The Project Gutenberg eBook, Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories,
by John Fox, Jr., Illustrated by F. C. Yohn, et al

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Title: Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories

Author: John Fox, Jr.

Release Date: January 17, 2004 [eBook #10735]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME AND
OTHER STORIES***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Dave Morgan, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Christmas Eve On Lonesome And Other Stories

By John Fox, Jr.

Illustrated By F. C. Yohn, A.I. Keller, W.A. Rogers, and H. C. Ransom

1911

CONTENTS

Christmas Eve On Lonesome

The Army Of The Callahan

The Pardon Of Becky Day

A Crisis For The Guard

Christmas Night With Satan

ILLUSTRATIONS

Captain Wells descended with no little majesty and "biffed" him

"Speak up, nigger!"

Satan would drop the coin and get a ball for himself

TO THOMAS NELSON PAGE

CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME

It was Christmas Eve on Lonesome. But nobody on Lonesome knew that it
was Christmas Eve, although a child of the outer world could have
guessed it, even out in those wilds where Lonesome slipped from one lone
log cabin high up the steeps, down through a stretch of jungled darkness
to another lone cabin at the mouth of the stream.

There was the holy hush in the gray twilight that comes only on
Christmas Eve. There were the big flakes of snow that fell as they never
fall except on Christmas Eve. There was a snowy man on horseback in a
big coat, and with saddle-pockets that might have been bursting with
toys for children in the little cabin at the head of the stream.

But not even he knew that it was Christmas Eve. He was thinking of
Christmas Eve, but it was of the Christmas Eve of the year before, when
he sat in prison with a hundred other men in stripes, and listened to
the chaplain talk of peace and good will to all men upon earth, when he
had forgotten all men upon earth but one, and had only hatred in his
heart for him.

"Vengeance is mine! saith the Lord."

That was what the ch