The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Desert Valley, by Jackson Gregory

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Title: The Desert Valley

Author: Jackson Gregory

Release Date: March 30, 2005 [eBook #15502]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERT VALLEY***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE DESERT VALLEY

by

JACKSON GREGORY

Author of _The Bells of San Juan_, _Man to Man_

Hodder and Stoughton Limited London
Charles Scribner's Sons

1921

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

THE DESERT
I A BLUEBIRD'S FEATHER
II SUPERSTITION POOL
III PAYMENT IN RAW GOLD
IV IN DESERT VALLEY
V THE GOOD OLD SPORT
VI THE YOUTHFUL HEART
VII WAITING FOR MOONRISE
VIII POKER AND THE SCIENTIFIC MIND
IX HELEN KNEW
X A WARNING AND A SIGN
XI SEEKING
XII THE DESERT SUPREME
XIII A SON OF THE SOLITUDES
XIV THE HATE OF THE HIDDEN PEOPLE
XV THE GOLDEN SECRET
XVI SANCHIA SCHEMES
XVII HOWARD HOLDS THE GULCH
XVIII A TOWN IS BORN
XIX SANCHIA PERSISTENT
XX TWO FRIENDS AND A GIRL
XXI ALMOST
XXII THE PROFESSOR DICTATES
XXIII THE WILL-O'-THE-WISP
XXIV THE SHADOW
XXV IN THE OPEN
XXVI WHEN DAY DAWNED

The Desert

Over many wide regions of the south-western desert country of Arizona
and New Mexico lies an eternal spell of silence and mystery. Across
the sand-ridges come many foreign things, both animate and inanimate,
which are engulfed in its immensity, which frequently disappear for all
time from the sight of men, blotted out like a bird which flies free
from a lighted room into the outside darkness. As though in
compensation for that which it has taken, the desert from time to time
allows new marvels, riven from its vitals, to emerge.

Though death-still, it has a voice which calls ceaselessly to those
human hearts tuned to its messages: hostile and harsh, it draws and
urges; repellent, it profligately awards health and wealth; inviting,
it kills. And always it keeps its own counsel; it is without peer in
its lonesomeness, and without confidants; it heaps its sand over its
secrets to hide them