The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furrow, by George C. Shedd

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Iron Furrow

Author: George C. Shedd

Illustrator: Henry A. Botkin

Release Date: November 18, 2005 [EBook #17088]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON FURROW ***

Produced by David Garcia, Jeannie Howse and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

* * * * *

+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: A number of very obvious |
| typographical errors have been corrected in this |
| text. For a complete list please see the bottom of |
| the document. |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

* * * * *

[Illustration: "UNDER THE HAT BRIM DRAWN FORWARD TO HIS LINE OF
VISION HIS EYES ... GAZED FORTH KEEN AND OBSERVANT"]

THE IRON
FURROW

BY GEORGE C. SHEDD

FRONTISPIECE BY
HENRY A. BOTKIN

A.L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company

COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

THE IRON FURROW

THE IRON FURROW

CHAPTER I

The Ventisquero Range stretches across the circumference of one's
vision in a procession of mountains that come tall and blue out of the
distant north and seemingly march past to vanish in the remote south
like azure phantoms. The mountains wall the horizon and dominate the
mesa, their black forest-clad flanks crumpled and broken and gashed by
canons, lifting above timber-line peaks of bare brown rock that pierce
the clouds floating along the range. At sunrise they cast immense
shadows upon the mesa spreading westward from their base; and at
sunset they reflect golden and purple glows upon the plain until the
earth appears swimming in some iridescent sea of ether; while over
them from d