Show 4 lan BEEF HAROLD CHANNING WIRE CHAPTER I 1 even those names that meant so 10 much U 1 h have vanished now so eo that T you will look in vain for or ox bow or dripping spring or the valley of the little Co comanche marichi on any recent map and it is hard bard to believe that this land where flashing bashing beacons now gul guide dethe i the roaring course ot of planes by night and by day motorcars dart el C effortlessly across Us its endless miles was then but a wild and rolling prairie of buffalo grass and a jour 0 ney ot of any length had no certain ending and all of a restless nation seemed to be following the sun in a mad race set off by the cry go west ayoung oung man go festl not sixty bears years ago this i was a time of new and unbelievable elle vable happenings Pull pullmans manz golden palace cars can were running clear to the pacific with their red velvet curtained windows their gas lamps I 1 that made the conches coaches as brill brilliant ft as a ladles ladies drawing room and their sleeping compartments in which many women still refused to undress when going to bed at night three i thousand negroes were march marching irig afoot from alabama with their women and children and half starved dogs to claim the forty acres of land and the span of mules which the state of kansas promised boxcar emigrant trains rolled out of the east one upon another spewing settlers along the way and the high topped pittsburg wagons lumbered west behind their ox teams to meet not a barren prairie but the red swarms of texas longhorns long horos coming up from the sou south th for this was a time when the man in the saddle was king of the plains and prairie all others were hoe men beneath him to be swept aside by relentless the march maich of his trail herds ten million texas longhorns long homs that had run wild since the rebellion were finding a market in the shipping towns of the new railroads a thousand cattle ranches were being made in the new lands of montana ta na and aid wyoming where cattle had bad never been before up that trail twelve hundred miles long unchecked by storm or drouth by roving bands of Corn anches or the barbed wire of the hoe boe men the great flood poured northward a million head bead in a single year this was wag a time of a young mans opportunity whatever a man was going to be depended only upon himself V in the upper valley of the little comanche that night only one campfire pierced the blackness a small one glowing glowin ii faintly where high rimrock guarded a narrow entrance down from the vast empty reaches of the staked plain lew burnet was cooking supper over a cautious blize blaze he had laid his cottonwood cotton twigs together at the ends indian fish fashion lon spreading them outward like liked the spokes of a wheel wheel that way they burned with no smoke and airrall a email flame but made an intense point of heat beneath his blo pot of coffee the coffee polled boiled and he pushed the pot back A comb of antelope ribs already braised braided brai sed stood propped against a rock A pile of stick bread lay at his knee he tore the antelope ribs apart and fell to eating with the hunger of a man had nothing since dawn his wai was a young ayoung face with sober strength in its long lines but strangely i marked from the trampling hoots hoofs of an outlaw horse years ago there was left now only a curved crease from his right cheekbone to hia bis chin and a white crescent close to the hairline of his forehead yet those first years when I 1 the wounds were raw and ugly had lell left another mark he had novel never forgotten how the girls turned from him shocked and he had bad understood A sensitive nature protects itself in deeply hidden ways and this early accident had made lew burnet more than he realized a restless and lonely man his work had all been mans work hard and dangerous bous and single handed at he had bossed three great herds of longhorns up the trail from texas to dodge end and ogallala even the new ranch he had bad established in wyoming this past winter had risen in his vision as a place only tor for him tell self there the re had been too little information in tori tom arnolds letter he wanted more even more perhaps ithan I 1 than arnold Amold could give A month ago he had bad mailed a letter of his bis own south from wyoming and late this afternoon before coming down off the rimrock rl he had bad stopped long enough to kindle a pillar of white smoke into the still air he had whipped his rawhide coat across it twice breaking it it if old willy S hinickle Hn el ickle akl had received the letter and d stayed anywhere within twenty miles of the little comancho comanche he would see that signal and nd know Ws this meeting place but the half hour passed and the nights hushed silence remained unbroken by the simple process of ct pulling on oil his cost coat and boots he was ready for bed he had turned into the dark toward his bis unrolled blankets when something sailed ailed past him and fell with a soft loft thud he stooped and pushed the unburned ends buds of cottonwood together and crouched there waiting it was not until the little flame leaped up shedding a wide circle of light that a figure stepped from the shadows even then he move he sat wholly still watching willy nickle feeling as he be always did that this was a ghost from out of a far off past he came forward silently on deerskin moccasins moccasin with high tops laced halfway to his knees a small thin fragile looking man ageless long chestnut hair brushed his shoulders but his cheeks and chin were shaved clean his face was very dark yet oddly smooth and as gentle as a childs except for the sharp quick brightness of its small gray eyes how are you willy lew said and got no answer his only greeting was a nod as the old man came from the shadows with an ancient needle gun cuddled like a baby across his bis thin chest always it was not until three deep puffs of kinnikinnick hit old willys brain with their terrific force that talk seemed jolted out of him even then it was veiled talk of his own strange kind you never learned anything from willy nickle by bluntly asking questions he took his three puffs and lifted his bis head and looked sharply all around him well he said suddenly it has been some I 1 do bayl say I 1 his squinted gray eyes came back lew nodded A year now come calf time he be said A year in A N 4 N IV A aw ii I 1 T I 1 I 1 ai 1 1 I 1 al I 1 fa lew stared at him the bank in III ox bow wyoming and they do say things have happened on toe the little comanche since ive been gone IS so 0 I 1 guess said willy this fligger know he knew all right there were no longer beaver to trap in the great south park of colorado nor shaggy herds berds of buffalo to follow north to the headwaters of the yellowstone and the mexican girls of taos and santa fe could not lure old willy any more lew waited smoking and feeling the kinnikinnick already start to spin his head it often seemed a strange thing that he had bad been picked out for one of willy nickles Nic klei few friends but it was so a queer loyal unspoken friendship which he knew he was going to need now more than ever wyoming willy mused across the fire no place for a man now but me and bill evans evang find beaver a heap there that winter I 1 can tell youla youl A pretty smart lot of boys was camped orf on the sweetwater and the way whisky flowed bowed that time was some still a good place wyoming lew said and then brought willys wand wandering erini mind back to the little comanche they do tell me that tom arnold is moving his cross T up there taking four thousand longhorns up the trail this month all the way to the north and ive a letter to trail boss tor for him thaes the proposition but theres clay manning toms foreman now been north once or twice himself and could lead this herd maybe then what am I 1 here for I 1 dont know things happen in a country when a mans been gone a year well they dot dol said willy he smoked thoughtfully tor for a moment his thin cheeks making deep hollows hollow then he be said one beaver this old coon never did cotton to clay manning and that steve stev young lim un of tom arnolds arnold was wai it him night ridin up crazy woman creek not two hours houi alter after the bank was robbed him and four strangers here seems seem me like I 1 was wa camped on ion crazy woman then lew stared bared at him the bank in ox bow willy nodded but was a man to hunt some trouble now hed see fee why so RO many cross T horses go co loose herded up crazy woman that would be at nighttime early tonight no already made it was some gunshot late this afternoon which must have hurried em cm if it was this tomorrow going down the valley hed keep to the east side talk though maybe some sort listen maybe he lew agreed and smiled maybe held hed like to know hell find tracks then willy offered Ib eyre plain enough but was it me rd id have old silverbell here ready he stroked the slender barrel baard of his bis needle gun through a little silent time while willy nickles Nl ckles head drooped and he seemed to doze lew sorted out the old mans information he felt a grimly troubled meaning in that none of these things had been in tom arnolds letter the bank in ox bow belonged to arnold its robbery he knew could be pretty bad what puzzled him wholly unexplainable was this business of loose horses being run up crazy woman to the staked plain if it was rustling arnold or his foreman clay manning should be more on watch than that the trail drive would need every saddle animal the cross T had and steve bwy he asked youre sure aure it was steve riding that night of the th robbery old willy opened one eye certain he said and closed it there was no answer to that things happen in a year even twelve months ago lew remembered steves young rebell rebellion fon had turned into violent ways he was coming back perhaps just in time for he be and steve had grown up together in close companionship panion ship more confiding than be tween father and son Every everything thins tom arnold had built here la in texas was planned around nil his boy still there was that antagonism between them a reckless high strung nature fighting the strict unsparing one ol 01 the man inevitably steve brought up his sister joy lew bent forward and knocked his bis pipe out against his boot bool toe behind all his thinking tonight was one question he asked it now willy when did toms toma girl marry clay manning willys head lifted his gray eyes squinted brightly never did theres been rione cone of that on the cross T why not cot this child say but theres somebody could make a better man for her well he be could no lew said its the sleek bucks they run to willy you know th that at in a moment when the old mat mai stood up to go he knew th there e wa wai no use offering a bed here willy always slept alone it might be ten miles from dripping spring or 0 only off a hundred yards he wo uldal know standing with the ancient needle gun cuddled again across his chest willy took that quick glance glanc at all around him into the shadows he H stepped back raise your smoke he said it if youve a mind thai tha was his promise and lew under stood hed not stray f far ar from the little comanche lor for a while lew broke camp in the dark next mort morning saddled while his choflet boiled and in the cold she harp rp gray 01 ol daylight he be was traveling south this was the end of a month I long 0 n a trall trail even the tall black benc beneath a lb him stepped out with a home corn com ing knowledge and the red mull with its white tarpaulin pack trotted behind needing no leash the little comanche had changed even more he be saw in his him absence of a year once a mark man could ride down this valley through a waving sea of bluestem grass knee deep on a horse but tom arnold like uk every cattleman to la texas now had bad stocked his bis range beyond its limit la in this mad race to supply the northern demand the blu bluestem estern had bad vanished never to grow again thero then was left only the short curly buffalo grass natures last stand even that showing great dusty patches the little comanche could be b wholly worthless in another five years at least he thought he h had bad learned that lesson and hit his own land in wyoming came into the drifting gaze of his eyes that dvir gin now as this once had been a sweet grass country ton ten thousand acres he be had got control of by plastering his bis homestead entries ovet every water hole and spring the opportunity was there tor for a bil big ranch as bit big as arnolds cross crois ti TO BE |