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

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 are tastefully 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 size that no one would otherwise have believed in it, a print in three colours of a St. Bernard dog with a marked facial resemblance to the late William E. Gladstone, and a triumph of architectural perspective revealing two sides of the Pettengill block, corner of Fourth and Main streets, Red Gap, made vivacious by a bearded fop on horseback who doffs his silk hat to a couple of overdressed ladies with parasols in a passing victoria.

And there is the photograph of the fat man. He is very large—both high and wide. He has filled the lens and now compels the eye. His broad face beams 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, reveals an incredible expanse of waistcoat, the pattern of which raves horribly. From pocket to pocket of this gaudy shield curves a watch chain of massive links—nearly a yard of it, one guesses.

Often I have glanced at this noisy thing tacked to the wall, entranced by the simple width of the 

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