eray's. Dickens's unfinished story, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," occupied much of his thought at this time and he attempted more than once to complete the plot but gave it up. Of Charles Reade's masterpiece he said later: "If you want philosophy well put up in fiction, read "The Cloister and the Hearth.' I never saw such a novel. There is material for dozens of short stories in that one book alone."

Three other novels made a deep impression upon him at this time: Spielhagen's "Hammer and Anvil,” Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year," and John Esten Cooke's "Surry of Eagle's Nest." He thought Warren's character of "Oily Gammon" the best portrait of a villain ever drawn and always called one of Greensboro's lawyers by that name. Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart, among the characters introduced by Cooke, were the Confederate heroes of whom he talked with most enthusiasm.

In fact, his reading and his close confinement in the drug store had begun to threaten his health. His mother and grandmother had both died of consumption and O. Henry, never robust, was under the obsession that he had already entered upon his fateful inheritance. He took no regular exercise. An occasional fishing or seining jaunt out to Caldwell's or Orrell's or Donnell's Pond, a serenade two or three times a

week, and a few camping-out trips to Pilot Mountain and beyond made almost the only breaks in the monotony of the drug store régime. But however many or few fish might be caught on these jaunts O. Henry was always more of a spectator and commentator than participant; on the serenades he played what he called "a silent tenor" violin or twanged indifferently a guitar, the E string of which was usually broken; and on the camping-out expeditions his zest and elation were due more to freedom from pills and prescriptions than to the love of mountain scenery.

But he did not slight his work in the drug store and never intimated that it was distasteful. It was only in later years that he said: "The grind in the drug store was agony to me." It doubtless was, not so much in itself as in the utter absence of outlook. No profession attracted him, and there was no one in Greensboro doing anything that O. Henry would have liked to do permanently. The quest of "What's around the corner, a theme that he has wrought into many stories and that grew upon him to the last, was his nearest approach to a vocation and he had about exhausted the possibilities of his birthplace. Sixteen years later, at the darkest moment of his life, his skill as a pharmacist was to help him as no other profession could have helped him. But even if the future had been known, there was nothing more to be

learned about drugs in his uncle's drug store, nor would added knowledge have proved an added help.

The release came unexpectedly. Three sons of Dr. James K. Hall, Lee, Dick, and Frank, had gone to Texas to make their fortunes. They were tall, lithe, blond, iron-sinewed men, and all had done well. Lee, the oldest, had become a noted Texas Ranger. As "Red Hall" his name was a terror to evil-doers from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Though Red Hall himself was a modest and silent man, his brief letters to his parents, his intermittent visits to Greensboro, and the more detailed accounts of his prowess that an occasional Texas newspaper brought, kept us aglow with excitement. Whenever it was known that Red Hall and his wife were visiting in Greensboro there was sure to be a gratifying attendance of boys at the morning service of the Presbyterian Church. To see him walk in and out, to wonder what he was thinking about, to speculate on the number of six-shooters that he had with him, were opportunities not lightly disregarded. The drug store was, of course, headquarters for the latest from Texas and O. Henry used to hold us breathless as he retailed the daring arrests and hair-breadth 'scapes of this quiet Greensboro man whom the citizens of the biggest State in the Union had already learned to lean upon in time of peril.

In March, 1882, Doctor and Mrs. Hall were planning

to visit their sons in Texas. O. Henry at this time had a hacking cough and Doctor Hall used to wince as if struck whenever he heard it. "Will," he said, a few days before starting on the long trip, "I want you to go with us. You need the change, and ranch life will build you up." Never in his life had O. Henry received an invitation that so harmonized with every impulse of his nature. It meant health and romance. It was the challenge of all that he had read and dreamed. It was the call of "What's around the corner" with Red Hall as guide and co-seeker.

CHAPTER

FIVE

RANCH AND CITY LIFE IN TEXAS

IF O. HENRY could have chosen the ranch and the ranch manager that he was to visit in Texas he could not have done better than to choose the ranch in La Salle County that had Lee Hall at its head. He was to see much more of Dick Hall than of Lee, but it was Lee's personality and Lee's achievement that opened the doors of romance to him in Texas and contributed atmosphere and flavour to the nineteen stories that make up his "Heart of the West."

Red Hall, as we prefer to call him, was now at the height of his fame. The monument erected to him in the National Cemetery, in San Antonio, contains only the brief inscription:

Jesse Lee Hall

1849-1911

Captain Co. M., 1st U. S. Vol. Inf.

War with Spain

But had there been no war with Spain Red Hall's claim on the gratitude of the citizens of the Lone Star State would have been almost equally well founded. “He was the bravest man I ever knew," said the old Co