Eugene Manlove Rhodes

“ Nameless here, save for a few, that pulsing, great-hearted, generous life gives warmth and color to every mellow memory of those far-off dreamy days; their friendly ghosts flit dimly to and fro on shadowy errands; not on the firing-line, but a sure reserve in need; in Dundee, or what place they were, their strength a refuge, covert from the storm, shelter from mighty winds, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. ”

“ The tough and calloused hands were blistering now; eyes were red-rimmed and sunken, faces haggard and drawn; back, muscles, and joints strained and sore; worse than all, the "powder headache," throbbing at their temples with torture intolerable. ... But the brave music of clashing steel rang steadily, clear, unfaltering, where flesh and blood flung itself at the everlasting hill.
A muffled roar came from the heart of the rock. The prisoners were working toward them.
"That's bad," said Ivers. "They'll make the air worse with every shot—and they can't hit our drift short of a miracle. ”

“ To the north the American Bend—sometimes ironically called Happy Valley—spread out a green half-circle against a background of frowning hill and sandy slope that led to the desert; to the south, Mr. Wheeler's left hand as he sat, the Dona Ana Valley, wide and green between jutting broken mesas of black lava, stretched away beyond the line of vision, dotted with orchard and hearth-smoke. It was a famed and fertile spot, cultivated for more than two centuries; the American Bend was a new enterprise, anticipating the big dam now being built by the Reclamation Service. ”

“ Credit Lost.
“It is a hard world,” sighed Charlie See. “Life is first one thing and then it is a broom factory.”
They made a gay cavalcade of laughter and shining life, those four young people. They had been to show Charlie over the gristmill and the broom factory, new jewels in Garfield’s crown, and now they turned from deed to dream, rode merry for a glimpsing of to-morrow, where Hobby Lull planned a conquest more lasting than Cæsar’s. Their way led now beyond the mother ditch to lands yet unredeemed, which in the years to come would lie under a high ditch yet to be. ”

“ Turning, whirling, straining, Jeff was dizzily conscious that the men beneath the light were down, both still shooting; the cab had stopped, men were running toward him shouting. The giant's dreadful strength was undirected, heaving and thrusting purposeless; time for order and response would be time for crashing death to find him; his one frantic thought was to shoot first, to shoot fast. Shaken, tossed and thrown, Jeff kept his feet, kept his head, kept close in; as the great man's gun rose and fell he parried with his own. ”

“ Yet not one sage of the bountiful bunch has ever ventured to denounce the twin vices of industry and obedience. True, there is the story of blind Samson at the mill; perhaps a parable.
Underfed and overworked for generations, starved from birth, starved before birth, we drive and harry and crush them, the weakling and his weaker sons; we exploit them, gull them, poison them, lie to them, filch from them. We crowd them into our money mills; we deny them youth, we deny them rest, we deny them opportunity, we deny them hope, or any hope of hope; and we provide for age—the poorhouse. ”

“ Why didn't you stay, John Wesley?"
"I think," said Pringle reflectively, "that I have forgotten that."
"Do you know, John Wesley, I have never been back to any place we have left once? And of all the people I have ever known, you are the only one I have ever lost track of and found again. And you're always just the same old John Wesley; always gay and cheerful; nearly always in trouble; always strong and resourceful—"
"How true!" said Pringle. "Yes, yes; go on!" ”

“ A garden with one Eve is the perfect combination in a world awry. Muffled, the music and the sounds of the ballroom came faint and far to them; star-made shadows danced at their feet. The girl paused, expectant; but it was the unexpected that happened. The nimble tongue which had done such faithful service for Mr. Bransford now failed him quite: left him struggling, dumb, inarticulate, helpless—tongue and hand alike forgetful of their cunning. ”

“ There was a horse with a shapeless burden; they cast off ropes and threw a bundle at his feet. A man, fast bound; his head touched Otis' foot, his face was in the dust, his sunny hair dabbled and dank with blood. He rolled over silently.
"God! Dolly?"
"Safe!" said Kennedy. "Safe!" The man was beautiful; the glory of strength and courage and manhood glowed through flesh and stain. ”

“ The miner rose and walked steadily down into the open. He was riddled; all his failing energies were concentrated on one steadfast purpose, one forlorn hope: one shot at that wriggling bronze body. A puff of smoke rose below. Kennedy had the girl in the saddle before him, shielded by his body. Another smoke puff! The miner planted his feet wide apart, a grim and terrible figure. From behind his back Indians rose from concealment and bounded down toward him, eager to capture him alive for torture. He brushed back the sweat and blood from his eyes; the prone brown body lay before the sights. ”

“ Stan drew in a great breath and snuffed, exactly as the horses snuffed and from the same reason—to express delight; just as a hungry man smacks his lips over a titbit. Pungent, aromatic, the odor of wood smoke alloyed the taintless air of dawn. The wholesome smell of clean, brown earth, the spicy tang of crushed herb and shrub, of cedar and juniper, mingled with a delectable and savory fragrance of steaming coffee and sizzling, spluttering venison.
Pete Johnson sat cross-legged before the fire. This mess of venison was no hit-or-miss affair ”

“ He rode to the horse herd; Pat rounded up the horses and Johnny snared his Twilight horse for the trip. Twilight was a grullo; that is to say, he was precisely the color of a Maltese cat—a sleek velvet slaty-blue; a graceful, half-wild creature, dainty muzzled, clean legged as a deer. Pat held Twilight by bit and bridle and made soothing statements to him while Johnny saddled. Johnny slid into the saddle, there was a brief hair-stirring session of bucking; then Twilight sneezed cheerfully and set off on a businesslike trot. Johnny waved good-by, and turned across the gray plain toward Upham. ”

“ Think how many murders are committed by men who are good citizens in the main, simply because they bear arms ready to hand in the moment of anger! How you can be so obtuse as to defend the practice of carrying deadly weapons, in the face of such glaring evidence, is beyond me. Mr. Kennedy, it grieves me to have a man of your unusual intelligence express such views. ”

“ For I shall be blameless Maxwell, your water-mason—and who so eager to run down the runagate robber as he? And when they see how it is, that their man has got clean away, these men from Luna will be all for the eating and sleeping."
"Very pretty, and it can be done," agreed Mundy. "They will not be expecting their outlaw to call them in to breakfast, certainly. But I do not see where I am to gain anything."
"You are to hear, then," said the outlaw "I will fight your battles with you against all comers. Not murder, you mind, but plain warfare against men fit for war." ”

“ We are deeply hurt by Mr. Bennett’s persistence; but let us not be severe. In this case retribution has been, as we might say, automatic, for the man Jones, by some means, has acquired an inkling of the posture in which our affairs lie in the little matter of the Drake estate; though I believe he suspects only Bennett and myself. Bennett, I judge, has talked too much. And—such is the wickedness and perfidy of the human mind—the man Jones makes a shameless demand on us for two thousand dollars, money current with the merchant, as the price of silence. ”

“ The Judge would have spoken, but Jeff held up his hand. "Wait! I have listened to you—listen now to me. You have forgotten that there are two sides to every bargain. You sit directly between me and Mac, your hands are upon the table, your feet are beneath the table, the typewriter is at my hand. Do not move! If Mac stirs but an inch, if you dare raise a finger, until you have agreed to my proposition, by the God that made me, I will crush your skull like an egg!" ”

“ If we could go over our lives, revise to a happier turn, erase the hateful error, change and shape and interline, prune out the blunders, cross out the shabby phrase, the futile line, supply the wiser word, the nobler thought, copy the clean, amended record in a fair round hand! ”

“ Jeff Bransford's cheek to a rosy-brown, contrasting sharply with the whiteness of the upper part of his forehead, when exposed—as now—by the pushing up of his sombrero. These same suns and winds had drawn at the corners of his eyes a network of fine lines: but the brown eyes were undimmed, and his face had a light, sure look of unquenchable boyishness; sure mark of the unattached, and therefore care free and irresponsible man, who, as the saying goes, "is at home wherever his hat is hung." ”

“ Each man kept up the savage hammering till he felt his strength fail; and as he stepped back, breathless, a silent specter behind him rose up and took his place.
From the steel bars Jones fashioned a set of twenty-four drills, with all his cunning and loving care on every point; a hair's-breadth difference between bits, the longest twelve feet, its bit barely wider than the octagonal steel; and welded rods of iron for spoons of suitable lengths. They made the last few feet of the drift wider and higher than the rest, to have ample room for double drilling. ”

“ Think rather of yourself. You have the plain choice before you—a bonny wife to cherish, life and love, peace and just dealing and quiet days—or at the other hand but dusty death and black shame to back of that!"
As a snake strikes, Mundy’s hand shot out: he jerked MacGregor’s gun from the scabbard and threw it behind him. His face lit up with ferocious joy.
"You prating old windbag. How about it now? I’ll be driven by no man on earth, much less by a wordy old bluffer like you." ”

“ So the merman rose, tactfully clutching the grapevines behind him as a plausible excuse for turning his back. It followed as a corollary of this generous act that he must needs be lame, which he accordingly became. As this mishap became acute, his quick eyes roved down the cañon, where he saw what gave him pause; and he groaned sincerely under his breath. For the black horse had taken to the parked uplands, the dragging rope had tangled in a snaggy tree-root, and he was tracing weary circles in bootless effort to be free. ”

“ Yet this one idle fancy outlives them and thee and the forgotten king who was then great—lives and will live while warm flesh glows with the pride of life, while water flows to the sea, and grass grows green to the rain, and young blood thrills to its mate. ”

“ All around, men roused up in the half darkness and took up the word, laughing, as they dressed: “Beds! Beds!”
The call meant that the wagon was to be moved to-day; that each man was to roll bedding and tarp to a hard and tight-roped cylinder, and was then to carry it to a stack by the bed wagon.
The cook bent over pots and pans, an active demon by a wind-blown fire; here already the bobtail ate their private breakfast, that they might depart in haste to relieve the last guard—now slowly moving the herd from the bed ground, half a mile away. ”

“ You people come out here and go hurrahing industriously about, ruthlessly plucking beams from our eyes like a steam stump-puller on a new farm, and if we so much as twist the corner of a silk handkerchief to go after one tweenty-weenty little mote in your northeast eye, you have the infernal impudence to accuse us of sectionalism! ”

“ Sand flashed in rainbow arches against Awguan's brown face—he shut his eyes against it; they turned up the hill beyond. A little space ahead showed free of bush or boulder. Awguan took the hillside below the trail, lowered his head, laid his ears back, and bunched his mighty muscles. He drew alongside; leaning far over, heel to cantle, Stan threw his arm about the small red neck, and dragged the red pony to a choking stand. The small blue boy slipped to earth, twisted the soft bridle rein once and again to a miraculous double half-hitch about the red pony's jaw, and tightened it with a jerk. ”

“ And upon this thought, and its influence upon sending the letter, Jeff had counted from the first.
"There are other reasons," said Jeff. "You have been pleased to speak well of me. You have boasted, both for yourself and for me, enough and more than enough. Let me now boast for myself. Has it never occurred to you that such a man as I am would have friends—formidable friends? That they are wondering what has become of me? If you agree to my arrangement, I have a chance of saving both my life and some shreds of decency. ”

“ But, when they come to know you well, it may be, some night when the friendly stars burn warm and low, and the soft wind ripples the bunch grass, and the fire glows faint through the banked ash, and all the songs are done—they may tell you how Adam Sleiter died. ”

“ Chris must not know. He would kill him. But I wanted you to know in case anything happened to Chris. There is nothing they will stick at, these men. Lisner is the vilest; he hates Chris worst of all." She was in deep distress; there were tears in her eyes as she smiled at him. "And I wish—oh, John Wesley, you don't know how I wish you were staying here—dear old friend!"
"As a dear and highly valuable old friend," said Pringle sedately, "let me point out how shrewd and sensible a plan it would be for you and your Chris to go on a honeymoon at once—and never come back." ”

“ Kennedy's teeth crunched in the brown throat, crushed gullet and windpipe together, held fast. The great muscles knotted and slid and heaved under the copper skin, the hands struck and wrenched and tore, the great body thrashed and floundered, twisted and leaped and writhed in horrible convulsion of death agony; the terrible steel-trap at his throat was unbroken, unshaken, crushing out his life. ”

“ And if he could have Ellinor meet Griffith and Gibson for a crowning touch!
After the strenuous violence of hand-strokes, here was a drowsy and peaceful time. The wine of that land was good, the shade pleasant, the Alician philosophy more delightful than of yore; he had all the accessories, but one, of an earthly paradise.
Man is ungrateful. Jeff was a man; neglectful of present bounties, his dreaming thoughts were all of the absent accessory and of a time when that absence should be no more, nor paradise be empty. ”

“ Mr. Charlie See came softly to Hillsboro jail through the velvet night. He did not come the front way; he came over the hill after a wearisome detour. He approached the building on the blind side, cautiously as any cat, and crouched to listen in the shadow of the wall. After a little he began a slow voyage of discovery. At the rear of the building a broad shaft of light swept out across the hill. This was the kitchen. See heard Gwinne’s heavy tread, and the cheerful splutterings of beefsteak. Then he heard a dog within; a dog that scratched at the door with mutter and whine. ”

“ To become the corpse of a copper king is a prospect that holds no attractions for me."
"But why—why on earth—did you insist on employing men you now distrust? you bewilder me, Dewing," declared Zurich. "What's the idea—to swindle yourself?"
"You will do me the justice to remember," observed Dewing with a thin-lipped smile, "that I urged upon you, repeatedly and most strongly, as a desirable preliminary to our operations, to remove Mr. Peter Johnson from this unsatisfactory world without any formal declaration of war." ”

“ So chanted Jeff, perceiving the hopelessness of his plight.
The best gift to man—or, if not the best, then at least the rarest—is the power to meet the emergency: to do your best and a little better than your best when nothing less will serve: to be a pinch hitter. It is to be thought that certain stages of affection, and more particularly the presence of its object, affect unfavorably the workings of pure intellect. Certain it is that capable Bransford, who had cut so sorry a figure in Eden garden, now, in these distressing but Eveless circumstances, rose to the occasion. ”