The Uphill Climb

The Uphill Climb

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Illustrated by Charles M. Russell
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Title: The Uphill Climb
Author: B. M. Bower
Release Date: December 25, 2004 [eBook #14456]
Language: English
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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

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

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
"Married! And I Don't Know Her Name!" II Wanted: Information III
One Way to Drown Sorrow IV Reaction V "I Can Spare this Particular
Girl" VI The Problem of Getting Somewhere VII The Foreman of the
Double Cross VIII "I Wish You'd Quit Believing in Me!" IX
Impressions X In Which the Demon Opens an Eye and Yawns XI "It's
Going to Be an Uphill Climb!" XII At Hand-Grips with the Demon
XIII A Plan Gone Wrong XIV The Feminine Point of View XV The
Climb XVI To Find and Free a Wife 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. (Frontispiece)
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.
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 he was clothed to his boots, and crossed slowly to
where a cheap, flyspecked looking-glass hung awry upon the wall. His
self-inspection was grave and minute. His eyes held the philosophic
calm of accustomedness.
"Who put this head on me, Sandy?" he inquired apathetically. "The
preacher?"
"I d' know. You had it when you come up outa the heap. You licked the
preacher afterwards, I think."
Sandy was reading a ragged-backed novel while he smoked; his interest
in Ford and Ford's battered countenance was plainly perfunctory.
Outside, the rain fell aslant in the wind and drummed dismally upon the
little window beside Sandy. It beat upon the door and trickled
underneath in a thin rivulet to a shallow puddle, formed where the floor
was sunken. A dank warmth and the smell of wet wood heating to the
blazing point pervaded