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Essential ASP NET with Examples in Visual Basic NET
1st Edition Fritz Onion Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Fritz Onion
ISBN(s): 9780201760392, 0201760398
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 6.29 MB
Year: 2003
Language: english

Contents
Main Page
Table of content
Copyright
Microsoft .NET Development Series
Titles in the Series
Figures
Tables
Foreword
Preface
C# versus VB.NET
Sample Code, Web Site, Feedback
Prerequisites
Organization of This Book
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Architecture
1.1 Fundamentals
1.2 ASP 4.0
1.3 System.Web.UI.Page
1.4 Code-Behind
1.5 Shadow Copying
1.6 Directives
1.7 The New Intrinsics
Summary
Chapter 2. Web Forms
2.1 Server-Side Controls
2.2 ViewState
2.3 Events
2.4 A Day in the Life of a Page
2.5 Web Forms and Code-Behind
2.6 Root Path Reference Syntax
2.7 HtmlControls
2.8 WebControls
2.9 WebControls versus HtmlControls
2.10 Building Web Forms with Visual Studio .NET
Summary
Chapter 3. Configuration
3.1 web.config
3.2 Configuration Data
ABC Amber CHM Converter Trial version, http://www.thebeatlesforever.com/processtext/abcchm.html

3.3 Process Model
3.4 Additional Settings
3.5 Reading Configuration Information
3.6 Building a Custom Configuration Section Handler
Summary
Chapter 4. HTTP Pipeline
4.1 A Day in the Life of a Request
4.2 Context
4.3 Applications
4.4 Custom Handlers
4.5 Custom Modules
4.6 Threading in the Pipeline
Summary
Chapter 5. Diagnostics and Error Handling
5.1 Diagnostics in ASP.NET
5.2 Debugging
5.3 Error Handling
Summary
Chapter 6. Validation
6.1 Form Validation
6.2 Validation Control Architecture
6.3 Validation Controls
Summary
Chapter 7. Data Binding
7.1 Fundamentals
7.2 Data Binding Controls
7.3 Binding to Database Sources
7.4 DataGrid
7.5 Templates
Summary
Chapter 8. Custom Controls
8.1 Fundamentals
8.2 State Management
8.3 Composite Controls
8.4 User Controls
8.5 Validation and Data Binding
8.6 Designer Integration
Summary
Chapter 9. Caching
9.1 Caching Opportunities in ASP.NET

9.2 Output Caching
9.3 Data Caching
Summary
Chapter 10. State Management
10.1 Types of State
10.2 Application State
10.3 Session State
10.4 Cookie State
10.5 View State
Summary
Chapter 11. Security
11.1 Web Security
11.2 Security in ASP.NET
11.3 System Identity in ASP.NET
Summary
[ Team LiB ]
Table of Contents
Essential ASP.NET with Examples in Visual Basic .NET
By Fritz Onion
Publisher : Addison Wesley
Pub Date : February 11, 2003
ISBN : 0-201-76039-8
Pages : 432
"This well-conceived and well-written book has extensive knowledge and priceless experience
overflowing from its pages. It captures the true essence of ASP.NET and walks the reader to a high
level of technical and architectural skill."-J. Fred Maples, Director of Software Engineering,
NASDAQ.com

Essential ASP.NET with Examples in Visual Basic .NET is the Visual Basic programmer's definitive
reference for ASP.NET through version 1.1. It provides experienced programmers with the information
needed to fully understand the technology, and is a clear guide to using ASP.NET to build robust and
well-architected Web applications.
This book begins with a discussion of the rationale behind the design of ASP.NET and an introduction to
how it builds on top of the .NET framework. Subsequent chapters explore the host of new features in
ASP.NET, including the server-side compilation model, code-behind classes, server-side controls, form
validation, the data binding model, and custom control development. Throughout the book, working
examples illustrate best practices for building Web-based applications in VB.NET.
Among the topics explored in depth are:
•
•
• ASP.NET architecture
•
•
• Web forms
•
•
• Configuration
•
•
• HTTP pipeline
•
•
• Diagnostics and error handling
•
•
• Validation
•
•
• Data binding
•
•
• Custom controls
•
•

• Caching
•
•
• State management
•
•
• Security
•
Essential ASP.NET with Examples in Visual Basic .NET provides readers with the know-how needed
to build more powerful, better architected Web applications with ASP.NET.
[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]
Table of Contents
Essential ASP.NET with Examples in Visual Basic .NET
By Fritz Onion
Publisher : Addison Wesley
Pub Date : February 11, 2003
ISBN : 0-201-76039-8
Pages : 432
Copyright
Figures
Tables
Foreword
Preface
C# versus VB.NET
Prerequisites

Organization of This Book
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Architecture
Section 1.1. Fundamentals
Section 1.2. ASP 4.0
Section 1.3. System.Web.UI.Page
Section 1.4. Code-Behind
Section 1.5. Shadow Copying
Section 1.6. Directives
Section 1.7. The New Intrinsics
Summary
Chapter 2. Web Forms
Section 2.1. Server-Side Controls
Section 2.2. ViewState
Section 2.3. Events
Section 2.4. A Day in the Life of a Page
Section 2.5. Web Forms and Code-Behind
Section 2.6. Root Path Reference Syntax
Section 2.7. HtmlControls
Section 2.8. WebControls
Section 2.9. WebControls versus HtmlControls
Section 2.10. Building Web Forms with Visual Studio .NET
Summary
Chapter 3. Configuration
Section 3.1. web.config
Section 3.2. Configuration Data
Section 3.3. Process Model
Section 3.4. Additional Settings
Section 3.5. Reading Configuration Information
Section 3.6. Building a Custom Configuration Section Handler
Summary
Chapter 4. HTTP Pipeline
Section 4.1. A Day in the Life of a Request
Section 4.2. Context
Section 4.3. Applications
Section 4.4. Custom Handlers
Section 4.5. Custom Modules
Section 4.6. Threading in the Pipeline
Summary
Chapter 5. Diagnostics and Error Handling
Section 5.1. Diagnostics in ASP.NET
Section 5.2. Debugging
Section 5.3. Error Handling
Summary
Chapter 6. Validation

Section 6.1. Form Validation
Section 6.2. Validation Control Architecture
Section 6.3. Validation Controls
Summary
Chapter 7. Data Binding
Section 7.2. Data Binding Controls
Section 7.3. Binding to Database Sources
Section 7.4. DataGrid
Section 7.5. Templates
Summary
Chapter 8. Custom Controls
Section 8.2. State Management
Section 8.3. Composite Controls
Section 8.4. User Controls
Section 8.5. Validation and Data Binding
Section 8.6. Designer Integration
Summary
Chapter 9. Caching
Section 9.1. Caching Opportunities in ASP.NET
Section 9.2. Output Caching
Section 9.3. Data Caching
Summary
Chapter 10. State Management
Section 10.1. Types of State
Section 10.2. Application State
Section 10.3. Session State
Section 10.4. Cookie State
Section 10.5. View State
Summary
Chapter 11. Security
Section 11.1. Web Security
Section 11.2. Security in ASP.NET
Section 11.3. System Identity in ASP.NET
Summary
[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]

Copyright
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Addison-Wesley was aware of a
trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in all capitals.
The .NET logo is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries and is used under license from Microsoft.
The author and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or
implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is
assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the
information or programs contained herein.
The publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for special sales. For more
information, please contact:
U.S. Corporate and Government Sales
(800) 382-3419
corpsales@pearsontechgroup.com
For sales outside of the U.S., please contact:
International Sales
(317 581-3793
international@pearsontechgroup.com
Visit Addison-Wesley on the Web:
www.awprofessional.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]
John Montgomery, Series Advisor
Don Box, Series Advisor
Martin Heller, Series Editor
"This Microsoft .NET series is a great resource for .NET developers. Coupling the .NET architects at
Microsoft with the training skills of DevelopMentor means that all the technical bases, from reference to
'how-to,' will be covered."
—JOHN MONTGOMERY, Group Product Manager for the .NET platform, Microsoft Corporation
"The Microsoft .NET series has the unique advantage of an author pool that combines some of the most
insightful authors in the industry with the actual architects and developers of the .NET platform."
—DON BOX, Architect, Microsoft Corporation
[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]

Keith Ballinger, .NET Web Services: Architecture and Implementation with .NET, 0-321-11359-4
Don Box with Chris Sells, Essential .NET Volume 1: The Common Language Runtime, 0-201-73411-7
Microsoft Common Language Runtime Team, The Common Language Runtime Annotated Reference
and Specification, 0-321-15493-2
Microsoft .NET Framework Class Libraries Team, The .NET Framework CLI Standard Class Library
Annotated Reference, 0-321-15489-4
Microsoft Visual C# Development Team, The C# Annotated Reference and Specification,
0-321-15491-6
Fritz Onion, Essential ASP.NET with Examples in C#, 0-201-76040-1
Fritz Onion, Essential ASP.NET with Examples in Visual Basic .NET, 0-201-76039-8
Damien Watkins, Mark Hammond, Brad Abrams, Programming in the .NET Environment,
0-201-77018-0
Shawn Wildermuth, Pragmatic ADO.NET: Data Access for the Internet World, 0-201-74568-2
http://www.awprofessional.com/msdotnetseries/
[ Team LiB ]

[ Team LiB ]

Figures
Figure 1-1: High-Level Architecture of ASP.NET
Figure 1-2: ASP.NET Page Type
Figure 1-3: Server-Side Code Placement in Page Compilation
Figure 1-4: Class Hierarchy Created Using Code-Behind
Figure 1-5: Shadow Copy Mechanism Used by ASP.NET
Figure 1-6: Dynamic Base Directory Used by ASP.NET
Figure 2-1: Conceptual Model for Desktop Applications
Figure 2-2: Conceptual Model for Web Forms Applications
Figure 2-3: Client-Server Interaction with Web Forms
Figure 2-4: Accumulator Page Request Sequence
Figure 2-5: Page Event Sequence
Figure 2-6: Binding Fields to Server-Side Controls

[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]

Tables
Table 1-1: .aspx File Directives
Table 1-2: @Page Directive Attributes
Table 2-1: Tag Mappings for HtmlControls
Table 3-1: Top-Level Configuration Elements Available in web.config
Table 3-2: Attributes of the processModel Element
Table 4-1: Properties of HttpContext
Table 4-2: Events Exposed by HttpApplication
Table 4-3: Additional Events Available through global.asax
Table 4-4: Modules Defined in ASP.NET
Table 4-5: Module versus global.asax
Table 5-1: Contents of Page Trace Information
Table 5-2: trace Element Attributes

Foreword
There are plenty of good reasons for a company to migrate to the .NET Framework and to the
Common Language Runtime (CLR). For example, new development tools make it much easier to write,
test, and debug your code. There's an incredible wealth of functionality provided by the Framework
Class Libraries (FCL) that goes far beyond what's been available in previous versions of Visual Basic.
The CLR makes it much easier and less costly to deploy an application and its dependant DLLs.
Furthermore, the CLR provides many new extra security layers to defend against attacks from malicious
software such as viruses and worms. However, of all the good reasons companies have found to migrate
to the .NET Framework, ASP.NET seems to be leading the pack.
ASP.NET has established itself as one of the most mature and viable aspects of the .NET Framework.
ASP.NET is a server-side application framework that provides a complete development platform for
creating Web applications that target users such as customers, employees, and vendors. ASP.NET is
powerful because it gives you the ability to reach users across the Internet running on a variety of
different browsers and operating systems.
Over the last five or six years, the software industry has witnessed hundreds of companies that have
successfully built large-scale applications with the original ASP framework. However, many of these
same companies are now finding that there are tremendous benefits to migrating to ASP.NET. These
benefits include improvements in performance, developer productivity, and code maintainability.
ASP.NET also introduces valuable new features for caching and state management that can further
improve an application's performance and its ability to scale in a Web farm environment.
While there are many different books available on the topic of ASP.NET, I strongly encourage you to
read and thoroughly absorb the material in this book. Fritz Onion teaches you about ASP.NET by
providing you with a thorough and detailed view of the underlying architecture. If you're like me, you
want to know more than just how to use Visual Studio .NET to build simple Web applications. You
really want to know why ASP.NET works the way it does. You want to be able to answer questions
like these.
•
• Why do ASP.NET applications run faster than ASP applications?
•
•
• Why does shadow copying make it easier to deploy applications?
•
•
• How does a Web form interact with its server-side controls?
•
•
• What do you really need to know about ASP.NET configuration?
•
•

Preface
It was late at night in Torrance, California, in August 2000. I had spent 12 hours of the day teaching
DevelopMentor's Guerrilla COM course with Mike Woodring and Jason Whittington. Don Box had
come over after class, and, as usual, we were staying up late into the night after the students had long
since gone to bed, discussing technology and hacking. Microsoft had just released its preview version of
.NET at the PDC in July, and we had been spending much of the year up to that point digging into "the
next COM" and were excited that it had finally been released so we could talk about it. It was that
evening that Don, in his typical succinct way, showed me my first glimpse of ASP.NET (then called
ASP+). He first typed into emacs an .aspx file that looked like this:
<%@ Page Language="C#" src="TestPage.cs"
Inherits="TestPage" %>
<html>
<h1 runat=server id=ctl/>
</html>
He then wrote another file that looked like this:
using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
public class TestPage : Page
{
protected HtmlGenericControl ctl;
void Page_Load(object src, EventArgs e)
{
ctl.InnerText = "Hello!";
}
}
He then placed the two files in c:inetpubwwwroot on his machine and showed me the rendering of the
.aspx page through the browser, exclaiming, "Get it?" Perhaps it was the late hour or the fact that I had
been teaching all day, but I have to admit that although I "got" the technical details of what Don was
showing me, I was somewhat underwhelmed by being able to change the innerText of an h1 element
from a class.
The following week, after a couple of good nights of sleep, I revisited the .aspx example and began to
explore ASP.NET in more detail. After a day of reading and experimenting, I finally "got it" and I was
hooked. This technology was poised to fundamentally change the way people built Web applications on
Windows, and it took full advantage of the new .NET runtime. I spent the next six months researching,
building ASP.NET applications, and writing DevelopMentor's Essential ASP.NET course, and I spent
the subsequent year and a half teaching, speaking, and writing about ASP.NET. This book is the
culmination of those activities, and I hope it helps you in your path to understanding ASP.NET.

[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]
C# versus VB.NET
Before .NET, Visual Basic was not just another language—it was a platform unto itself. Building
applications in Visual Basic 6.0, for example, was completely different from using C++ and MFC. With
.NET, this distinction is gone, and Visual Basic is indeed just another .NET language that uses the same
libraries, the same development tools, and the same runtime as all others. As a consequence, we can
now talk about technologies like ASP.NET from a language-neutral standpoint. The code samples,
however, must be shown in a particular language, so this book is published in two versions: one with
examples in C# and one with examples in VB.NET. All content outside the examples is nearly identical
between the two books.
[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]
All the code samples in this book are drawn from working samples available for display and download
from the book's Web site at http://www.develop.com/books/essentialasp.net/. This site also contains any
errata found after publication and a supplemental set of more extended examples of the concepts
presented in this book for your reference. The author welcomes your comments, errata, and feedback
via the forms available on the Web site.
[ Team LiB ]

[ Team LiB ]
Prerequisites
This book focuses exclusively on ASP.NET and does not spend time reviewing .NET programming,
object-oriented programming techniques, database access, or general Web application development
techniques. You will be able to get the most out of this book if you have spent some time gaining
experience in each of these areas.
[ Team LiB ]
[ Team LiB ]

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content Scribd suggests to you:

CHAPTER XVI
THE STAMPEDE
Jones sent a messenger to his chief with word of Don Black’s threat,
and Merrick at once rode to Elk Creek to consult with the man he
had put in charge.
“Do they mean to attack you? Is that what you gathered from what
he said?” asked the chief engineer of his assistant.
“Don’t know. Prowers smoothed over what Black said. I judge he
didn’t want to go on record as having made any threats. But the last
thing the big fellow yelled at me was that we had till to-night to get
out.”
“Good of him to give you warning. What do you suggest, Jones?”
“Give me half a dozen rifles and I’ll hold the fort,” the younger man
replied, eyes gleaming. “Double the gang and let me rush the work.”
Merrick shook his head. “No, this isn’t a little private war we’re
having. Think I’ll just let you sit tight and see what happens. Prowers
isn’t likely to go far to start with.”
“Suits me, but don’t blame me if they drive us out. I’m rather looking
for a bunch of armed cowboys to descend upon us.”
“In which case you’ll enter a formal protest and retire in good order
without resistance. The law’s with us. I filed our maps and plans with
the Land Office before Black homesteaded. He obviously took up
this quarter section only to hamper us.”
“Will it delay you much?”
Justin Merrick smiled, a rather peculiar smile that suggested a
knowledge of facts not on the surface. “I don’t think so, but there’s no
reason why Prowers shouldn’t.”

“Rather tame surrender, wouldn’t it be? If you’re within your rights,
why not stand our ground and fight them off?”
“For the moral effect, you mean?”
“Yes. Isn’t it a sign of weakness for us to hoist the white flag after the
first brush?”
“That’s a point of view. We’re playing for position. Let Prowers break
the law and get in wrong. If we’re armed and looking for trouble, we
don’t come into court with clean hands ourselves. I’d rather let him
show his plan of campaign. Even though we should be driven out,
we can come back whenever we want to. He can’t keep his men
here and hold the gulch.”
“No. At least he won’t.”
The man who had fought in Flanders was not satisfied. The irrigation
company was in the right. Prowers and the group of men with him
were obstructionists, trying to hold back the progress of the country
for their own selfish ends. They were outside the law, though they
were using it as a cover. The policy to be expected of Merrick would
have been bolder, less opportunistic. Why had the chief marched his
men up the hill, like the King of France in the rhyme, only to march
them down again? This did not seem to go well with his salient,
fighting jaw.
Since it was his business to obey orders and not to ask for reasons,
Tug said no more. He understood that Merrick was holding back
something from him, and he had no desire whatever to force a
confidence.
Merrick rode back to the dam and left his subordinate in charge of
the camp. Throughout the day work went on uninterrupted. At dusk
the surveyors and ditch-diggers returned to the draw where the tents
had been set. At this point of the gorge the wall fell back and a slope
led to the rim above.
At the summit of this rise the engineer posted a sentry with orders to
fire a revolver in case of an attack. Two other guards were set, one
at each mouth of the cañon. At the expiration of four hours, these
were relieved by relays. At midnight, and again in the chill pre-dawn

hours, Jones himself made a round of the posts to see that all was
well.
He had scarcely lain down after the second tour when the crack of a
revolver sounded. Tug leaped to his feet and was drawing on a boot
before the echoes had died away.
As he ducked out from the tent flap, revolver in hand, a glance
showed him scantily clad men spilling from their sleeping quarters.
“What is it? Where are they?” some one yelled.
A light breeze was stirring. On it was borne a faint rumble as of
thunder. It persisted—seemed to be rolling nearer. The sound
deepened to a steady roar. Tug’s startled glance swept the cañon
sword cleft. Could there have been a cloudburst in the hills? The
creek bed was still dry. His eyes swung round to the saddle ridge of
the draw above him.
A living tidal wave was pouring across the rim and down the draw.
Hundreds of backs tossed up and down like the swell of a troubled
sea. Though he had never seen one before, the engineer knew that
the camp was in the path of a cattle stampede.
He shouted a warning and raced for the higher ground at the edge of
the draw. The men scattered to escape from the path of that
charging avalanche. They were in a panic of fear. If any were caught
beneath the impact of those scores of galloping hoofs, they would be
crushed to death instantly. Startled oaths and staccato shouts rang
out. An anguished yell of terror lifted itself shrilly. A running man had
stumbled and gone down.
The thud of the hoofs died away. The stampede had swept down into
the dry bed of the stream and swung to the right. It left behind it a
devastated camp. Tents had been torn down and ripped to pieces.
Cots were smashed to kindling. From the overturned chuck wagon
scattered food lay trampled into the ground by sharp feet. The
surveying instruments were broken beyond repair.
A huddled mass lay motionless in the track of the avalanche. Tug
knelt beside it and looked into the battered outline of what a few
moments earlier had been a man’s face quick with life. No second

glance was necessary to see that the spirit had passed out of the
crushed body. The engineer recognized him by the clothes. His
name was Coyle. He had been a harmless old fellow of many quips
and jests, one full of the milk of human kindness. He, too, had fought
against his weakness, a fondness for liquor that had all his life kept
him down. Now, in a moment, his smiles and his battles were both
ended.
Jones straightened the twisted body and the sprawling limbs before
he covered the face with a handkerchief. He rose and looked grimly
round at the group of appalled men whose blanched faces made a
gray semi-circle in the faint light of coming dawn. They were a rough-
and-ready lot. Most of them had seen the lives of fellow workmen
snuffed out suddenly. But this had come like a bolt from heaven.
Each of them knew that it might have been he lying there; that if the
boss had not set a watch, the stampede would have destroyed many
of them. The shock of it still chilled the heart.
“They’ve murdered poor Coyle,” the engineer said, and his voice was
a solemn accusation.
“How’s that?” asked one, startled.
“These cattle didn’t gather up there by themselves. They were
rounded up and stampeded over the crest.”
“Jake Prowers!” exclaimed a mule-skinner.
“We’ll name no names yet, boys, not till we’ve put it up to Mr.
Merrick.” The camp boss glanced up the hill. The sound of some one
running had reached his ears. “Here comes Jensen. We’ll hear what
he has to say.”
Jensen confirmed the charge of the engineer. He had heard voices,
shots, the crack of whips, and then the thundering rush of cattle. He
had fired once and fled for the safety of the rocks. The stampede
had stormed past and down the slope. But he had seen and heard
no more of the men who had been exciting the wild hill cattle to a
panic of terror. They had disappeared in the darkness.
The engineer made arrangements for carrying the body of Coyle to
the dam and sent a messenger to notify Merrick of what had taken

place. This done, he climbed to the saddle of the draw with the
intention of investigating the lay of the land where the stampede had
started. He knew that, if he were only expert enough to read it, the
testimony written there would convict those who had done this crime.
At work of this sort he was a child. He was from the East, and he
knew nothing of reading sign. Stamped in mud, with outlines clear-
cut and sharp, he would have known, of course, a pony’s tracks from
those of a steer. But unfortunately the marks imprinted on the short
brittle grass were faint and fragmentary. They told no story to Jones.
He quartered over the ground carefully, giving his whole mind to the
open page which Nature had spread before him and covered with
her handwriting. Concentration was not enough. It was written in a
language of which he had not learned the vocabulary. Reluctantly he
gave up the attempt. Sheriff Daniels was a Westerner, an old
cattleman, skilled at cutting sign. This was a problem for him to solve
if he could.
It was afternoon when the sheriff arrived. He had made one
discovery before reaching the camp. A cow had broken a leg in the
stampede and lay helpless in the bed of Elk Creek. The brand on it
was the Diamond Bar K.
“Fine business,” he commented dryly. “Clint’s enemies try to bust up
the irrigation proposition he’s interested in by stampedin’ his own
cattle down the draw here. Maybe we can find out the hombres that
rounded up a bunch of his stock yesterday. That’d help some.”
If the sheriff discovered anything from his examination of the lane
over which the stampede had swept, he did not confide in either
Jones or Merrick. Like many men who have lived much in the open,
he had a capacity for reticence. He made his observations
unhurriedly and rode away without returning to the camp.
Merrick gave his assistant orders to break camp and return to the
dam. A force was still to continue at work in the cañon, but the men
would be taken up and brought back each day.

CHAPTER XVII
HIS PICTURE IN THE PAPER
Summer had burned to autumn. The first frosts had crisped the
foliage of the quaking asps and the cottonwoods to a golden glory in
tune with the halcyon Indian summer. Faint threats of coming winter
could be read in an atmosphere grown more pale and sharp, in
coloring less rich and warm.
Betty could count the time in months now since she had sent her
salvaged tramp into the hills to help her lover wrestle with the
problems of the Sweetwater Dam project. It was still a joy to her that
she had been intuitively right about him. He was making good. He
had brains and ability and the power of initiative which marks the
strong man from the subordinate. Justin admitted this generously,
giving her credit for a keener insight than his own.
But that was not the best of it. She knew now, through Merrick, what
the vice was that had dragged him down: and from the same source
she learned that he had so far fought his campaign out to victory. Not
since the day after her father had been shot had she seen the young
man, but she wished she could send him a message of good cheer
and faith.
She thought of him a good deal. She was thinking of him this
morning as she cleaned the pantry shelves and substituted new
papers for the old. Justin had been down the evening before and had
told her of the threat Prowers had made through Don Black in case
the young engineer did not evacuate the cañon. It was in her
character to look for good rather than ill in men, but she had a
conviction that the cackling little cattleman was a sink of iniquity. He
would do evil without ruth. There was, she felt, something demoniac,
unhuman about him.

How far would he go to begin with? She did not know, but she was
glad Justin had given orders to retire from Elk Creek in case of
attack. His reasons she appreciated and approved. He was no
hothead, but a cool, hard-hitting, determined fighter. In the end he
would win, no matter what difficulties were thrown in his way. She
could not think of Justin in any way except as a success. He was the
kind of man who succeeds in whatever he undertakes.
The telephone rang. Her father, at Wild Horse, was on the line.
“There’s been trouble at the cañon,” he explained. “I’ve been talkin’
with Daniels. Merrick has sent for him. A man was killed—some one
working on the job. Haven’t heard any particulars yet. I’ll let you
know if I do.”
“Killed—on purpose, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t hear who?”
“Daniels doesn’t know.”
Betty returned to her work very much disturbed in mind. There was
no reason for assuming that the man who had been killed was her
redeemed vagrant, but she could not get this possibility out of her
mind. He would be in the forefront of danger if there was any. She
knew him well enough for that.
She tried to get Merrick on the telephone, but the word that came
down to her from the dam was that he had ridden to Elk Creek. Did
the assistant superintendent know when he would be back? No, he
did not.
Tremulously Betty asked another question. “Have you heard, Mr.
Atchison, who the man is that was killed?”
“His name’s Coyle—a man sent out to us by an employment agency
in Denver.”
Betty leaned against the wall a moment after she had hung up the
receiver. She was greatly relieved, and in the reaction from the strain
under which she had been holding herself tautly felt oddly weak.

“Don’t be a goose!” she told herself with stinging candor. “What does
it matter to you who it was?”
But she knew it mattered a great deal. Nobody had ever stimulated
her imagination as this tramp had. Her liking for Justin was of quite
another sort. It had not in it the quality that set pulses pounding. She
would have denied to herself indignantly that she did not love him. If
not, why was she engaged to him? But her affection was a well-
ordered and not a disturbing force. This was as it should be,
according to her young philosophy. She gave herself with energy
and enthusiasm to the many activities of life. The time had not yet
come when love was for her a racing current sweeping to its goal so
powerfully that there could be no dalliance by the way.
Betty moved the dishes from the last shelf. As she started to gather
the soiled newspaper folded across the plank, her glance fell upon
the picture of a soldier in uniform. The eyes that looked into hers
were those of the man who had called himself Tug Jones.
Her breath caught as she read. The caption beneath the photograph
was, “Captain Thurston K. Hollister, awarded the Distinguished
Service Cross for Gallantry in France.” The story below mentioned
the fact that the man who had been given this recognition had
disappeared and could not be found.
The girl’s blood sang. She had known from that first day he was of
good blood, but she had not been sure that his record was worthy of
him. He had not only fought in France; he had covered himself with
glory. It was almost too good to be true.
She was on the porch to meet her father before he had swung down
from the saddle. He told her details of the affair at Elk Creek as far
as he had heard them.
Betty had cut the Hollister story out of the paper. She handed it to
her father, all but the picture folded under.
“Who is this, Daddy?”
Reed glanced at it and answered promptly. “Looks like that young
fellow Jones.”

Triumphantly she nodded. “That’s who it is. Read what it says about
him.”
The cattleman read. “Hmp!” he grunted. “An’ I called him a slacker.”
“It doesn’t matter now what you called him, Dad. But I’m awf’ly glad
he wasn’t one.”
“Some li’l’ stunt that—breakin’ up a German machine-gun nest and
sittin’ tight for two days under fire till the boys reached him.” Clint
smiled sardonically, the memory of the tongue-lashing he had given
this man still vividly with him. “I reckon I can be more kinds of a durn
fool in an hour than ’most anybody you know, Bess.”
“I’m so glad he’s making good with Justin. I just knew he was a
splendid fellow.”
“I’m so dawg-goned hot-headed. Can’t wait an’ give myself time to
cool off,” he grumbled.
“He told Justin about it. The doctors gave him a lot of morphine or
something when he was wounded and he got in the habit of using it
to relieve the pain. Before he knew it he couldn’t stop.”
“You’d think I’d learn a lick or two of sense, an’ me ’most fifty.”
“He hasn’t touched the stuff since he went up to the dam. Justin says
it must have been horrible for him. Some nights he kept walking till
morning.”
“What else was it I called him besides a slacker—after I’d beat him
up till he couldn’t stand, an’ him a sick man at that?”
Betty laughed at the way each of them, absorbed in a personal point
of view, was carrying on a one-sided conversation.
“Are you going up to Elk Creek to-day, Dad? If you are, I wish you’d
let me go along.”
“I was thinkin’ about it. Like to go, would you? All right. We might
drive and take Ruthie.”
“That’d be fine. Let’s go.”
Betty flew into the house to get ready.

CHAPTER XVIII
A HOT TRAIL
Sheriff Daniels rode across the hogback above Elk Creek to a
small ranch recently taken up by a homesteader, much to the
annoyance of Jake Prowers. He found the man in a shed that served
temporarily as a barn.
Here a cow was proudly licking a very wobbly calf.
“’Lo, Sheriff. How’re things comin’ with you? Fine an’ dandy?”
“No complaint, Howard. Had an increase in yore herd, looks like.”
“Yessir, though it didn’t look much thataway ’bout three o’clock this
mo’ning a.m.”
“Come near losing her?”
“Bet I did. Both of ’em. But you never can tell, as the old sayin’ is. I
stayed with it, an’ everything’s all right now.”
“I come across the hogback to have a chin with Black. Know whether
he’s home?” the officer asked.
“No, sir, I don’t. He passed down the road whilst I was up with old
bossie here right early.”
The sheriff complimented his humor by repeating it. “At three o’clock
this mo’ning a.m.?”
“Yessir. I figured he must be going somewheres to be settin’ off at
that time o’ day.”
“Alone, was he?”
“Why, no, I reckon there was some one with him.”
Daniels threw a leg across a feed-rack, drew out a knife from his
pocket, and began to sharpen it on the leather of his boot. “Dark as

all git out, wasn’t it? How’d you know it was Don?”
The homesteader grinned. “Every daisy in the dell knows his story
too darned well,” he parodied.
“Singin’ ‘Sweet Marie,’ was he?”
“Yep. Say, what kind of a mash would you feed her? She’s right
feverish yet, I shouldn’t wonder.”
The sheriff gave advice out of his experience before he came back
ten minutes later to a subject that interested him more.
“Don was out rounding-up cattle yesterday, wasn’t he? Seems some
one told me so.”
“Likely enough. He was away from the shack all day. Wasn’t home
by dark. I seen a light up there somewheres about nine-thirty.”
The officer rode up to the cabin Black was using. The door was
hospitably unlatched, but nobody was at home. Daniels walked in
and looked around. It was both dirty and untidy, but it told no tales of
what its occupant had been doing in the past twenty-four hours.
Daniels remounted, skirted the edge of the Government reserve, and
descended a draw which led into a small gorge almost concealed by
a grove of young quaking asps. This received its name from box
elders growing up the sides. If Black and his friends had rounded up
a bunch of cattle during the day, and wanted to keep them
unobserved until they could be stampeded into Elk Creek Cañon,
there was no handier spot to hold them than in this little gulch. The
sheriff had ridden these hills too many years as a cattleman not to
know the country like a familiar book. In his youth, while riding as a
puncher for Prowers, he and a companion had been caught in a
blizzard and reached Box Elder Cañon in time to save themselves by
building a fire. Since then he had been here many times.
A one-room log cabin clung to the slope at the edge of the quaking
asps. It had been built by a hermit prospector thirty years before, and
had many times in the intervening years been the refuge of belated
punchers.

The officer walked in through the sagging door. On the floor was a
roll of soiled blankets. Greasy dishes and remnants of food were on
the home-made table. Three persons had eaten here as late as this
morning. He could tell that by the live coals among the charred ends
of wood in the fireplace. Also, the lard left in the frying-pan had not
yet hardened.
Daniels made deductions. Of the three, one had spent the night here
to keep an eye on the cattle, assuming that his guess about the herd
was a correct one. The other two had ridden up to Black’s cabin and
slept there, returning in the early morning for the drive to Elk Creek.
From the cabin the sheriff walked down into the bottom of the gulch.
There was plenty of evidence to show that a large number of cattle
had been here very recently. He followed the trail they made out of
the cañon to the mesa and saw that it headed toward Elk Creek. He
could not be quite sure, but he believed that three horsemen rode
after them. The character of the ground made certainty impossible.
The tracks were all faint and blurred. Daniels followed them for two
or three miles to the rim of the draw down which the frightened herd
had been stampeded.
The sheriff rode across the hills to the Circle J P ranch. He found
Jake Prowers and Don Black greasing a wagon.
Black looked up as the officer came around the corner of the house
and thrust his hand beneath the belt of his trousers. Prowers said
something to him in a low voice and the hand came out empty.
Daniels rode up and looked down at them. He gave a little nod of
greeting.
“How do, Jake—Don? I dropped over to talk with you about that
business in Elk Creek Cañon,” he said.
“What about it?” asked Black suspiciously.
“I’d like to hear all you know about it.”
Prowers answered promptly and smoothly. “I don’t know a thing
about it, if you’re meanin’ me, except what I’ve heard over the

’phone. The story is, some cattle stampeded an’ a fellow got in their
way—”
“Yes, I know the story, Jake,” the sheriff interrupted quietly. “I’m
askin’ you what you can tell me about that stampede.”
“Me! Why pick on me?” the wrinkled little man piped. “Didn’t I tell you
I didn’t know a thing about it?”
“How about you, Don?” asked Daniels.
“Don don’ know a thing—”
“Talk for himself, can’t he, Jake?” the sheriff wanted to know.
“Don’t get on the prod, Frank,” advised the owner of the Circle J P.
Voice and manner were still mild and harmless.
“No,” agreed Daniels, smiling. “How about it, Don?”
Black met his steady gaze sulkily. “Didn’t know there was a
stampede till Jake told me so after he’d been at the ’phone.”
“I expect you’ll have a chance to prove that, Don. I got to arrest you.”
“What for?” demanded the dark man.
“For causing the death of that fellow in the cañon this mo’ning by
stampeding cattle down the draw.”
“Any evidence, Frank?” This from Prowers, on whose face a thin lip
smile rested.
“Some. Don made threats yesterday. He spent the day rounding-up
cattle and drove ’em into Box Elder Cañon for the night. About nine
in the evening he reached home an’ ate supper there, him and
another fellow. They took the road back to the cañon before
daybreak this mo’ning—not later than three o’clock. A friend of theirs
stayed in the old Thorwaldson cabin to watch the stock. They ate
breakfast with him.”
A flicker of fire burned in the skim-milk eyes. “My, Frank, you know a
lot. Anything more?”

“Some things I don’t know, I only guess, Jake. I know Don an’ his
friends had ham and cornbread and coffee for breakfast, but I don’t
know yet who his two friends are.”
“Only guess that, eh?”
“That’s right, Jake.”
“You’ll know that soon,” jeered Prowers. “Any one with an
imagination active as yore’s won’t let a li’l’ thing like facts stand in his
way.”
“I’ll have to take Don down to Wild Horse with me,” Daniels replied
impassively.
“That’s yore business,” the old cattleman said. “You’re makin’ a
mistake. Don spent the night with me, if you want to know.”
“Sure you didn’t spend it with him?”
“You arrestin’ me, too, Frank?”
“No.”
“Only guessin’ at me?”
“I’m not doing my guessin’ out loud—not all of it.” Prowers’s splenetic
laugh cackled. “You’d ought to get one o’ these brass stars from a
detective agency, by jiminy by jinks. A fellow that can mind-read Don
here an’ tell what he had for breakfast is a sure-enough sleuth and
no ornery sheriff.”
The old cattleman’s irony did not disturb Daniels. “I know what he
had for breakfast because I saw the fry-pan an’ the dishes.”
“Better go slap a saddle on yore horse, Don,” jeered Prowers.
“Frank’s arrestin’ you because you had ham an’ cornbread an’ coffee
for breakfast.”
“You know why I’m arrestin’ him. He’ll have plenty of chances to
show he’s not guilty if he ain’t,” the sheriff answered, not unamiably.
The owner of the Circle J P spoke to Black. “Saddle old Baldy for
me. I’ll ride down to Wild Horse with you. Reckon I’ll have to go on
yore bond. No use us gettin’ annoyed. Election ain’t so fur away now.

Frank has got to make a showing. We hadn’t ought to grudge him
some grandstandin’.”
Daniels smiled. “That’s the way to look at it, Jake.”

CHAPTER XIX
CAPTAIN THURSTON K. HOLLISTER
Ruth squealed with delight and clapped her hands when Betty told
her of the approaching drive to Elk Creek.
“Oh, goody, goody! An’ we’ll take Prince ’n’ Baby Fifi ’n’ Rover.
They’ll enjoy the ride too.”
With a smile that took the sting out of her refusal, Betty vetoed this
wholesale transportation of puppies. “There isn’t room, dear.”
The child’s face registered disappointment. “I could take ’em on my
lap,” she proposed.
Betty reflected a moment, then decided briskly. “We’ll take one to-
day, and the others next time.”
“Umpha!” Ruth nodded approbation vigorously, all animation again.
“I’ll ’splain it to ’em so’s they won’t have their feelin’s hurted.”
The blue eyes of the little girl inspected judicially the small creatures
whose tilted heads and wagging tails appealed to her. To decide
which one to take was a matter of grave consideration. Their
mistress wanted to do exact justice. She changed her mind several
times, but voted at last for Baby Fifi.
“She’s the teentiest, ’n’ o’ course the baby must go,” she told the
other two.
They accepted without protest the verdict of the super-goddess who
was mistress of their destinies. Apparently they took the occasion as
seriously as she did.
“’N’ the delicatest,” she went on. “But if you’re good, ’n’ bee-have, ’n’
everyfing, Mamma’ll bring you somefing awful nice. So you be the
goodest children.”

Thus it chanced that Baby Fifi, a clean blue ribbon tied round her
neck in honor of the event, looked out from the tonneau of the car
upon a panorama of blue sky and bluer mountain and sunbathed
foothill moving past in a glory of splendor satisfying to both eye and
soul.
They drove to the lower mouth of the cañon. A man with pick and
shovel was clearing rocks and débris away from what was evidently
to be the line of the ditch. Reed guessed that he was really posted at
this point as a sentinel to guard against another possible attack.
The boss of the gang, the man said, was doing some surveying from
the top of the wall above the rim of the gorge. A steep and rough
road led to the upper mesa.
“Don’t know as you can make it with your car,” the man with the pick
added. “It’s a mighty stiff grade when you get past the dugway, ’most
all a team can do to get up.”
“We’ll go far as we can,” Reed answered.
He had to go into low long before they reached the dugway. Just
beyond it was a stretch of road so precipitous that the car balked.
The cowman became convinced that the machine could go no
farther.
“Have to walk the rest of the way,” he said.
Betty looked at her little sister dubiously. “It’ll be a hard climb for
those little legs, and she’s too heavy to carry far. We’d better leave
her in the car.”
“Maybe we had,” assented her father, and added, in a low voice: “If
she’ll stay alone.”
“Oh, Ruthie doesn’t mind that. Do you, dearest, a big girl like you?
You’ll have Baby Fifi, and we’ll not be gone half an hour.”
Ruth accepted her sister’s judgment without demur. She would
rather play with Baby Fifi than tire herself climbing the long hill.
“Stay right in the car, dear. Daddy and Betty won’t be long,” the
young woman said, waving a hand as she started.

Betty breasted the slope with the light, free step of a mountaineer.
Though slender, she was far from frail. Tested muscles moved with
perfect coördination beneath the smooth satiny skin.
At sight of her an eye leveled behind a surveyor’s transit became
instantly alive. The man caught his breath and watched eagerly. In
her grace was something fawnlike, a suggestion of sylvan innocence
and naïveté. Was it the quality of which this was an expression that
distinguished her from a score of other nice girls he knew? Did she
still retain from the childhood of the race a primal simplicity the
others had lost by reason of their environment? What was it
Wordsworth had written?—
“... trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.”
The glory still haloed her dusky head. It glowed in her warm eyes
and sparkled in her smile.
He strode through the kinnikinnick to meet them.
As they approached, Betty was conscious of a sharp stab of joy. This
clean-cut, light-footed man was not the shuffling, slouchy tramp she
had first met two months earlier. The skin had taken on the bronzed
hue of health. The eyes were no longer dull and heavy, but quick
with life. The unpleasant, bitter expression had gone from the good-
looking face.
Betty knew what had transformed him. He had found again the self-
reliance of which he had been robbed. There burned in him once
more a bright light of manhood strong and unwavering.
He shook hands with Clint Reed so frankly that she knew he
cherished no grudge. There flashed into her mind the hesitant
prophecy she had once made, that he might look back on that first
day on the Diamond Bar K as a red-letter one. It had come true.
Then he had reached the turning of the ways and had been led into
the long hard uphill climb toward self-respect.
“Glad to see you,” he said as his fingers met firmly those of the girl.
“You’ve come to see how Mr. Merrick is getting along with the
project, I suppose.”

“We heard about the trouble here and came to find out the facts first-
hand,” Reed answered.
The engineer told what he knew. One of his assistants standing near
was drawn into the conversation. The cattleman asked him
questions. Betty and the man who called himself Tug Jones found
themselves momentarily alone.
“Fortunate I was here when you came,” the young man said.
“Another man is taking charge. Mr. Merrick is putting me somewhere
else. I don’t know where, but I report for duty at once.”
Betty took from her handbag a clipping from a newspaper. She had
written the date of publication on the headlines. It was about nine
months before that time.
She handed the slip of paper to him.
“Did you ever hear of Captain Thurston K. Hollister?” the girl asked,
on a note of tremulousness.
He looked during what seemed a long silence at the picture of the
officer in uniform and the caption beneath it.
“Where did you get this?” he asked at last.
“I found it covering our pantry shelf, where it had been ever since
spring.”
“And you’ve brought it to me because you think I’m Hollister?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad,” she said.
“I don’t know quite what you mean. Why are you glad?”
“From that first day I knew you were—somebody. Can’t I be glad to
learn I was right?”
He read the clipping, and as his eyes moved down the column there
came over his face a touch of the sardonic bitterness she knew of
old.

“I deserve a cross, don’t I?”
“Two of them!” she cried impetuously.
He looked into her ardent, generous eyes. “Oh, half a dozen,” he
mocked.
But she noticed the mordant flash was gone. What she did not know
was that her faith had exorcised it.
“Two,” the girl insisted, an underlying flush of color in the dark
cheeks. “One for this.” She touched the paper he was holding.
“And the other?” he asked, not yet caught up with her leaping
thought.
A qualm of fear shook her courage. Ought she to speak of it? Was
she one of those who “rush in”? It was his personal business, and he
had a right to resent any mention of it by her. But the desire was
strong in her to say just a word and then close the subject for
always.
“For that braver thing you’ve been doing every day since I saw you
last,” she said in a low voice.
He, too, flushed beneath the tan of the cheeks. Their eyes held fast
an instant.
When he spoke, it was to say with studied lightness, “You and your
father didn’t walk up, did you?”
Betty was relieved. It is an embarrassing thing to talk with a man
about those hidden things of his life that are important to him. She
felt almost as though she had escaped from some peril.
“No, the car’s on the road halfway up the hill. We couldn’t make it.
Ruth’s waiting for us there,” she answered, hurrying to follow the
lead he had given. “She has her favorite little puppy in the car with
her. We thought the climb up might be a little too much for her.”
Hollister walked back with them to the car. He talked with her father
about the outrage that had resulted in the death of poor Coyle. Betty
walked beside the men, saying nothing. She was acutely conscious
of the presence of the sunburnt young fellow beside her. His rags

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