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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VIRGINIAN *** Produced by Bill Brewer, and David Widger



THE VIRGINIAN A Horseman Of The Plains


By Owen Wister





CONTENTS


To THEODORE ROOSEVELT

TO THE READER


THE VIRGINIAN


I. ENTER THE MAN

II. “WHEN YOU CALL ME THAT, SMILE!”

III. STEVE TREATS

IV. DEEP INTO CATTLE LAND

V. ENTER THE WOMAN

VI. EM'LY

VII. THROUGH TWO SNOWS

VIII. THE SINCERE SPINSTER

IX. THE SPINSTER MEETS THE UNKNOWN

X. WHERE FANCY WAS BRED

XI. “YOU RE GOING TO LOVE ME BEFORE WE GET THROUGH”

XII. QUALITY AND EQUALITY

XIII. THE GAME AND THE NATION—ACT FIRST

XIV. BETWEEN THE ACTS

XV. THE GAME AND THE NATION—ACT SECOND

XVI. THE GAME AND THE NATION—LAST ACT

XVII. SCIPIO MORALIZES

XVIII. “WOULD YOU BE A PARSON?”

XIX. DR. MACBRIDE BEGS PARDON

XX. THE JUDGE IGNORES PARTICULARS

XXI. IN A STATE OF SIN

XXII. “WHAT IS A RUSTLER?”

XXIII. VARIOUS POINTS

XXIV. A LETTER WITH A MORAL

XXV. PROGRESS OF THE LOST DOG

XXVI. BALAAM AND PEDRO

XXVII. GRANDMOTHER STARK

XXVIII. NO DREAM TO WAKE FROM

XXIX. WORD TO BENNINGTON

XXX. A STABLE ON THE FLAT

XXXI. THE COTTONWOODS

XXXII. SUPERSTITION TRAIL

XXXIII. THE SPINSTER LOSES SOME SLEEP

XXXIV. TO FIT HER FINGER

XXXV. WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

XXXVI. AT DUNBARTON

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, with a scantier population, and the same primitive joys and dangers. There were, to be sure, not so many Chippendale settees.

We know quite well the common understanding of the term “historical novel.” HUGH WYNNE exactly fits it. But SILAS LAPHAM is a novel as perfectly historical as is Hugh Wynne, for it pictures an era and personifies a type. It matters not that in the one we find George Washington and in the other none save imaginary figures; else THE SCARLET LETTER were not historical. Nor does it matter that Dr. Mitchell did not live in the time of which he wrote, while Mr. Howells saw many Silas Laphams with his own eyes; else UNCLE TOM'S CABIN were not historical. Any narrative which presents faithfully a day and a generation is of necessity historical; and this one presents Wyoming between 1874 and 1890. Had you left New York or San Francisco at ten o'clock this morning, by noon the day after to-morrow you could step out at Cheyenne. There you would stand at the heart of the world that is the subject of my picture, yet you would look around you in vain for the reality. It is a vanished world. No journeys, save those which memory can take, will bring you to it now. The mountains are there, far and shining, and the sunlight, and the infinite earth, and the air that seems forever the true fountain of youth, but where is

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