Wolfville Nights

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Wolfville Nights, by Alfred Lewis

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Title: Wolfville Nights
Author: Alfred Lewis
Release Date: October 11, 2004 [EBook #13709]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Al Haines

WOLFVILLE NIGHTS
by
Alfred Henry Lewis

Author of "Wolfville", "Wolfville Days", "Peggy O'Nea", &c.
1902,
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
DEDICATION
SOME COWBOY FACTS
I. THE DISMISSAL OF SILVER PHIL
II. COLONEL STERETT'S PANTHER HUNT
III. HOW FARO NELL DEALT BANK
IV. HOW THE RAVEN DIED
V. THE QUEERNESS OF DAVE TUTT
VI. WITH THE APACHE'S COMPLIMENTS
VII. THE MILLS OF SAVAGE GODS
VIII. TOM AND JERRY; WHEELERS
IX. THE INFLUENCE OF FARO NELL
X. THE GHOST OF THE BAR-B-8
XI. TUCSON JENNIE'S CORRECTION
XII. BILL CONNORS OF THE OSAGES
XIII. WHEN TUTT FIRST SAW TUCSON
XIV. THE TROUBLES OF DAN BOGGS
XV. BOWLEGS AND MAJOR BEN
XVI. TOAD ALLEN'S ELOPEMENT
XVII. THE CLIENTS OF AARON GREEN
XVIII. COLONEL STERETT'S MARVELS
XIX. THE LUCK OF HARDROBE
XX. LONG AGO ON THE RIO GRANDE
XXI. COLONEL COYOTE CLUBBS

To
William Greene Sterett
this volume is
inscribed.

NEW YORK CITY,
August 1, 1902
MY DEAR STERETT:--
In offering this book to you I might have advantage of the occasion to express my friendship and declare how high I hold you as a journalist and a man. Or I might speak of those years at Washington when in the gallery we worked shoulder to shoulder; I might recall to you the wit of Hannum, or remind you of the darkling Barrett, the mighty Decker, the excellent Cohen, the vivid Brown, the imaginative Miller, the volatile Angus, the epigrammatic Merrick, the quietly satirical Splain, Rouzer the earnest, Boynton the energetic, Carson the eminent, and Dunnell, famous for a bitter, frank integrity. I might remember that day when the gifted Fanciulli, with no more delicate inspiration than crackers, onions, and cheese, and no more splendid conservatory than Shoemaker's, wrote, played and consecrated to you his famous "Lone Star March" wherewith he so disquieted the public present of the next concert in the White House grounds. Or I might hark back to the campaign of '92, when together we struggled against national politics as evinced in the city of New York; I might repaint that election night when, with one hundred thousand whirling dervishes of democracy in Madison Square, dancing dances, and singing songs of victory, we undertook through the hubbub to send from the "Twenty-third street telegraph office" half-hourly bulletins to our papers in the West; how you, accompanied of the dignified Richard Bright, went often to the Fifth Avenue Hotel; and how at last you dictated your bulletins--a sort of triumphant blank verse, they were--as Homeric of spirit as lofty of phrase--to me, who caught them as they came from your lips, losing none of their fire, and so flashed them all burning into Texas, far away. But of what avail would be such recount? Distance separates us and time has come between. Those are the old years, these are the new, with newer years beyond. Life like a sea is filling from rivers of experience. Forgetfulness rises as a tide and creeps upward to drown within us those stories of the days that were. And because this is true, it comes to me that you as a memory must stand tallest in the midst of my regard. For of you I find within me no forgetfulness. I have met others; they came, they tarried, they departed. They came again; and on this second encounter the recollection of their existences smote upon me as a surprise. I had forgotten them as though they had not been. But such is not your tale. Drawn on the plates of memory, as with a tool of diamond, I carry you both in broadest outline and in each least of shade; and there hangs no picture in the gallery of hours gone, to which I turn with more of pleasure and of good. Nor am I alone in my recollection. Do I pass through the Fifth Avenue Hotel on my way to the Hoffman, that vandyked dispenser leans pleasantly across his counter, to ask with deepest interest: "Do you hear from the Old Man now?" Or am I belated in Shanley's, a beaming ring of waiters--if it be not an hour overrun of custom--will half-circle my table, and the boldest, "Pat," will question timidly, yet with a kindly Galway warmth: "How's the Old Man?" Old Man! That is your title: at once dignified and affectionate; and by it you come often to be referred to along Broadway these ten years after its conference. And when the latest word is uttered what is there more to fame! I shall hold myself fortunate, indeed, if, departing, I'm