Ben Blair

Will (William Otis) Lillibridge (1878-1909) was the author of Ben Blair: The Story of a Plainsman (1905), Where the Trail Divides (1907) and The Dissolving Circle (1908). "Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation calls the falling apple, came from afar and near-mainly from afar-the malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking-instinctively gregarious-the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor. "