OWEN WISTER Ultimate Collection: Western Classics, Adventure & Historical Novels (Including Non-Fiction Historical Works). Owen Wister
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is he who takes care of Jessamine!
IN THE AFTER-DAYS
The black pines stand high up the hills,
The white snow sifts their columns deep,
While through the canyon's riven cleft
From there, beyond, the rose clouds sweep.
Serene above their paling shapes
One star hath wakened in the sky.
And here in the gray world below
Over the sage the wind blows by;
Rides through the cotton-woods' ghost-ranks,
And hums aloft a sturdy tune
Among the river's tawny bluffs,
Untenanted as is the moon.
Far 'neath the huge invading dusk
Comes Silence awful through the plain;
But yonder horseman's heart is gay,
And he goes singing might and main.
The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
II. "WHEN YOU CALL ME THAT, SMILE!"
IX. THE SPINSTER MEETS THE UNKNOWN
XI. "YOU RE GOING TO LOVE ME BEFORE WE GET THROUGH"
XIII. THE GAME AND THE NATION—ACT FIRST
XV. THE GAME AND THE NATION—ACT SECOND
XVI. THE GAME AND THE NATION—LAST ACT
XVIII. "WOULD YOU BE A PARSON?"
XX. THE JUDGE IGNORES PARTICULARS
XXXIII. THE SPINSTER LOSES SOME SLEEP
XXXV. WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Some of these pages you have seen, some you have praised, one stands new-written because you blamed it; and all, my dear critic, beg leave to remind you of their author's changeless admiration.
TO THE READER
Certain of the newspapers, when this book was first announced, made a mistake most natural upon seeing the sub-title as it then stood, A TALE OF SUNDRY ADVENTURES. "This sounds like a historical novel," said one of them, meaning (I take it) a colonial romance. As it now stands, the title will scarce lead to such interpretation; yet none the less is this book historical—quite as much so as any colonial romance. Indeed, when you look at the root of the matter, it is a colonial romance. For Wyoming between 1874 and 1890 was a colony as wild as was Virginia one hundred years earlier. As wild,