Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: 'THEN BEGAN A TERRIBLE FIGHT BETWEEN THE MAN AND THE HORSE.' _Page_ 124. LEFT ON THE PRAIRIE BY M. B. COX (NOEL WEST). _ILLUSTRATED BY A. PEARCE_ LONDON: WELLS GARDNER, BARTON & CO., 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, & 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. 1899. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. AT LONGVIEW II. JACK IN TROUBLE III. JACK'S RESOLUTION IV. JACK STARTS ON HIS JOURNEY V. JACK GOES IN SEARCH OF NIGGER VI. JACK IS DESERTED VII. JACK IS RESCUED VIII. WHAT JACK LEARNED FROM PEDRO IX. JACK ARRIVES AT SWIFT CREEK RANCH X. JACK'S VISIT AT SWIFT CREEK RANCH XI. JACK CROSSES THE RANGE WITH CHAMPION JOE XII. AT LAST! LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 'THEN BEGAN A TERRIBLE FIGHT BETWEEN THE MAN AND THE HORSE' . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ 'JACK COULD HELP HIS FATHER, TOO, WHEN HE ARRIVED HOME' 'HE RUSHED OFF TO THE WOODSHED, AND WEPT AS IF HIS HEART WOULD BREAK' 'HE GOT OUT OF HIS WINDOW' 'JACK STRUCK UP "FOR EVER WITH THE LORD"' '"YOU'D BETTER NOT COME BACK WITHOUT THE HORSE"' 'JACK FOUGHT HARD, BUT THEY WERE TOO MANY FOR HIM' '"HERE," SAID THE MEXICAN, "DRINK THIS"' 'PEDRO LET THE NOOSE FALL OVER SEÑOR'S NECK' 'JACK MADE HIMSELF USEFUL' 'CARRYING HIM INTO A NICE WARM ROOM' 'THROUGH A DENSE FOREST OF PINES' 'JACK RUSHED INTO THE MIDST OF THE HORSES TOWARDS A YELLOW-COATED BRONCHO' '"OH, MOTHER DARLING! I AIN'T DEAD, AND I'VE FOUND YOU AT LAST!"' LEFT ON THE PRAIRIE. CHAPTER I. AT LONGVIEW. Little Jack Wilson had been born in England; but when he was quite a baby his parents had sailed across the sea, taking him with them, and settled out on one of the distant prairies of America. Of course, Jack was too small when he left to remember anything of England himself, but as he grew older he liked to hear his father and mother talk about the old country where he and they had been born, and to which they still seemed to cling with great affection. Sometimes, as they looked out-of-doors over the burnt-up prairie round their new home, his father would tell him about the trim green fields they had left so far behind them, and say with a sigh, 'Old England was like a _garden_, but this place is nothing but a _wilderness_!' Longview was the name of the lonely western village where George Wilson, his wife, and Jack had lived for eight years, and although we should not have thought it a particularly nice place, they were very happy there. Longview was half-way between two large mining towns, sixty miles apart, and as there was no railway in those parts, the people going to and from the different mines were obliged to travel by waggons, and often halted for a night at Longview to break the journey.