



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive







WEBSTER--MAN'S MAN

By Peter B. Kyne

Author Of “Cappy Ricks”

“The Three Godfathers,” Etc.

Illustrated By Dean Cornwell

[Illustration:ustration: 0006]

[Illustration:ustration: 0007]

New York

Doubleday, Page & Company

1917





WEBSTER-MAN'S MAN




CHAPTER I

|WHEN John Stuart Webster, mining engineer and kicker-up-of-dust on
distant trails, flagged the S. P., L. A. & S. L. Limited at a blistered
board station in Death Valley, California, he had definitely resolved to
do certain things. To begin, he would invade the dining car at the first
call to dinner and order approximately twenty dollars' worth of ham and
eggs, which provender is, as all who know will certify, the pinnacle of
epicurean delight to an old sour-dough coming out of the wilderness with
a healthy bankroll and a healthier appetite; for even as the hydrophobic
dog avoids water, so does the adventurer of the Webster type avoid
the weird concoctions of high-priced French chefs until he has first
satisfied that void which yawns to receive ham and eggs.

Following the ham and eggs, Mr. Webster planned to saturate himself from
soul to vermiform appendix with nicotine, which he purposed obtaining
from tobacco with nicotine in it. It was a week since he had smoked
anything, and months since he had tasted anything with an odour even
remotely like tobacco, for the August temperature in Death Valley is no
respecter of moisture in any man or his tobacco. By reason of the fact
that he had not always dwelt in Death Valley, however, John Stuart
Webster knew