Knights of the Range. Zane Grey

as he spread his hands with a hopeless gesture. “That mawnin’ when I met her and told her I had come to take her home she was so happy, so radiant. I couldn’t kill her joy. . . . But now, Britt, she must be told at once.”

      “Why, boss? You know how onsartin life is. Quien sabe? You might live long yet.”

      “Yes. It’s possible. But not probable. And I want her to make her choice while I am living.”

      “Choice of what, Kurnel, if I may make bold to ask?”

      “Whether or not she will live heah or go to her Mother’s people in Santone.”

      “Holly will never leave Don Carlos’ Rancho,” said Britt, quickly.

      “Did she say so?” asked Ripple, eagerly, his gray eyes full of soft warm light.

      “No. But I’d gamble on it. These few days Holly has been here she’s been plumb loco aboot the ranch. Why, she has been wild with joy. Boss, she’s like a freed bird. An’ she loves it all, particular the hawses. She’s crazy aboot hawses. An’ she’s never been in a saddle yet. Think of thet, Lee Ripple. Heah’s a girl of sixteen, granddaughter of old Don Carlos, the greatest of all the old hawse-breedin’ dons—an’ she’s never straddled a hawse.”

      “I know—I know, Cap. Don’t rub it in. I always meant Holly to have all the West could offer. But first I wanted her to get an education. The years have slipped by. . . . So my lass loves horses!—What did she say?”

      “Wal, the lass has yore blood in her, same as thet of the Valverde. She asked me how many hawses we had. An’ when I told her aboot four hundred thet we knowed of she squealed with joy. Swore she’d ride every one of them. . . . Lord, I see my troubles. But I’ll teach Holly to ride. I shore won’t leave thet to these saddle rowdies.”

      “Britt, you make me hope,” returned the Colonel, feelingly, as he lay back in the great rocker. “I always wanted a son. But I never loved Holly the less for that. . . . If she lived on heah, and learned to run this ranch under your wise eye, and some day married one of these saddle rowdies—I could die happy.”

      “My Gawd, boss!” expostulated Britt, heatedly. “Why’d you ever send Holly away to make a fine lady oot of her if you wanted her to marry one of these firebrands?”

      “Cap, could Holly do better? I mean if this lucky cowboy is one of the breed we know so well. Not a Texan! Holly is half Spanish and you know Texans will be long forgettin’ the Alamo. . . . He must be of good family and have some little schoolin’. For the rest, I don’t care so much. Holly could make most any cowboy take his place in the makin’ of the West. . . . They are the salt of the earth, these wild range riders. Without them there would never have been this cattle business growin’ by leaps and bounds, destined to tame the frontier. You know, Britt, even better than I do. For five years you’ve handled these hard-ridin’, hard-drinkin’, hard-shootin’ devils of mine. And you have loved them.”

      “Wal, mebbe I haven’t loved them like I ought to have,” rejoined Britt, regretfully, surprised into feeling. “But, Kurnel, it just makes my blood run cold, to think of Holly alone on this big ranch.”

      “Cold!—Your blood should run swift and warm at the very thought. It will be wonderful. Holly looks Spanish, but she is American. She has her mother’s beauty. But my brains. I have no fear for her, Britt. . . . If she only chooses to stay! . . . With you to train Holly, teach her to run the ranch, watch over her—she would not be alone. I’m not afraid to risk it.”

      “But I am, boss,” declared Britt, tragically. “I almost wish you hadn’t fetched her home.”

      “Nonsense, old timer. My girl has loved you all her life. It was you who nick-named her Holly. You danced her on your knee and helped teach her to walk. You can’t go back on her now. You must take my place as her Dad.”

      “Kurnel, I’ll do my damndest. . . . But lookin’ ahaid, in the light of this lovely lass growin’ up heah into a woman, I don’t like the times.”

      Colonel Ripple made a slight, violent gesture, as if a motive prompted by passion had been quenched by will.

      “Nor do I. That is somethin’ I have put off, and like this other must now be talked over. Yet the reason is simple. . . . Look there to the south, old timer. That is the grandest outlook in the West, if not in the whole world. Kit Carson sat right there and said so. Lucien Maxwell did the same, and you know his pride in his old Spanish grant and the beauty of his sixty square miles of ranch. St. Vrain tried to buy this ranch from Don Carlos. Chisum, Murphy, the Exersall Company, and that English outfit who bought the Three X’s—not one of these cattle kings has the West under his eyes as I have. Not one of them has the protected grazing-lands. . . . Look down over the Old Trail and the Cimarron. Peaceful, lonely, eh? The Kiowas and Comanches are my friends. Look at the buffalo. All those black patches down there are buffalo. . . . And now look around to the west, Britt. No range like that in all this broad New Mexico. Look at the cattle. Do you remember when we drove in heah first? It seems long. But it’s only seven years. Seven years! They were heaven compared to the years of the war, and long before. . . . You know my story, Britt. How I came through heah in 1855 with a caravan on the way to Santa Fe. How I won Carlotta Valverde and took her back to Texas with me. How old Don Carlos cast her off and did not forgive her for many years. . . . Look at my herds of cattle dottin’ the range. Like the buffalo. Fifty thousand head, so you say, and half a thousand horses. I could sell ten thousand head—twenty thousand head and be rich. . . . What is wrong with the times, Britt?”

      “Wal, you ain’t told it all yet. Go on.”

      “Oh, I know what you’re drivin’ at. . . . But listen, Cap. The war is long past. Texas has come through, and her cattle have built this empire. Just as the trappers did, the gold-seekers had their day, so had the freighters. The caravans are slowin’ up, Britt, and those that roll by down there on the Old Trail are loaded up with pioneers. A new day is dawnin’—the day of the settled West.”

      “Shore. But a hell of a lot can happen in a day, Kurnel. Yore hope is father to yore belief. . . . This heah year of our Lawd, seems fine an’ fair to you, Kurnel, ’cause white men an’ red men alike, ootlaws an’ robbers, all the good an’ the bad of the plains air yore friends. As the house of Don Carlos was open to all, so has yore house been. . . . But I say, fer you if you live, an’ fer all of us who live heah, the hardest an’ bloodiest, the wust times air yet to come.”

      “Kit Carson said that years ago. But I never believed it. And his prophecy has not been verified.”

      “Yes, Kit swore thet, settin’ right heah where I set now. . . . Kurnel, I reckon men like you an’ Maxwell an’ Chisum know more aboot cows than anythin’ else. It’s men like me an’ Carson who have vision. We never was blinded by great possessions.”

      “Britt, I bow to that vision,” replied Ripple, solemnly. “I always feared, but I drove fear from my mind. Let us grant, then, that the worst times of the frontier are to come. Tell me what they are and how they will work.”

      “Wal, it’s as simple as when Carson seen through it. But only been long in comin’. . . . Fust, take the buffalo. The huntin’ of buffalo fer their hides has begun. We old Texans always feared this. It means such war with the Indians as has never been seen on this frontier. Yore friends the Utes, the Kiowas, the Comanches, the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Pawnees, all the tribes will go on the war-path. Thet means turrible bloody times, fer the settlers have come pourin’ oot West thick. Texas will see the wust of thet, because the buffalo on their rangin’ from south to north an’ back again air most on the Texas plains. The hide hunters will concentrate in the Pan Handle, or under the Llano Estacado or between the Brazos an’ the Rio Grande. An’ the plains Indians will fight to the death fer their meat. They live on buffalo. It will be a fight to the finish between the buffalo hunters an’ the Indian tribes. The Yankee army could not lick the red men. Not in a million years! Look at the Custer campaigns. I heahed thet Carson, an’ Buff Belmet, an’ other scouts have advised these army men to lay off the Indians.