The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Grafters, by Francis Lynde

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Title: The Grafters

Author: Francis Lynde

Release Date: March 3, 2004 [EBook #11418]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: "DO YOU BEGIN TO SUSPECT THINGS?" SHE ASKED.]

THE
GRAFTERS

BY
FRANCIS LYNDE

ILLUSTRATED BY
ARTHUR I. KELLER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I ASHES OF EMPIRE
II A MAN OF THE PEOPLE
III THE BOSTONIANS
IV THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT
V JOURNEYS END--
VI OF THE MAKING OF LAWS
VII THE SENTIMENTALISTS
VIII THE HAYMAKERS
IX THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT
X WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY
XI THE LAST DITCH
XII THE MAN IN POSSESSION
XIII THE WRECKERS
XIV THE GERRYMANDER
XV THE JUNKETERS
XVI SHARPENING THE SWORD
XVII THE CONSPIRATORS
XVIII DOWN, BRUNO!
XIX DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS
XX THE WINNING LOSER
XXI A WOMAN INTERVENES
XXII A BORROWED CONSCIENCE
XXIII THE INSURRECTIONARIES
XXIV INTO THE PRIMITIVE
XXV DEAD WATER AND QUICK
XXVI ON THE HIGH PLAINS
XXVII BY ORDER OF THE COURT
XXVIII THE NIGHT OF ALARMS
XXIX THE RELENTLESS WHEELS
XXX SUBHI SADIK

TO MY GOOD FRIEND
MR. EDWARD YOUNG CHAPIN

THE GRAFTERS

I

ASHES OF EMPIRE

In point of age, Gaston the strenuous was still no more than a lusty
infant among the cities of the brown plain when the boom broke and the
junto was born, though its beginnings as a halt camp ran back to the days
of the later Mormon migrations across the thirsty plain; to that day when
the advanced guard of Zophar Smith's ox-train dug wells in the damp sands
of Dry Creek and called them the Waters of Merom.

Later, one Jethro Simsby, a Mormon deserter, set up his rod and staff on
the banks of the creek, home-steaded a quarter-section of the sage-brush
plain, and in due time came to be known as the Dry Creek cattle king. And
the cow-camp was still Simsby's when the locating engineers of the Western
Pacific, searching for tank stations in a l