WILD WESTCHAPTER ITHE STRAW IN THE WINDWhere a long spur of Chase Hill pitched down to the broken land bordering on Birch Creek, Robin Tyler came on what he had been seeking since sunrise. He pulled up his horse, sat sidewise in his saddle to roll a cigarette, to stare over the country, out over the wide roll of grassy ridges and sagebrush flats that ended abruptly in the confusion of the Bad Lands. As his eye marked single dots and groups of dots that were cattle and horses at rest and in motion, both near and far, a trampling of hoofs in a hollow below made his head turn sharply. He saw within a hundred yards the back and head and ears of a single animal and jumped his horse into a gallop with a touch of the spurs. He recognized that arched neck and brilliant mane; it flashed in the sun like burnished copper.“Oh, you Red Mike,” he shouted, “you’ll have to burn the earth now to keep me from ridin’ you on round-up.”In two jumps the gray cow horse Robin bestrode bounded over the low ridge. Below and beyond, a bunch of range horses, twenty or more, as wild as the elk that once grazed those slopes, stretched themselves like hounds on the trail of a running wolf. They were headed for a water hole and Robin was cutting them off. They lay low to the ground, manes and tails streaming, their hoofs beating the turf with a roll like snare drums. The horse Robin had shouted at ran in the lead, a beautiful sorrel beast with four white stockings and a star in his forehead. Red Mike knew what a mounted man on his trail meant. He was all for freedom. Behind him thundered the wild mares with their colts.For a week, at odd times, Robin had been looking for that particular horse. Now he stood in his stirrups, whooping in sheer exultation of the chase. It didn’t matter how much he excited them. They were as wild as hawks and would run themselves out anyway. He meant to head them off from water, turn them back up the ridge and when they tired he would bunch them in a corral he knew, rope out Red Mike and lead him home.He headed the wild bunch and turned them once. But a badger hole hidden in the grass undid him. The gray put a forefoot in the hole, went down as if shot, rolled over twice and scrambled to his feet, trembling. Robin fell clear, unhurt, except for the jar. He gathered up the reins, swung to his saddle. The gray took a step. Robin dismounted, stood looking with a frown. His mount had twisted a leg, wrenched a shoulder. He walked on three feet. Riding him was out of the question.“Damn all badgers, anyway!” young Tyler muttered.He looked after the band of broom tails streaking it westward up the ridge. As he watched they came to a stop, stood with up-pricked ears. Robin knew precisely what they would do; stand awhile, circle wide and make for that watering place by a cautious detour. He wanted Red Mike. He needed him now more than ever. And he was afoot in the blistering midsummer heat, fifteen miles from the nearest ranch, in a region where no rider could be expected to heave in sight.Robin lifted his hat and ran his fingers through a thatch of brown, curly hair. He was hot and thirsty. Walking in high-heeled boots under a blazing sun was not his idea of pleasure.“I hate to leave you, oldcaballo,” he said whimsically, “but I guess I’ll bid you a fond farewell.”With which he stripped his riding gear off the gray and turned him loose, undid the fifty-footreatafrom the bulging fork of his saddle and with the coils in his hand bore straight down the hill leaving his saddle, bridle and leather chaps in the grass, and the gray horse staring after him.Below him, in the gut of that coulee, a small spring of clear water trickled out of a sandy hillside. Among the seepage grew clumps of willows. In that screen a man could lie perdu with his loop spread for a throw. If Red Mike and his friendly broncs came down to drink he still had a chance. If they smelled or sighted him and dodged Cold Spring they would bear down into the bed of Birch Creek. He would follow. It was no more than a mile or two. Or he would lie at Cold Spring. He still had hopes of snaring a mount. Small bands of wild horses would drift in to drink. Among the wild ones there was often an odd saddle horse, enjoying temporary escape from ranch or round-up. At any rate he did not propose to walk home. It wasn’t done! At the worst he could snare an unbroken horse, hog-tie him, pack the saddle down, and make the untamed one bear him somewhere. Robin was a rider. He preferred them gentle, but he could ride. So he trudged toward the spring, keeping to the low ground, hoping that Red Mike would not change his flighty horse mind about where he wanted to drink.Evidently Red Mike did. Robin lay behind the willows until mid-afternoon, parched by the heat, chafing at inaction. Of all the roving bands of horses none trooped into Cold Spring. The wild cattle came down, drank, lay in the grass until the slopes near by carried a thousand head of resting longhorns. Some got wind of him and departed in haste, snuffing and tossing their heads. It did seem to Robin as if that fifteen-mile tramp grew more threatening.He decided to take a chance on Birch Creek. It was no great way to the high banks that overlooked the deep sage-covered bottoms through which a lukewarm stream slunk like a great lazy snake, looping fold on fold. He stole away from Cold Spring with care to dodge the range cattle, to whom a man afoot was an unknown sight, a strange upright creature to be attacked or fled from as their bovine impulses chanced.A little before Robin gained the first cut-bank whence he could look into Birch Creek bottoms for a horse, he heard a shot, then a second and a third. Robin had a keen ear. He recognized those reports as from a rifle. It held no particular significance, beyond the fact that shooting argued riders somewhere near, and a rider could soon solve the problem of a mount for Robin Tyler. Since these shots came from the bottom directly below him, Robin broke into a trot to reach the rim of the bank and call to the man or men below, if they were within hearing distance.What he saw made him drop flat and do his looking through a fringe of long grass.Robin had grown up in a cow country. There was little pertaining to the range, lawful or unlawful, which had escaped his awareness. So he was at no loss to read the signs below.What he could not read were the brands involved nor the faces of the two men. The three dead cows, dark lumps in the gray sage, the three well-grown calves hog-tied for the running-iron that made little wisps of blue smoke puff from their ribs, were an open book to him. It was as old as the cow business, that trick. It originated in Texas in the chaos following the Civil War. In the years since it had been intermittently practiced with varying success from the Pecos River to the Canada line—and beyond.Robin knew themodus operandi. You had a few cattle on the range. You owned a duly registered brand. You rode abroad in lonely places, where range riders seldom came except when the round-up swept through. Having found a cow with a desirable calf you shot the cow, roped the calf, ran your brand on him and hazed the orphan off two or three miles from his dead mother. Then you rode on and repeated the operation. Presently, if you were wary, well-mounted, a good roper, and craftily evaded being caught in the act, your natural increase assumed great proportions. The cow, being dead, could not embarrassingly claim a calf bearing a brand not her own. A dead cow here and there on the range excited no comment. Cows died from a variety of causes. The cattleman knew that to his sorrow and the cowboy accepted dead cattle as he accepted the sun and the wind and rain, as natural properties of his environment.Only—when too many cows were found to be dying of sudden death there were sure to be riders abroad with Winchester carbines under their stirrup-leathers. It was apt to be unhealthy for those who sought to augment their herd by other than natural increase.Since every rustler knew that, he himself was not likely to permit any one to view his activities with rope and iron and depart untroubled. Hence Robin Tyler lay very quiet in the grass. He was unarmed, to begin with. He was not sure he wished to know the identity of those two men, the brands on the dead cows nor the fresh iron marks on the calves. That knowledge spelled trouble. Somehow Robin had a distaste for trouble of a personal nature. He had seen plenty. He wasn’t combative. He seemed to have little of that primitive instinct to fight, to kill, to harry other men, which crops out now and then in even highly civilized persons.Yet, as he stared at the two men in the silent flat, now flinging themselves across their saddles to start the stolen calves to new feeding grounds afar, he felt a touch of resentment. He had an intuitive knowledge of what brand could be read on those dead cows, because he was sure he knew one of the men—the flash and glitter of sun on silver ornaments as the rider’s horse wheeled and danced under the restraining bit gave Robin this unwelcome knowledge; unwelcome, because if confirmed, it was knowledge upon which he would have to act, if he dared. Would he dare? He didn’t know.When they were gone out of sight down the Birch Creek flats hazing the calves before them on the run, Robin turned back to Cold Spring.
Where a long spur of Chase Hill pitched down to the broken land bordering on Birch Creek, Robin Tyler came on what he had been seeking since sunrise. He pulled up his horse, sat sidewise in his saddle to roll a cigarette, to stare over the country, out over the wide roll of grassy ridges and sagebrush flats that ended abruptly in the confusion of the Bad Lands. As his eye marked single dots and groups of dots that were cattle and horses at rest and in motion, both near and far, a trampling of hoofs in a hollow below made his head turn sharply. He saw within a hundred yards the back and head and ears of a single animal and jumped his horse into a gallop with a touch of the spurs. He recognized that arched neck and brilliant mane; it flashed in the sun like burnished copper.
“Oh, you Red Mike,” he shouted, “you’ll have to burn the earth now to keep me from ridin’ you on round-up.”
In two jumps the gray cow horse Robin bestrode bounded over the low ridge. Below and beyond, a bunch of range horses, twenty or more, as wild as the elk that once grazed those slopes, stretched themselves like hounds on the trail of a running wolf. They were headed for a water hole and Robin was cutting them off. They lay low to the ground, manes and tails streaming, their hoofs beating the turf with a roll like snare drums. The horse Robin had shouted at ran in the lead, a beautiful sorrel beast with four white stockings and a star in his forehead. Red Mike knew what a mounted man on his trail meant. He was all for freedom. Behind him thundered the wild mares with their colts.
For a week, at odd times, Robin had been looking for that particular horse. Now he stood in his stirrups, whooping in sheer exultation of the chase. It didn’t matter how much he excited them. They were as wild as hawks and would run themselves out anyway. He meant to head them off from water, turn them back up the ridge and when they tired he would bunch them in a corral he knew, rope out Red Mike and lead him home.
He headed the wild bunch and turned them once. But a badger hole hidden in the grass undid him. The gray put a forefoot in the hole, went down as if shot, rolled over twice and scrambled to his feet, trembling. Robin fell clear, unhurt, except for the jar. He gathered up the reins, swung to his saddle. The gray took a step. Robin dismounted, stood looking with a frown. His mount had twisted a leg, wrenched a shoulder. He walked on three feet. Riding him was out of the question.
“Damn all badgers, anyway!” young Tyler muttered.
He looked after the band of broom tails streaking it westward up the ridge. As he watched they came to a stop, stood with up-pricked ears. Robin knew precisely what they would do; stand awhile, circle wide and make for that watering place by a cautious detour. He wanted Red Mike. He needed him now more than ever. And he was afoot in the blistering midsummer heat, fifteen miles from the nearest ranch, in a region where no rider could be expected to heave in sight.
Robin lifted his hat and ran his fingers through a thatch of brown, curly hair. He was hot and thirsty. Walking in high-heeled boots under a blazing sun was not his idea of pleasure.
“I hate to leave you, oldcaballo,” he said whimsically, “but I guess I’ll bid you a fond farewell.”
With which he stripped his riding gear off the gray and turned him loose, undid the fifty-footreatafrom the bulging fork of his saddle and with the coils in his hand bore straight down the hill leaving his saddle, bridle and leather chaps in the grass, and the gray horse staring after him.
Below him, in the gut of that coulee, a small spring of clear water trickled out of a sandy hillside. Among the seepage grew clumps of willows. In that screen a man could lie perdu with his loop spread for a throw. If Red Mike and his friendly broncs came down to drink he still had a chance. If they smelled or sighted him and dodged Cold Spring they would bear down into the bed of Birch Creek. He would follow. It was no more than a mile or two. Or he would lie at Cold Spring. He still had hopes of snaring a mount. Small bands of wild horses would drift in to drink. Among the wild ones there was often an odd saddle horse, enjoying temporary escape from ranch or round-up. At any rate he did not propose to walk home. It wasn’t done! At the worst he could snare an unbroken horse, hog-tie him, pack the saddle down, and make the untamed one bear him somewhere. Robin was a rider. He preferred them gentle, but he could ride. So he trudged toward the spring, keeping to the low ground, hoping that Red Mike would not change his flighty horse mind about where he wanted to drink.
Evidently Red Mike did. Robin lay behind the willows until mid-afternoon, parched by the heat, chafing at inaction. Of all the roving bands of horses none trooped into Cold Spring. The wild cattle came down, drank, lay in the grass until the slopes near by carried a thousand head of resting longhorns. Some got wind of him and departed in haste, snuffing and tossing their heads. It did seem to Robin as if that fifteen-mile tramp grew more threatening.
He decided to take a chance on Birch Creek. It was no great way to the high banks that overlooked the deep sage-covered bottoms through which a lukewarm stream slunk like a great lazy snake, looping fold on fold. He stole away from Cold Spring with care to dodge the range cattle, to whom a man afoot was an unknown sight, a strange upright creature to be attacked or fled from as their bovine impulses chanced.
A little before Robin gained the first cut-bank whence he could look into Birch Creek bottoms for a horse, he heard a shot, then a second and a third. Robin had a keen ear. He recognized those reports as from a rifle. It held no particular significance, beyond the fact that shooting argued riders somewhere near, and a rider could soon solve the problem of a mount for Robin Tyler. Since these shots came from the bottom directly below him, Robin broke into a trot to reach the rim of the bank and call to the man or men below, if they were within hearing distance.
What he saw made him drop flat and do his looking through a fringe of long grass.
Robin had grown up in a cow country. There was little pertaining to the range, lawful or unlawful, which had escaped his awareness. So he was at no loss to read the signs below.
What he could not read were the brands involved nor the faces of the two men. The three dead cows, dark lumps in the gray sage, the three well-grown calves hog-tied for the running-iron that made little wisps of blue smoke puff from their ribs, were an open book to him. It was as old as the cow business, that trick. It originated in Texas in the chaos following the Civil War. In the years since it had been intermittently practiced with varying success from the Pecos River to the Canada line—and beyond.
Robin knew themodus operandi. You had a few cattle on the range. You owned a duly registered brand. You rode abroad in lonely places, where range riders seldom came except when the round-up swept through. Having found a cow with a desirable calf you shot the cow, roped the calf, ran your brand on him and hazed the orphan off two or three miles from his dead mother. Then you rode on and repeated the operation. Presently, if you were wary, well-mounted, a good roper, and craftily evaded being caught in the act, your natural increase assumed great proportions. The cow, being dead, could not embarrassingly claim a calf bearing a brand not her own. A dead cow here and there on the range excited no comment. Cows died from a variety of causes. The cattleman knew that to his sorrow and the cowboy accepted dead cattle as he accepted the sun and the wind and rain, as natural properties of his environment.
Only—when too many cows were found to be dying of sudden death there were sure to be riders abroad with Winchester carbines under their stirrup-leathers. It was apt to be unhealthy for those who sought to augment their herd by other than natural increase.
Since every rustler knew that, he himself was not likely to permit any one to view his activities with rope and iron and depart untroubled. Hence Robin Tyler lay very quiet in the grass. He was unarmed, to begin with. He was not sure he wished to know the identity of those two men, the brands on the dead cows nor the fresh iron marks on the calves. That knowledge spelled trouble. Somehow Robin had a distaste for trouble of a personal nature. He had seen plenty. He wasn’t combative. He seemed to have little of that primitive instinct to fight, to kill, to harry other men, which crops out now and then in even highly civilized persons.
Yet, as he stared at the two men in the silent flat, now flinging themselves across their saddles to start the stolen calves to new feeding grounds afar, he felt a touch of resentment. He had an intuitive knowledge of what brand could be read on those dead cows, because he was sure he knew one of the men—the flash and glitter of sun on silver ornaments as the rider’s horse wheeled and danced under the restraining bit gave Robin this unwelcome knowledge; unwelcome, because if confirmed, it was knowledge upon which he would have to act, if he dared. Would he dare? He didn’t know.
When they were gone out of sight down the Birch Creek flats hazing the calves before them on the run, Robin turned back to Cold Spring.