| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I | The Slug | [ 1] |
| II | Spawn of the Devil | [ 10] |
| III | The Girl at the Crescent | [ 18] |
| IV | The Gypo Queen | [ 26] |
| V | The Gypo Camp | [ 35] |
| VI | The Wreck of the Good Ship “Argo” | [ 46] |
| VII | Joshua Walks with His Father | [ 56] |
| VIII | Number 5635 | [ 65] |
| IX | Truth and Honor | [ 75] |
| X | Pardoned | [ 83] |
| XI | An Offer of Partnership | [ 90] |
| XII | Whimpermeter | [ 97] |
| XIII | The Partnership Dissolved | [ 103] |
| XIV | Man and the Slug | [ 112] |
| XV | Out West | [ 118] |
| XVI | The Road to G-String | [ 127] |
| XVII | Ambitions | [ 135] |
| XVIII | New Prospects | [ 147] |
| XIX | A Trio of Shocks | [ 156] |
| XX | “A Little Sleep” | [ 164] |
| XXI | The Surrender | [ 173] |
| XXII | Hercules and His Firebrand | [ 181] |
| XXIII | “When the Moment Comes!” | [ 191] |
| XXIV | Water at Ragtown | [ 201] |
| XXV | On the Rocky Road to Ragtown | [ 214] |
| XXVI | The Moron | [ 224] |
| XXVII | “Nuttin’ but the Trut’” | [ 233] |
| XXVIII | “You’ll Come Back to Spyglass Mountain” | [ 242] |
| XXIX | Winter in the San Antones | [ 252] |
| XXX | Slim Wolfgang Plans | [ 259] |
| XXXI | Bullets from Spyglass Mountain | [ 269] |
| XXXII | The Night of June Fifteenth | [ 278] |
| XXXIII | Horsemen in the Night | [ 288] |
| XXXIV | When the Moment Came | [ 296] |
COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN
COLE OF SPYGLASS
MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER I
THE SLUG
FOUR boys, ranging from eleven to fifteen years of age, squatted close to earth in a wet, weed-rank city lot. It was spring, and the new warmth of the season’s birth was in the air. The lot was a vacant one, and perhaps would remain so for many years to come, because it was low, and the spring rains had made of it a veritable swamp.
One boy was master of ceremonies, and the eager eyes of his companions were fixed on a chip of wood that he held in his hand, four inches above the ground. The chip was perhaps five inches square, and over it crawled a slug, a slimy, repulsive, helpless creature of the earth. Limax Campestris was the slug’s rather important-sounding name, but of this the boys knew nothing.
“Aw, bet ye an agut he can’t get down!” volunteered one boy.
“Which one o’ yere agates?” asked the one who held the chip.
“My ole moony one,” was the reply. “Bet ye my moony agut against yer black-’n’-white one!”
“Aw, his black-an’-white one’s half glass,” put in a would-be spoilsport.