A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal beard.
"Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?" the old circuit-rider straitly demanded. "How could ye hev strengthened yer heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily within ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my brethern, ye hev done it unto me."
"That ain't the _kind_ o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. "I be lookin' fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear."
"The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said the parson solemnly. "The kingdom o' Christ is a _spiritual_ kingdom, an' great are the wonders that are wrought therein."
Miss Lockhart is a true daughter of the West, her father being a large ranch-owner and she has had much experience in the saddle and among the people who figure in her novel. "Smith" is one type of Western "Bad Man," an unusually powerful and appealing character who grips and holds the reader through all his deeds, whether good or bad. It is a story with red blood in it. There is the cry of the coyote, the deadly thirst for revenge as it exists in the wronged Indian toward the white man, the thrill of the gaming table, and the gentlenesss of pure, true love. To the very end the tense dramatism of the tale is maintained without relaxation.
"Gripping, vigorous story."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"This is a real novel, a big novel."--_Indianapolis News._
"Not since the publication of 'The Virginian' has so powerful a cowboy story been told."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
"A remarkable book in its strength of portrayal and its directness of development. It cannot be read without being remembered."--_The World To-Day._
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid of The Guerilla and Other Stories, by Charles Egbert Craddock