Project Gutenberg's The Heart of the Range, by William Patterson White

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Title: The Heart of the Range

Author: William Patterson White

Release Date: December 16, 2003 [EBook #10473]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE RANGE ***

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[Illustration: "They picked up our trail somehow ... they're about
three miles back on the flat just a-burnin' the ground"]

THE HEART OF THE RANGE

BY WILLIAM PATTERSON WHITE

AUTHOR OF

"_The Rider of Golden Bar_," "_Hidden Trails_," "_Lynch Lawyers_,"
"_The Owner of the Lazy D_," "_Paradise Bend_," _etc_.

1921

TO RANGER

A GOOD HORSE AND A BETTER FRIEND

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE HORSE THIEF

II. THE YELLOW DOG

III. THE TALL STRANGER

IV. THE OLD LADY

V. McFLUKE's

VI. CHANGE OF PLAN

VII. THE RIDDLE

VIII. THE STARLIGHT

IX. THROWING SAND

X. THE BACK PORCH

XI. THE LOOKOUT

XII. THE DISCOVERY

XIII. A BOLD BAD MAN

XIV. THE SURPRISE

XV. FIRE! FIRE!

XVI. THE BAR S

XVII. SIGNED PAPER

XVIII. THE SHOWDOWN

XIX. THE SHOOTING

XX. DRAWING THE COVER

XXI. GONE AWAY

XXII. A CHECK

XXIII. TAKING FENCES

XXIV. DIPLOMACY

XXV. STRATEGY

XXVI. THE QUARREL

XXVII. BURGLARY

XXVIII. THE LETTERS

XXIX. HUE AND CRY

XXX. THE REGISTER

XXXI. THE LAST TRICK

XXXII. THE END OF THE TRAIL

THE HEART OF THE RANGE

CHAPTER I

THE HORSE THIEF

It was a warm summer morning in the town of Farewell. Save a dozen
horses tied to the hitching-rail in front of various saloons and the
Blue Pigeon Store and Bill Lainey, the fat landlord of the hotel, who
sat snoring in a reinforced telegraph chair on the sidewalk in the
shade of his wooden awning, Main Street was a howling wilderness.

Dust overlay everything. It had not rained in weeks. In the blacksmith
shop, diagonally across the street from the hotel, Piney Jackson was
shoeing a mule. The mule was invisible, but one knew it was a mule
because Piney Jackson has just come out and taken a two-by-four from