The Watchers of the Plains: A Tale of the Western Prairies

Mrs. Rickards drew a deep sigh of perplexity and looked helplessly over at Ma, who was placidly knitting at her husband's bedside. The farmwife's bright face had lost nothing of...

It was the night of Rosebud's arrival. Seth and Rube were just leaving the barn. The long day's work was done. Seth had been out all the afternoon riding. Although his ride was...

Rosebud struggled through five long months of illness after her arrival at White River Farm. It was only the untiring care of Rube and his wife, and Seth, that pulled her throug...

A horseman riding from White River Homestead to Beacon Crossing will find himself confronted with just eighty-two miles of dreary, flat trail; in summer time, just eighty-two mi...

"It's a great country. It astonishes me at every turn, madam; but it's too stirring for me. One gets used to things, I know, but this," with a wave of the arm in the direction o...

The moon at its full shone down upon a scene of profound silence. Its silvery rays overpowered the milder starry sheen of the heavens. The woods upon the banks of the White Rive...

Something of the old spirit seemed to have gone out of Rosebud when Seth rode back to her. A strange fascination held her; and now, as he came up, she had no thought of question...

It is nearly midday, and the Indians round the blazing woods on the southern spur of the Black Hills are in full retreat. Another desperate battle, such as crowd the unwritten h...

rest was known to only two others. Rube possessed the younger man's confidence, and Jimmy Parker was in constant communication with him. Seth and the latter worked hand in hand...

During those first terrible days of the Indian outbreak the horrors that befell could only be guessed at. The government, the people living without the danger zone, gradually le...

Never since her first coming to the farm had Rosebud been forced to keep her goings and comings secret. But Wanaha had made it imperative now. It went sorely against the girl's...

"Indian Mission." The name conveys a sense of peace. Yet the mission histories of the Indian Reservations would make bloody reading. From the first the Christian teacher has bee...

Nevil Steyne was indifferent to such blessings as a refreshing thunder-shower at sundown on a hot summer's day. It is doubtful if he would have admitted the beneficence of Provi...

It was a dazzling morning nearly five weeks after the dispatching of Ma Sampson's letter to Rosebud. The heralds of spring, the warm, southern breezes, which brought trailing fl...

It was not without a guilty feeling that Rosebud rode out of the stockade. She knew that she was deceiving Seth. She knew that she had lied to him deliberately. Worse, she had p...

There is no place in the world which affords more cheerful solitude than the prairie. One may be miles and miles away from human habitation and yet there is an exhilaration in t...

The ruddy glow threw into uncertain relief the faces and unkempt figures of a vast concourse of men and women gathered, in one great circle, within the boundary limits of the fi...

Ma was bending over Seth, bathing the ugly flesh wound in his shoulder. Her old eyes were pathetically anxious behind her spectacles, but her touch was sure and steady. Her word...

Sunrise brought the alarm. The call to arms came in the midst of breakfast. But it came to men who were discussing possibilities with smiling faces, and to women who were no lon...

"Ma," exclaimed Rosebud, after a long and unusual silence while she was washing up the breakfast things, and Mrs. Sampson was busy with some cleaning at the other side of the ki...

It would seem that the Agent's prompt action in summoning the aid of the troops had averted disaster. No trouble followed immediately on Seth's drastic treatment of Little Black...

As the weeks crept by and the torrid heat toned down to the delightful temperature of the Indian summer, news began to reach White River Farm from England. After the first excit...

Seth was not in the habit of making very frequent visits to Beacon Crossing. For one thing there was always plenty to do at the farm. For another the attractions of the fledglin...

The first to realize the full terror of the situation were the troops in the small trader's fort overlooking the Reservations. They awoke to find themselves hemmed in by a vast...

Seth was badly hit; so badly that it was impossible to say how long he might be confined to a sick-room. His left shoulder-blade had been broken by the bullet, which, striking u...

The man was stretched full length upon the bed, idly contemplating the dusky beauty who acknowledged his lordship, while she busied herself over her shining stove. His face wore...

The relief of the farm was really only the beginning of the campaign. It meant that following on its heels the great northern posts were pouring out their thousands of troops, a...

It is not usually a remarkable event in one's life, the writing of a letter. In these days of telephone, however, it soon will be. In Seth's case it nearly was so, but for a dif...

A solitary hut, dismal, rectangular, stands on the north bank of the White River. Decay has long been at work upon it, yet it is still weather-proof. It was built long before pl...

But Seth's trials were not yet over. The two interviews just passed had given Ma Sampson sufficient time to complete her household duties. And now she entered her parlor, the pr...

Seth was out haying. It was noon, and his dinner hour. He and his old collie dog, General, were taking their leisure on the slope of Red Willow slough, while the horses, relieve...

The woodlands on the northern side of the great Reservations of Dakota amount almost to a forest. From Beacon Crossing, after entering the Pine Ridge Reservation, a man might tr...

Seth was bending over his work among the potatoes. It was a large order, for there were more than five acres of it. Every time he stood erect to ease his back he scanned the dis...

THE snow is gone, and the earth is passing through a process of airing. The sun licks up the moisture like some creature possessed of an unquenchable thirst. Wherever it is suff...