To The Last ManHarper & Bros., 1921 - 310 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
aboot Ahuh ain't asked Basin Bill Isbel Blaisdell blood Blue breast Bruce brush bullet cabin cañon cattle Colmor Colter Daggs dark door ejaculated Ellen Jorth Evarts eyes face father fellars fight flashed forest gang Gaston Isbel gaze girl goin Grass Valley gray Greaves Greaves's store Guy Isbel half-breed hand hard hate head heah heard heerd hell horse hosses Jean Isbel Jean saw Jean's John Sprague kill kissed Kurnel Lee Jorth look manzanita Mebbe never Nez Perce night pack passion pine Pleasant Valley War Queen queried ranch rancher reckon replied Jean ride rifle rode rustlers seemed seen sheep sheepmen Shepp shore shot sight slope Somers Spades Sprague Springer spruce strange talk tell Texans Texas thar thet thicket thought thrill Tonto Tonto Basin tracks trail turned uncle voice wait watched whispered wild
Popular passages
Page v - My long labors have been devoted to making stories resemble the times they depict. I have loved the West for its vastness, its contrast, its beauty and color and life, for its wildness and violence, and for the fact that I have seen how it developed great men and women who died unknown and unsung.
Page 67 - Something was wrong somewhere. Jean absolutely forgot that within the hour he had pledged his manhood, his life to a feud which could be blotted out only in blood. If he had understood himself he would have realized that the pledge was no more thrilling and unintelligible in its possibilities than this instinct which drew him irresistibly. "Ellen Jorth! So — my dad calls her a damned hussy! So — that explains the — the way she acted — why she never hit me when I kissed her. An' her words,...
Page v - In this materialistic age, this hard, practical, swift, c :• greedy age of realism, it seems there is no place for writers " of romance, no place for romance itself. For many years all the events leading up to the great war were realistic, and the war itself was horribly realistic, and the aftermath is likewise. Romance is only another name for idealism; and I contend that life without ideals is not worth living.
Page 213 - s arm jerked limply, flinging his gun. And his body sagged in the middle. His hands fluttered like crippled wings and found their way to his abdomen. His deathpale face never changed its set look nor position toward Blue. But his gasping utterance was one of horrible mortal fury and terror. Then he began to sway, still with that strange, rigid set of his face toward his slayer, until he fell.
Page vi - In all that I have done I have tried to make people see how the world is too much with them. Getting and spending they lay waste their powers, with never a breath of the free and wonderful life of...
Page vi - And I have yet to know anyone who has not some secret dream, some hope, however dim, some storied wall to look at in the dusk, some painted window leading to the soul.
Page 78 - Arizonians and Texans. This man was built differently. He had the widest shoulders of any man she had ever seen, and they made him appear rather short. But his lithe, powerful limbs proved he was not short. Whenever he moved the muscles rippled. His hands were clasped round a knee — brown, sinewy hands, very broad, and fitting the thick muscular wrists.
Page 230 - And there her body paid the tribute to the realization of life. Shock, convulsion, pain, relaxation, and then unutterable and insupportable sensing of her environment and the heart! In one way she was a wild animal alone in the woods, forced into the mating that meant reproduction of its kind. In another she was an infinitely higher being shot through and through with the most resistless and mysterious transport that life could give to flesh.
Page 18 - ... and yellow wall, a rampart, a mountain-faced cliff, seemed to zigzag westward. Grand and bold were the promontories reaching out over the void. They ran toward the westering sun.
Page 213 - The name must have been a guarantee of death. Jorth recognized this outlaw and realized his own fate. In the lamplight his face turned a pale greenish white. His outstretched hand began to quiver down. Blue's left gun seemed to leap up and flash "red and explode. Several heavy reports merged almost as one.• Jorth 's arm jerked limply, flinging his gun.