The Virginian: (Annotated Edition)

The narrator arrives in the small Western town of Medicine Bow, where he is met by the Virginian, a tall, handsome, strong young man who has been commissioned to escort him to the ranch of Judge Henry, a landowner who lives 263 miles from the town. They stay the night in Medicine Bow, where a cowboy named Trampas accuses the Virginian of cheating at poker, but the Virginian draws his gun and forces Trampas to back down. The Virginian and the narrator then journey together to Sunk Creek, Judge Henry's ranch in Wyoming, where the narrator stays for a few months. The Virginian is initially aloof, and is annoyed, though coolly courteous, when deputed to look after the inexperienced narrator by the judge, but the two eventually become friends over their mutual attachment to Em'ly, a demented hen unable to lay eggs. The narrator returns to the East Coast but meets the Virginian again for an elk-hunting expedition. He continues to receive news from Sunk Creek and the nearby (as distances go in the West) community of Bear Creek. The residents of Bear Creek have built a schoolhouse for their children and recruit a schoolmarm named Molly Stark Wood from Bennington, Vermont. Toward the end of her journey to Bear Creek, Molly travels in a stage coach with a drunken driver and is saved from a serious accident by a tall, mysterious rider who turns out to be the Virginian.