Above the Law

Published: 1918

«In his first western tale, “Above the Law” … [Faust’s] villain, the bandit Black Jim, has the books of Scott, Shakespeare, Poe, Byron, Malory at his bunk. Poetic passages are found in practically every Faust story. These unexpected—and to action-addicts maybe unwelcome—interludes are Faust’s invitation to “walk a long distance into the minds of one another” as he states in Evan Evans’ Montana Rides! where his triumphant hero proclaims, “I feel as if I owned the whole green world.”

«HER eyes were like the sky on a summer night, a color to be dreamed of but never reproduced. From the golden hair to the delicate hands which cupped her chin a flower-like loveliness kept her aloof from her surroundings, like a rare pearl set in base metal. Her companion, young and darkly handsome, crumpled in a hand, scarcely less white than hers, the check which the waiter had left. In the mean time he gazed with some concern at his companion. Her lips stirred; she sighed.