Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE BOOKS BY FRANK H. SPEARMAN PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS ROBERT KIMBERLY. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg. 12mo Net $1.30 WHISPERING SMITH. A Story of Rocky Mountain Life. Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. 12mo $1.50 THE DAUGHTER OF A MAGNATE. Illustrated. 12mo $1.50 DOCTOR BRYSON. A Novel. 12mo $1.50 THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE. Illustrated. 12mo Net $1.25 THE STRATEGY OF GREAT RAILROADS. With Maps. 12mo Net $1.50 [Illustration: AS BUCK'S STRAINING EYE FOLLOWED THE MOVEMENT, THE SECOND INDIAN STRUCK THE CLUB DOWN.] THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE BY FRANK H. SPEARMAN ILLUSTRATED BY ARMAND BOTH CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK :: 1912 Copyright, 1912, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1912 THIS STORY WITHOUT LOVE, IS NONE THE LESS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED TO MY YOUNGEST SON ARTHUR DUNNING SPEARMAN ILLUSTRATIONS As Buck's straining eye followed the movement, the second Indian struck the club down. _Frontispiece_ It was only after a moment that the lineman could be seen to gain. 92 "Let that gate alone or I'll brain you," he cried. 250 For Scott to draw and fire was but one movement. 300 THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE CHAPTER I Night had fallen and a warm rain drifting down from the mountains hung in a mist over the railroad yards and obscured the lights of Medicine Bend. Two men dismounting from their drooping horses at the foot of Front Street threw the reins to a man in waiting and made their way on foot across the muddy square to the building which served the new railroad as a station and as division head-quarters. In Medicine Bend, the town, the railroad, everything was new; and the broad, low pine building which they entered had not yet been painted. The public waiting-room was large, roughly framed, and lighted with hanging kerosene lamps. Within the room a door communicated with the agent's office, and this was divided by a wooden railing into a freight office and a ticket and telegraph office. It could be seen, as the two men paused at the door of the inner room, that the first wore a military fatigue-cap, and his alert carriage as he threw open his cape-coat indicated the bearing of an American army officer. He was of medium height, and his features and eyes implied that the storms and winds of the plains and mountains were familiar friends. This was Park Stanley, charged at that time with the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.