Produced by Suzanne Shell, Gene Smethers and PG Distributed Proofreaders
1919
I. Pan of the Desert
II. The Panther
III. Silent Shoots
IV. Something Yellow
V. Four in the Air
VI. Laughter
VII. The Mute Messenger
VIII. Red Writing
IX. The Phantom Rider
X. The Strength of Women
XI. Silent Bluffs
XII. Partners
XIII. The Lone Riders Entertain
XIV. Delilah
XV. The Cross Roads
XVI. The Three of us
XVII. The Panther's Paw
XVIII. Cain
XIX. Real Men
XX. One Trail Ends
XXI. One Way Out
XXII. The Woman's Way
XXIII. Hell Starts
XXIV. The Rescue
XXV. The Long Ride
XXVI. Black Bart Turns Nurse
XXVII. Nobody Laughs
XXVIII. Whistling Dan, Desperado
XXIX. "Werewolf"
XXX. "The Manhandling"
XXXI. "Laugh, Damn it!"
XXXII. Those who See in the Dark
XXXIII. The Song of the Untamed
XXXIV. The Coward
XXXV. Close in!
XXXVI. Fear
XXXVII. Death
XXXVIII. The Wild Geese
Even to a high-flying bird this was a country to be passed overquickly. It was burned and brown, littered with fragments of rock,whether vast or small, as if the refuse were tossed here after themaking of the world. A passing shower drenched the bald knobs of arange of granite hills and the slant morning sun set the wet rocksaflame with light. In a short time the hills lost their halo andresumed their brown. The moisture evaporated. The sun rose higher andlooked sternly across the desert as if he searched for any remaininglife which still struggled for existence under his burning course.
And he found life. Hardy cattle moved singly or in small groups andbrowsed on the withered bunch grass. Summer scorched them, winterhumped their backs with cold and arched up their bellies with famine,but they were a breed schooled through generations for this fightagainst nature. In this junk-shop of the world, rattlesnakes wererulers of the soil. Overhead the buzzards, ominous black speckspendant against the white-hot sky, ruled the air.
It seemed impossible that human beings could live in thisrock-wilderness. If so, they must be to other men what the lean, hardycattle of the hills are to the corn-fed stabled beeves of the States.
Over the shoulder of a hill came a whistling which might have beenattributed to the wind, had not this day been deathly calm. It was fitmusic for such a scene, for it seemed neither of heaven nor earth,but the soul of the great god Pan come back to earth to charm thosenameless rocks with his wild, sweet piping. It changed to harmoni