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And Other Stories Of The New And Old West
By FRANK NORRIS
Illustrated by Remington, Leyendecker, Hitchcock and Hooper
1903
[Illustration: "'Sell A Thousand May At One-Fifty,' Vociferated The Bear
Broker"]
A Deal in Wheat
The Wife of Chino
A Bargain with Peg-Leg
The Passing of Cock-Eye Blacklock
A Memorandum of Sudden Death
Two Hearts That Beat as One
The Dual Personality of Slick Dick Nickerson
The Ship That Saw a Ghost
The Ghost in the Crosstrees
The Riding of Felipe
"'Sell a Thousand May at One-Fifty,' Vociferated the Bear Broker"
Caught in the Circle. The last stand of three troopers and a scoutovertaken by a band of hostile Indians.
"'Ere's 'Ell to Pay!"
"'My Curse Is on Her Who Next Kisses You'"
As Sam Lewiston backed the horse into the shafts of his backboard andbegan hitching the tugs to the whiffletree, his wife came out from thekitchen door of the house and drew near, and stood for some time at thehorse's head, her arms folded and her apron rolled around them. For along moment neither spoke. They had talked over the situation so longand so comprehensively the night before that there seemed to be nothingmore to say.
The time was late in the summer, the place a ranch in southwesternKansas, and Lewiston and his wife were two of a vast population offarmers, wheat growers, who at that moment were passing through acrisis—a crisis that at any moment might culminate in tragedy. Wheatwas down to sixty-six.
At length Emma Lewiston spoke.
"Well," she hazarded, looking vaguely out across the ranch toward thehorizon, leagues distant; "well, Sam, there's always that offer ofbrother Joe's. We can quit—and go to Chicago—if the worst comes."
"And give up!" exclaimed Lewiston, running the lines through the torets.
"Leave the ranch! Give up! After all these years!"
His wife made no reply for the moment. Lewiston climbed into thebuckboard and gathered up the lines. "Well, here goes for the last try,Emmie," he said. "Good-by, girl. Maybe things will look better in townto-day."
"Maybe," she said gravely. She kissed her husband good-by and stood forsome time looking after the buckboard traveling toward the town in amoving pillar of dust.
"I don't know," she murmured at length; "I don't know just how we'regoing to make out."
When he reached town, Lewiston tied the horse to the iron railing infront of the Odd Fellows' Hall, the ground floor of which was occupiedby the post-office, and went across the street and up the stairway of abuilding of brick and granite—quite the most pretentious structure ofthe town—and knocked at a door upon the first landing. The door wasfurnished with a pane of frosted glass, on which,