About: The Heart of the Range by William Patterson White

THE HEART OF THE RANGE

Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Josephine Paolucci and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration: "They picked up our trail somehow ... they're aboutthree 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 dozenhorses tied to the hitching rail in front of various saloons and theBlue Pigeon Store and Bill Lainey, the fat landlord of the hotel, whosat snoring in a reinforced telegraph chair on the sidewalk in theshade of his wooden awning, Main Street was a howling wilderness.

Dust overlay everything. It had not rained in weeks. In the blacksmithshop, diagonally across the street from the hotel, Piney Jackson wasshoeing a mule. The mule was invisible, but one knew it was a mulebecause Piney Jackson has just come out and taken a two by four fromthe woodpile behind the shop. And it was a well known fact that Pineynever used a two by four on any animal other than a mule. But this bythe way.

In the barroom of the Happy Heart Saloon there were only two customersand the bartender. One of the former, a brown haired, sunburnt youngman with ingenuous blue eyes, was singing:

"_Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, An' merrily jump the stile O! Yore cheerful heart goes all the day, Yore sad tires in a mile O_!"

Mr. Racey Dawson, having successfully sung the first verse, restedboth elbows on the bar and grinned at the bartender. That worthygrinned back, and, knowing Mr. Dawson, slid the bottle along the bar.

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