E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell,
Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects, Clare Coney,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
SOMEWHERE IN RED GAP
By
Harry Leon Wilson
ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN R. NEILL, F. R. GRUGER, AND
HENRY RALEIGH
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. The Red Splash of Romance
CHAPTER II. Ma Pettengill and the Song of Songs
CHAPTER III. The Real Peruvian Doughnuts
CHAPTER IV. Once a Scotchman, Always
CHAPTER V. Non Plush Ultra
CHAPTER VI. Cousin Egbert Intervenes
CHAPTER VII. Kate; or, Up From the Depths
CHAPTER VIII. Pete's B'other-in-law
CHAPTER IX. Little Old New York
I
THE RED SPLASH OF ROMANCE
The walls of the big living-room in the Arrowhead ranch house aretastefully 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 sizethat no one would otherwise have believed in it, a print in threecolours of a St. Bernard dog with a marked facial resemblance to thelate William E. Gladstone, and a triumph of architectural perspectiverevealing two sides of the Pettengill block, corner of Fourth and Mainstreets, Red Gap, made vivacious by a bearded fop on horseback who doffshis silk hat to a couple of overdressed ladies with parasols in apassing victoria.
And there is the photograph of the fat man. He is very large—both highand wide. He has filled the lens and now compels the eye. His broad facebeams 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, revealsan incredible expanse of waistcoat, the pattern of which raveshorribly. From pocket to pocket of this gaudy shield curves a watchchain of massive links—nearly a yard of it, one guesses.
Often I have glanced at this noisy thing tacked to the wall, entrancedby the simple width of the man. Now on a late afternoon I loiteredbefore it while my hostess changed from riding breeches to the gown oflavender and lace in which she elects to drink tea after a day's hardwork along the valleys of the Arrowhead. And for the first time Iobserved a line of writing beneath the portrait, the writing of myhostess, a rough, downright, plain fashion of script: "Reading from leftto right—Mr. Ben Sutton, Popular Society Favourite of Nome, Alaska."
"Reading from left to right!" Here was the intent facetious. And MaPettengill is never idly facetious. Always, as the advertisements say,"There's a reason!" And now, also for the first tim