The Claim Jumpers: A Romance

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The Claim Jumpers: A Romance

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Edward White This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
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Title: The Claim Jumpers
Author: Stewart Edward White
Release Date: February 4, 2004 [EBook #10942]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CLAIM JUMPERS ***

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THE CLAIM JUMPERS
A ROMANCE

BY
STEWART EDWARD WHITE

1901

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
--JIM LESLIE WRITES A LETTER II.--THE STORY-BOOK WEST
III.--BENNINGTON HUNTS FOR GOLD AND FINDS A KISS
IV.--THE SUN FAIRY V.--THE SPIRIT MOUNTAIN
VI.--BENNINGTON AS A MAN OF BUSINESS VII.--THE
MEETING AT THE ROCK VIII.--AN ADVENTURE IN THE
NIGHT IX.--THE HEAVENS OPENED X.--THE WORLD MADE
YOUNG XI.--AND HE DID EAT XII.--OLD MIZZOU RESIGNS
XIII.--THE SPIRES OF STONE XIV.--THE PIONEER'S PICNIC
XV.--THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN XVI.--A NOON DINNER
XVII.--NOBLESSE OBLIGE XVIII.--THE CLAIM JUMPERS
XIX.--BENNINGTON PROVES GAME XX.--MASKS OFF
XXI.--THE LAND OF VISIONS XXII.--FLOWER O' THE WORLD
CHAPTER I
JIM LESLIE WRITES A LETTER
In a fifth-story sitting room of a New York boarding house four youths
were holding a discussion. The sitting room was large and square, and
in the wildest disorder, which was, however, sublimated into a certain
system by an illuminated device to the effect that one should "Have a
Place for Everything, and then there'll be one Place you won't have to
look." Easels and artists' materials thrust back to the wall sufficiently

advertised the art student, and perhaps explained the untidiness.
Two of the occupants of the room, curled up on elevated window
ledges, were emitting clouds of tobacco smoke and nursing their knees;
the other two, naked to the waist, sat on a couple of ordinary bedroom
mattresses deposited carefully in the vacant centre of the apartment.
They were eager, alert-looking young men, well-muscled, curly of hair,
and possessing in common an unabashed carriage of the head which,
more plainly than any mere facial resemblance, proved them brothers.
They, too, were nursing their knees.
"He must be an unadorned ass," remarked one of the occupants of the
window seats, in answer to some previous statement.
"He is not," categorically denied a youth of the mattresses. "My dear
Hench, you make no distinctions. I've been talking about the boy's
people and his bringing up and the way he acts, whereupon you fly off
on a tangent and coolly conclude things about the boy himself. It is not
only unkind, but stupid."
Hench laughed. "You amuse me, Jeems," said he; "elucidate."
Jeems let go his knees. The upper part of his body, thus deprived of
support, fell backward on the mattress. He then clasped his hands
behind his head, and stared at the ceiling.
"Listen, ye multitude," he began; "I'm an artist. So are you. I'm also a
philosopher. You are not. Therefore, I'll deign to instruct you. Ben de
Laney has a father and a mother. The father is pompous, conceited, and
a bore. The mother is pompous, conceited, and a bore. The father uses
language of whose absolutely vapid correctness Addison would have
been proud. So does the mother, unless she forgets, in which case the
old man calls her down hard. They, are rich and of a good social
position. The latter worries them, because they have to keep up its
dignity."
"They succeed," interrupted the other brother fervently, "they succeed.
I dined there once. After that I went around to the waxworks to get

cheered up a bit."
"Quite so, Bertie," replied the philosopher; "but you interrupted me just
before I got to my point. The poor old creatures had been married many
years before Bennie came to cheer them up. Naturally, Bennie has been
the whole thing ever since. He is allowed a few privileges, but always
under the best auspices. The rest of the time he stays at home, is told
what or what not a gentleman should do, and is instructed in the
genealogy of the de Laneys."
"The mother is always impressing him with the fact that he is a de
Laney on both sides," interpolated Bert.
"Important, if true, as the newspapers say," remarked the other young
man on the window ledge. "What constitutes a de Laney?"
"Hereditary lack of humour, Beck, my boy. Well, the result is that poor
Bennie is a sort of----" the speaker hesitated for his word.
"'Willy boy,'" suggested Beck, mildly.
"Something of the sort, but not exactly. A 'willy boy' never has ideas.
Bennie