Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net WITH HOOPS OF STEEL BY FLORENCE FINCH KELLY ILLUSTRATED BY DAN SMITH "_The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel._" NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Made in the United States of America COPYRIGHT 1900 THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [Illustration: "ON AND ON THROUGH THE NIGHT THEY GALLOPED, NECK TO NECK AND HEEL TO HEEL."--_p. 63_] PUBLISHERS' NOTE Owen Wister's THE VIRGINIAN and Florence Finch Kelly's WITH HOOPS OF STEEL were the first of the modern cow-boy novels. Twenty-five years have passed since Mrs. Kelly's enthralling story first appeared--September, 1900. Most of the novels published then and since, are dead and forgotten. Not so WITH HOOPS OF STEEL. It was in continuous demand from its first friendly welcome by the critics until the World War turned public attention to Europe. Even so its vitality persisted, justified this new edition, and seems to warrant the belief that the present generation will find its story interest as vivid and as exciting as did the past, and its value even greater, for it presents an authentic portrait of the old southwestern cattlemen and a fascinating picture of a phase of national development now passed into history. THE PUBLISHERS. WITH HOOPS OF STEEL CHAPTER I The soft, muffling dusk settled slowly downward from the darkening blue sky and little by little smothered the weird gleam that rose from the gray-white plain. Away toward the east a range of mountains gloomed faintly, rimming the distance. Another towered against the western horizon. Cactus clumps and bunches of mesquite and greasewood blotted the whitely gleaming earth. In and out among these dark spots a man was slowly riding. Now and then he leaned forward and looked keenly through the growing darkness as though searching for some familiar landmark. The horse lagged across the heavy sand, with drooping head and ears. The rider patted its neck with a buckskin gloved hand and spoke cheerily to the tired animal: "Hot and tired, ain't you, old fellow? You want your supper and a big drink of water. Well, you oughtn't to have wandered off the road while I was asleep. Now, I sure reckon we've got to bunk on a sand heap to-night and wait till daylight to find out where we are." Again he peered through the dusk, and a little ray of light came glimmering from far away toward the right. He knew that it must come from either a ranch house or a camp-fire. "I don't remember any ranch as far up toward the White Sands as that seems to be," he thought. "It must be a camp-fire. We don't know whose it is, old pard, but we're goin' to take chances on it."