The Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King

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Title: Starlight Ranch
and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier

Author: Charles King

Release Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #26137]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STARLIGHT RANCH ***

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Transcriber's note

Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual; they
have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
without notice. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
and they are listed at the end of this book.

STARLIGHT RANCH

AND

OTHER STORIES OF ARMY
LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.

BY

CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,

AUTHOR OF
"MARION'S FAITH," "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1891.

Copyright, 1890, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
STARLIGHT RANCH 7

WELL WON; OR, FROM THE PLAINS TO "THE POINT" 40

FROM "THE POINT" TO THE PLAINS 116

THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP 201

VAN 234

STARLIGHT RANCH.

We were crouching round the bivouac fire, for the night was chill, and
we were yet high up along the summit of the great range. We had been
scouting through the mountains for ten days, steadily working southward,
and, though far from our own station, our supplies were abundant, and it
was our leader's purpose to make a clean sweep of the line from old
Sandy to the Salado, and fully settle the question as to whether the
renegade Apaches had betaken themselves, as was possible, to the heights
of the Matitzal, or had made a break for their old haunts in the Tonto
Basin or along the foot-hills of the Black Mesa to the east. Strong
scouting-parties had gone thitherwar