He Walked Around The Horses

Science fiction author H. Beam Piper is regarded as one of the genre's most inventive practitioners, and this short but gripping tale puts his remarkable creative powers on full display. "He Walked Around the Horses" takes the real-world case of the mysterious disappearance of a nineteenth-century diplomat and melds it into a mind-bending science fiction story. Fans of speculative SF will love this gratifying read.

The horse has been championed throughout history as a war machine, a means of transport, an adjunct to farming, a source of popular entertainment, and, finally, as a true friend and companion. So it's no surprise that writers throughout history have featured the horse prominently in their fiction. Here are 25 stories and 5 poems of equine fiction and literature, from Anna Sewell's Black Beauty to classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, and many others! Included are: Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell The Man from Snowy River, by A. B. Paterson [poem] Chu Chu, by Bret Harte John G., by Katherine Mayo Gulliver's Travels: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, by Jonathan Swift How the Old Horse Won the Bet, by Oliver Wendell Holmes [poem] A Horse's Tale, by Mark Twain The Talking Horse, by F. Anstey Samuel Cowles and His Horse Royal, by Eugene Field A Horseman in the Sky, by Ambrose Bierce The Dun Horse, by George Bird Grinnell The Enchanted Horse, by Amy Steedman At Galway Races, by William Butler Yeats [poem] A Ride with a Mad Horse in a Freight-Car, by W. H. H. Murray Buying a Horse, by William Dean Howells Skipper: Being the Biography of a Blue-Ribboner, by Sewell Ford The Instinct of Animals: Horses, by Thomas Bingley A Night Among the Horses, by Djuna Barnes He Walked Around the Horses, by H. Beam Piper The Horse of the Invisible, by William Hope Hodgson Miles Keogh's Horse, by John Hay [poem] The War Horse of Alexander, by Plutarch, edited by Andrew Lang Heads and Tales: The Horse," edited by Adam White Heart Bar Johnny, by Mary Wickizer Burgess Lady Clare: The Story of a Horse, by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen Zadig: The Dog and the Horse, by Voltaire My First Horse Surgery, by Mark E. Burgess Silver Blaze, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Ballad of the Drover, by Henry Lawson [poem] Horse Latitudes: Return to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, by Robert Reginald And don't forget to search this ebook store for "Wildside Megapack" to see more entries in the series, covering everything from animal stories to classics to science fiction, mysteries, westerns, ghost stories...and much, much more!

This case is leaving Longarm with a sour taste… U.S. Deputy Marshal Custis Long has been assigned to some strange cases in his time, but none stranger than the milk train holdups occurring outside the small town of Trinidad, Colorado. Instead of harming passengers and looting their belongings, the bandits only seem interested in keeping the train off its schedule so the milk delivery arrives late. Longarm can’t fathom what these pranksters are up to. But his investigation must be making someone nervous—nervous enough to use dynamite to try and kill him. And until Longarm can defuse the situation, the outlaws are going to keep spoiling things for the fine folks at Trinidad…

Raid on Innocence In the years before the Civil War began, the small town of Salinas, Indiana was starting a period of growth that could turn this farming community into a small city. The driving force behind the growth was the combined effort of two hard-working farmers with a vision to make Salinas one of the major cities in southern Indiana. William Consley raised and trained quality saddle, team, and workhorses for most of the farmers and businessmen in the northern half of the county. He always had 30 to 40 horses on his 300-acre farm but could sometimes have as many as 10 additional that were being trained. Andrew Davis had an expanding cattle business that reached out to support other businesses in the community. His 1000 acres could support over 500 head of cattle that he sent to the slaughterhouse in town, and then sent the hides to the tan yard to be made into leather. The ice harvesting he did in the winter allowed his beef to be shipped back east to market. All of his businesses provided employment for a large portion of the citizens of the community and encouraged an influx of more settlers to the town. There weren't any citizens who had a stake in the slavery issue even though most of them still had strong ties to relatives in the south. When war does break out, only a few young men volunteer to go in the Army, either North or South. The community makes every attempt to avoid the war until the war came to them. What happens that day will surprise and shock you and will explain what becomes of the town afterwards.

These myths and tales are the free translations of texts recorded in the dialect of the White Mountain Apache. The texts themselves with word for word translations follow as Part IV of the volume. They were recorded, with one exception, during the winter of 1910 as a part of the studies made in the Southwest under the yearly grant of Mr. Archer M. Huntington. The creation myth, secured from Noze, differs in important incidents from the versions given above from the San Carlos as well as from versions secured from other White Mountain Apache. It should not be assumed that these differences are tribal, it is more probable that they are individual, since forms from the San Carlos and Navajo are closely similar to each other. The greater number of the remaining narratives were secured from the father of Frank Crockett, the interpreter employed. Several of these are ceremonial and religious in their character and probably would not have been given except for the son's influence. Two of these were later secured from San Carlos informants in more extended form but highly corroborative in their general agreement. The main purpose in recording these narratives was to secure sufficient and varied connected texts in the dialect of the White Mountain Apache. As a collection of mythology and folklore it is probably far from complete. It is assumed, however, to be fairly representative.

Under the floorboards of a ruined homestead near Joshua Hills, desert rattlesnakes guard a decades-old family rivalry and a long-hidden treasure that should have remained in the past. In the ruins, Cassidy Michaels, a tracker for Joshua Hills Search and Rescue, uncovers a map hidden for almost a century that leads her ever-deeper into danger of the deadly variety. Cassidy puts herself at risk in order to protect an elusive cat burglar and fellow treasure hunter determined to find Ronald Kingsley’s famous jewelry, long-lost in one of the homesteads. Her life is complicated by Misty Montague, a rival from Cassidy’s high school days, who will stop at nothing to lure away Cassidy’s husband.

When Luke Taylor's father leaves home to fight for the South in the Civil War, it's up to Luke to be the man of his family. Luke struggles to keep his family safe as Union soldiers march through the South burning crops, destroying buildings, and killing livestock. When a band of renegades dressed as Union soldiers attacks his home, killing his brother and beating him and his mother, Luke must leave the farm to find his father. Luke and his father return to see their farm facing a new threat-carpetbaggers from the North who threaten to seize their land. When Luke and his father resist, Luke has to kill a carpetbagger to defend his father. The leader of the carpetbaggers reports to the Union army that Luke killed his man in cold blood. Luke must either stay with his family and risk being hanged or leave his home forever in search of a better life in the West. In Luke Taylor-Westward Bound, Luke races against time, Union soldiers, and bounty hunters on his way to join a wagon train in Independence, Missouri. With only a packhorse, a few days' supply of food, and a stowaway dog, Luke heads west on a tense, adventure-filled journey of survival. Luke Taylor-Westward Bound takes readers along on a thrilling quest for freedom, peace, and ultimately, revenge.