The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

Some of these pages you have seen, some you have praised, one stands new-written because you blamed it; and all, my dear critic, beg leave to remind you of their author’s change...

“I suppose you have me beat,” said Steve, grinning at him affectionately. “You’re such a son-of-a---- when you get down to work. Well, so long! I got to fix my horse’s hoofs.”

These good words ended the moralizing of the dealer. He had given us a piece of his mind. He now gave the whole of it to dealing cards. I loitered here and there, neither welcom...

As we drove by the eating-house, the shade of a side window was raised, and the landlady looked her last upon the Virginian. Her lips were faintly parted, and no woman’s eyes ev...

Those cow-punchers bore names of various denominations. There was Honey Wiggin; there was Nebrasky, and Dollar Bill, and Chalkeye. And they came from farms and cities, from Main...

The heat went out of the air, and in the canyon the violet light began to show. Many hours had gone, but Em’ly never ceased. Now she suddenly flew up in a tree and sat there wit...

At six in the morning the stage drove away into the sage-brush, with her as its only passenger; and by sundown she had passed through some of the primitive perils of the world....

He stood a moment before her, deeper and deeper scarlet; and the more she saw his handsome face, the keener rose her excitement. She waited for him to speak of the river; for th...

“I live on Judge Henry’s ranch, over yondeh.” He pointed across the mountains. “It’s on Sunk Creek. A pretty rough trail; but I can come hyeh to see you in a day, I reckon. Well...

“The Judge is doing a right smart o’ business this year,” he began, very casually indeed, so that I knew this was important. Besides bells and coal smoke, the smell and crowded...

Perhaps he had expected us to follow him; or perhaps he had meant us to delay long enough not to seem like a reenforcement. “These gentlemen missed the express at Medora,” he ob...

Our little fire was built beside the caboose, so the cooking things might be easily reached and put back. You would scarcely think such operations held any interest, even for th...

Directions and commands--whatever communications to his subordinates were needful to the forwarding of this--he duly gave. But routine has never at any time of the world passed...

“‘De sun is made of mud from de bottom of de river; De moon is made o’ fox-fire, as you might disciver; De stars like de ladies’ eyes, All round de world dey flies, To give a li...

What with my feelings at Scipio’s discretion, and my human curiosity, I was not in that mood which best profits from a sermon. Yet even though my expectations had been cruelly l...

But the Virginian never saw his sweetheart alone again; while she was at the Sunk Creek Ranch, his duties called him away so much that there was no chance for him. Worse still,...

“Oh, yes. But I mean when I was fooling around the earth, jumping from job to job, and helling all over town between whiles. I was not worth fifty a month then, nor twenty-five....

Hiding his bridle behind him, Shorty walked to the river-bank, where the pony was switching his long tail in the shade; and speaking persuasively to him, he came nearer, till he...

His companion had noticed the ground already, and assented. There were no tracks anywhere to be seen over which winter had not come and gone since they had been made. Presently...

But she shut her lips and looked away. On the desk was a letter written from Vermont. “If you don’t tell me at once when you decide,” had said the arch writer, “never hope to sp...

“No, deary. But before a lot of men--Taylor has told me about it--Trampas spoke disrespectfully of you, and before them all he made Trampas say he was a liar. That is what he di...

“Why, should yu’ tell me if yu’ preferred not? You had written. And you speak” (he lifted the letter) “of never being able to repay kindness; but you have turned the tables. I c...

“Tut, tut, tut!” said the great-aunt as she read them. Her face was much more severe to-day. “You’d suppose,” she said, “that the girl had been kidnapped! Why, she has kept him...

Steve continued: “Would we head for Idaho? Would we swing back over the Divide? You didn’t know which! And when we generalled you on to that band of horses you thought was the b...

We got back into our saddles with the mystery unsolved. To the Virginian it was a greater one, apparently, than to me; why should one have to account for every stray traveller i...

The track of a horse was very fresh on the trail. But it was a galloping horse now, and no bootprints were keeping up with it any more. No boots could have kept up with it. The...

“Yes; and so is capital punishment terrible. And so is war. And perhaps some day we shall do without them. But they are none of them so terrible as unchecked theft and murder wo...

She gave up this battle in mirth; and he resumed:-- “But don’t you really reckon it’s uncommon to meet a father-in-law flouncin’ around the house? As for gentle--Once I had to s...

“Yes; I have given it to her. But my life’s not the whole of me. I’d give her twice my life--fifty--a thousand of ’em. But I can’t give her--her nor anybody in heaven or earth--...

There was room in the trail for them to go side by side; and side by side they rode to the ford and crossed, driving the packhorses in front of them, until they came to the shel...

Judge Henry at Sunk Creek had his wedding present ready. His growing affairs in Wyoming needed his presence in many places distant from his ranch, and he made the Virginian his...