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"They picked up our trail somehow ... they're aboutthree miles back on the flat just a-burnin' the ground"]
THE HEART OF THE RANGE
BY WILLIAM PATTERSON WHITE
AUTHOR OF
"_The Rider of Golden Bar_," "_Hidden Trails_," "_Lynch Lawyers_,""_The Owner of the Lazy D_," "_Paradise Bend_," _etc_.
1921
TO RANGER
A GOOD HORSE AND A BETTER FRIEND
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE HORSE THIEF
II. THE YELLOW DOG
III. THE TALL STRANGER
IV. THE OLD LADY
V. McFLUKE's
VI. CHANGE OF PLAN
VII. THE RIDDLE
VIII. THE STARLIGHT
IX. THROWING SAND
X. THE BACK PORCH
XI. THE LOOKOUT
XII. THE DISCOVERY
XIII. A BOLD BAD MAN
XIV. THE SURPRISE
XV. FIRE! FIRE!
XVI. THE BAR S
XVII. SIGNED PAPER
XVIII. THE SHOWDOWN
XIX. THE SHOOTING
XX. DRAWING THE COVER
XXI. GONE AWAY
XXII. A CHECK
XXIII. TAKING FENCES
XXIV. DIPLOMACY
XXV. STRATEGY
XXVI. THE QUARREL
XXVII. BURGLARY
XXVIII. THE LETTERS
XXIX. HUE AND CRY
XXX. THE REGISTER
XXXI. THE LAST TRICK
XXXII. THE END OF THE TRAIL
THE HEART OF THE RANGE
CHAPTER I
THE HORSE THIEF
It was a warm summer morning in the town of Farewell. Save a dozenhorses tied to the hitching-rail in front of various saloons and theBlue Pigeon Store and Bill Lainey, the fat landlord of the hotel, whosat snoring in a reinforced telegraph chair on the sidewalk in theshade of his wooden awning, Main Street was a howling wilderness.
Dust overlay everything. It had not rained in weeks. In the blacksmithshop, diagonally across the street from the hotel, Piney Jackson wasshoeing a mule. The mule was invisible, but one knew it was a mulebecause Piney Jackson has just come out and taken a two-by-four fromthe woodpile behind the shop. And it was a well-known fact that Pineynever used a two-by-four on any animal other than a mule. But this bythe way.
In the barroom of the Happy Heart Saloon there were only two customersand the bartender. One of the former, a brown-haired, sunburnt youngman with ingenuous blue eyes, was singing:
"_Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, An' merrily jump the stile O! Yore cheerful heart goes all the day, Yore sad tires in a mile O_!"
Mr. Racey Dawson, having successfully sung the first verse, restedboth elbows on the bar and grinned at the bartender. That worthygrinned back, and, knowing Mr. Dawson, slid the bottle along the bar.
"Have one yoreself, Bill," Mr. Dawson nodded to the bartender."Whu--where's Swing? Oh, yeah."
Mr. Dawson, head up, chest out, stepping high, and walking verystiffly as befitted a gentleman somewhat over-served with liquor,crossed the barroom to where bristle-haired Swing Tunstall sat on achair and slumbered, his head on his arms and his arms on a table.
Mr. Dawson stooped and blew into Mr. Tunstall's right ear. Mr.Tunstall began to snore gently. Growing irritated by this continuedindifference on the part of Mr. Tunstall, Mr. Dawson seized the chairby rung and back and incontinently dumped Mr. Tunstall all abroad onthe saloon floor.
Mr. Tunstall promptly hitched himself into a corner and drifted deeperinto slumber.
Mr. Dawson turned a perplexed face on the bartender.
"Now what you gonna do with a feller like that?" Mr. Dawson asked,plaintively.
Mr. Jack Richie, manager of the Cross-in-a-box ranch, entering at themoment, temporarily diverted Mr. Dawson's attention. For Mr. Dawsonhad once ridden for the Cross-in-a-box outfit. Hence he was movedliterally to fall upon the neck of Mr. Richie.
"Lean on yore own breakfast," urged Mr. Richie, studiously dissemblinghis joy at sight of his old friend, and carefully steering Mr. Dawsonagainst the bar. "Here, I know what you need. Drink hearty, Racey."
"'S'on me," declared Mr. Dawson. "Everythin's on me. I gug-got money,I have, and I aim to spend it free an' plenty, 'cause there's morewhere I'm goin'. An' I ain't gonna earn it punchin' cows, neither."
"Don't do anything rash," Mr. Richie advised, and took advantage of afriend's privilege to be insulting. "I helped lynch a road-agent onlylast month."
"Which the huh-holdup business is too easy for a live man," opined Mr.Dawson. "We want somethin' mum-more diff-diff-diff'cult, me an' Swingdo, so we're goin' to Arizona where the gold grows. No more wrastlin'cows. No more hard work for us. _We're_ gonna get rich quick, we are.What you laughin' at?"
"I never laugh," denied Mr. Richie. "When yo're stakin' out claimsdon't forget me."
"We won't," averred Mr. Dawson, solemnly. "Le's have another."
They had another--several others.
The upshot was that when Mr. Richie (who was the lucky possessor ofa head that liquor did not easily affect) departed homeward at fourP.M., he left behind him a sadly plastered Mr. Dawson.
Mr. Tunstall, of course, was still sleeping deeply and noisily.But Mr. Dawson had long since lost interest in Mr. Tunstall. It isdoubtful whether he remembered that Mr. Tunstall existed. The twohad begun their party immediately after breakfast. Mr. Tunstall hadsuccumbed early, but Mr. Dawson had not once halted his efforts tomake the celebration a huge success. So it is not a subject forsurprise that Mr. Dawson, some thirty minutes after bidding Mr. Richiean affectionate farewell, should stagger out into the street and rideaway on the horse of someone else.
The ensuing hours of the evening and the night were a merciful blankto Mr. Dawson. His first conscious thought was when he awoke at dawnon a side-hill, a sharp rock prodding him in the small of the back andthe bridle-reins of his dozing horse wound round one arm. Only it wasnot his horse. His horse was a red roan. This horse was a bay. Itwasn't his saddle, either.
"Where's my hoss?" he demanded of the world at large and sat upsuddenly.
The sharp movement wrung a groan from the depths of his being. Theloss of his horse was drowned in the pains of his aching head. Neverwas such all-pervading ache. He knew the top was coming off. He knewit. He could feel it, and then did--with his fingers. He groanedagain.
His tongue was dry as cotton, and it hurt him to swallow. He stood up,but as promptly sat down. In a whisper--for speech was torture--hebegan to revile himself for a fool.
"I might have known it," was his plaint. "I had a feelin' when I tookthat last glass it was one too many. I never did know when to stop.I'd like to know how I got here, and where my hoss is, and who belongsto this one?"
He eyed the mount with disfavour. He had never cared for bays.
"An' that ain't much of a saddle, either," he went on with hissoliloquy. "Cheap saddle--looks like a boy's saddle--an' a oldsaddle--bet Noah used one just like it--try to rope with that saddlean' you'd pull the horn to hellen gone. Wonder what's in thatsaddle-pocket."
He pulled himself erect slowly and tenderly. His knees were veryshaky. His head throbbed like a squeezed boil, but--he wanted to learnwhat was in that saddle-pocket. Possibly he might obtain therein aclue to the horse's owner.
He slipped the strap of the pocket-flap, flipped it open, inserted hisfingers, and drew forth a small package wrapped in newspaper and tiedwith the blue string affected by the Blue Pigeon Store in Farewell.
Mr. Dawson balanced the package on two fingers for a reflectiveinstant, then he snapped the string and opened the
package.
"Socks an' a undershirt," he said, disgustedly, and started to saymore, but paused, for there was something queer about that undershirt.His head was still spinning, and his eyes were sandy, but he perceivedquite plainly that there were narrow blue ribbons running round theneck of that undershirt. He unrolled the socks and found them muchlonger in the leg than the kind habitually worn by men. Mr. Dawsonagitatedly dived his hand once more into the saddle-pocket. And thistime he pulled out a tortoise-shell shuttle round which was wrappedseveral inches of lingerie edging. But Mr. Dawson did not call itlingerie edging. He called it tatting and swore again.
"That settles it," he said, cheerlessly. "I've stole some woman'scayuse."