The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories, by B.
M. Bower

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Title: The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories

Author: B. M. Bower

Release Date: December 31, 2004 [eBook #14542]

Language: English

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

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONESOME TRAIL AND OTHER
STORIES***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE LONESOME TRAIL AND OTHER STORIES

by

B. M. BOWER
(B. M. SINCLAIR)

Author of _Chip of the Flying U_, _The Range Dwellers_,
_Her Prairie Knight_, _The Lure of the Dim Trails_,
_The Happy Family_, _The Long Shadow_, etc.

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

1904

CONTENTS

THE LONESOME TRAIL

FIRST AID TO CUPID

WHEN THE COOK FELL ILL

THE LAMB

THE SPIRIT OF THE RANGE

THE REVELER

THE UNHEAVENLY TWINS

THE LONESOME TRAIL

PART ONE

A man is very much like a horse. Once thoroughly frightened by
something he meets on the road, he will invariably shy at the same
place afterwards, until a wisely firm master leads him perforce to the
spot and proves beyond all doubt that the danger is of his own
imagining; after which he will throw up his head and deny that he ever
was afraid--and be quite amusingly sincere in the denial.

It is true of every man with high-keyed nature, a decent opinion of
himself and a healthy pride of power. It was true of Will Davidson, of
the Flying U--commonly known among his associates, particularly the
Happy Family, as "Weary." As to the cause of his shying at a certain
object, that happened long ago. Many miles east of the Bear Paws, in
the town where Weary had minced painfully along the streets on pink,
protesting, bare soles before the frost was half out of the ground; had
yelled himself hoarse and run himself lame in the redoubtable base-ball
nine which was to make that town some day famous--the nine where they
often played with seven "men" because the other two had to "bug"
potatoes or do some other menial task and where the umpire frequently
engaged in throwing lumps of dried mud at refractory players,--there
had lived a Girl.

She might have lived there a century and We