Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net A BREATH OF PRAIRIE AND OTHER STORIES By WILL LILLIBRIDGE THE DOMINANT DOLLAR. Illustrated in color by Lester Ralph. Crown 8vo . . . $1.50 BEN BLAIR, PLAINSMAN. Frontispiece in color by Maynard Dixon. Seventieth thousand. Crown 8vo . . . $1.50 QUERCUS ALBA: The Veteran of the Ozarks. With frontispiece. 16mo. Net . . . $.50 A. C. MCCLURG & CO., Publishers CHICAGO [Illustration: She wheeled swiftly round, confronting him. [See "Journey's End."]] A BREATH OF PRAIRIE AND OTHER STORIES BY WILL LILLIBRIDGE AUTHOR OF "BEN BLAIR," "THE DOMINANT DOLLAR," ETC. WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY J. N. MARCHAND CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911 Copyright A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911 Published April, 1911 W. J. Hall Printing Company Chicago A TRIBUTE It is an accepted truth, I believe, that every novelist embodies in the personalities of his heroes some of his own traits of character. Those who were intimately acquainted with William Otis Lillibridge could not fail to recognize this in a marked degree. To a casual reader, the heroes of his five novels might perhaps suggest five totally different personalities, but one who knows them well will inevitably recognize beneath the various disguises the same dominant characteristics in them all. Whether it be Ben Blair the sturdy plainsman, Bob McLeod the cripple, Dr. Watson, Darley Roberts, or even How Landor the Indian, one finds the same foundation stones of character,--repression, virility, firmness of purpose, an abhorrence of artificiality or affectation,--love of Nature and of Nature's works rather than things man-made. And these were unquestionably the pronounced traits of Will Lillibridge's personality. Markedly reserved, silent, forceful, he was seldom found in the places where men congregate, but loved rather the company of books and of the great out-doors. Living practically his entire life on the prairies it is undoubtedly true that he was greatly influenced by his environment. And certain it is that he could never have so successfully painted the various phases of prairie-life without a sympathetic, personal knowledge. The story of his life is characteristically told in this brief autobiographical sketch, written at the request of an interested magazine.