The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Uphill Climb, by B. M. Bower, Illustrated by Charles M. Russell

Title: The Uphill Climb

Author: B. M. Bower

Release Date: December 25, 2004 [eBook #14456]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UPHILL CLIMB***

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell,
Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects, Jon King,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

"Hell-o, Ford, where the blazes did you drop down from?" a welcoming voice yelled.

THE UPHILL CLIMB

BY

B. M. BOWER

AUTHOR OF

GOOD INDIAN,
CHIP, OF THE FLYING U, ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

CHARLES M. RUSSELL

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

1913

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.--"Married! and I Don't Know Her Name!"
CHAPTER II.--Wanted: Information
CHAPTER III.--One Way to Drown Sorrow
CHAPTER IV.--Reaction
CHAPTER V.--"I Can Spare this Particular Girl"
CHAPTER VI.--The Problem of Getting Somewhere
CHAPTER VII.--The Foreman of the Double Cross
CHAPTER VIII.--"I Wish You'd Quit Believing in Me!"
CHAPTER IX.--Impressions
CHAPTER X.--In Which the Demon Opens and Eye and Yawns
CHAPTER XI.--"It's Going to Be an Uphill Climb!"
CHAPTER XII.--At Hand-Grips with the Demon
CHAPTER XIII.--A Plan Gone Wrong
CHAPTER XIV.--The Feminine Point of View
CHAPTER XV.--The Climb
CHAPTER XVI.--To Find and Free a Wife
CHAPTER XVII.--What Ford Found at the Top

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Hell-o, Ford, where the blazes did you drop down from?" a welcoming voice yelled.

She lifted her head and looked at him, and drew away.

Dick tottered upon the step and went off backward.

"Ford, I'm no coquette," she said straightforwardly.

The Uphill Climb

CHAPTER I

"Married! And I Don't Know Her Name!"

Ford lifted his arms above his head to yawn as does a man who has slept too heavily, found his biceps stiffened and sore, and massaged them gingerly with his finger-tips. His eyes took on the vacancy of memory straining at the leash of forgetfulness. He sighed largely, swung his head slowly from left to right in mute admission of failure to grasp what lay just behind his slumber, and thereby discovered other muscles that protested against sudden movement. He felt his neck with a careful, rubbing gesture. One hand strayed to his left cheekbone, hovered there tentatively, wandered to the bridge of his nose, and from there dropped inertly to the bed.

"Lordy me! I must have been drunk last night," he said aloud, mechanically taking the straight line of logic from effect to cause, as much experience had taught him to do.

"You was—and then some," replied an unemotional voice from somewhere behind him.

"Oh! That you, Sandy?" Ford lay quiet, trying to remember. His finger-tips explored the right side of his face; now and then he winced under their touch, light as it was.

"I must have carried an awful load," he decided, again unerringly taking the backward trail from effect to cause. Later, logic carried him farther. "Who'd I lick, Sandy?"

"Several." The unseen Sandy gave one the impression of a man smoking and speaking between puffs. "Can't say just who—you did start in on. You wound up on—the preacher."

"Preacher?" Ford's tone matched the flicker of interest in his eyes.

"Uhn-hunh."

Ford meditated a moment. "I don't recollect ever licking a preacher before," he observed curiously.

Life, stale and drab since his eyes opened, gathered to itself the pale glow of awakening interest. Ford rose painfully, inch by inch, until he was sitting upon the side of the bed, got from there to his feet, looked down and saw that