The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open Country

"Whiskey" Mason had been for more than three years with Downey. He was an adroit barkeep. He knew every favourite "mix" and how to use the thickest glasses that would ever put t...

August was advancing with everything shaping for a great local event. The Corn Dance of the Indians to celebrate the first of the new crop was an old festival and brought hundre...

Trump cards you must have to win in the life game; and you must know how to play them, or a much poorer hand may beat you. You must know the exact time to play your highest trum...

All Chicago remembers the trial of Michael Shay. It filled the papers for a month; it filled folk's minds and mouths for two. Many a worse murder had been quietly buried and for...

It was a long but easy journey down south to the Union Pacific, and finally east to Chicago. And when the young couple, whom the passengers watched with much interest, arrived a...

It is generally admitted that a college offers two main things, book learning and atmosphere. Of these the latter is larger and more vital, if it be good. If the college lose gr...

Belle had been in the express office signing some receipts for goods consigned to her father when Jim stepped from the train. He appeared framed in the open doorway; six feet fo...

The Sunday on which Jim first appeared in the pulpit will long be remembered in Cedar Mountain. The "grapevine telegraph" had been working hard so that all the world of that reg...

Every citizen of South Chicago remembers the work of the Cedar Mountain House; how it grew and prospered, and how the old building became too small and an annex across the stree...

He must have been a huge, unwieldy egotistical brute who said, "Big men have ever big frames." He might have had Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott, Lincoln or Washington in mind; but...

Woman's suffrage was a disturbing question in the West of the '80's and it had not by any means passed Cedar Mountain by. There was more than one fiery dispute among the "perche...

Under such a cloud of disaster men cared little what the weather was; the deluge of rain seemed rather appropriate. There was even a hope that it might rain hard enough to postp...

Jack Shives's blacksmith shop, off the Main Street of Cedar Mountain, was noted for two things: the sound, all-round work it turned out in the smithy line, and the "perchers," a...

According to an ancient custom, the newly wed should cease from their calling in life and disappear for a time, and the practice has long been well honoured by observance. But M...

"Brethren and sisters," said Dr. Jebb, in the Wednesday meeting established for general discussion, "I consider it my duty to speak openly and officially in condemnation of this...

At the time of the incidents at Fort Ryan, Belle was away on a visit to Deadwood. Otherwise, Hartigan would surely have consulted her and profited by her calmer judgment in the...

Woman to-day reverences physical prowess just as much as did her cave forebears, and she glories in the fact that her man is a strong, fighting animal, even though she recognize...

Every new town in America has the same set routine of experience. It springs up on land selected and laid out by a real estate speculator. The flimsiest and most combustible of...

The immediate and physical environment of Links was the far backwoods of Canada, but the spirit and thought of it were Irish. The inhabitants were nearly all of Irish origin, mo...

It had been a private dwelling, far out on the prairie once, but the hot, steady lava flow of the great city had reached and split and swept around the little elevated patch of...

Michael Shay had come to the club in person once or twice, but did not desire to be conspicuous. It was clear now that the club was not to be the political weapon at first suspe...

The reception was over. Jim and Belle had supped at Aunt Collins's and were back again in the cottage, sitting by the kitchen stove, in which Jim had just kindled a blazing fire...

It was a long, hard journey, and it was one o'clock in the morning before they reached Deadwood. Every public house that could get a license to sell liquor announced itself as a...

The sun was high next day when the door of Pat Bylow's abode was opened, and a man entered. The scene that met his eyes is better undescribed, but to him it gave no shock. He ca...

One of the needs that Hartigan very soon became aware of in his far-flung pastoral work was that of a good saddle horse. An income of three hundred dollars a year will not maint...

Jim went at once to Dr. Jebb's to report. Mrs. Jebb opened the door, greeted him with a hearty handshake, and was more than usually cordial. Dr. Jebb was kind, but embarrassed....

Even far Montana heard the news, and, winding through the hills, there came one day a band of Crows from their reservation on the Big Horn. They came with only their light trave...

"I guess Dr. Jebb took it. Ain't you the party he's looking for? He said 'J. H.' was the initials. You'll find him at that white house with the flowers just where the boardwalk...

Two days later Jim and Belle were again on the Deadwood trail. It seemed that each new chapter of their lives must begin on that trail. They were in a new buckboard, the gift of...

It is the continual boast of the cowboys that they are the best riders on earth. It is the continual boast also of Cossack, Boer, Australian, Gaucho, and all who live on and by...

The Angel of Destiny who had special charge of Jim had listed and measured his failings and had numbered them for drastic treatment. The brawling spirit of his early days, the p...

It was late on Wednesday afternoon. Belle was working at the sewing machine in the back room of the Boyd home when there was a familiar knock at the front door. She was not unpr...

The Widow never forgot that her tenure of the hotel might end at any time; and, thinking ever of Jim and his future, she saved what she could from the weekly proceeds. She was a...

There was much excitement in Methodist circles that autumn. A preacher of power had come from the east. The church was filled to overflowing on Sunday, and a prayer meeting of e...

I was doing right. I couldn't see clearly, Belle, and then my doubt grew stronger and even you could not understand; there was something within that told me to go back to Cedar...

Many a man has been ruined by a high, unbroken level of success. Intellectually it makes for despotism and a conviction of infallibility. In the world of muscle, it creates a bu...

"Look a' here," said Shives, "I want ye to notice all this here Church business was faked up by that man Paul, or Saul, or whatever he called himself; and the real disciples wou...

Life at Cedar Mountain had dropped to normal. Charles Bylow and his wife were regular church members now, and no warmer, truer friends on earth had Hartigan. Pat Bylow had gone...

Kind friends and hearty greetings awaited the Hartigans at the Fort. Colonel Waller, Mrs. Waller, and the staff received them as long-lost son and daughter; and with the least d...

There were many surprises and sharp contrasting colour spots on the map of the "Widdy's" trail for the next nine years. With herself and the expected child to make a home for af...

For long, dark, silent months the land has lain under a broad white robe, the plains are levelled, hidden, and the whiteness of the high spaces sweeps down to meet, on the lower...

A burnt, bare, seared, and wounded spot in the great pine forest of Ontario, some sixty miles northeast of Toronto, was the little town of Links. It lay among the pine ridges, t...

September came, with all the multiplied glories of the Black Hills--calm, beautiful weather in a calm and beautiful country. For days back, there had been long strings of Indian...

With the definite assurance of Blazing Star being entered, every man in Fort Ryan focussed his thoughts on how he might best turn the race to account, wipe out the damage of the...

Christmas time with its free days and its social gatherings was at hand; and the Church folk must needs respond to the spirit of the season with a "sociable." In such a meeting,...

Shay sat calmly waiting as the big clock ticked his life away that morning in the house of death at Joliet. At eleven o'clock, Hartigan received Belle's telegram: "We have found...

Clearly one cannot begin the history of the French Revolution with the outbreak of 1789. Most phenomena, physical and spiritual, have their roots, their seeds, their causes--wha...

They were a merry lot that galloped back to Fort Ryan that morning, and a still merrier crowd that gathered at Cedar Mountain, when it was whispered about that in a fair and squ...

The ride home after that fateful decision was an event to be remembered. Jim was on a cavalry mount, loaned for the occasion. Belle felt that since he had given up so much for h...

"Here come Apollo and Psyche," said Mrs. Waller, as she glimpsed them from the window. The Colonel was just leaving for his office and called to them, "Good morning! Go on in; M...

Hartigan never walked in the middle of the road. He was either in the ditch or on the high place. Having "got religion" it was inevitable, with his nature, that he should become...

Lou Chamreau was of French and Indian blood, chiefly Crow Indian. For twenty years he had been trading out of Pierre, Dakota, among the western tribes. He spoke French and Crow...

The crack of doom will never hit Fort Ryan harder. When the thousand painted Sioux came riding, yelling, wild with joy, shooting their rifles in the air, racing in a vast, appal...

Foundation Sunday came, and with it a respectable crowd at the House. There were some who had brought babies--which was unfortunate, but unavoidable--and there were one or two m...

Colonel Waller had been telegraphing from Cedar Mountain to all reachable parts of the North where the Crows were likely to be, without getting one word of comfort. Then up to t...

The notice on the old tree had been up a week. By Thursday there had been no sign of response; on Friday Jim had had it out with the boss; and Saturday morning the community see...

August with its deadening heat was over; September, bright, sunny and tonic, was come to revive the world. Rank foliage was shaking off the summer dust, and a myriad noisy insec...

"Get up, you lazy giant; the breakfast is ready," she called from the dining room. In truth, he had been up to light the fire and chop some wood, but was now reading in bed.

Jim Hartigan had as little interest in money as any Indian. All the things he loved and the pleasures he sought were the things that money could not buy. He wanted to ride and r...

The first mile was covered in good, but not remarkable time. Then they came to the turning point. There was just the chance of changing places here, for the inner horse had the...

When the flood rushes over the meadow and tears the surface smoothness, it exposes the unmoved rock foundation; when the fire burns down the flimsy woodwork, it shows in double...

Big things were in the air, as all the horsemen knew. Blazing Star had wintered well and, being a four-and-a-half-year-old, was in his prime. Red Rover in the adjoining stable w...

"I think it's the new preacher," said the driver. "Anyhow, we can easily see." They watched the buckboard with the black horse and saw it turn in at the white cottage.