Charles de Bernard - "Gerfaut, v4"

P. G. Wodehouse - "The Man Upstairs and Other Stories"

Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names) - "Mary Louise"

Rosa Nouchette Carey - "Herb of Grace"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Man of the Forest

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Man of the Forest




Upon her return to the camp-fire she looked very different
with her hair arranged and the red stains in her cheeks.

"Miss, air you hungry?" asked Wilson.

"Yes, I am," she replied.

He helped her to portions of bread, venison and gravy, and a
cup of coffee. Evidently she relished the meat, but she had
to force down the rest.

"Where are they all?" she asked.

"Rustlin' the hosses."

Probably she divined that he did not want to talk, for the
fleeting glance she gave him attested to a thought that his
voice or demeanor had changed. Presently she sought a seat
under the aspen-tree, out of the sun, and the smoke
continually blowing in her face; and there she stayed, a
forlorn little figure, for all the resolute lips and defiant
eyes.

The Texan paced to and fro beside the camp-fire with bent
head, and hands locked behind him. But for the swinging gun
he would have resembled a lanky farmer, coatless and
hatless, with his brown vest open, his trousers stuck in the
top of the high boots.

And neither he nor the girl changed their positions
relatively for a long time. At length, however, after
peering into the woods, and listening, he remarked to the
girl that he would be back in a moment, and then walked off
around the spruces.

No sooner had he disappeared -- in fact, so quickly
after-ward that it presupposed design instead of accident --
than Riggs came running from the opposite side of the glade.
He ran straight to the girl, who sprang to her feet.

"I hid -- two of the -- horses," he panted, husky with
excitement. "I'll take -- two saddles. You grab some grub.
We'll run for it."

"No," she cried, stepping back.

"But it's not safe -- for us -- here," he said, hurriedly,
glancing all around. "I'll take you -- home. I swear. . . .
Not safe -- I tell you -- this gang's after me. Hurry!"

He laid hold of two saddles, one with each hand. The moment
had reddened his face, brightened his eyes, made his action
strong.

"I'm safer -- here with this outlaw gang," she replied.

"You won't come!" His color began to lighten then, and his
face to distort. He dropped his hold on the saddles.

"Harve Riggs, I'd rather become a toy and a rag for these
ruffians than spend an hour alone with you," she flashed at
him, in unquenchable hate.

"I'll drag you!"

He seized her, but could not hold her. Breaking away, she
screamed.

"Help!"

That whitened his face, drove him to frenzy. Leaping
forward, he struck her a hard blow across the mouth. It
staggered her, and, tripping on a saddle, she fell. His
hands flew to her throat, ready to choke her. But she lay
still and held her tongue. Then he dragged her to her feet.

"Hurry now -- grab that pack -- an' follow me." Again Riggs
laid hold of the two saddles. A desperate gleam, baleful and
vainglorious, flashed over his face. He was living his one
great adventure.

The girl's eyes dilated. They looked beyond him. Her lips
opened.

"Scream again an' I'll kill you!" he cried, hoarsely and
swiftly. The very opening of her lips had terrified Riggs.

"Reckon one scream was enough," spoke a voice, slow, but
without the drawl, easy and cool, yet incalculable in some
terrible sense.

Riggs wheeled with inarticulate cry. Wilson stood a few
paces off, with his gun half leveled, low down. His face
seemed as usual, only his eyes held a quivering, light
intensity, like boiling molten silver.

"Girl, what made thet blood on your mouth?"

"Riggs hit me!" she whispered. Then at something she feared
or saw or divined she shrank back, dropped on her knees, and
crawled into the spruce shelter.

"Wal, Riggs, I'd invite you to draw if thet 'd be any use,"
said Wilson. This speech was reflective, yet it hurried a
little.

Riggs could not draw nor move nor speak. He seemed turned to
stone, except his jaw, which slowly fell.

"Harve Riggs, gunman from down Missouri way," continued the
voice of incalculable intent, "reckon you've looked into a
heap of gun-barrels in your day. Shore! Wal, look in this
heah one!"

Wilson deliberately leveled the gun on a line with Riggs's
starting eyes.

"Wasn't you heard to brag in Turner's saloon -- thet you
could see lead comin' -- an' dodge it? Shore you must be
swift! . . . DODGE THIS HEAH BULLET!"

The gun spouted flame and boomed. One of Riggs's starting,
popping eyes -- the right one -- went out, like a lamp. The
other rolled horribly, then set in blank dead fixedness.
Riggs swayed in slow motion until a lost balance felled him
heavily, an inert mass.

Wilson bent over the prostrate form. Strange, violent
contrast to the cool scorn of the preceding moment! Hissing,
spitting, as if poisoned by passion, he burst with the hate
that his character had forbidden him to express on a living
counterfeit. Wilson was shaken, as if by a palsy. He choked
over passionate, incoherent invective. It was class hate
first, then the hate of real manhood for a craven, then the
hate of disgrace for a murder. No man so fair as a
gun-fighter in the Western creed of an "even break"!

Wilson's terrible cataclysm of passion passed. Straightening
up, he sheathed his weapon and began a slow pace before the
fire. Not many moments afterward he jerked his head high and
listened. Horses were softly thudding through the forest.
Soon Anson rode into sight with his men and one of the
strayed horses. It chanced, too, that young Burt appeared on
the other side of the glade. He walked quickly, as one who
anticipated news.

Snake Anson as he dismounted espied the dead man.

"Jim -- I thought I heard a shot."

The others exclaimed and leaped off their horses to view the
prostrate form with that curiosity and strange fear common
to all men confronted by sight of sudden death.

That emotion was only momentary.

"Shot his lamp out!" ejaculated Moze.

"Wonder how Gunman Riggs liked thet plumb center peg!"
exclaimed Shady Jones, with a hard laugh.

"Back of his head all gone!" gasped young Burt. Not
improbably he had not seen a great many bullet-marked men.

"Jim! -- the long-haired fool didn't try to draw on you!"
exclaimed Snake Anson, astounded.

Wilson neither spoke nor ceased his pacing.

"What was it over?" added Anson, curiously.

"He hit the gurl," replied Wilson.

Then there were long-drawn exclamations all around, and
glance met glance.

"Jim, you saved me the job," continued the outlaw leader.
"An' I'm much obliged. . . . Fellars, search Riggs an' we'll
divvy. . . . Thet all right, Jim?"

"Shore, an' you can have my share."

They found bank-notes in the man's pocket and considerable
gold worn in a money-belt around his waist. Shady Jones
appropriated his boots, and Moze his gun. Then they left him
as he had fallen.

"Jim, you'll have to track them lost hosses. Two still
missin' an' one of them's mine," called Anson as Wilson
paced to the end of his beat.

The girl heard Anson, for she put her head out of the spruce
shelter and called: "Riggs said he'd hid two of the horses.
They must be close. He came that way."

"Howdy, kid! Thet's good news," replied Anson. His spirits
were rising. "He must hev wanted you to slope with him?"

"Yes. I wouldn't go."

"An' then he hit you?"

"Yes."

"Wal, recallin' your talk of yestiddy, I can't see as Mister
Riggs lasted much longer hyar than he'd hev lasted in Texas.
We've some of thet great country right in our outfit."

The girl withdrew her white face.

"It's break camp, boys," was the leader's order. "A couple
of you look up them hosses. They'll be hid in some thick
spruces. The rest of us 'll pack."


Soon the gang was on the move, heading toward the height of
land, and swerving from it only to find soft and grassy
ground that would not leave any tracks.

They did not travel more than a dozen miles during the
afternoon, but they climbed bench after bench until they
reached the timbered plateau that stretched in sheer black
slope up to the peaks. Here rose the great and gloomy forest
of firs and pines, with the spruce overshadowed and thinned
out. The last hour of travel was tedious and toilsome, a
zigzag, winding, breaking, climbing hunt for the kind of
camp-site suited to Anson's fancy. He seemed to be growing
strangely irrational about selecting places to camp. At
last, for no reason that could have been manifest to a good
woodsman, he chose a gloomy bowl in the center of the
densest forest that had been traversed. The opening, if such
it could have been called, was not a park or even a glade. A
dark cliff, with strange holes, rose to one side, but not so
high as the lofty pines that brushed it. Along its base
babbled a brook, running over such formation of rock that
from different points near at hand it gave forth different
sounds, some singing, others melodious, and one at least of
a hollow, weird, deep sound, not loud, but strangely
penetrating.

"Sure spooky I say," observed Shady, sentiently.

The little uplift of mood, coincident with the rifling of
Riggs's person, had not worn over to this evening camp. What
talk the outlaws indulged in was necessary and conducted in
low tones. The place enjoined silence.

Wilson performed for the girl very much the same service as
he had the night before. Only he advised her not to starve
herself; she must eat to keep up her strength. She complied
at the expense of considerable effort.

As it had been a back-breaking day, in which all of them,
except the girl, had climbed miles on foot, they did not
linger awake long enough after supper to learn what a wild,
weird, and pitch-black spot the outlaw leader had chosen.
The little spaces of open ground between the huge-trunked
pine-trees had no counterpart up in the lofty spreading
foliage. Not a star could blink a wan ray of light into that
Stygian pit. The wind, cutting down over abrupt heights
farther up, sang in the pine-needles as if they were strings
vibrant with chords. Dismal creaks were audible. They were
the forest sounds of branch or tree rubbing one another, but
which needed the corrective medium of daylight to convince
any human that they were other than ghostly. Then, despite
the wind and despite the changing murmur of the brook, there
seemed to be a silence insulating them, as deep and
impenetrable as the darkness.

But the outlaws, who were fugitives now, slept the sleep of
the weary, and heard nothing. They awoke with the sun, when
the forest seemed smoky in a golden gloom, when light and
bird and squirrel proclaimed the day.

The horses had not strayed out of this basin during the
night, a circumstance that Anson was not slow to appreciate.

"It ain't no cheerful camp, but I never seen a safer place
to hole up in," he remarked to Wilson.

"Wal, yes -- if any place is safe," replied that ally,
dubiously.

"We can watch our back tracks. There ain't any other way to
git in hyar thet I see."

"Snake, we was tolerable fair sheep-rustlers, but we're no
good woodsmen."

Anson grumbled his disdain of this comrade who had once been
his mainstay. Then he sent Burt out to hunt fresh meat and
engaged his other men at cards. As they now had the means to
gamble, they at once became absorbed. Wilson smoked and
divided his thoughtful gaze between the gamblers and the
drooping figure of the girl. The morning air was keen, and
she, evidently not caring to be near her captors beside the
camp-fire, had sought the only sunny spot in this gloomy
dell. A couple of hours passed; the sun climbed high; the
air grew warmer. Once the outlaw leader raised his head to
scan the heavy-timbered slopes that inclosed the camp.

"Jim, them hosses are strayin' off ," he observed.

Wilson leisurely rose and stalked off across the small, open
patches, in the direction of the horses. They had grazed
around from the right toward the outlet of the brook. Here
headed a ravine, dense and green. Two of the horses had gone
down. Wilson evidently heard them, though they were not in
sight, and he circled somewhat so as to get ahead of them
and drive them back. The invisible brook ran down over the
rocks with murmur and babble. He halted with instinctive
action. He listened. Forest sounds, soft, lulling, came on
the warm, pine-scented breeze. It would have taken no keen
ear to hear soft and rapid padded footfalls. He moved on
cautiously and turned into a little open, mossy spot,
brown-matted and odorous, full of ferns and bluebells. In
the middle of this, deep in the moss, he espied a huge round
track of a cougar. He bent over it. Suddenly he stiffened,
then straightened guardedly. At that instant he received a
hard prod in the back. Throwing up his hands, he stood
still, then slowly turned. A tall hunter in gray buckskin,
gray-eyed and square-jawed, had him covered with a cocked
rifle. And beside this hunter stood a monster cougar,
snarling and blinking.



CHAPTER XXII

"Howdy, Dale," drawled Wilson. "Reckon you're a little
previous on me."

"Sssssh! Not so loud," said the hunter, in low voice.
"You're Jim Wilson?"

"Shore am. Say, Dale, you showed up soon. Or did you jest
happen to run acrost us?"

"I've trailed you. Wilson, I'm after the girl."

"I knowed thet when I seen you!"

The cougar seemed actuated by the threatening position of
his master, and he opened his mouth, showing great yellow
fangs, and spat at Wilson. The outlaw apparently had no fear
of Dale or the cocked rifle, but that huge, snarling cat
occasioned him uneasiness.

"Wilson, I've heard you spoken of as a white outlaw," said
Dale.

"Mebbe I am. But shore I'll be a scared one in a minit.
Dale, he's goin' to jump me!"

"The cougar won't jump you unless I make him. Wilson, if I
let you go will you get the girl for me?"

"Wal, lemme see. Supposin' I refuse?" queried Wilson,
shrewdly.

"Then, one way or another, it's all up with you."

"Reckon I 'ain't got much choice. Yes, I'll do it. But,
Dale, are you goin' to take my word for thet an' let me go
back to Anson?"

"Yes, I am. You're no fool. An' I believe you're square.
I've got Anson and his gang corralled. You can't slip me --
not in these woods. I could run off your horses -- pick you
off one by one -- or turn the cougar loose on you at night."

"Shore. It's your game. Anson dealt himself this hand. . . .
Between you an' me, Dale, I never liked the deal."

"Who shot Riggs? . . . I found his body."

"Wal, yours truly was around when thet come off," replied
Wilson, with an involuntary little shudder. Some thought
made him sick.

"The girl? Is she safe -- unharmed?" queried Dale,
hurriedly.

"She's shore jest as safe an' sound as when she was home.
Dale, she's the gamest kid thet ever breathed! Why, no one
could hev ever made me believe a girl, a kid like her, could
hev the nerve she's got. Nothin's happened to her 'cept
Riggs hit her in the mouth. . . . I killed him for thet. . .
. An', so help me, God, I believe it's been workin' in me to
save her somehow! Now it'll not be so hard."

"But how?" demanded Dale.

"Lemme see. . . . Wal, I've got to sneak her out of camp an'
meet you. Thet's all."

"It must be done quick."

"But, Dale, listen," remonstrated Wilson, earnestly. "Too
quick 'll be as bad as too slow. Snake is sore these days,
gittin' sorer all the time. He might savvy somethin', if I
ain't careful, an' kill the girl or do her harm. I know
these fellars. They're all ready to go to pieces. An' shore
I must play safe. Shore it'd be safer to have a plan."

Wilson's shrewd, light eyes gleamed with an idea. He was
about to lower one of his upraised hands, evidently to point
to the cougar, when he thought better of that.

"Anson's scared of cougars. Mebbe we can scare him an' the
gang so it 'd be easy to sneak the girl off. Can you make
thet big brute do tricks? Rush the camp at night an' squall
an' chase off the horses?"

"I'll guarantee to scare Anson out of ten years' growth,"
replied Dale.

"Shore it's a go, then," resumed Wilson, as if glad. "I'll
post the girl -- give her a hunch to do her part. You sneak
up to-night jest before dark. I'll hev the gang worked up.
An' then you put the cougar to his tricks, whatever you
want. When the gang gits wild I'll grab the girl an' pack
her off down heah or somewheres aboot an' whistle fer you. .
. . But mebbe thet ain't so good. If' thet cougar comes
pilin' into camp he might jump me instead of one of the
gang. An' another hunch. He, might slope up on me in the
dark when I was tryin' to find you. Shore thet ain't
appealin' to me."

"Wilson, this cougar is a pet," replied Dale. "You think
he's dangerous, but he's not. No more than a kitten. He only
looks fierce. He has never been hurt by a person an' he's
never fought anythin' himself but deer an' bear. I can make
him trail any scent. But the truth is I couldn't make him
hurt you or anybody. All the same, he can be made to scare
the hair off any one who doesn't know him."

"Shore thet settles me. I'll be havin' a grand joke while
them fellars is scared to death. . . . Dale, you can depend
on me. An' I'm beholdin' to you fer what 'll square me some
with myself. . . . To-night, an' if it won't work then,
to-morrer night shore!"

Dale lowered the rifle. The big cougar spat again. Wilson
dropped his hands and, stepping forward, split the green
wall of intersecting spruce branches. Then he turned up the
ravine toward the glen. Once there, in sight of his
comrades, his action and expression changed.

"Hosses all thar, Jim?" asked Anson, as he picked up, his
cards.

"Shore. They act awful queer, them hosses," replied. Wilson.
"They're afraid of somethin'."

"A-huh! Silvertip mebbe," muttered Anson. "Jim, You jest
keep watch of them hosses. We'd be done if some tarnal
varmint stampeded them."

"Reckon I'm elected to do all the work now," complained
Wilson, "while you card-sharps cheat each other." Rustle the
hosses -- an' water an' fire-wood. Cook an' wash. Hey?"

"No one I ever seen can do them camp tricks any better 'n
Jim Wilson," replied Anson.

"Jim, you're a lady's man an' thar's our pretty hoodoo over
thar to feed an' amoose," remarked Shady Jones, with a smile
that disarmed his speech.

The outlaws guffawed.

"Git out, Jim, you're breakin' up the game," said Moze, who
appeared loser.

"Wal, thet gurl would starve if it wasn't fer me," replied
Wilson, genially, and he walked over toward her, beginning
to address her, quite loudly, as he approached. "Wal, miss,
I'm elected cook an' I'd shore like to heah what you fancy
fer dinner."

The outlaws heard, for they guffawed again. "Haw! Haw! if
Jim ain't funny!" exclaimed Anson.

The girl looked up amazed. Wilson was winking at her, and
when he got near he began to speak rapidly and low.

"I jest met Dale down in the woods with his pet cougar. He's
after you. I'm goin' to help him git you safe away. Now you
do your part. I want you to pretend you've gone crazy.
Savvy? Act out of your head! Shore I don't care what you do
or say, only act crazy. An' don't be scared. We're goin' to
scare the gang so I'll hev a chance to sneak you away.
To-night or to-morrow -- shore."

Before he began to speak she was pale, sad, dull of eye.
Swiftly, with his words, she was transformed, and when he
had ended she did not appear the same girl. She gave him one
blazing flash of comprehension and nodded her head rapidly.

"Yes, I understand. I'll do it!" she whispered.

The outlaw turned slowly away with the most abstract air,
confounded amid his shrewd acting, and he did not collect
himself until half-way back to his comrades. Then, beginning
to hum an old darky tune, he stirred up and replenished the
fire, and set about preparation for the midday meal. But he
did not miss anything going on around him. He saw the girl
go into her shelter and come out with her hair all down over
her face. Wilson, back to his comrades, grinned his glee,
and he wagged his head as if he thought the situation was
developing.

The gambling outlaws, however, did not at once see the girl
preening herself and smoothing her long hair in a way
calculated to startle.

"Busted!" ejaculated Anson, with a curse, as he slammed down
his cards. "If I ain't hoodooed I'm a two-bit of a gambler!"

"Sartin you're hoodooed," said Shady Jones, in scorn. "Is
thet jest dawnin' on you?"

"Boss, you play like a cow stuck in the mud," remarked Moze,
laconically.

"Fellars, it ain't funny," declared Anson, with pathetic
gravity. "I'm jest gittin' on to myself. Somethin's wrong.
Since 'way last fall no luck -- nothin' but the wust end of
everythin'. I ain't blamin' anybody. I'm the boss. It's me
thet's off."

"Snake, shore it was the gurl deal you made," rejoined
Wilson, who had listened. "I told you. Our troubles hev only
begun. An' I can see the wind-up. Look!"

Wilson pointed to where the girl stood, her hair flying
wildly all over her face and shoulders. She was making most
elaborate bows to an old stump, sweeping the ground with her
tresses in her obeisance.

Anson started. He grew utterly astounded. His amaze was
ludicrous. And the other two men looked to stare, to equal
their leader's bewilderment.

"What 'n hell's come over her?" asked Anson, dubiously.
"Must hev perked up. . . . But she ain't feelin' thet gay!"

Wilson tapped his forehead with a significant finger.

"Shore I was scared of her this mawnin'," he whispered.

"Naw!" exclaimed Anson, incredulously.

"If she hain't queer I never seen no queer wimmin,"
vouchsafed Shady Jones, and it would have been judged, by
the way he wagged his head, that he had been all his days
familiar with women.

Moze looked beyond words, and quite alarmed.

"I seen it comin'," declared Wilson, very much excited. "But
I was scared to say so. You-all made fun of me aboot her.
Now I shore wish I had spoken up."

Anson nodded solemnly. He did not believe the evidence of
his sight, but the facts seemed stunning. As if the girl
were a dangerous and incomprehensible thing, he approached
her step by step. Wilson followed, and the others appeared
drawn irresistibly.

"Hey thar -- kid!" called Anson, hoarsely.

The girl drew her slight form up haughtily. Through her
spreading tresses her eyes gleamed unnaturally upon the
outlaw leader. But she deigned not to reply.

"Hey thar -- you Rayner girl!" added Anson, lamely. "What's
ailin' you?"

"My lord! did you address me?" she asked, loftily.

Shady Jones got over his consternation and evidently
extracted some humor from the situation, as his dark face
began to break its strain.

"Aww!" breathed Anson, heavily.

"Ophelia awaits your command, my lord. I've been gathering
flowers," she said, sweetly, holding up her empty hands as
if they contained a bouquet.

Shady Jones exploded in convulsed laughter. But his
merriment was not shared. And suddenly it brought disaster
upon him. The girl flew at him.

"Why do you croak, you toad? I will have you whipped and put
in irons, you scullion!" she cried, passionately.

Shady underwent a remarkable change, and stumbled in his
backward retreat. Then she snapped her fingers in Moze's
face.

"You black devil! Get hence! Avaunt!"

Anson plucked up courage enough to touch her.

"Aww! Now, Ophelyar --"

Probably he meant to try to humor her, but she screamed, and
he jumped back as if she might burn him. She screamed
shrilly, in wild, staccato notes.

"You! You!" she pointed her finger at the outlaw leader.
"You brute to women! You ran off from your wife!"

Anson turned plum-color and then slowly white. The girl must
have sent a random shot home.

"And now the devil's turned you into a snake. A long, scaly
snake with green eyes! Uugh! You'll crawl on your belly soon
-- when my cowboy finds you. And he'll tramp you in the
dust."

She floated away from them and began to whirl gracefully,
arms spread and hair flying; and then, apparently oblivious
of the staring men, she broke into a low, sweet song. Next
she danced around a pine, then danced into her little green
inclosure. From which presently she sent out the most
doleful moans.

"Aww! What a shame!" burst out Anson. "Thet fine, healthy,
nervy kid! Clean gone! Daffy! Crazy 'n a bedbug!"

"Shore it's a shame," protested Wilson." But it's wuss for
us. Lord! if we was hoodooed before, what will we be now?
Didn't I tell you, Snake Anson? You was warned. Ask Shady
an' Moze -- they see what's up."

"No luck 'll ever come our way ag'in," predicted Shady,
mournfully.

"It beats me, boss, it beats me," muttered Moze.

"A crazy woman on my hands! If thet ain't the last straw!"
broke out Anson, tragically, as he turned away. Ignorant,
superstitious, worked upon by things as they seemed, the
outlaw imagined himself at last beset by malign forces. When
he flung himself down upon one of the packs his big
red-haired hands shook. Shady and Moze resembled two other
men at the end of their ropes.

Wilson's tense face twitched, and he averted it, as
apparently he fought off a paroxysm of some nature. Just
then Anson swore a thundering oath.