Gaston Leroux - "The Phantom of the Opera"

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - "Nathan the Wise"

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, V2"

Emile Zola - "The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Vol. 1"

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




Roy Beeman put a hand on Dale's shoulder. He, perhaps, was
the keenest of the brothers and the one to whom adventure
and peril called most. He had been oftenest with Dale, on
many a long trail, and he was the hardest rider and the most
relentless tracker in all that range country.

"An' we're goin' with you," he said, in a strong and rolling
voice.

They resumed their seats before the fire. John threw on more
wood, and with a crackling and sparkling the blaze curled
up, fanned by the wind. As twilight deepened into night the
moan in the pines increased to a roar. A pack of coyotes
commenced to pierce the air in staccato cries.

The five young men conversed long and earnestly,
considering, planning, rejecting ideas advanced by each.
Dale and Roy Beeman suggested most of what became acceptable
to all. Hunters of their type resembled explorers in slow
and deliberate attention to details. What they had to deal
with here was a situation of unlimited possibilities; the
horses and outfit needed; a long detour to reach Magdalena
unobserved; the rescue of a strange girl who would no doubt
be self-willed and determined to ride on the stage -- the
rescue forcible, if necessary; the fight and the inevitable
pursuit; the flight into the forest, and the safe delivery
of the girl to Auchincloss.

"Then, Milt, will we go after Beasley?" queried Roy Beeman,
significantly.

Dale was silent and thoughtful.

"Sufficient unto the day!" said John. "An, fellars, let's go
to bed."

They rolled out their tarpaulins, Dale sharing Roy's
blankets, and soon were asleep, while the red embers slowly
faded, and the great roar of wind died down, and the forest
stillness set in.



CHAPTER IV

Helen Rayner had been on the westbound overland train fully
twenty-four hours before she made an alarming discovery.

Accompanied by her sister Bo, a precocious girl of sixteen,
Helen had left St. Joseph with a heart saddened by farewells
to loved ones at home, yet full of thrilling and vivid
anticipations of the strange life in the Far West. All her
people had the pioneer spirit; love of change, action,
adventure, was in her blood. Then duty to a widowed mother
with a large and growing family had called to Helen to
accept this rich uncle's offer. She had taught school and
also her little brothers and sisters; she had helped along
in other ways. And now, though the tearing up of the roots
of old loved ties was hard, this opportunity was
irresistible in its call. The prayer of her dreams had been
answered. To bring good fortune to her family; to take care
of this beautiful, wild little sister; to leave the yellow,
sordid, humdrum towns for the great, rolling, boundless
open; to live on a wonderful ranch that was some day to be
her own; to have fulfilled a deep, instinctive, and
undeveloped love of horses, cattle, sheep, of desert and
mountain, of trees and brooks and wild flowers -- all this
was the sum of her most passionate longings, now in some
marvelous, fairylike way to come true.

A check to her happy anticipations, a blank, sickening dash
of cold water upon her warm and intimate dreams, had been
the discovery that Harve Riggs was on the train. His
presence could mean only one thing -- that he had followed
her. Riggs had been the worst of many sore trials back there
in St. Joseph. He had possessed some claim or influence upon
her mother, who favored his offer of marriage to Helen; he
was neither attractive, nor good, nor industrious, nor
anything that interested her; he was the boastful, strutting
adventurer, not genuinely Western, and he affected long hair
and guns and notoriety. Helen had suspected the veracity of
the many fights he claimed had been his, and also she
suspected that he was not really big enough to be bad -- as
Western men were bad. But on the train, in the station at La
Junta, one glimpse of him, manifestly spying upon her while
trying to keep out of her sight, warned Helen that she now
might have a problem on her hands.

The recognition sobered her. All was not to be a road of
roses to this new home in the West. Riggs would follow her,
if he could not accompany her, and to gain his own ends he
would stoop to anything. Helen felt the startling
realization of being cast upon her own resources, and then a
numbing discouragement and loneliness and helplessness. But
these feelings did not long persist in the quick pride and
flash of her temper. Opportunity knocked at her door and she
meant to be at home to it. She would not have been Al
Auchincloss's niece if she had faltered. And, when temper
was succeeded by genuine anger, she could have laughed to
scorn this Harve Riggs and his schemes, whatever they were.
Once and for all she dismissed fear of him. When she left
St. Joseph she had faced the West with a beating heart and a
high resolve to be worthy of that West. Homes had to be made
out there in that far country, so Uncle Al had written, and
women were needed to make homes. She meant to be one of
these women and to make of her sister another. And with the
thought that she would know definitely what to say to Riggs
when he approached her, sooner or later, Helen dismissed him
from mind.

While the train was in motion, enabling Helen to watch the
ever-changing scenery, and resting her from the strenuous
task of keeping Bo well in hand at stations, she lapsed
again into dreamy gaze at the pine forests and the red,
rocky gullies and the dim, bold mountains. She saw the sun
set over distant ranges of New Mexico -- a golden blaze of
glory, as new to her as the strange fancies born in her,
thrilling and fleeting by. Bo's raptures were not silent,
and the instant the sun sank and the color faded she just as
rapturously importuned Helen to get out the huge basket of
food they bad brought from home.

They had two seats, facing each other, at the end of the
coach, and piled there, with the basket on top, was luggage
that constituted all the girls owned in the world. Indeed,
it was very much more than they had ever owned before,
because their mother, in her care for them and desire to
have them look well in the eyes of this rich uncle, had
spent money and pains to give them pretty and serviceable
clothes.

The girls sat together, with the heavy basket on their
knees, and ate while they gazed out at the cool, dark
ridges. The train clattered slowly on, apparently over a
road that was all curves. And it was supper-time for
everybody in that crowded coach. If Helen had not been so
absorbed by the great, wild mountain-land she would have had
more interest in the passengers. As it was she saw them, and
was amused and thoughtful at the men and women and a few
children in the car, all middle-class people, poor and
hopeful, traveling out there to the New West to find homes.
It was splendid and beautiful, this fact, yet it inspired a
brief and inexplicable sadness. From the train window, that
world of forest and crag, with its long bare reaches
between, seemed so lonely, so wild, so unlivable. How
endless the distance! For hours and miles upon miles no
house, no hut, no Indian tepee! It was amazing, the length
and breadth of this beautiful land. And Helen, who loved
brooks and running streams, saw no water at all.

Then darkness settled down over the slow-moving panorama; a
cool night wind blew in at the window; white stars began to
blink out of the blue. The sisters, with hands clasped and
heads nestled together, went to sleep under a heavy cloak.


Early the next morning, while the girls were again delving
into their apparently bottomless basket, the train stopped
at Las Vegas.

"Look! Look!" cried Bo, in thrilling voice. "Cowboys! Oh,
Nell, look!"

Helen, laughing, looked first at her sister, and thought how
most of all she was good to look at. Bo was little, instinct
with pulsating life, and she had chestnut hair and dark-blue
eyes. These eyes were flashing, roguish, and they drew like
magnets.

Outside on the rude station platform were railroad men,
Mexicans, and a group of lounging cowboys. Long, lean,
bow-legged fellows they were, with young, frank faces and
intent eyes. One of them seemed particularly attractive with
his superb build, his red-bronze face and bright-red scarf,
his swinging gun, and the huge, long, curved spurs.
Evidently he caught Bo's admiring gaze, for, with a word to
his companions, he sauntered toward the window where the
girls sat. His gait was singular, almost awkward, as if he
was not accustomed to walking. The long spurs jingled
musically. He removed his sombrero and stood at ease, frank,
cool, smiling. Helen liked him on sight, and, looking to see
what effect he had upon Bo, she found that young lady
staring, frightened stiff.

"Good mawnin'," drawled the cowboy, with slow, good-humored
smile. "Now where might you-all be travelin'?"

The sound of his voice, the clean-cut and droll geniality;
seemed new and delightful to Helen.

"We go to Magdalena -- then take stage for the White
Mountains," replied Helen.

The cowboy's still, intent eyes showed surprise.

"Apache country, miss," he said. "I reckon I'm sorry. Thet's
shore no place for you-all . . . Beggin' your pawdin -- you
ain't Mormons?"

"No. We're nieces of Al Auchincloss," rejoined Helen.

"Wal, you don't say! I've been down Magdalena way an' heerd
of Al. . . . Reckon you're goin' a-visitin'?"

"It's to be home for us."

"Shore thet's fine. The West needs girls. . . . Yes, I've
heerd of Al. An old Arizona cattle-man in a sheep country!
Thet's bad. . . . Now I'm wonderin' -- if I'd drift down
there an' ask him for a job ridin' for him -- would I get
it?"

His lazy smile was infectious and his meaning was as clear
as crystal water. The gaze he bent upon Bo somehow pleased
Helen. The last year or two, since Bo had grown prettier all
the time, she had been a magnet for admiring glances. This
one of the cowboy's inspired respect and liking, as well as
amusement. It certainly was not lost upon Bo.

"My uncle once said in a letter that he never had enough men
to run his ranch," replied Helen, smiling.
"Shore I'll go. I reckon I'd jest naturally drift that way
-- now."

He seemed so laconic, so easy, so nice, that he could not
have been taken seriously, yet Helen's quick perceptions
registered a daring, a something that was both sudden and
inevitable in him. His last word was as clear as the soft
look he fixed upon Bo.

Helen had a mischievous trait, which, subdue it as she
would, occasionally cropped out; and Bo, who once in her
wilful life had been rendered speechless, offered such a
temptation.

"Maybe my little sister will put in a good word for you --
to Uncle Al," said Helen. Just then the train jerked, and
started slowly. The cowboy took two long strides beside the
car, his heated boyish face almost on a level with the
window, his eyes, now shy and a little wistful, yet bold,
too, fixed upon Bo.

"Good-by -- Sweetheart!" he called.

He halted -- was lost to view.

"Well!" ejaculated Helen, contritely, half sorry, half
amused. "What a sudden young gentleman!"

Bo had blushed beautifully.

"Nell, wasn't he glorious!" she burst out, with eyes
shining.

"I'd hardly call him that, but he was-nice," replied Helen,
much relieved that Bo had apparently not taken offense at
her.

It appeared plain that Bo resisted a frantic desire to look
out of the window and to wave her hand. But she only peeped
out, manifestly to her disappointment.

"Do you think he -- he'll come to Uncle Al's?" asked Bo.

"Child, he was only in fun."

"Nell, I'll bet you he comes. Oh, it'd be great! I'm going
to love cowboys. They don't look like that Harve Riggs who
ran after you so."

Helen sighed, partly because of the reminder of her odious
suitor, and partly because Bo's future already called
mysteriously to the child. Helen had to be at once a mother
and a protector to a girl of intense and wilful spirit.

One of the trainmen directed the girls' attention to a
green, sloping mountain rising to a bold, blunt bluff of
bare rock; and, calling it Starvation Peak, be told a story
of how Indians had once driven Spaniards up there and
starved them. Bo was intensely interested, and thereafter
she watched more keenly than ever, and always had a question
for a passing trainman. The adobe houses of the Mexicans
pleased her, and, then the train got out into Indian
country, where pueblos appeared near the track and Indians
with their bright colors and shaggy wild mustangs -- then
she was enraptured.

"But these Indians are peaceful!" she exclaimed once,
regretfully.

"Gracious, child! You don't want to see hostile Indians, do
you?" queried Helen.

"I do, you bet," was the frank rejoinder.

"Well, I'LL bet that I'll be sorry I didn't leave you with
mother."

"Nell -- you never will!"


They reached Albuquerque about noon, and this important
station, where they had to change trains, had been the first
dreaded anticipation of the journey. It certainly was a busy
place -- full of jabbering Mexicans, stalking, red-faced,
wicked-looking cowboys, lolling Indians. In the confusion
Helen would have been hard put to it to preserve calmness,
with Bo to watch, and all that baggage to carry, and the
other train to find; but the kindly brakeman who had been
attentive to them now helped them off the train into the
other -- a service for which Helen was very grateful.

"Albuquerque's a hard place," confided the trainman. "Better
stay in the car -- and don't hang out the windows. . . .
Good luck to you!"

Only a few passengers were in the car and they were Mexicans
at the forward end. This branch train consisted of one
passenger-coach, with a baggage-car, attached to a string of
freight-cars. Helen told herself, somewhat grimly, that soon
she would know surely whether or not her suspicions of Harve
Riggs had warrant. If he was going on to Magdalena on that
day he must go in this coach. Presently Bo, who was not
obeying admonitions, drew her head out of the window. Her
eyes were wide in amaze, her mouth open.

"Nell! I saw that man Riggs!" she whispered. "He's going to
get on this train."

"Bo, I saw him yesterday," replied Helen, soberly. "He's
followed you -- the -- the -- "

"Now, Bo, don't get excited," remonstrated Helen. "We've
left home now. We've got to take things as they come. Never
mind if Riggs has followed me. I'll settle him."

"Oh! Then you won't speak -- have anything to do with him?"

"I won't if I can help it."

Other passengers boarded the train, dusty, uncouth, ragged
men, and some hard-featured, poorly clad women, marked by
toil, and several more Mexicans. With bustle and loud talk
they found their several seats.

Then Helen saw Harve Riggs enter, burdened with much
luggage. He was a man of about medium height, of dark,
flashy appearance, cultivating long black mustache and hair.
His apparel was striking, as it consisted of black
frock-coat, black trousers stuffed in high, fancy-topped
boots, an embroidered vest, and flowing tie, and a black
sombrero. His belt and gun were prominent. It was
significant that he excited comment among the other
passengers.

When he had deposited his pieces of baggage he seemed to
square himself, and, turning abruptly, approached the seat
occupied by the girls. When he reached it he sat down upon
the arm of the one opposite, took off his sombrero, and
deliberately looked at Helen. His eyes were light, glinting,
with hard, restless quiver, and his mouth was coarse and
arrogant. Helen had never seen him detached from her home
surroundings, and now the difference struck cold upon her
heart.

"Hello, Nell!" he said. "Surprised to see me?"

"No," she replied, coldly.

"I'll gamble you are."

"Harve Riggs, I told you the day before I left home that
nothing you could do or say mattered to me."

"Reckon that ain't so, Nell. Any woman I keep track of has
reason to think. An' you know it."

"Then you followed me -- out here?" demanded Helen, and her
voice, despite her control, quivered with anger

"I sure did," he replied, and there was as much thought of
himself in the act as there was of her.

"Why? Why? It's useless -- hopeless."

"I swore I'd have you, or nobody else would," he replied,
and here, in the passion of his voice there sounded egotism
rather than hunger for a woman's love. "But I reckon I'd
have struck West anyhow, sooner or later."

"You're not going to -- all the way -- to Pine?" faltered
Helen, momentarily weakening.

"Nell, I'll camp on your trail from now on," he declared.

Then Bo sat bolt-upright, with pale face and flashing eyes.

"Harve Riggs, you leave Nell alone," she burst out, in
ringing, brave young voice. "I'll tell you what -- I'll bet
-- if you follow her and nag her any more, my uncle Al or
some cowboy will run you out of the country."

"Hello, Pepper!" replied Riggs, coolly. "I see your manners
haven't improved an' you're still wild about cowboys."

"People don't have good manners with -- with --"

"Bo, hush!" admonished Helen. It was difficult to reprove Bo
just then, for that young lady had not the slightest fear of
Riggs. Indeed, she looked as if she could slap his face. And
Helen realized that however her intelligence had grasped the
possibilities of leaving home for a wild country, and
whatever her determination to be brave, the actual beginning
of self-reliance had left her spirit weak. She would rise
out of that. But just now this flashing-eyed little sister
seemed a protector. Bo would readily adapt herself to the
West, Helen thought, because she was so young, primitive,
elemental.

Whereupon Bo turned her back to Riggs and looked out of the
window. The man laughed. Then he stood up and leaned over
Helen.

"Nell, I'm goin' wherever you go," he said, steadily. "You
can take that friendly or not, just as it pleases you. But
if you've got any sense you'll not give these people out
here a hunch against me. I might hurt somebody. . . . An'
wouldn't it be better -- to act friends? For I'm goin' to
look after you, whether you like it or not."

Helen had considered this man an annoyance, and later a
menace, and now she must declare open enmity with him.
However disgusting the idea that he considered himself a
factor in her new life, it was the truth. He existed, he had
control over his movements. She could not change that. She
hated the need of thinking so much about him; and suddenly,
with a hot, bursting anger, she hated the man.

"You'll not look after me. I'll take care of myself," she
said, and she turned her back upon him. She heard him mutter
under his breath and slowly move away down the car. Then Bo
slipped a hand in hers.

"Never mind, Nell," she whispered. "You know what old
Sheriff Haines said about Harve Riggs. 'A four-flush
would-be gun-fighter! If he ever strikes a real Western town
he'll get run out of it.' I just wish my red-faced cowboy
had got on this train!"

Helen felt a rush of gladness that she had yielded to Bo's
wild importunities to take her West. The spirit which had
made Bo incorrigible at home probably would make her react
happily to life out in this free country. Yet Helen, with
all her warmth and gratefulness, had to laugh at her sister.

"Your red-faced cowboy! Why, Bo, you were scared stiff. And
now you claim him!"

"I certainly could love that fellow," replied Bo, dreamily.

"Child, you've been saying that about fellows for a long
time. And you've never looked twice at any of them yet."

"He was different. . . . Nell, I'll bet he comes to Pine."

"I hope he does. I wish he was on this train. I liked his
looks, Bo."

"Well, Nell dear, he looked at ME first and last -- so don't
get your hopes up. . . . Oh, the train's starting! . . .
Good-by, Albu-ker -- what's that awful name? . . . Nell,
let's eat dinner. I'm starved."

Then Helen forgot her troubles and the uncertain future, and
what with listening to Bo's chatter, and partaking again of
the endless good things to eat in the huge basket, and
watching the noble mountains, she drew once more into happy
mood.

The valley of the Rio Grande opened to view, wide near at
hand in a great gray-green gap between the bare black
mountains, narrow in the distance, where the yellow river
wound away, glistening under a hot sun. Bo squealed in glee
at sight of naked little Mexican children that darted into
adobe huts as the train clattered by, and she exclaimed her
pleasure in the Indians, and the mustangs, and particularly
in a group of cowboys riding into town on spirited horses.
Helen saw all Bo pointed out, but it was to the wonderful
rolling valley that her gaze clung longest, and to the dim
purple distance that seemed to hold something from her. She
had never before experienced any feeling like that; she had
never seen a tenth so far. And the sight awoke something
strange in her. The sun was burning hot, as she could tell
when she put a hand outside the window, and a strong wind
blew sheets of dry dust at the train. She gathered at once
what tremendous factors in the Southwest were the sun and
the dust and the wind. And her realization made her love
them. It was there; the open, the wild, the beautiful, the
lonely land; and she felt the poignant call of blood in her
-- to seek, to strive, to find, to live. One look down that
yellow valley, endless between its dark iron ramparts, had
given her understanding of her uncle. She must be like him
in spirit, as it was claimed she resembled him otherwise.

At length Bo grew tired of watching scenery that contained
no life, and, with her bright head on the faded cloak, she
went to sleep. But Helen kept steady, farseeing gaze out
upon that land of rock and plain; and during the long hours,
as she watched through clouds of dust and veils of heat,
some strong and doubtful and restless sentiment seemed to
change and then to fix. It was her physical acceptance --
her eyes and her senses taking the West as she had already
taken it in spirit.

A woman should love her home wherever fate placed her, Helen
believed, and not so much from duty as from delight and
romance and living. How could life ever be tedious or
monotonous out here in this tremendous vastness of bare
earth and open sky, where the need to achieve made thinking
and pondering superficial?

It was with regret that she saw the last of the valley of
the Rio Grande, and then of its paralleled mountain ranges.
But the miles brought compensation in other valleys, other
bold, black upheavals of rock, and then again bare,
boundless yellow plains, and sparsely cedared ridges, and
white dry washes, ghastly in the sunlight, and dazzling beds
of alkali, and then a desert space where golden and blue
flowers bloomed.

She noted, too, that the whites and yellows of earth and
rock had begun to shade to red -- and this she knew meant an
approach to Arizona. Arizona, the wild, the lonely, the red
desert, the green plateau -- Arizona with its thundering
rivers, its unknown spaces, its pasture-lands and
timber-lands, its wild horses, cowboys, outlaws, wolves and
lions and savages! As to a boy, that name stirred and
thrilled and sang to her of nameless, sweet, intangible
things, mysterious and all of adventure. But she, being a
girl of twenty, who had accepted responsibilities, must
conceal the depths of her heart and that which her mother
had complained was her misfortune in not being born a boy.

Time passed, while Helen watched and learned and dreamed.
The train stopped, at long intervals, at wayside stations
where there seemed nothing but adobe sheds and lazy
Mexicans, and dust and heat. Bo awoke and began to chatter,
and to dig into the basket. She learned from the conductor
that Magdalena was only two stations on. And she was full of
conjectures as to who would meet them, what would happen. So
Helen was drawn back to sober realities, in which there was
considerable zest. Assuredly she did not know what was going
to happen. Twice Riggs passed up and down the aisle, his
dark face and light eyes and sardonic smile deliberately
forced upon her sight. But again Helen fought a growing
dread with contemptuous scorn. This fellow was not half a
man. It was not conceivable what he could do, except annoy
her, until she arrived at Pine. Her uncle was to meet her or
send for her at Snowdrop, which place, Helen knew, was
distant a good long ride by stage from Magdalena. This
stage-ride was the climax and the dread of all the long
journey, in Helen's considerations.

"Oh, Nell!" cried Bo, with delight. "We're nearly there!
Next station, the conductor said."

"I wonder if the stage travels at night," said Helen,
thoughtfully.

"Sure it does!" replied the irrepressible Bo.

The train, though it clattered along as usual, seemed to
Helen to fly. There the sun was setting over bleak New
Mexican bluffs, Magdalena was at hand, and night, and
adventure. Helen's heart beat fast. She watched the yellow
plains where the cattle grazed; their presence, and
irrigation ditches and cottonwood-trees told her that the
railroad part of the journey was nearly ended. Then, at Bo's
little scream, she looked across the car and out of the
window to see a line of low, flat, red-adobe houses. The
train began to slow down. Helen saw children run, white
children and Mexican together; then more houses, and high
upon a hill an immense adobe church, crude and glaring, yet
somehow beautiful.