10 Classics Western Stories. Samuel Merwin

dead at this minute,” he said, “it would simply give me a laughin’ sensation. God damn ’em!” he added passionately, and it sounded like a prayer.

      Half an hour later as they passed through the gloomy silence of the box cañon, picking their way over rocks and bowlders and driftwood cast forty feet above the river level in some terrific glut of waters, he began to talk again, evenly and quietly, pointing out indifferent things along the trail, and when at last they mounted the hill and looked down upon Hidden Water his anger was forgotten.

      “Well,” he remarked, throwing out a hand, “there’s home––how do you like it?”

      Hardy paused and looked it over critically––a broad V-shaped valley half a mile in length, beginning at the mouth of a great dry wash and spreading out through trees and hummocks down to the river. A broken row of cottonwoods and sycamores stretched along the farther side, following the broad, twisting bed of the sand wash where the last flood had ripped its way to the Salagua; and on the opposite side, close up against the base of the cliff, a flash of white walls and the shadow of a ramada showed where man had built his puny dwelling high in order to escape its fury. At their feet lay the ranch pasture, a broad elbow of the valley rich with grass and mesquite trees and fenced in with barbed wire that ran from cliff to cliff. Beyond the eastern wall the ground was rough and broken, cut up by innumerable gulches and waterways, and above its ridges there rose the forbidding crags of a black butte whose shoulders ran down to and confined the silvery river. Across the river and to the south the land was even rougher, rising in sheer precipices, above the crests of which towered a mighty needle of rock, standing out against the sky like a cathedral spire, yet of a greater dignity and magnificence––purple with the regal robes of distance.

      “That’s Weaver’s Needle,” volunteered Creede, following his companion’s eyes. “Every lost mine for a hundred miles around here is located by sightin’ at that peak. The feller it’s named after was picked up by the Apaches while he was out lookin’ for the Lost Dutchman and there’s been a Jonah on the hidden-treasure business ever since, judgin’ by the results.

      “D’ye see that big butte straight ahead? That’s Black Butte. She’s so rough that even the mountain sheep git sore-footed, so they say––we have to go up there on foot and drive our cattle down with rocks. Old Bill Johnson’s place is over the other side of that far butte; he’s got a fine rich valley over there––the sheep haven’t got in on him yet. You remember that old feller that was drunk down at Bender––well, that’s Bill. Calls his place Hell’s Hip Pocket; you wait till you try to git in there some day and you’ll know why.”

      He paused and turned to the north.

      “Might as well give you the lay of the land,” he said. “I’ll be too busy to talk for the next month. There’s the Four Peaks, northeast of us, and our cows run clean to the rocks. They’s more different brands in that forty miles than you saw in the whole Cherrycow country, I bet ye. I’ve got five myself on a couple hundred head that the old man left me––and everybody else the same way. You see, when the sheep come in down on the desert and around Moreno’s we kept pushin’ what was left of our cattle east and east until we struck the Peaks––and here we are, in a corner. The old judge has got nigh onto two thousand head, but they’s about twenty of us poor devils livin’ up here in the rocks that has got enough irons and ear marks to fill a brand book, and not a thousand head among us.

      “Well, I started out to show you the country, didn’t I? You see that bluff back of the house down there? That runs from here clean to the Four Peaks without a break, and then it swings west in a kind of an ox bow and makes that long ridge up there to the north that we called the Juate. All that high country between our house here and the Peaks––everythin’ east of that long bluff––is Bronco Mesa. That’s the upper range the judge asked me to point out to you. Everythin’ west of Bronco Mesa is The Rolls––all them rollin’ hills out there––and they’s feed enough out there to keep all the sheep in the country, twice over––but no water. Now what makes us cowmen hot is, after we’ve give ’em that country and welcome, the sheepmen’re all the time tryin’ to sneak in on our upper range. Our cows can’t hardly make a livin’ walkin’ ten or fifteen miles out on The Rolls every day, and then back again to water; but them dam’ sheep can go a week without drinkin’, and as much as a month in the winter-time.

      “Why can’t they give us a chanst, then? We give ’em all the good level land and simply ask ’em as a favor to please keep off of the bench up there and leave our cows what little cactus and browse they is. But no––seems like as soon as you give one of them Chihuahua Mexicans a gun he wants to git a fight out of somebody, and so they come crowdin’ in across our dead line, just to see if they can’t git some of us goin’.”

      Once more his eyes were burning, his breath came hard, and his voice became high and sustained. “Well, I give one of ’em all he wanted,” he said, “and more. I took his dam’ pistol away and beat him over the head with it––and I moved him, too. He was Jasper Swope’s pet, and I reckon he had his orders, but I noticed the rest went round.”

      He stopped abruptly and sat silent, twisting his horse’s mane uneasily. Then he looked up, smiling curiously.

      “If you hadn’t come up this year I would’ve killed some of them fellers,” he said quietly. “I’m gittin’ as crazy as old Bill Johnson––and he hears voices. But now lookee here, Rufe, you don’t want to believe a word I say about this trouble. Don’t you pay any attention to me; I’m bughouse, and I know it. Jest don’t mention sheep to me and I’ll be as happy as an Injun on a mescal jag. Come on, I’ll run you to the house!”

      Throwing his weight forward he jumped his big horse down the rocky trail and went thundering across the flat, whooping and laughing and swinging under mesquite trees as if his whole heart was in the race. Catching the contagion Hardy’s sorrel dashed madly after him, and the moment they struck the open he went by like a shot, over-running the goal and dancing around the low adobe house like a circus horse.

      “By Joe,” exclaimed Creede as he came up, “that caballo of yours can run some. I’m goin’ to make a little easy money off of Bill Lightfoot when he comes in. He’s been blowin’ about that gray of his for two years now and I’ll match you ag’inst him for a yearlin’. And don’t you forgit, boy, we’re going after that black stallion up on Bronco Mesa just as soon as the rodér is over.”

      His face was all aglow with friendliness and enthusiasm now, but as they started toward the house, after turning their horses into the corral, he suddenly stopped short in the trail.

      “Gee,” he said, “I wonder what’s keepin’ Tom? Here Tom! Heere Tom! Pussy, pussy, pussy!” He listened, and called again. “I hope the coyotes ain’t caught him while I was gone,” he said at length. “They treed him a few times last year, but he just stayed up there and yelled until I came––spoiled his voice callin’ so long, but you bet he can purr, all right.”

      He listened once more, long and anxiously, then his face lit up suddenly.

      “Hear that?” he asked, motioning toward the bluff, and while Hardy was straining his ears a stunted black cat with a crook in his tail came into view, racing in wildly from the great pile of fallen bowlders that lay at the base of the cliff, and yowling in a hoarse, despairing voice, like a condemned kitten in a sack.

      “Hello, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!” cried Creede, and as the cat stopped abruptly, blinking warily at Hardy, he strode forward and gathered it gently into his arms. “Well, you poor little devil,” he exclaimed, stroking its rough coat tenderly, “you’re all chawed up again! Did them dam’ coyotes try to git you while I was gone?” And with many profane words of endearment he hugged it against his breast, unashamed.

      “There’s the gamiest cat in Arizona,” he said, bringing him over to Hardy with conscious pride. “Whoa, kitten, he won’t hurt you. Dogged if he won’t tackle a rattlesnake, and kill ’im, too. I used to be afraid to git out of bed at night without puttin’ on my boots, but if any old rattler crawls under my cot now it’s