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Transcriber's note:
The titles given in the Table of Contents for Chapters VII
and VIII differ from the chapter titles used in the text.
THE FREE RANGE
by
ELWELL LAWRENCE
Illustrations by Douglas Duer
[Illustration: They rode needlessly close together and swung their
clasped hands like happy children.]
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers :: New York
Copyright 1913 by
W. J. Watt & Company
Published June
To MATHEW WHITE Jr.,
Editor, author, critic, friend.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Flinging The Gauntlet 9
II A Late Arrival 18
III An Unsettled Score 31
IV The Six Pistol Shots 39
V Strategy and a Surprise 50
VI Ugly Company 64
VII You Have Forgotten The Mask 74
VIII Fiendish Revenge 85
IX The Man in The Mask 98
X War Without Quarter 114
XI Made Prisoner 124
XII Juliet Asserts Herself 136
XIII The Heathen Chinee 149
XIV Sentenced 161
XV Cowland Topsy-Turvy 176
XVI A Message By a Strange Hand 190
XVII A Battle in The Dark 203
XVIII The Immortal Ten 217
XIX An Indian Coulee 235
XX Somebody New Turns Up 245
XXI Julie Investigates 253
XXII The Use of Photography 265
XXIII The Crossing 279
XXIV The Story of Lester 289
XXV The Threads Meet 301
THE FREE RANGE
CHAPTER I
FLINGING THE GAUNTLET
"Then you insist on ruining me, Mr. Bissell?"
Bud Larkin, his hat pushed back on his head, looked unabashed at the
scowling heavy features of the man opposite in the long, low room, and
awaited a reply.
"I don't want to ruin anybody," puffed old "Beef" Bissell, whose cattle
overran most of the range between the Gray Bull and the Big Horn. "But I
allow as how them sheep of yours had better stay down Nebrasky way where
they come from."
"In other words," snapped Larkin, "I had better give up the idea of
bringing them north altogether. Is that it?"
"Just about."
"Well, now, see here, Mr. Bissell, you forget one or two things. The first
is, that my sheep ranch is in Montana and not Wyoming, and that I want to
run my southern herds onto the northern range before fall sets in. The
second is, that, while your homestead may be three hundred and twenty
acres, the range that has made you rich is free. My sheep have as much
right there as your cattle. It is all government land and open to
everybody."
"Possession is eleven points out here where there isn't any law," replied
Bissell imperturbably. "It's a case of your sheep against my cattle, and,
you see, I stand up reg'lar for my cows."
Bud rolled a cigarette and pondered.
He was in the rather bare and unornamental living-room of the Bar T ranch.
In the center was a rough-hewn table supporting an oil-lamp and an Omaha
newspaper fully six months old. The chairs, except one, were rough and
heavy and without rockers. This one was a gorgeous plush patent-rocker so
valued a generation ago, and evidently imported at great expense.
A square of carpet that had lost all claims to pattern had become a soft
blur, the result of age and alkali. However, it was one of the proudest
possessions of the Bar T outfit and showed that old Beef Bissell knew what
the right thing was. A calico shroud hid a large, erect object against
the wall farthest away from the windows; an object that was the last word
in luxury and reckless expense--a piano. The walls were of boards
whitewashed, and the ceiling was just plain boards.
It had not taken Bud Larkin long to discern that there was a feminine
cause for these numerous unusual effects; but he did not for a minute
suppose it to be the thin, sharp-tongued woman who had been washing behind
the cook-house as he rode up to the corral. Now, as he pondered, he
thought again about it. But only for a minute; other things of vaster
importance held him.
Although but two men had spoken during the conversation, three were in the
room. The third was a man of medium height, lowering looks, and slow
tongue. His hair was black, and he had the appearance of always needing a
shave. He was trained down to perfect condition by his years on the
plains, and was as wiry and tough as the cow pony he rode. He was Black
Mike Stelton, foreman of the Bar T.
"What do you think, Mike?" asked Bissell, when Larkin made no attempt to
continue the argument.
"Same's you, boss," was the reply in a heavy voice. "I wouldn't let them
sheep on the range, not noways. Sheep is the ruination of any grass
country."
"There you see, Mr. Larkin," said Bissell with an expressive motion of his
hand. "Stelton's been out here in the business fifteen years and says the
same as I do. How long did you say you had been in the West?"
"One year," replied Larkin, flushing to the roots of his hair beneath his
tanned but not weather-beaten skin. "Came from Chicago."
"From down East, eh? Well, my woman was to St. Paul once, and she's never
got over it; but it don't seem to have spoiled you none."
Larkin grinned and replied in kind, but all the time he was trying to
determine what stand to take. He had expected to meet opposition to
"walking" his sheep north--in fact, had met it steadily--but up to this
point had managed to get his animals through. Now he was fifty miles ahead
of the first flock and had reached the Bar T ranch an hour before dinner.
Had he been a suspected horse-thief, the unwritten social etiquette of the
plains would have provided him with food and lodging as long as he cared
to stay. Consequently when he had caught the reflection of the setting sun
against the walls of the ranch house, he had turned Pinte's head in the
direction of the corral.
Then, in the living-room, though no questions had been asked, Larkin had
brought up the much-dreaded subject himself, as his visit was partly for
that purpose.
He had much to contend with. In the first place, being a sheepman, he was
absolutely without caste in the cattle country, where men who went in for
the "woolly idiots," as someone has aptly called them, was considered for
the most part as a degenerate, and only fit for target practice. This side
of the matter troubled him not at all, however.
What did worry him was the element of right in the cattlemen's attitude! a
right that was still a wrong. For he had to acknowledge that when sheep
had once fed across a range, that range was ruined for cattle for the
period of at least a year.
This was due to the fact that the sheep, cropping into the very roots of
the gray grass itself, destroyed it. Moreover, the animals on their slow
marches, herded so close together that they left an offensive trail rather
than follow which the cattle would stand and starve.
On the other hand, the range was free and the sheep had as much right to
graze there as the cattle, a fact that the cattlemen, with all their
strict code of justice, refused to recognize.
Larkin knew that he had come to the parting of the ways at the Bar T
ranch.
Old Beef Bissell was what was known at that time as a cattle king. His
thousands of steers, wealth on the hoof, grazed far and wide over the
fenceless prairies. His range riders rarely saw the ranch house for a
month at a time, so great was his assumed territory; his cowboys
outnumbered those of any owner within three hundred miles. Aside from
this, he was the head of a cattlemen's association that had banded
together against rustlers and other invaders of the range.
Larkin returned to the conversation.
"Try to see it from my standpoint," he said to Bissell. "If you had gone
in for sheep as I have--"
"I wouldn't go in for 'em," interrupted the other contemptuously, and
Stelton grunted.
"As you like about that. Every gopher to his own hole," remarked Bud. "But
if you had, and I guess you would if you thought there was more money in
it, you would certainly insist on your rights on the range, wouldn't you?"
"I might try."
"And if you tried you'd be pretty sure to succeed, I imagine."
"It's likely; I allow as how I'm a pretty good hand at succeedin'."
"Well, so am I. I haven't got very far yet, but I am on my way. I didn't
come out here to make a failure of things, and I don't intend to. Now, all
I want is to run my sheep north on to the Montana range where my ranch
is."
"How many are there?" This from Stelton.
"Five flocks of about two thousand each."
Bissell snorted and turned in his chair.
"I won't allow it, young man, an' that's all I've got to say. D'ye think
I'm a fool?"
"No, but neither am I. And I might as well tell you first and last that
those sheep are coming north. Now, if you do the fair thing you will tell
your cowboys the fact so they won't make any mistakes. I have given you
fair warning, and if anything happens to those sheep you will be held
responsible."
"Is that all you got to say?" asked Bissell, sarcastically.
"Yes."
"Well, then, I'll do the talkin'. I'd as leave see Indians stampedin' my
cows into the river as have your sheep come over the range. Since you've
given me what you call a fair warning, I'll give you one. Leave your
critters where they are. If you don't do it you'll be a sight wiser and
also a mighty sight poorer before I get through with 'em."
"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Larkin.
"I ain't sayin' nothin' more than that now, because I'm a slow hand at
makin' ornery promises, seein' I always keep 'em. But I'm just tellin'
you, that's all."
"Is that your last word on the subject?" asked Larkin.
"It is, an' I want Stelton here to remember I said it."
"Then we won't say anything more about the matter," replied Bud calmly, as
he rose. "I'll go outside and look to my horse."
"You'll stay the night with us, won't you?" asked Bissell anxiously.
"Yes, thanks. I've heard so much about the Bar T I should like to see a
little more of it."
When Larkin had left the room, Bissell, with a frown on his face, turned
to Stelton.
"Tell all the boys what's happened to-day," he said, "and tell 'em to be
on the watch for this young feller's first herd. He'll plenty soon find
out he can't run riot on my range."