There was no moon, but the starlit vau...

Service was still proceeding at the Meeting House. The valley was quiet. Scarcely a sound broke the perfect peace of the Sabbath morning. The sun blazed down, a blistering fragr...

So it was with Stanley Fyles, riding over the even, sandy trail of the prairies which stretched away south of the Assiniboine River. His sunburnt face was sternly reposeful, and...

Charlie Bryant's horse was a good one, far better than a rancher of his class might have been expected to ride. It was a big, compact animal with the long sloping pasterns of a...

lose his temper with them, and make things hot for somebody or something. But, more than all else, he knew that Helen Seton was more than worth all the worry and anxiety he was...

Three uniformed men rode hard across the tawny plains. They rode abreast. Their horses were a-lather; their lean sides tuckered, but their gait remained unslackening. It was a g...

A pair of gray eyes were struggling to glare coldly into a pair of amiably smiling blue eyes. It was a battle of one against an opponent who had no idea battle was intended. Fro...

Drenched to the skin, blinded by the deluge of torrential rain, thoroughly confused beyond all recognition of his whereabouts in the tangle of bush through which he was thrustin...

It was well past six o'clock in the evening when the two brothers completed the discussion of their future plans. It had been a great day for Bill. A day such as one may look fo...

Big Brother Bill changed his mind after all. He did not go to O'Brien's saloon. At least not when he left the Seton's house. Truth to tell, his unanticipated visit to Helen Seto...

At last McBain rose from his seat at the deal table which served him for a desk. He reached out and turned out the lamp. Its light was no longer needed. Then he stretched himsel...

The little river wound its silvery way through the heart of the valley. The broken summer clouds strove to shut out the brilliant light of the moon, and signally failed. The swi...

Two horses ambled complacently, side by side, down the village trail. Each was ridden by the man it knew best, and was most willing to serve. Peter's affection for Stanley Fyles...

The girl's handsome face was turned toward the valley below her. She was staring with eyes of dreaming, half regretful, yet not without a faint light of humor, at the nestling v...

The nine days' wonder had come and passed. Never again could the valley of Leaping Creek return to the conditions which had for so long prevailed there. And strangely enough the...

The trail declined over a long, gradual slope. At the bottom of it was a broad, almost dried-out slough. A wooden culvert spanned the reed-grown watercourse. Then the trail made...

Waiting for word from the agent, Huntly, Inspector Fyles had retreated to the insignificant wooden shack which served the police as a Town Station in Amberley. It consisted of t...

Just beyond the flag station at White Point, where the forest-clad slopes of the great hills crowded in upon the railroad track, a scene of utter lawlessness was being silently...

Fyles endured perhaps the most anxious time that had ever fallen to his lot, during the few days following his momentous interview with Kate. An infinitesimal beam of daylight h...

Charlie Bryant urged his horse at a dangerous pace along the narrow, winding cattle tracks which threaded the upper reaches of the valley. He gave no heed to anything--the lacer...

On his westward journey to camp Stanley Fyles did a good deal of thinking. Generally speaking he was of that practical turn which has no time for indulgence in the luxury of vis...

"Say," he demanded of his guide, "and this is where my brother's ranch is? Gee," he went on, while Fyles nodded a smiling affirmative, "it surely is the dandiest ditch this side...

Mr. Moss was the sole employe of the railroad company at White Point flag station. His official hours were long. They extended round the dial of the clock twice daily. Curiously...

The peace of Sunday evening merged into the calm of night. Service was long since over in the old Meeting House. The traveling parson had come and gone. He had done his duty. He...

The surprises of the night were not yet over for Big Brother Bill. It almost seemed as if a lifetime of surprises were to be crowded into his first night in the valley of Leapin...

The earlier days of summer were passing rapidly. And with their passage Kate Seton's variations of mood became remarkable. There were times when her excited cheerfulness astound...

The change in the man that rode away from Kate Seton's home as compared with the man who had arrived there less than an hour earlier was so remarkable as to be almost absurd in...

There was no shade anywhere. The terrible glare of the summer sun beat down upon the whole length of the wooden platform at Amberley. Hot as was the dry, bracing air, it was inc...

Big Brother Bill, after an evening of considerable worry, had retired to his little lean-to bedroom with its low, camp bedstead. It was useless sitting up any longer attempting...

A dispirited creature made its way down to the Setons' house that same evening. Big Brother Bill felt there was not one single clear thought in his troubled head, at least, not...