Project Gutenberg's Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch, by Evelyn Raymond

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Title: Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch

Author: Evelyn Raymond

Release Date: October 11, 2010 [EBook #33853]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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JESSICA TRENT:

Her Life on a Ranch

BY

EVELYN RAYMOND

Author of

"Jessica Trent's Inheritance," "Jessica, the Heiress"

Whitman Publishing Co.

RACINE, WISCONSIN

Copyright, 1902, by Street & Smith

Jessica Trent

Printed in the

United States of America

By

Western Printing & Lithographing Co.

Racine, Wis.

JESSICA TRENT

CHAPTER I

ON THE CANYON TRAIL.

"Hello, there! What in the name of reason is this?"

The horseman's excited cry was echoed by a startled neigh from his
beast, which wheeled about so suddenly that he nearly precipitated both
himself and rider into the gulch below.

"Oh! I'm sorry----Hold on, Zu! Go! Do, please. Quick! It's so narrow
just beyond and I can't----"

The stranger obeyed, perforce, for his spirited animal having now headed
up the slope, continued on his course at breakneck speed, pursued at
equal pace by the unknown creature that had terrified him.

The race would not have been so even had the trail been wider, for
King Zulu could easily have beaten his contestant, but, as it was,
the fleeing bay bruised his master's leg against the canyon wall,
now and then, while bits of the bird's plumage were torn on the same
projecting rocks. There was no point of passage till more than a mile
higher on the mountain, and Jess knew this if Mr. Hale did not. He
knew nothing save that he was clinging and riding for his life, and
that this "Western horseback tour" which his doctor had prescribed
for him, seemed now more likely to prove his death than his cure.

But when a laugh rang out, close to his shoulder, he turned his head and
glanced angrily backward.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, but--it's so funny! I've often wanted to try
King Zu against a strange ho