Robert Welles Ritchie

“ She hurried away, took down a saddle from its peg, and went out to the corral. Her buckskin saddled, the woman mounted and rode swiftly out toward the scored and wrinkled battlements of Pumpkin Butte, graven deep against the blue of the new day. On one of the strings of her saddle hung a running iron—that handy ring of metal for informal and hasty branding which, in the heyday of the "rustlers," or cattle-thieves, came to be a distinguishing mark of the profession—often fatal evidence. ”

“ Their two-hour watch was one of four into which the night of the trail-herd by custom was divided; upon them rested for that time responsibility for property valued in the tens of thousands; the hazard of an instant's play of terror over the deep-breathing herd was theirs to meet alone.
As the boy Original lolled in his saddle to the sleepy pacing of Nigger Boy, his nearest friend and confidant of the black hours of night-herd, he caught on the light wind blowing over the bedded cattle the sound of Shinnery Luke's singing. ”

“ In the darkness some sense of the cow-puncher's art told him he was turning the leaders. Old Shinnery Luke, somewhere off there on the far flank, would feel the pressure, know that Original was turning 'em, and swing out to catch the drift and turn it still closer in on itself. Together they could change the stampede into a "mill," with the silly thousands racing in a circle, and so save days of labor for the rest of the outfit in rounding up a scattered herd over a ten-mile front. ”

“ Lightning speared down through the sooty dark, closer now and stronger. A hoarse grunt near at hand, a movement on the fringe of the herd, and Nigger Boy instantly turned in to skirt with careful hoofs the line of bodies. "Get down there, you muley steer!" Original piped. "Don't you go for to lead off anything just because Ole Man It up there is a-stomping out his camp-fire and the sparks is flying." He threaded in and out on the fringe of the herd, calling, cajoling, bantering. ”

“ The corral was empty when he rode up to the dooryard, but he unsaddled Nigger Boy and entered the cabin. He was cooking a supper, after the free code of the new land's hospitality, when he heard hoof-beats outside. Original stepped to the door just as Miss Eliza drew rein at the corral bars. Even as she hailed him the woman dropped one gauntleted hand down to cover a small iron ring hanging from a string of her saddle; her gesture was swift, protective. Original noted it, but in the dusk he could not see what she was hiding. ”

“ I've never told nobody 'longside of you. But in the Big Country there's some one who sort of reg'lates things—fixes up the stars at night and makes the piny woods to mourn when the night winds blow, and asks the coyotes to howl when there's nobody to howl at. Sometimes this here some one's so near and strong you can hear him talking to you; sometimes he's far away as the ocean. I don't reckon to know much about him, though. It's more feeling than plumb knowing."
"What do you call that some one, Original?"
"Not much of anything, Miss Eliza. ”

“ Original following along the edge of the dark blot on his flank, to meet and cross his partner a mile below, where the "drag" end of the recumbent herd of three thousand beeves lay nearest the camp. The twain guarded the herd between them; by their ceaseless patrol about the edge of the great sprawling mass of life—a core of half-tamed, inchoate life in the body of the dark. They soothed the panicky nerves of the beasts in their charge, reassured the instinct of fear which is never blotted by sleep. ”

“ But its enjoyment was a secret vice with the boy, to be concealed from the eyes of real men. Shinnery Luke here, Original's partner in the second watch over the herd, and met on the rounds for these delicious moments of epic recital—Shinnery Luke would blow through that eagle beak of his and laugh Original off the Wyoming range if he could know what was passing under the six-and-a-quarter hand-me-down hat whose rim just showed in the cigarette glow, if he could know the wonderful games Romance played for Original Bill Blunt, cow-puncher. ”

“ I call him It, which it don't seem like to be a decent enough word at all."
"I call Him God," she put in, simply.
"Oh, but God's different," the boy denied. "He's the Methody parson's friend, and He never comes close enough for a rough man like me to tie onto." ”

“ He exulted in the opportunity to turn the stampede single-handed; he. Original Bill Blunt, the kid of the Hashknife outfit, was breaking the run right up at the roaring front of three thousand crazy steers.
"Yip—yip—yip! Split yourselves, you loco longhorns! Original Bill's got his war-paint on, an' he'll ride you—ride you!
Suddenly, from over to the left in the direction of the turned point, came the bang-bang-bang! of a six-shooter and thin stabs of flame through the felt blackness. Shinnery Luke was telling Original he'd gained the front and was taking the point. ”