Honoré Willsie

“ Not more than a dozen of the young riders of the upper valleys ever have seen him. Not more than a half-dozen have got near enough to him to flatter themselves that they are running him. And only four or five of them dare boast that they have flung a rope at him. Homer Freeman knew the stallion better than any one in the Lone Bend country. But then Homer, even at thirty or so, was a better range man than any the young dare-devils who dreamed of bronco-busting at Cheyenne's Frontier Day. Particularly was Homer a master runner of wild horses. ”

“ Homer rolled another cigaret. "I don't want to quarrel with you, Frank," he said finally. "I'm not sore at the Lone Bend country. I'm sore at myself for being too fond of Lone Bend and—what Lone Bend stands for."
"Get out then!" sneered Frank.
"I don't want to get out. That's my trouble. I ought to get out and I don't want to. If I just had the nerve that pinto has, to run the race come high, come low— I sure do respect that horse! He's a man, he is! Listen!" with sudden inspiration. "I'll make a bargain with you!"
"Why ought you to get out?" insisted Frank. ”

“ Homer's six-shooter rested easily on his pommel. "If you fire at the pinto, I'll just have to take a pot shot at you," he said with his familiar grin. "Kids with bad tempers have no business running horses anyhow. The pinto's a gentleman and a sport and I don't aim to allow any but sports really to hunt him."
For a moment there was silence, then sullenly Billy slid his gun back into its holster. Theodore whinnied and the pinto leaped from clinging sage-brush to jutting rock, the mare following him. ”

“ He admits that all he knows positively is that Peters shot at the pinto and that he disappeared, leaving a trail of blood. Well, that evidence was immaterial, anyhow."
Homer stared long at Oscar, some of the old saturnine humor twitching his lips, some of the old sadness in his keen gray eyes. But he said nothing; not even when Oscar added with a deep sigh of satisfaction:
"It's a great thing to have on the bench a man who won't let the past influence his decisions. We sure are, as you say, getting civilized!" ”

“ Horse-flesh is held cheap in the upper valleys. It is a poor rancher indeed who has not a dozen or so mounts running in the fields. So the wild horses are not tempting except to the venturesome. The running of these untamed herds is dangerous and to be undertaken only by men of extraordinary prowess as riders and ropers. But for the young bloods who find the round-up tame, the running of wild horses offers excitement worth their mettle. Above all is it a real man's game to go out after the pinto stallion. ”

“ Just why, no one in Lone Bend could discover. His grandfather had ridden range in the Lone Bend country. His father had made money enough on his cattle-ranch to send Homer East to college and to make a lawyer of the boy. But at his father's death Homer had come back to live a solitary life at the old ranch-house. He spent two-thirds of his time hunting bear, lynx, wolverine or what-not on the Forest Reserve and running wild horses in the lower valleys. It was said that he was not above shifting a brand or two and that in common with other Lone Benders he seldom beefed his own steers. ”

“ The pinto nickered again. The bay replied pitifully. And deliberately the stallion plunged back into the cañon. It was drifted to within six feet of the top with snow. At the point of the pinto's crossing the thick-set tops of pines protruded. It was these that made his crossing possible. Neither Homer nor Billy dared risk their mounts in such a trap.
"He sure's gawd's going back for her!" roared Billy. "Rope her quick, Homer!"
Homer twirled his rope. It hit the lunging mare's left hind leg. She kicked viciously and plunged into the depths below. Horses hate snow. ”

“ But Oscar had left the upper valley many years before and was ranching in a valley a hundred miles from Lone Bend.
"Hello, Oscar!" said Homer, offering the rancher a cigar. "Aren't you off your trail?"
Oscar settled down with a nod. "Usually take my horses to Frisbie, but that trail's impassable. Say, Homer, about seven years ago I lost a young Hambletonian mare. I always thought a lot of her, she was a wonder on the range. You could ride her to death and not kill her. And she was sired by a stallion my father brought in in the days when you had to hoof it clear from Cheyenne." ”

“ WILD-HORSE country must of necessity be remote country. It must be adjacent to cow country. And it must be watered and grassed, but not sufficiently to tempt other cattleman sheep-herder.
Such a country is the stamping-ground of the pinto stallion.
Picture to yourself a far range of the Rockies, lifting for a hundred miles or so from the valley of the railroad at four thousand feet elevation, hill on hill, cañon beyond cañon, peak above peak to ultimate, snow-crowned crests at fourteen thousand feet. Many of the lower valleys are unwatered and profoundly alkaline. ”

“ Between the arid valleys and the cow valleys lies country that is neither fish nor flesh, and here run horses that have escaped from the upper ranches and in small, stallion-led herds thrive mightily on the sparse grass and sparser water. ”

“ A Mormon family leased his ranch and Homer went down to the town of Indian Arrow to practise law. The story of Homer's life for the next few years had nothing at all to do with the running of wild horses, though in some ways it was quite as mad and as exciting an adventure as any into which the pinto stallion ever had led him. The story of the cattle country turning civilized and of its better men turning with it is one not to be excelled for drama. ”

“ But if you just ain't going to get the pinto anyhow, we might as well quit now."
Homer sat staring at the fire, the other two watching him with angry eyes. Frank went on:
"What's the use of trying to pull this gentleman stuff on us, Homer? We've knowed you too long." Frank's voice thickened with indignation as if old grievances were rising as he spoke. "What's the matter with you, anyhow? What's been the matter with you for years? If you don't like Lone Bend, why don't you go up to Indian Arrow or some other good town and be a honest-to-gawd lawyer instead of a cowman without any guts? ”

“ I was with Peters on that hunt and I pointed out the mare to him, running with the pinto stallion. I didn't help get her because right then and there was where I quit the horse-running business."
"Did you see her brand?" demanded Oscar.
"No, I went back to Lone Bend and left them running the herd. But you will have hard work getting anything on Peters. He's devilishly clever, and, after all, who in the old days didn't have a shifted brand in his herd?"
"The old days are gone and I want my mare." Oscar's tone was stubborn. "I hate Peters, anyhow. His first wife was my first sweetheart." ”

“ I want to know what's eating you."
"Running other folks' horses and slicks down into Utah is what's the matter with me," said Homer shortly. "I'm sick of it. The day for that stuff is gone. This cow country is getting civilized. We've got law now and it's up to us fellows whose fathers took the range from the Indians to show we're a little better than the Indians. And as long as I feel that way I ought to get out."
"You sure ought," sneered Billy. "What's hindering you?"
"Hindering me? Why, the pinto stallion's hindering me!" ”

“ We are concerned primarily with the pinto stallion.
A few years ago, perhaps half a dozen years after Homer had left Lone Bend, on a day in January, Billy Williams and a couple of young riders drove a herd of horses into the stock-yards at Indian Arrow. The Great War was raging and horses and yet more horses were needed in France. It was a scraggly bunch of perhaps a hundred brutes picked up off the ranges in bad shape from the heavy winter and from having been driven too hard over the terrible winter trail between Lone Bend and Indian Arrow. ”

“ But it is enough here to say that Homer was a brilliant and popular lawyer and an honest one, and that when he was elevated to the bench a very few years after leaving Lone Bend his previous history in no way detracted from the Westerners' confidence in him as a just and honorable judge. ”

“ Even the sage-brush and the cactus are half-starved. But the upper valleys for five months of the year are watered by melted snows. The wild grass is thick, and alfalfa, if the melted snows are impounded and fed to it, grows amazingly. ”

“ It's a hard place to find after night, and the moon didn't help so much because that country's all pink and yaller and the snow's all blue, and when the moon shines bright on it you get kind of color and trail blind. So I was near froze and in no shape to fight when I finally got into the cave and found, away back in it, Frank Peters and the ranger rebranding a calf. ”