Chapter I: Front Matter

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 28711-h.htm or 28711-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28711/pg28711-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h.zip)

THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE

"AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT"

THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE

A Story Of Kansas

by

MARGARET HILL McCARTER

Author of "The Cottonwood's Story," "Cuddy's Baby," Etc.

With Five Illustrations in Color by J. N. Marchand

Fifteenth Edition

Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. 1912

Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1910

Published October 8, 1910 Second Edition, October 29, 1910 Third Edition, November 16, 1910 Fourth Edition, December 3, 1910 Fifth Edition, December 10, 1910 Sixth Edition, December 17, 1910 Seventh Edition, January 25, 1911 Eighth Edition, February 25, 1911 Ninth Edition, April 5, 1911 Tenth Edition, May 3, 1911 Eleventh Edition, September 23, 1911 Twelfth Edition, December 9, 1911 Thirteenth Edition, February 17, 1912 Fourteenth Edition, August 10, 1912 Fifteenth Edition, December 28, 1912

Copyrighted in Great Britain

Press of the Vail Company Coshocton, U. S. A.

This little love story of the prairies is dedicated to all who believe that the defence of the helpless is heroism; that the protection of the home is splendid achievement; and, that the storm, and stress, and patient endurance of the day will bring us at last to the peace of the purple twilight.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

PROEM ix

I Springvale by the Neosho 13

II Jean Pahusca 25

III The Hermit's Cave 32

IV In the Prairie Twilight 43

V A Good Indian 56

VI When the Heart Beats Young 73

VII The Foreshadowing of Peril 85

VIII The Cost of Safety 99

IX The Search for the Missing 114

X O'Mie's Choice 132

XI Golden Days 150

XII A Man's Estate 166

XIII The Topeka Rally 184

XIV Deepening Gloom 200

XV Rockport and "Rockport" 217

XVI Beginning Again 242

XVII In the Valley of the Arickaree 261

XVIII The Sunlight on Old Glory 277

XIX A Man's Business 292

XX The Cleft in the Rock 317

XXI The Call to Service 334

XXII The Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry 354

XXIII In Jean's Land 370

XXIV The Cry of Womanhood 390

XXV Judson Summoned 403

XXVI O'Mie's Inheritance 420

XXVII Sunset by the Sweetwater 442

XXVIII The Heritage 464

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen
of May here in April!" _Frontispiece_

"Baronet, I think we are marching straight 158
into Hell's jaws"

Every movement of ours had been watched by 244
Indian scouts

Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, 288
men, all dashed toward the place

They came slowly toward us, the two captive 394
women for whom we waited

PROEM

"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her"

I can hear it always--the Call of the Prairie. The passing of sixty Winters has left me a vigorous man, although my hair is as white as the January snowdrift in the draws, and the strenuous events of some of the years have put a tax on my strength. I shall always limp a little in my right foot--that was left out on the plains one freezing night with nothing under it but the earth, and nothing over it but the sky. Still, considering that although the sixty years were spent mainly in that pioneer time when every day in Kansas was its busy day, I am not even beginning to feel old. Neither am I sentimental and inclined to poetry. Life has given me mostly her prose selections for my study.

But this love of the Prairie is a part of my being. All the comedy and tragedy of these sixty years have had them for a setting, and I can no more put them out of my life than the Scotchman can forget the heather, or the Swiss emigrant in the flat green lowland can forget the icy passes of the glacier-polished Alps. Geography is an element of every man's life. The prairies are in the red corpuscles of my blood. Up and down their rippling billows my memory runs. For always I see them,--green and blossom-starred in the Springtime; or drenched with the driving summer deluge that made each draw a brimming torrent; or golden, purple, and silver-rimmed in the glorious Autumn. I have seen them gray in the twilight, still and tenderly verdant at noonday, and cold and frost-wreathed under the white star-beams. I have seen them yield up their rich yellow sheaves of grain, and I have looked upon their dreary wastes marked with the dull black of cold human blood. Plain practical man of affairs that I am, I come back to the blessed prairies for my inspiration as the tartan warmed up the heart of Argyle.

THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE