Lahoma — A Closer Reading

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In Category - Historical Psychological Social Fiction

Authors: Ellis, J. Breckenridge (John Breckenridge), 1870-1956 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2000 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Historical fiction; Oklahoma -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 77,464

Reading time 337 min

Text sections 9

Lahoma — A Closer Reading can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 77,464 words, 5 hr 37 min estimated reading time, and 9 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 18.0 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Historical fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #2029

Ellis's 1900 novel opens with a child asleep on a card table amid bandits in No-Man's Land, then shifts to a mountain cove where Lahoma's guardian orchestrates a fake Indian abduction to secure her a winter in civilization. The excerpts reveal a plot driven by deception, frontier justice, and the tension between wildness and society.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg2029

Read the Text

Land had descended on the prairie-schooners on their tedious journey from Abilene, Kansas, toward the Southwest.

In the midst of this confusion of disguises, booty and playing-cards, surrounded by cruel and sensual faces, the child slept soundly, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks delicately flushed, her face eloquent in its appeal of helplessness, innocence and beauty. One of the band, a tall broad-shouldered man of middle-age, with an immense quantity of whiskers perhaps worn as a visible sign of inward wildness, was, despite his hardened nature, moved to remonstrance. Under cover of lurid oaths and outrageous obscenity, he advanced his opinion that "the kid" needn't be shot just because her father was a sneak-jug spy.

"Shut up!" roared a tremendous voice, not directly to the intercessor, or to the prisoner, but to all present. Evidently it was a voice of authority, for comparative silence followed the command. The speaker stepped forward, thrust his fingers through his intensely red shock of hair, and continued, with one leg thrust forward:

"You know I am something of an orator, or I guess you wouldn't of made me your leader. Now, as long as I'm your leader, I'm going to lead; but, I ain't never unreasonable, and when talk is needed, I'm copious enough. I am called 'Red Kimball,' and my brother yonder, he is knowed as 'Kansas Kimball.' What else is knowed of us is this: that we wasn't never wont to turn loose a spy when once ketched. Here is a man who says he is Henry Gledware--though God knows if that's so; he comes galloping up to the door just as we are in the midst of a game. I stakes all my share of the spoils on the game, and Brick Willock is in a fair way to win it, that I admit, but in comes this here spy--"

The prisoner in a frenzied voice disclaimed any purpose of spying. That morning, he had driven the last wagon of the train, containing his invalid wife and his stepdaughter--for the child lying on the table was his wife's daughter. At the alarm that the first wagon had been attacked by Indians, he had turned about his horses and driven furiously over the prairie, he knew not whither. All that day he had fled, seeing no one, hearing no pursuing horse-beat. At night his wife, unable, in her weak condition, to sustain the terrible jolting, had expired. Taking nothing from the wagon but his saddle, he had mounted one of the horses with the child before him, and had continued his flight, the terrific wind at his back. Unaware that the wind had changed, he had traversed horseback much of the distance traveled during the day, and at about two in the morning--that is to say, about all hour ago--seeing a light, he had ridden straight toward it, to find shelter from the storm.

The prisoner narrated all this in nervous haste, though he had already given every particular, time and again. His form as well as his voice trembled with undisguised terror, and indeed, the red and cruel eyes fastened contemptuously on him might have caused a much braver man than Gledware to shudder visibly.

"Well, pard," said the leader of the band, waiting until he had finished, "you can't never claim that you ain't been given your say, for I do admire free speech. I want to address you reasonable, and make this plain and simple, as only a man that has been alleged to be something of an orator can accomplish. My men and me has had our conference, and it's decided that both of you has got to be shot, and immediate. The reasons is none but what a sensible man must admit, and such I take you to be. I am sorry this has happened, and so is my men, and we wish you well. It's a hard saying, pard, but whatever your intentions, a spy you have proved. For what do you find on busting open our door? Here we sit playing with our booty for stakes, and our Indian togs lying all about. You couldn't help knowing that we was the 'Indians' that gutted them wagons and put up the fight that left every man and woman dead on the field except that there last wagon you are telling us about. You might wish you didn't know the same, but once knowed, we ain't going to let you loose. As to that wagon you claim to have stole away from under our very noses--"

A skeptical laugh burst from the listeners.

Continue Reading →

The novel begins not with its title character but with a prisoner, Gledware, pleading for the life of a five-year-old girl asleep on a table of stolen goods and playing cards. The bandits, led by the oratorical Red Kimball, are disguised as Indians and have just raided a wagon train. The child—Lahoma—is introduced as a silent, vulnerable presence amid oaths and violence, a contrast that sets the tone for a story where innocence is repeatedly placed in perilous settings.

Ellis’s prose leans into melodrama: the prisoner’s “sacred oath,” the “hunger-maddened wolves” of the mob, and the child’s “eloquent” appeal. The opening chapter establishes a world where honor is sworn and broken, and where the line between captor and protector is blurred from the start.

A Child in the Midst of Outlaws

The first excerpt places Lahoma on a rude table, asleep, surrounded by “cruel and sensual faces.” The scene is dense with sensory detail: greasy cards, stolen garments, Indian disguises, and the “lurid oaths” of the band. Ellis uses the child as a moral fulcrum—one outlaw, moved by her helplessness, argues against killing her, while Red Kimball asserts his authority with a theatrical speech. The chapter’s title, “The Touch of a Child,” hints that Lahoma’s presence will alter the course of events, though the excerpt ends before any resolution. Readers should note how the child’s silence and sleep function as a narrative device, allowing the adult world of violence to unfold around her without her direct participation.

Deception in the Mountains

A later excerpt shifts to a mountain setting where Lahoma’s guardian, Willock, recounts to Wilfred how he engineered Lahoma’s introduction to the wealthy Sellimer family. Willock’s scheme involves a fake Indian abduction: he persuades Miss Sellimer to hide in a crevice, then has an accomplice in Indian costume bind and gag her, leaving her to be “rescued” by Lahoma. The plan works, and Lahoma is invited to spend the winter with the Sellimers. Willock’s casual admission—“It takes heroic treatment to get some cures”—reveals a utilitarian morality. The episode underscores the novel’s interest in performance and disguise: outlaws wear Indian garb to rob, and Willock uses a false Indian to manipulate social outcomes. The excerpt also introduces Wilfred, a young man whose disappointment at finding the cove “empty” without Lahoma suggests a romantic subplot.

Voice and Vernacular

Ellis differentiates characters through dialect and speech patterns. Red Kimball’s self-identification as “something of an orator” and his boastful, meandering address contrast with the gruff interjections of the other bandits. Willock’s speech is folksy and conspiratorial, full of colloquialisms like “sorter keeps me company” and “brung about finally.” Wilfred, by contrast, speaks in more standard English, marking him as an outsider to the frontier setting. The narrative voice itself shifts between heightened melodrama—phrases like “ferocious insults” and “eloquent in its appeal”—and a more direct, almost reportorial tone in dialogue. This stylistic range suggests a work that oscillates between sensational adventure and domestic realism.

Setting as a Character

The excerpts emphasize two distinct landscapes: the bandits’ cabin in No-Man’s Land, cluttered with loot and disguises, and the mountain cove with its “crevice in the top of the mountain” that serves as a prison. Both are liminal spaces—the cabin is a temporary hideout, the cove a natural trap. Ellis describes the cabin’s interior with a catalog of stolen goods, grounding the lawlessness in material detail. The mountain setting, with its “holler” and hidden crevices, becomes a site of manipulation and rescue. The novel’s title, Lahoma, is a variant of “Oklahoma,” and the excerpts hint at the broader historical context of land runs and settlement, though the story focuses on personal rather than political conflicts. Readers should watch how these settings shape the characters’ choices and the plot’s direction.

The excerpts offer a fragmented view of Lahoma, but they consistently foreground deception—whether by outlaws, guardians, or lovers. Ellis builds tension through withheld information and misdirection, so readers should pay attention to what characters claim versus what they do. The novel’s structure, with chapter titles like “The Flag of Truce” and “Facing the Mob,” suggests a series of confrontations that test loyalties. Approach the text as a melodrama of the frontier, where innocence and experience collide in a landscape that rewards cunning.

Lahoma’s guarded wildness made me think of another old volume, one where the same quiet tension between restraint and release lingers in every sketch. There is something tender about watching a character choose safety, knowing what it costs them. I found myself reaching for Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green — Key Ideas to Explore afterwards, as if continuing a conversation with a familiar friend.