Whispering Smith. By Frank H. Spearman. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons. Price, $1.50.
Although his previous books have shown Mr. Spearman as an observant student of human nature, an excellent story teller and a literary artist of ability, the reader who picks up “Whispering Smith” will lay it down with the verdict that this character is a genuine contribution to literature. Without departing from the rules of literary construction Mr. Spearman has described scenes so far from hackneyed that they seem absolutely new in every element of their creation. Whispering Smith is a secret service agent for a Rocky Mountain railroad and his business is to defend the enterprise against all sorts of enemies and rough and lawless characters which abound in that region. He owes his sobriquet to a certain softness of voice, to which he adds a simple, straightforward and unaffected integrity. This is the principal character in the story, beside the heroine, a breezy, yet thoroughly feminine girl brought up on a ranch. The rest of the dramatis personae are the cowboys, railroad men, bandits and other types characteristic of the frontier, all depicted to the life by one who knows his subject.