[I. A Camp in the Snow]
[II. The Streeter Gun-Rack]
[III. Curtis Assumes Charge of the Agent]
[IV. The Beautiful Elsie Bee Bee]
[V. Caged Eagles]
[VI. Curtis Seeks a Truce]
[VII. Elsie Relents a Little]
[VIII. Curtis Writes a Long Letter]
[IX. Called to Washington]
[X. Curtis at Headquarters]
[XI. Curtis Grapples with Brisbane]
[XII. Spring on the Elk]
[XIII. Elsie Promises to Return]
[XIV. Elsie Revisits Curtis]
[XV. Elsie Enters Her Studio]
[XVI. The Camp Among the Roses]
[XVII. A Flute, a Drum, and a Message]
[XVIII. Elsie's Ancient Love Affair]
[XIX. The Sheriff's Mob]
[XX. Feminine Strategy]
[XXI. In Stormy Councils]
[XXII. A Council at Night]
[XXIII. The Return of the Mob]
[XXIV. The Gray-Horse Troop]
[XXV. After the Struggle]
[XXVI. The Warrior Proclaims Himself]
[XXVII. Brisbane Comes for Elsie]
[XXVIII. A Walk in the Starlight]
[XXIX. Elsie Warns Curtis]
[XXX. The Capture of the Man]
[XXXI. Outwitting the Sheriff]
[XXXII. An Eventful Night]
[XXXIII. Elsie Confesses Her Love]
[XXXIV. Seed-Time]
[XXXV. The Battle with the Weeds]
[XXXVI. The Harvest-Home]
[XXXVII. The Mingling of the Old and the New]
THE CAPTAIN OF THE GRAY-HORSE TROOP
I
A CAMP IN THE SNOW
Winter in the upper heights of the Bear Tooth Range is a glittering desolation of snow with a flaming blue sky above. Nothing moves, nothing utters a sound, save the cony at the mouth of the spiral shaft, which sinks to his deeply buried den in the rocks. The peaks are like marble domes, set high in the pathway of the sun by day and thrust amid the stars by night. The firs seem hopeless under their ever-increasing burdens. The streams are silenced—only the wind is abroad in the waste, the tireless, pitiless wind, fanged like ingratitude, insatiate as fire.
But it is beautiful, nevertheless, especially of a clear dawn, when the shadows are vividly purple and each rime-wreathed summit is smit with ethereal fire, and each eastern slope is resplendent as a high-way of powdered diamonds—or at sunset, when the high crests of the range stand like flaming mile-stones leading to the Celestial City, and the lakes are like pools of pure gold caught in a robe of green velvet. Yet always this land demands youth and strength in its explorer.
King Frost's dominion was already complete over all the crests, over timber-line, when young Captain Curtis set out to cross the divide which lay between Lake Congar and Fort Sherman—a trip to test the virtue of a Sibley tent and the staying qualities of a mountain horse.
Bennett, the hairy trapper at the head of the lake, advised against it. "The snow is soft—I reckon you better wait a week."