Henry Wallace Phillips

“ Through the centre of number four corral tripped Sally, dear little timid Sally, glad to be out in this lovely air, her eyes and mind on Oscar doubtless, and in the same corral, shut off from her sight by a projection of the sheds, stood Geronimo. And he saw her, too, for as she waved a hand to us, he bared his great teeth and clashed them together. The earth seemed to rock and sink from me. Every soul on the ranch was told to keep away from the corral with the two buffalo skulls over the gates, a warning sufficiently big and gruesome to stop anyone. ”

“ The dark heat in the store just melted you; outside the sun hammered fit to knock your eye out. When it comes hot and still—deadly still—I can remember that hour's waiting in the store. I couldn't hold on to what I was thinking of for a minute; all my ideas flipped around like scart birds, and I sweat and sweat, and I was sick at my stomach, and the man I shot kept squirming. It was the same as sitting up in bed to find out your nightmare is real. To the devil with waiting! I tried to clamp my attention on mother, on Mary, on everybody I knew. ”

“ When the Chinook Struck Fairfield
I Miss Mattie sat on her little front porch, facing the setting sun. Across the road, now ankle deep in June dust, was the wreck of the Peters place: back-broken roof, crumbling chimneys, shutters hanging down like broken wings, the old house had the pathetic appeal of ship-wrecked gentility. A house without people in it, even when it is in repair, is as forlorn as a dog who has lost his master.
Up the road were more houses of the nondescript village pattern, made neither for comfort nor looks. ”

“ It ain't for me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his whiskers had a horrified expression, like they'd made their escape if they hadn't been fastened on, and he was double-jointed in every point of the compass. When he stood up straight he give you more the impression of sittin' down then a man sick a-bed could. I dunno how it come, but everything old Pete looked like, seemed precisely the reverse. ”

“ Well, from what the cold, pale light of fact shows of the size and prowess of those ancient swaggerers, Jimmy-hit-the-bottle could have picked Achilles up by his vulnerable heel and bumped his brains out against a tree, and this without strain; so when the pride of his life, his precious plug hat, was thus maltreated, his rage was vast in proportion. His eyes shot streaks of black lightning; he twisted the deer's head sideways, and with a leap landed on his back. Once there, he seized an ear between his strong teeth and shut down. We rose to our feet and yelled. ”

“ The small boy in Jim Felton rose on the instant. “Pelt him, Ches! Pelt him!” he cried, and let fly the rock in his hand by way of illustration. A wild animal seems to have little idea of a missile.
The lion held his ground and let the stone strike him in the side. Then, with a screech like the vital principle of forty thousand tom-cat fights—a screech that left a sediment in the ear-drums of the listeners for the balance of the morning—he fairly flew up the straight side of the cliff, followed by a rain of projectiles. ”

“ I never yet played being big before a man who knew something. When he knows he sees your little play and despises you for it.
"Not foolish, chico," says Perez. "Only wise with a wisdom strange to me." He wheeled and looked at me. "A most strange young man you are; the strength of a giant, roaring health and no fool, and yet you will listen to an older man—you wish to listen. Receive the thanks of an older man. The hope of such service is the one poor vanity remaining to him. May time so deal with you that you shall never know the compliment you pay—listen!" ”

“ There was nothing old-maidish about Miss Mattie but the tale of her years. She had had offers, such as Fairfield and vicinity could boast, and declined them with tact, and the utmost gratitude to the suitor for the compliment; but her "no" though mild was firm, for there lay within her a certain quiet valiant spirit, which would rather endure the fatigue and loneliness of old age in her little house, than to take a larger life from any but the man who was all. A commonplace in fiction; in real life sometimes quite a strain. ”

“ No rain, no crawling thing to spoil our fun, till one day just before dinner—Percy and me sittin' there with the blankets between us and our beans counted out at the side, raisin' and cross-liftin' each other, him having drawed one card whilest I took two to a pair of tens and a kicker, and made four tens—a shadder fell on the blanket. Percy was too busy wondering whether he'd better see my last raise to notice, but your Uncle Zeke has lived so long in lonesome and sometimes unhealthy places that the chill of that shadder, comin' so noiseless and unexpected, fell on his soul. ”

“ I offered him a cracker; he stretched out the back of his paw, having learned that people shrank from the sight of his five-inch claws, in acceptance. This gobbled, he eyed me, as he leaned back against his pole, like an absurd fat man. Humour shone on the outside of him, but I fancied that, deep in his eyes, I could see a dull red glow, Indian style. "Now," said I to myself, "from the pangs of Jim I shall extract a moral lesson. Whenever I feel like showing off at somebody's expense, let me use caution not to select a grizzly bear."
What Thumper thought no man can tell. ”

“ Mary sat white and still. Sax stood behind her, his fiddle by his side, holding the bow like a sword. He was white and still, too, and looking up to where the moon was going out. Their backs were turned to the devilry that threatened us.
I stepped forward,—easy as possible, and spoke to her.
"You're not looking well, Mary," I said. "Hadn't you better go down?"
That was before my poker days. Playing a four-flush gives a man control of his face and voice. She heard what I wanted to hide at once, being naturally sharp as a needle and tuned high that night. ”

“ You often said you'd like to do something for me, Mattie; suppose you take the job?"
How much of glancing at a thing in one's mind as a beautiful improbability will ever make such a cold fact less astonishing? Miss Mattie eyed him with eyes that saw not; speech was stricken from her.
Red caught fright. He sprang forward and took her hand. "Couldn't you do it, Mattie?" said he. There was a world of pleading in the tone. Miss Mattie looked up, her own honest self; all the little feminine shrinkings left her immediately.
"Ah, but I could, Will!" she said. Lettis came up on the stoop unheard. ”

“ Nowhere could one find a better example of hell-beautiful than when he tore around his corral in a tantrum, as lithe and graceful as a black panther. His mane stood on end; his eyes and nostrils were of a colour; the muscles looked to be bursting through the silken gloom of his coat. His swiftness was something incredible. He caught and most horribly killed Jim Baxter's hound before the latter could get out of the corral—and a bear-hound is a pretty agile animal. We had to tie Jim, or he'd made an end of Geronimo. He left the ranch right after that. ”

“ The deer’s shadow floated black on the grass before him, and Jim leaped—to the biggest surprise of his life, for instead of making the least effort to escape, the buck charged, and that with such sudden fury it was all the man could do to lay hold of him anywhere as they came to dirt together. ”

“ On our word of honor, you shall live, if you yield the store."
"Well," whispered Pedro to us, "what do you say?"
"Tell him the fortune-teller fooled him," says I.
"Tell him to go to hell," says Gonzales.
"It is a trick," says the other man.
"So think I," says Pedro. He called aloud: "We are large healthy men. To make us live is necessary we have more than your word of honor—do not play further, cowards that you are! The store you may have when we give it to you. We will kill you all—all!" ”

“ Miss Mattie glanced around and finding Red's eye on her, replied, "No sir—Mr. Demilt's house is about a mile further up the road."
"Dear me!" said the young man ruefully. He was a spic-and-span, intelligent looking man, with less of the dandy about him than the air of a man who had never worn anything but clothes of the proper trim, and become quite used to it. Nevertheless the sweat stood out in drops on his forehead, for Fairfield's front "street" savoured of a less moral region than it really was, on a broiling summer day. ”

“ Instantly our good Arizona air was tied in a knot. It was great in its way. You could hear every stroke of the man filing the saw; the cow with the wolf in her horn bawled as natural as could be, and as for the stuck pig, it sounded so life-like I expected to see him round the corner. But at the same time it was no kind of an answer to my question, and I kicked the musical implement high in the air, sitting down on my shoulder blades to watch it go, and also to acknowledge receipt of one bunch of fives in the right eye, kindness of Grandma in the short skirts. ”

“ Suddenly a small boy darted out of a car; an exceedingly small boy, thin to emaciation, who made his way through 24 the crowd with that sprawling, active, dancing manner peculiar to thin small boys and spiders.
Jim half laughed at the little chap until he saw his face; then he realized at a glance that the matter was no laughing one for the boy.
At the same time he saw the shocking thinness of the little face, made into a wolf’s face by hunger; the mingled horror and desperation of the eyes; the big man would not have believed a child’s face could express emotions of such magnitude. ”

“ I can't give you the proper idea of how quick-witted Mary was, how easy she saw the behind-meaning of your words, or even saw things you didn't know yourself.
It's a good trait to its possessor, but, like everything else in this world, there's a price to pay for it. She sometimes saw things that weren't there. A man with extra good sight is more fooled by mirage than a man who doesn't trust his eyes so much. And it had fallen down on her, on the most important dealing of her life. She saw Saxton wrong, and couldn't see him right, for that trust in her own judgment. ”

“ Poor lady! The size of an occasion is so many standards, whether the standard be inches or feet, or miles. Miss Mattie's events had been measured in hundredths of an inch, and it took a good many of them to cover so small an action as a successful picnic on a beautiful night. Her eyes were humid; her mouth smiled and drooped at the corners alternately. Red felt her happiness with a keen sympathy, and as he looked at her, suddenly she changed in his eyes. ”

“ There's one night, the Doctor starts for the cabin with a mess of flap-jacks in his hands, and the sheep comes up and pushes him in the pistol pocket so that the Doctor goes sailing into the drink with a stack of brown checks hoverin' all around him.
Then Wind River shows his one tooth and rocks on his heels, hollerin' and laughin', and the sheep rises up and smites him on the hip and thigh so he flew after the Doctor like a grey-whiskered sky-rocket, with a ha-ha! cut in two in the middle. "Woosh!" says old Windy as he comes up. "Hi, there cooky! I'll beat you ashore!" ”

“ You're nothing but a great bully, bullying a poor little woman, you nice boy! Who ever heard of such an argument? Because you make me listen, I must pay attention! Well, to show you what a friend I am, I will."
"Thank you, Mary," I said, holding out my hand. "Thank you, dear. You'll not be the worse for hearing the truth. It isn't like you to condemn a man unheard." ”

“ On reaching the grove of cottonwoods I sat down for a smoke and a speculative view of things in general, having learned at my then early age that philosophy is never of more value than when one should be doing something else.
I heard a noise behind me, a peculiar noise, between a snort and a violent bleat. Turning, I saw a buck deer, and, from the cord and bell around his neck, recognised him as one Billy, the property of Steve's eldest boy. He was spoken of as a pet. ”

“ Red's hat flew in no time; he was yelling like a maniac, and the crowd was yelling like more maniacs. Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would roll up and hide everything. No one was more pleased at the spectacle than the blacksmith. He was capering in the middle of the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him down! Hold him DOWN! Why do you let him jump up like that? ”

“ You never saw an uglier mug than Belknap's in all your days, as it appeared then. Ordinarily, although I hate to say it, he was a fine-looking man, but now his face was so twisted he looked like the devil in person. And still he said nothing. He had plenty good reason not to.
At this, Mary went at him. "I thought you a good man—a wise man," she said, with a bitter quiet that burnt, in every word. "You are a cowardly scoundrel. Attack the boy if you dare. I think I am a match for such as you." ”

“ Charley and I went forth after breakfast, Oscar lingering a moment, according to his use, to pass a painful five minutes in making excuses for staying that time, where no one needed any explanation.
"I wish to gracious Sally and Oscar would just act like people," said Mrs. Steve once in exasperation. "They get me so nervous stammering at each other that I drop everything I lay my hands on, and I feel as if I'd robbed somebody for the rest of the day." ”

“ Thus abruptly recalled to Fairfield, Miss
Mattie started up.
"Well, Will, it does seem as if that was a dangerous country to live in," said she.
"Oh, not so awful!" said Red. "Just as many people die here as they do there—this world's a dangerous place to live in, wherever you strike it, Mattie." ”

“ He was born to it, and his forebears centuries before him. Yet instead of breeding out the man in him, it had only taken off the scum.
At last he spoke. "Give me more time, campañero. I shall consider this further. To meddle with other lives is always a dangerous business, just as not to meddle may be a shameful one. As it stands, if he gets not the lady for a wife, Saxton is a lost man—I know him. On his word, on your word and on my word, she is not indifferent to him. We know Belknap is a rascal, and for her unfit. And so, action—yet I am a man of peace." ”

“ Indirectly it was the plug hat that ended the battle. At first, if Jimmy-hit-the-bottle felt any emotion, whether joy, resentment, terror, or anything man can feel, his face did not show it. One of the strangest features of the show was that immaculately calm face suddenly appearing through the dust-clouds, unconscious of storm and stress. At last, however, a yank of the deer's head—Jimmy had him by the horns—caused the plug hat to snap off, and the next second the deer's sharp foot went through it. You will remember Achilles did not get excited until his helmet touched the dust. ”