S tephen Crane's story of the Texas frontier town's marshal, Jack Potter, who goes to San Antonio to meet and marry a girl of questionable background (for him), is stricken by a guilty conscience, then returns with her only to find the town badman gunning for him, is justifiably considered one of his best short fictions. It also remains one of his most enduring stories. A number of interesting and cogent reasons for this might be advanced, to say nothing of individual reasons from appreciative readers over the past hundred years and more who have found in it a particular narrow feature of special appeal. First off, there are a number of strange, provocative, seemingly outof-place references and overstatements scattered throughout the narrative—aside from Crane's stilted and pretentious expressions that he might have picked up from reading popular (or pulp) Westerns.

As the train...