The Wild Man of the West by Robert Michael Ballantyne. Page: 1
The Wild Man of the West, by R.M. Ballantyne
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Title: The Wild Man of the West A Tale of the Rocky Mountains
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Illustrator: Arch Webb
Release Date: February 15, 2008 [EBook #24617]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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The Wild Man of the West
CHAPTER ONE.
IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO A MAD HERO, A RECKLESS LOVER, AND A RUNAWAY HUSBAND--BACKWOODS JUVENILE TRAINING DESCRIBED--THE PRINCIPLES OF FIGHTING FULLY DISCUSSED, AND SOME VALUABLE HINTS THROWN OUT.
March Marston was mad! The exact state of madness to which March had attained at the age when we take up his personal history--namely, sixteen--is uncertain, for the people of the backwoods settlement in which he dwelt differed in their opinions on that point.
The clergyman, who was a Wesleyan, said he was as wild as a young buffalo bull; but the manner in which he said so led his hearers to conclude that he did not think such a state of ungovernable madness to be a hopeless condition, by any means. The doctor said he was as mad as a hatter; but this was an indefinite remark, wor