Hal G. Evarts

“ At the end of an hour Waddles rose and returned his instrument to the wagon. The group broke up and every man turned in.
Billie Warren lay in her teepee, her mind busily going over the events of the day. The night sounds of the range drifted to her. A bull-bat rasped a note or two from above. A picketed horse stamped restlessly just outside and a range cow bawled from an adjacent slope. The night-hawk had relieved the wrangler and she could half-hear, half-feel the low jar of many hoofs as he grazed the remuda slowly up the valley, singing to while away the time. ”

“ Miles away across the quarantine belt a slender ragged line extended either way beyond the range of their vision. A thousand ribbons of [118] white smoke writhed aloft and glowed in pallid outline against the darkening sky. For two hundred miles along the line, wherever water was available, there was one continuous camp of squatters, and still the land seekers increased at the rate of two thousand families a week, all the landless of a mighty nation gathering here to participate in what would go down in history as the Cherokee Run, the most frenzied stampede of the century. ”

“ The exhilarating element of danger in trap robbing, which appeals so strongly to the coyote, held no fascination for Shady. She was vastly trap-wise but used her knowledge solely for self-preservation. Every scrap of meat on the range represented possible pain or death to her and she found no sport in close investigation with its attendant risks. She was entirely dependent upon Breed, feeling a sense of security in his nearness, but weighed down by the vast unknown which seemed to close in upon her whenever the gap between them exceeded the span of one leap. ”

“ The long bull trains were in sight from horizon to horizon every hour of the day. The grind of the gravel wore down the hoofs of the unshod oxen, and when footsore they could not go on. One sound bull for two with tender feet was Warren's rule of trade. These crippled ones were soon made sound in the puddle pen, a sod corral flooded with sufficient water to puddle the yellow clay into a six-inch layer of stiff, healing mud, then thrown out on the open range to fatten and grow strong. ”

“ There were many present who would heed that plea which would one day be issued for all the old-time peelers and bronc fighters of the Cherokee lands to assemble for a final rally. They would not then travel across the open range with chuck wagons and saddle horse. Some would be carried in luxuriously appointed coaches that roared along steel rails; others in glittering vehicles that purred swiftly along fenced and well-kept highways; some would arrive in strange craft that swept across the skies above thriving western cities situated on spots now widely known as ideal cow-camp sites. ”

“ A sickening dread entered his soul,—the fear that his mate had been caught in a trap, shot by some rider or killed in some other way by man. He little suspected that Shady was at that instant resting her head on a man's knee and enjoying the feel of his fingers scratching behind her ears.
"Good old Shady," Collins said, roughing her head between his hands. "You're a renegade now, old girl,—a she-outlaw, that's what you are. You've gone over to the wild bunch, and men will be out after your scalp; and they'll get it too. You'll go ambling up to some man and he'll blow you up. ”

“ Carver’s sympathy was with the riders who handled the cows on the near side of that continuous camp, men who, like himself, had loved the old open range, the range that was passing for all time. The girl’s heart went out to those homeless hosts outside the line, for she herself was homeless and could understand the longing which had brought them to this spot to join in a mad and desperate rush on the chance that they might be among the fortunate locaters who should be first to drive their stakes on any scrap of ground which would constitute a home. ”

“ Breed flanked the dog's route till he drew abreast of him. The baying voice filled the valley and echoed among the rims till it seemed that the whole breadth of the hills was filled with dogs, but Breed knew that the sound came from but one. He could hear no sounds of man, and he dropped swiftly in behind Buge to decipher the signs of the trail. There were the hot tracks of Shady and the pups, the hound's tracks on top of theirs, and no man had come that way. Breed spurted ahead and sighted the dog, and swung out to flank him and get the wind. ”

“ Harris said, when she remarked upon this fact. "Like a seed in frozen ground. In the spring it will come to life and sprout. The Three Bar isn't hurt. We're in better shape than ever before and a clear field out in front; for the country is cleaned up and the law is clamped on top."
She honestly tried to rouse a spark of interest deep within her, some ray of enthusiasm for the future of the Three Bar. But there was no response. She assured herself again that the old brand which had meant so much to her meant less than nothing now. ”

“ Her habitual self-control had broken down.
“You know he’ll never forget,” she said. “But I can’t have that—a shooting between brothers—don’t you see? Not that Noll really is a brother; but people will always think of it that way. I wish something had happened to Noll before I ever saw him—just for what he’s done to Dad and Bart. I’m wicked enough to wish him dead; he should be; he’s not fit to live. But Bart mustn’t do it. He’d never live it down.”
She spoke disjointedly, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. Carver vaulted the corral bars and laid an arm about her shoulders. ”

“ Mate communicates with mate through all the coyote refrains of the night; half-grown coyotes answer their mother's voice but are silent when another calls. All that wild outburst in which men read only an uproar of meaningless savagery is in reality the intelligent conversation of the coyote nation.
Breed's range covered fifty miles each way and there were some two hundred coyotes who used the same strip or whose range overlapped his own, and of these there were but few who had not at one time or another profited by some of his kills. ”

“ Far off on the opposite side she made out a lone horseman riding at a full run along the sidehill above the cows as he made a supreme effort to reach the head of the run. The Three Bar men split and streamed up both sides of the bottoms. The flashes had ceased except for brief, quivering plays of less than a second's duration. She hung her spurs into Papoose and trusted to his footwork. The swift little horse passed one rider, then another. There were only the rumble of hoofs and the crazed bawling of cows to guide her as she drew near the rear of the herd. ”

“ Now that he had all these he missed the muster cry of the pack, hungered to hear16 the aching wails coming from far across the timbered hills, penetrating to the farthest retreats of the antlered tribes and sounding a warning to all living things that the hunt-pack was about to take the meat trail. But he knew that coyotes did not hunt in packs; that they hunted singly or in pairs, killing more by stealth than strength; clever stalkers and the most intelligent team-workers and relayers in the world, but lacking the weight and driving force to tear down a steer,—calves their largest prey. ”

“ A man that's not above doing a little fixing up! A cowhand is the most overworked and underpaid saphead that ever lost three nights' sleep hand running and worked seventy-two hours on end; sleep in the rain or not at all—to hold a job at forty per for six months in the year. The other six he's throwed loose like a range horse to rustle or starve. Hardest work in the world—but he don't know it, or money wouldn't hire him to lift his hand. He thinks it's play. Not one out of ten but what prides himself that he can't be browbeat into doing a tap of work. ”

“ The green summer range stretched away to the far horizon with never a plow furrow to break it. Two trail herds had been bedded for the night at widely separate points. A third, whose trail boss had evidently made a hard day’s drive to reach the quarantine belt in hope of an earlier clearance and shipping date than that accorded to his slower fellows, passed below the two on the knoll and plodded northward. Two men rode the points, the right and left forward extremities of the herd, guiding the foremost animals on the chosen course. ”

“ When Collins returned to his shack he found six stockmen awaiting him. The stampede of the sheep and the big kill made by Breed's pack up in the hills had enraged the sheepmen. They had confidently expected that some man would collect Breed's scalp on a fresh tracking snow, but while every rider had scoured the foothills for Breed's tracks after every storm, no man had cut his trail. After gorging on warm meat at night a wolf runs sluggishly the following day; his muscles lack snap and his wind is leaky, and a good horse can wear him down. ”

“ The advance was slower as they closed in on the stockade. There was a sudden commotion among the men at the buildings. They were moving swiftly under cover. Some of the attacking force had been seen. The majority of the rustlers took to the stockade. Four ran into the main cabin.
It was as if she gazed upon the activities of battling ants, the whole game spread out in the field of her glasses. There came a lull in the action and she knew that the sheriff had raised his voice to summon them to come out without their guns and go back as prisoners to stand trial for every crime under the sun. ”

“ Molly burrowed her face deep in the pillow. During the day she had seen much that was gold beneath that rusty exterior of the tumbleweeds and much that was dross beneath the golden surface of many of the pumpkins. These men who rallied to Carver, drifters all, were a different breed of drifters than those she had met as friends of her two half-brothers. And now the tumbleweeds had been cast out of their domain.
“Hand me them cards,” said the big Texan. “Now we’ll have an honest deal. I’d trust myself further than any other man I ever met.” ”

“ The memory of little Bangs, his adoring gaze fastened on her face, was uppermost in her mind and brought a lump to her throat. "I hope he gets them all."
"Billie, let me take you away from all this," Deane urged again. "Let me give you the things every girl should have—shut all the rough spots out of your path. I want to give you the things every girl needs to round out her life—a home and love and shelter."
Shelter! Slade's words recurred to her: "A soft front lawn to range in." ”

“ Just beyond the wreck a man had leaped from a wagon to plant his flag while his wife held the horses. A single man had unloaded from a runabout with similar intent and as the girl passed them the two were fighting savagely, endeavoring through the medium of physical combat to settle the question as to which one had first placed foot upon the ground. While the wife and family of the one gazed upon the scene from the wagon, the horse of the other was running away with the runabout which was lurching perilously across the dips and sways of the prairie. ”