The long patrol

Near the foot of the valley slope lay an inanimate, drab-colored object of some sort, barely defined against the smooth sweep of the snowy mountainside. From the wooded ridge ab...

In the wild mountain district where Corporal Dexter and a few knightly comrades rode in the service of the King's Law, there was not more than one officer available to patrol ea...

For a breathless interval Dexter held his position before the closed door, listening to the amazing voice within. A woman! Her words came to him, decisive and sharp, in high-key...

The corporal had faced horrors before. It was not the hideous envisioning of tragedy that froze his blood: it was the haunting memory of the voice that he had heard--the voice o...

In a moment Dexter was on his knees, with his face close to the ground, and he studied the marks in the snow with the peering concentration of a man trying to read a page of fin...

With the hot glare beating back in his face, Dexter stood with blinking eyes, hearing the hiss of falling sparks and the fierce crackle of the mounting flames. Tongues of fire l...

From the sudden, startling sounds in the direction of the brook, the corporal guessed that the hunted woman had stolen and mounted his horse, and the spirited Susy was bolting t...

With teeth fastened in his lips the corporal stepped forward to bend above the tumbled figure of the woman. She was so quiet he thought she was dead. But her fingers were warm,...

The north wind rattled among the dry branches of the brookside junipers, but for a space of ten seconds no other sound broke the straining silence that had fallen upon them. The...

The corporal lingered by the smoking embers, gazing with a queer, ruminative look in his eyes towards the spot where quaking branches cut off his last sight of the departing tra...

Dusk was falling, and a hush of emptiness and desolation brooded over the clearing. The cabin door was closed, and no smoke came from the mud-daubed chimney. Dexter's eyes searc...

The spoken name had all the effect of a galvanic shock. "Alison!" Dexter kicked the blanket from his legs, and in the darkness blundered across the room. He reached the bunk, dr...

With face cold and inscrutable, Dexter crossed the cabin to stand by the bunk. For a moment he regarded the boy in silent speculation. Whatever the young man's hidden thoughts,...

Overcome by astonishment, Dexter stood motionless and breathless, peering at the far-off figure with swimming senses, exerting all his will force to keep the binoculars from wab...

In the shocking moment of discovery Dexter found no time to wonder what malignant fate had brought the outlaw here at this unwelcome juncture. He merely grasped the fact that "P...

The amazing uproar lasted only for seconds, and then intense silence once more settled over the palisade. There was no one in sight, and Dexter could not imagine what calamitous...

The two officers halted to scan the heights, towering shadowy above them. They stood in the middle of the broad plateau, with the horseshoe curve of the mountains hemming them i...

The roar of the gale drowned all sound of departing footsteps. Two seconds after the girl had bade him farewell, Dexter had lost sight and knowledge of her. He did not call afte...

While the storm raged over the mountains Dexter was confined in his cave for three days and nights, watching over a man who slumbered on the shadowy borderline of death. He perf...

Through January and February the temperature fell lower and lower, and winter, like a white, constricting monster, bound the forest country in tighter embrace. The gray specter...

The walls of the gulley hemmed Dexter in on two sides, and he saw at a glance that it would be foolish to try to climb out of the trap into which he had blundered. Either he mus...

Held to the ground by the fallen tree trunk, Dexter could make no move in self-defense. His own pistol was buttoned in its holster, strapped to the right side of his body. His r...

With his head bent backwards, Dexter watched the file of men make their way up the banks of the stream. Stark walked ahead, his eyes on the ground before him, never once deignin...

For two or three seconds the girl and the policeman faced each other tensely in the soft moonlight; and then, as she met his steely gaze, her eyes narrowed, her lips drew apart,...

The vertical rays of a blazing hot sun aroused Dexter from his lethargy. He felt light and warmth beating upon his face, and with the first faint stirring of consciousness his e...

A voyageur in the best physical trim would have found it fatiguing to travel along the rough mountain slopes, breaking a path over fallen snow crust, wallowing through deep, sog...

It was disconcerting to meet an armed and hostile man at the place where he supposed his friend was waiting, yet Dexter did not for an instant lose his self-possession. He notic...

Inspection of the ground in the neighborhood of the cave discovered only one line of fresh bootmarks, and these, it was self evident, had been made by Archie Preston. But there...

As Dexter had expected, the boy's departing foot tracks were clearly defined in the wet earth, and after breakfast he packed up and started to follow. Alison seemed rather disqu...

Dexter searched about him with wide bewildered eyes. A deep, lifeless hush brooded once more over the forest, and he saw nothing anywhere but the still shadows of trees. His woo...

For an interval of ten seconds Crill stood like a man turned to putty, his mouth sagging as though it had suddenly lost muscular support, his babyish complexion changing to a si...

Before the disconcerting discovery that he was trapped on the island, Dexter had already framed his tentative plans for the future. The capture of the Chicago outlaw at such a t...

"Got yourself in a hole that you won't get out of alive," he remarked. "My gang'll be here after me, you bet, and when they come there'll be one less cop on the royal police for...

At times before this the corporal had faced death without a tremor of fear. Now, as he looked into the malignant face, hideous and bestial, looming before him in the shadow of t...

While the two men were settling the business at hand, Alison had stood by in silence, looking curiously from one to the other, a little bewildered, and also a little frightened...

The newcomer had arrived without a sound. Evidently he had just forded his way across the rapids. Water trickled in rivulets from his legs and his clothing clung to his spare fr...

The bullet only grazed Stark's face, and he recovered himself in a flash, knowing that he was not hurt. With a muttered exclamation he swung to confront the small, slim figure k...

What happened after Dexter had delivered his prisoners into the keeping of his opportunely arrived comrades, Dexter never afterwards remembered. He may have suffered a sudden ph...

The boy stood with uplifted head, breathing heavily through parted lips, a mad joy burning in his eyes. But the two officers ignored him to observe the effect of the news on his...

For a moment Devreaux and Alison stared at Dexter as though they were not quite sure whether he had taken leave of his senses. There was a suggestion of a smile on his lips as h...