Show ia ar a F 10 habold CHANNING CHAPTER I 1 even those names that meant so much have vanished now so that you will look in vain for ox bow or dripping spring or the valley of the little comanche on any recent map and it is hard to believe that this land where flashing beacons now guide the roaring course of planes by night and by day motorcars dart effortlessly across its endless miles was then but a wild and rolling prairie of buffalo grass and a journey 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 young man go west not sixty years ago chis was a time of new and un avable happenings pullmans bolden palace cars were running clear to the pacific with their red velvet curtained windows their gas lamps that made the coaches as brilliant as a ladies drawing room and their sleeping compartments in which many women still refused to undress when going to bed at night three thousand negroes were marching 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 coming up from the south for this was a time when the man in the saddle was king of the plains and prairie all others were hoe men men beneath him to be swept aside by the relentless march of his trail herds ten million texas longhorns 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 and wyoming where cattle had never been before up that trail twelve hundred miles long unchecked by storm or drouth by roving bands of Co manches or the barbed wire of the hoe men the great flood poured northward a million head in a single year this was a time of a young mans opportunity whatever a man was going to be depended only upon himself in the upper valley of the little comanche that night only one campfire pierced the blackness a small one glowing faintly where high rimrock guarded a narrow entrance down from the vast empty reaches of the staked plain kv burnet was cooking supper bv ie a cautious blaze he had laid his cottonwood twigs together at the ends indian fashion spreading them out outward ivard like the spokes of a wheel that way they burned with no smoke and a small flame but made an intense point of heat beneath his pot of coffee the coffee 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 was a young face with sober strength in its long lines but strangely marked from the trampling hoots hoofs of an outlaw horse years a aga there was left now only a artl vt d crease from his right cheek Itow 1 to his chin and a white crescent close to the hairline of his forehead yet those first years when the wounds were raw and ugly lind left another mark he had never forgotten how the girls turned from him shocked and he had 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 and single handed at he had bossed three great herds of longhorns up the trail from texas to dodge and ogallala even the new ranch he had established in wyoming this past winter had risen in his vision as a place only for himself there had been too little information in tom arnolds letter he wanted more even more perhaps than arnold could give A month ago he had mailed a letter ot of his own south from wyoming and a nd late this afternoon before coming down off the rimrock he had stopped long I 1 1 lew stared at him the bank banh in 0 ox bo bow enough to kindle a pillar of white smoke into the still air he had whipped his rawhide coat across it twice breaking it if old willy nickle had received the letter and had bad stayed anywhere within twenty miles of the little comanche he would see that signal and know this meeting place but the half hour passed and the nights hushed silence remained unbroken by the simple process of pulling off his coat and boots he was ready for bed he had turned into the dark toward his unrolled blankets when something sailed past him and fell with a soft thud he stooped and pushed the unburned ends 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 always did that this was a ghost shape from out of a past he came forward silently on deerskin moccasins 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 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 head and looked sharply all around him well he said suddenly it has been some I 1 do bayl say his squinted gray eyes came back lew nodded A year now come calf time he said A year in wyoming and they do say things have happened on the little comanche since ive been gone so I 1 guess said willy this know he knew all right there were no longer beaver to trap in the great south park of colorado nor shaggy herds 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 kinnik kinnikinnick irmick already start to spin his head it often seemed a strange thing that he had been picked out for one of willy nickles Nic klea few friends but it was so a queer loyal unspoken friendship which he knew he was going to need now mote more than ever wyoming willy mused across the fire no place for a man now but me and bill evans find beaver a heap there that winter I 1 can tell youl you A pretty smart lot of boys was camped on the sweetwater and the way whisky flowed that time was some still a good place wyoming lew said and then brought willys wandering 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 for him the proposition but theres clay manning toms foreman now chos 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 dol do said willy he smoked thoughtfully tor for a moment his thin cheeks making deep hollows then he said one beaver this old coon never did cotton to clay manning and that steve young un of tom arnolds was it him night ridin up crazy woman creek not two hours after the batik bank was robbed him and four strangers here seems like I 1 was camped on crazy woman then lew stared at him the bank in ox bow willy nodded but was a man to hunt some trouble now hed see why so many cross T horses go 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 it 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 hed like to know hell find tracks then willy offered plain enough but was it me id have old silverbell here ready he stroked the slender barrel of his needle gun through a little silent time while willy nickles 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 0 bow belonged to arnold its robbery he knew could be pretty bad what puzzled him wh wholly olly 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 willy he asked youre sure it was steve riding that night of the 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 rebellion had turned into violent ways he was coming back perhaps just in time for he and Steve had grown up together in a close companionship panion ship more confiding than between father and son everything tom arnold had built here in texas was planned around his boy still there was that antagonism between them a reckless high strung nature fighting the strict unsparing one of the man inevitably steve brought up his sister joy lew bent forward and knocked his pipe out against his boot toe behind all his thinking tonight was one question he asked it now willy when did toms girl marry clay manning willys head lifted his gray eyes squinted brightly never did theres been none of that on the cross T why not this child coulden couldn it say but theres somebody could make a better man for her well he no lew said its the sleek bucks they run to willy you know that in a moment when th tai e old man stood up to go he knew there was no use usa offering a bed here willy always slept alone it might be ten miles from dripping Sp springier only off a hundred yards he know standing with the ancient needle gun cuddled again across his chest willy took that quick glance all around mm him into the shadows he stepped back raise your smoke he said it if youve a mind 1 that was his promise and lew understood hed not stray tar far from the little comanche for or a while lew broke camp in the dark next morning saddled while his coffee boiled and in the cold sharp gray of daylight he was traveling south this was the end of a month long trail even the tall black beneath him stepped out with a home com ing knowledge and the red mule with its white tarpaulin pack trotted behind needing no leash the little comanche had changed even more he be saw in his absence of a year once a man could ride down this valley through a waving sea of bluestem grass knee deep on a horse but tom arnold like every cattleman in texas now had stocked his range beyond its limit in this mad race to supply the northern demand the bluestem had vanished never to grow again there was left only the short curly buffalo grass natures last stand even that showing great dusty patches the little comanche could be wholly worthless in another five years at least he thought he had 1 learned earned that lesson and his own land in wyoming came into the drifting gaze of his eyes that was virgin now as this once had bad been a sweet grass country ten thousand acres he had got control of by plastering his homestead entries over every water hole and spring the tha opportunity was there tor for a big ranch as big as arnolds cross T TO BE CONTINUED |