_This being the Story of a Cow Puncher, an Osteopath, and a Cross-eyed Horse_
_Concerning Real Estate, Love, Friendship, and Other Good and Valuable Considerations_
_Showing the Dilemma of Dan Anderson, the Doubt of Leading Citizens, and the Artless Performance of a Pastoral Prevaricator_
_How Benevolent Assimilation was checked by Unexpected Events_
_Showing Wonders of the Thirst of McGinnis, and the Faith of Whiteman the Jew_
_How the Girl from the States kept the Set of Twins from being broken_
_The Story of a Sheriff and Some Bad Men; showing also a Day's Work, and a Man's Medicine_
_The Strange Story of the King of Gee-Whiz, and his Unusual Experience in Foreign Parts_
_Showing further the Uncertainty of Human Events, and the Exceeding Resourcefulness of Mr. Thomas Osby_
_This being the Story of a Sheepherder, Two Warm Personal Friends, and their Love-letter to a Beautiful Queen_
_The Pleasing Recountal of an Absent Knight, a Gentle Lady, and an Ananias with Spurs_
_The Story of a Surprise, a Success, and Something Else Very Much Better_
Frontispiece: "He looked up--to see _her_ standing at his door!"
"'The umpire decides that you've got to check your guns during the game.'"
"A voice which sang of a face that was the fairest, and of a dark blue eye."
"'Something has got to be did, and did mighty blame quick.'"
_This being in Part the Story of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl from Kansas_
"It looks a long ways acrost from here to the States," said Curly, as we pulled up our horses at the top of the Capitan divide. We gazed out over a vast, rolling sea of red-brown earth which stretched far beyond and below the nearer foothills, black with their growth of stunted pines. This was a favorite pausing place of all travellers between the county-seat and Heart's Desire; partly because it was a summit reached only after a long climb from either side of the divide; partly, perhaps, because it was a notable view-point in a land full of noble views. Again, it may have been a customary tarrying point because of some vague feeling shared by most travellers who crossed this trail,--the same feeling which made Curly, hardened citizen as he was of the land west of the Pecos, turn a speculative eye eastward across the plains. We could not see even so far as the Pecos, though it seemed from our lofty situation that we looked quite to the ultimate, searching the utter ends of all the earth.