"Well, some folks has more sense of what's right, anyways," grumbled Wid Gardner, shifting his position on one of the two insecure cracker boxes which made the only chairs, and resting an elbow on the oil cloth table cover, where stood a few broken dishes, showing no signs of any ablution in all their hopeless lives. "My own self, I'm a bachelor man, too—been batching for twenty years, one place and another—but by God! Sim, this here is the human limit. Look at that bed." He kicked a foot toward a heap of dirty fabrics which lay upon the floor, a bed which might once have been devised for a man, but long since had fallen below that rank. It had a breadth of dirty canvas thrown across it, from under which the occupant had crawled out. Beneath might be seen the edges of two or three worn and dirty cotton quilts and a pair of blankets of like dinginess. Below this lay a worn elk hide, and under all a lower-breadth of the over-lapping canvas. It was such a bed as primarily a cow-puncher might have had, but fallen into such condition that no cow camp would have tolerated it. Sim Gage looked at the heap of bedding for a time gravely and carefully, as though trying to find some reason for his friend's dissatisfaction. His mouth began to work as it always did when he was engaged in some severe mental problem, but he frowned apologetically once more as he spoke. "Well, Wid, I know, I know. It ain't maybe just the thing to sleep on the floor all the time, noways. You see, I got a bunk frame made for her over there, and it's all tight and strong—it was there when I took this cabin over from the Swede. But I ain't never just got around to moving my bed offen the floor onto the bedstead. I may do it some day. Fact is, I was just a-going to do it anyways." "Just a-going to—like hell you was! You been a-going to move that bed for four years, to my certain knowledge, and I know that in that time you ain't shuk it out or aired it onct, or made it up."

In this novel from renowned writer of Westerns Emerson Hough, an unlikely romance springs up between a Montana rancher and a well-meaning young woman from the East when friends of the rancher place an ad in the era's newspaper equivalent of a dating website. The match is made, but it turns out to be a poor fit for everyone involved.

This carefully edited collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Girl at the Halfway House The Law of the Land Heart's Desire The Way of a Man 54-40 or Fight The Man Next Door The Magnificent Adventure The Sagebrusher The Covered Wagon Emerson Hough (1857–1923) was an American author best known for writing western stories, adventure tales and historical novels. His best known works include western novels The Mississippi Bubble and The Covered Wagon, The Young Alaskans series of adventure novels, and historical works The Way to the West and The Story of the Cowboy.

This carefully crafted ebook collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Young Alaskans Series The Young Alaskans The Young Alaskans in the Rockies The Young Alaskans on the Trail Young Alaskans in the Far North The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Other Novels The Girl at the Halfway House The Mississippi Bubble The Law of the Land Heart's Desire The Way of a Man 54-40 or Fight The Purchase Price The Lady and the Pirate The Man Next Door The Magnificent Adventure The Broken Gate The Way Out The Sagebrusher The Covered Wagon Children's Books King of Gee-Whiz Singing Mouse Stories The Land of the Singing Mouse The Burden of a Song The Little River What the Waters Said Lake Belle-Marie The Skull and the Rose The Man of the Mountain At the Place of the Oaks The Birth of the Hours The Stone That Had No Thought The Tear and the Smile How the Mountains Ate Up the Plains The Savage and Its Heart The Beast Terrible The Passing of Men The House of Truth Where the City Went The Bell and the Shadows Of the Greatest Sorrow The Shoes of the Princess Of White Moths The House of Dreams Poetry The Unredeemed Historical Works The Story of the Cowboy The Way to the West The Story of the Outlaw The Passing of the Frontier Maw's Vacation Emerson Hough (1857–1923) was an American author best known for writing western stories, adventure tales and historical novels. His best known works include western novels The Mississippi Bubble and The Covered Wagon, The Young Alaskans series of adventure novels, and historical works The Way to the West and The Story of the Cowboy.