The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lonesome Land, by B. M. Bower Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Lonesome Land Author: B. M. Bower Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8537] [This file was first posted on July 21, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LONESOME LAND *** E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team LONESOME LAND BY B. M. BOWER Author of "Chip, of the Flying U," etc. With Four Illustrations BY STANLEY L. WOOD [Illustration: As he raced over the uneven prairie he fumbled with the saddle string] Contents CHAPTER I. THE ...
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lonesome Land, by B. M. Bower
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**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Lonesome Land
Author: B. M. Bower
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8537] [This file was first posted on July 21, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LONESOME LAND ***
E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
LONESOME LAND
BY B. M. BOWER
Author of "Chip, of the Flying U," etc.
With Four Illustrations
BY STANLEY L. WOOD
[Illustration: As he raced over the uneven prairie he fumbled with the saddle string]
Contents
CHAPTER I. THE ARRIVAL OF VAL II. WELL-MEANT ADVICE III. A LADY IN A TEMPER IV. THE "SHIVAREE" V. COLD SPRING RANCH VI. MANLEY'S FIRE
GUARD VII. VAL'S NEW DUTIES VIII. THE PRAIRIE FIRE IX. KENT TO THE RESCUE X. DESOLATION XI. VAL'S AWAKENING XII. A LESSON IN
FORGIVENESS XIII. ARLINE GIVES A DANCE XIV. A WEDDING PRESENT XV. A COMPACT XVI. MANLEY'S NEW TACTICS XVII. VAL BECOMES AN
AUTHOR XVIII. VAL'S DISCOVERY XIX. KENT'S CONFESSION XX. A BLOTCHED BRAND XXI. VAL DECIDES XXII. A FRIEND IN NEED XXIII. CAUGHT! XXIV.
RETRIBUTION
List of Illustrations
As he raced over the uneven prairie he fumbled with the saddle string
He was jeered unmercifully by Fred De Garmo and his crowd
"Little woman, listen here," he said. "You're playing hard luck, and I know it"To draw the red hot spur across the fresh VP did not take longCHAPTER I
THE ARRIVAL OF VAL
In northern Montana there lies a great, lonely stretch of prairie land, gashed deep where flows the Missouri. Indeed, there
are many such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow
larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall
shipping of beef. At night the coyotes yap quaveringly and prowl abroad after the long-eared jack rabbits, which bounce
away at their hunger-driven approach. In winter it is not good to be there; even the beasts shrink then from the bleak, level
reaches, and shun the still bleaker heights.
But men will live anywhere if by so doing there is money to be gained, and so a town snuggled up against the northern
rim of the bench land, where the bleakness was softened a bit by the sheltering hills, and a willow-fringed creek with wild
rosebushes and chokecherries made a vivid green background for the meager huddle of little, unpainted buildings.
To the passengers on the through trains which watered at the red tank near the creek, the place looked crudely
picturesque—interesting, so long as one was not compelled to live there and could retain a perfectly impersonal
viewpoint. After five or ten minutes spent hi watching curiously the one little street, with the long hitching poles planted
firmly and frequently down both sides—usually within a very few steps of a saloon door—and the horses nodding and
stamping at the flies, and the loitering figures that appeared now and then in desultory fashion, many of them imagined
that they understood the West and sympathized with it, and appreciated its bigness and its freedom from conventions.
One slim young woman had just told the thin-faced school teacher on a vacation, with whom she had formed one of those
evanescent traveling acquaintances, that she already knew the West, from instinct and from Manley's letters. She loved it,
she said, because Manley loved it, and because it was to be her home, and because it was so big and so free. Out here
one could think and grow and really live, she declared, with enthusiasm. Manley had lived here for three years, and his
letters, she told the thin-faced teacher, were an education in themselves.
The teacher had already learned that the slim young woman, with the yellow-brown hair and yellow-brown eyes to match,
was going to marry Manley—she had forgotten his other name, though the young woman had mentioned it—and would
live on a ranch, a cattle ranch. She smiled with somewhat wistful sympathy, and hoped the young woman would be happy;
and the young woman waved her hand, with the glove only half pulled on, toward the shadow-dappled prairie and the
willow-fringed creek, and the hills beyond.
"Happy!" she echoed joyously. "Could one be anything else, in such a country? And then—you don't know Manley, you
see. It's horribly bad form, and undignified and all that, to prate of one's private affairs, but I just can't help bubbling over.
I'm not looking for heaven, and I expect to have plenty of bumpy places in the trail—trail is anything that you travel over,
out here; Manley has coached me faithfully—but I'm going to be happy. My mind is quite made up. Well, good-by—I'm so
glad you happened to be on this train, and I wish I might meet you again. Isn't it a funny little depot? Oh, yes—thank you! I
almost forgot that umbrella, and I might need it. Yes, I'll write to you—I should hate to drop out of your mind completely.
Address me Mrs. Manley Fleetwood, Hope, Montana. Good-by—I wish—"
She trailed off down the aisle with eyes shining, in the wake of the grinning porter. She hurried down the steps, glanced
hastily along the platform, up at the car window where the faded little school teacher was smiling wearily down at her,
waved her hand, threw a dainty little kiss, nodded a gay farewell, smiled vaguely at the conductor, who had been
respectfully pleasant to her—and then she was looking at the rear platform of the receding train mechanically, not yet
quite realizing why it was that her heart went heavy so suddenly. She turned then and looked about her in a surprised,
inquiring fashion. Manley, it would seem, was not at hand to welcome her. She had expected his face to be the first she
looked upon in that town, but she tried not to be greatly perturbed at his absence; so many things may detain one.
At that moment a young fellow, whose clothes emphatically proclaimed him a cowboy, came diffidently up to her, tilted his
hat backward an inch or so, and left it that way, thereby unconsciously giving himself an air of candor which should have
been reassuring.
"Fleetwood was detained. You were expecting to—you're the lady he was expecting, aren't you?"
She had been looking questioningly at her violin box and two trunks standing on their ends farther down the platform, and
she smiled vaguely without glancing at him.
"Yes. I hope he isn't sick, or—"
"I'll take you over to the hotel, and go tell him you're here," he volunteered, somewhat curtly, and picked up her bag.
"Oh, thank you." This time her eyes grazed his face inattentively. She followed him down the rough steps of planking and
up an extremely dusty road—one could scarcely call it a street—to an uninviting building with crooked windows and a
high, false front of unpainted boards.
The young fellow opened a sagging door, let her pass into a narrow hallway, and from there into a stuffy, hopelessly
conventional fifth-rate parlor, handed her the bag, and departed with another tilt of the hat which placed it at a differentangle. The sentence meant for farewell she did not catch, for she was staring at a wooden-faced portrait upon an easel,
the portrait of a man with a drooping mustache, and porky cheeks, and dead-looking eyes.
"And I expected bearskin rugs, and antlers on the walls, and big fireplaces!" she remarked aloud, and sighed. Then she
turned and pulled aside a coarse curtain of dusty, machine-made lace, and looked after her guide. He was just
disappearing into a saloon across the street, and she dropped the curtain precipitately, as if she were ashamed of
spying. "Oh, well—I've heard all cowboys are more or less intemperate," she excused, again aloud.
She sat down upon an atrocious red plush chair, and wrinkled her nose spitefully at the porky-cheeked portrait. "I
suppose you're the proprietor," she accused, "or else the proprietor's son. I wish you wouldn't squint like that. If I have to
stop here longer than ten minutes, I shall certainly turn you face to the wall." Whereupon, with another grimace, she turned
her back upon it and looked out of the window. Then she stood up impatiently, looked at her watch, and sat down again
upon the red plush chair.
"He didn't tell me whether Manley is sick," she said suddenly, with some resentment. "He was awfully abrupt in his
manner. Oh, you—" She rose, picked up an old newspaper from the marble-topped table with uncertain legs, and spread
it ungently over the portrait upon the easel. Then she went to the window and looked out again. "I feel perfectly sure that
cowboy went and got drunk immediately," she complained, drumming pettishly upon the glass. "And I don't suppose he
told Manley at all."
The cowboy was innocent of the charge, however, and he was doing his energetic best to tell Manley. He had gone
straight through the saloon and into the small room behind, where a man lay sprawled upon a bed in one corner. He was
asleep, and his clothes were wrinkled as if he had lain there long. His head rested upon his folded arms, and he was
snoring loudly. The young fellow went up and took him roughly by the shoulder.
"Her