Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14376-h.htm or 14376-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/3/7/14376/14376-h/14376-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/3/7/14376/14376-h.zip) SOMEWHERE IN RED GAP by HARRY LEON WILSON Illustrated by John R. Neill, F. R. Gruger, and Henry Raleigh New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers [Illustration: "SHE WAS STANDING ON THE CENTRE TABLE BY NOW, SO SHE COULD LAMP HERSELF IN THE GLASS OVER THE MANTEL"] To GEORGE HORACE LORIMER CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The Red Splash of Romance II. Ma Pettengill and the Song of Songs III. The Real Peruvian Doughnuts IV. Once a Scotchman, Always V. Non Plush Ultra VI. Cousin Egbert Intervenes VII. Kate; or, Up From the Depths VIII. Pete's B'other-in-law IX. Little Old New York I THE RED SPLASH OF ROMANCE The walls of the big living-room in the Arrowhead ranch house are tastefully enlivened here and there with artistic spoils of the owner, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill. There are family portraits in crayon, photo-engravings of noble beasts clipped from the _Breeder's Gazette_, an etched cathedral or two, a stuffed and varnished trout of such size that no one would otherwise have believed in it, a print in three colours of a St. Bernard dog with a marked facial resemblance to the late William E. Gladstone, and a triumph of architectural perspective revealing two sides of the Pettengill block, corner of Fourth and Main streets, Red Gap, made vivacious by a bearded fop on horseback who doffs his silk hat to a couple of overdressed ladies with parasols in a passing victoria. And there is the photograph of the fat man. He is very large--both high and wide. He has filled the lens and now compels the eye. His broad face beams a friendly interest. His moustache is a flourishing, uncurbed, riotous growth above his billowy chin. The checked coat, held recklessly aside by a hand on each hip, reveals an incredible expanse of waistcoat, the pattern of which raves horribly. From pocket to pocket of this gaudy shield curves a watch chain of massive links--nearly a yard of it, one guesses. Often I have glanced at this noisy thing tacked to the wall, entranced by the simple width of the man. Now on a late afternoon I loitered before it while my hostess changed from riding breeches to the gown of lavender and lace in which she elects to drink tea after a day's hard work along the valleys of the Arrowhead. And for the first time I observed a line of writing beneath the portrait, the writing of my hostess, a rough, downright, plain fashion of script: "Reading from left to right--Mr. Ben Sutton, Popular Society Favourite of Nome, Alaska."