Read Ebook: The Range Boss by Seltzer Charles Alden Schoonover Frank E Illustrator

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Ebook has 628 lines and 36048 words, and 13 pages

The girl was fascinated, but she heard Randerson's voice again, flung at her this time:

"Get away from here--quick!"

She jerked on the reins, and the pony, wise with the wisdom of experience, knowing the danger that portended, bolted quickly, carrying her some distance before she succeeded in halting him.

When she turned to look back, there was a dust cloud near the spot where the steer had lain. In the cloud she saw the steer, Patches, and Randerson. Patches and the steer were running--Patches slightly in advance. The pony was racing, dodging to the right and left, pursuing a zig-zag course that kept the steer bothered.

As the girl watched she found a vicious rage stealing over her, directed against the steer. Why didn't Randerson kill the beast, instead of running from it in that fashion? Somehow, she did not like to see Randerson in that role; it was far from heroic--it flavored of panic; it made her think of the panic that had gripped her a few minutes before, when she had retreated from the steer.

She watched the queer race go on for a few minutes, and then she saw an exhibition of roping that made her gasp. From a point fifteen or twenty feet in advance of the steer, Randerson threw his rope. He had twisted in the saddle, and he gave the lariat a quick flirt, the loop running out perpendicularly, like a rolling hoop, and not more than a foot from the ground, writhing, undulating, the circle constricting quickly, sinuously. The girl saw the loop topple as it neared the steer--it was much like the motion of a hoop falling. It met one of the steer's hoofs as it was flung outward; it grew taut; the rope straightened and Patches swung off to the right at an acute angle. He did not brace his legs, this time. This was a different game. He merely halted, turning his head and watching, with a well-I've-done-it-now expression of the eyes that would have brought a smile to the girl's face at any other time.

Again it was over in an instant; for the second time the steer turned a somersault. Again there followed a space during which there was no movement.

Then Randerson slacked the rope. It seemed to Ruth that Patches did this of his own accord. The steer scrambled to its feet, hesitated an instant, and then lunged furiously toward the tormenting horse and rider.

Patches snorted; Ruth was certain it was with disgust. He leaped--again the girl thought Randerson had no hand in the movement--directly toward the enraged steer, veering sharply as he neared it, and passing to its rear. For the third time the rope grew taut, and this time the pony braced itself and the steer went down with a thud that carried clearly and distinctly to the girl.

She thought the beast must be fatally injured, and felt that it richly deserved its fate. But after a period, during which Patches wheeled to face the beast, Randerson grinning coldly at it, the steer again scrambled to its feet.

This time it stood motionless, merely trembling a little. The fear of the rope had seized it; this man-made instrument was a thing that could not be successfully fought. That, it seemed to the girl, was the lesson the steer had been taught from its experience. That it was the lesson Randerson had set out to teach the animal, the girl was certain. It explained Randerson's seeming panic; it made the girl accuse herself sharply for doubting him.

She watched the scene to its conclusion. The steer started off, shaking its head from side to side. Plainly, it wanted no more of this sort of work; the fight had all been taken out of it. Again the pony stiffened, and again the steer went down with a thud. This time, while it struggled on the ground, Randerson gave the rope a quick flirt, making undulation that ran from his hand to the loop around the steer's leg, loosening it. And when the beast again scrambled to its feet it trotted off, free, head and tail in the air, grunting with relief.

A few minutes later Randerson loped Patches toward her, coiling his rope, a grin on his face. He stopped before her, and his grin broadened.

She laughed and thanked him. As they rode she considered his subtle reference to the law and the rope, and wondered if it carried any personal significance to anyone. Twice she looked at him for evidence of that, but could gain nothing from his face--suffused with quiet satisfaction.

THE TARGET

Earlier in the morning, Ruth had watched Uncle Jepson and Aunt Martha ride away in the buckboard toward Lazette. She had stood on the porch, following them with her eyes until the buckboard had grown dim in her vision--a mere speck crawling over a sun-scorched earth, under a clear white sky in which swam a sun that for days had been blighting growing things. But on the porch of the ranchhouse it was cool.

Ruth was not cool. When the buckboard had finally vanished into the distance, with nothing left of it but a thin dust cloud that spread and disintegrated and at last settled down, Ruth walked to a rocker on the porch and sank into it, her face flushed, her eyes glowing with eager expectancy.

A few days before, while rummaging in a wooden box which had been the property of her uncle, William Harkness, she had come upon another box, considerably smaller, filled with cartridges. She had examined them thoughtfully, and at last, with much care and trepidation, had taken one of them, found Uncle Harkness' big pistol, removed the cylinder and slipped the cartridge into one of the chambers. It had fitted perfectly. Thereafter she had yielded to another period of thoughtfulness--longer this time.

A decision had resulted from those periods, for the day before, when a puncher had come in from the outfit, on an errand, she had told him to send Randerson in to the ranchhouse to her, on the following day. And she was expecting him now.

She had tried to dissuade Uncle Jep and Aunt Martha from making the trip to Lazette today, but, for reasons which she would not have admitted--and did not admit, even to herself--she had not argued very strongly. And she had watched them go with mingled regret and satisfaction; two emotions that persisted in battling within her until they brought the disquiet that had flushed her cheeks.

It was an hour before Randerson rode up to the edge of the porch, and when Patches came to a halt, and her range boss sat loosely in the saddle, looking down at her, she was composed, even though her cheeks were still a little red.

"You sent for me, ma'am."

It was the employee speaking to his "boss." He was not using the incident of a few nights before to establish familiarity between them; his voice was low, deferential. But Willard Masten's voice had never made her feel quite as she felt at this moment.

"Yes, I sent for you," she said, smiling calmly--trying to seem the employer but getting something into her voice which would not properly belong there under those circumstances. She told herself it was not pleasure--but she saw his eyes flash. "I have found some cartridges, and I want you to teach me how to shoot."

He looked at her with eyes that narrowed with amusement, after a quick glint of surprise.

"I reckon I c'n teach you. Are you figurin' that there's some one in this country that you don't want here any more?"

"No," she said; "I don't expect to shoot anybody. But I have decided that as long as I have made up my mind to stay here and run the Flying W, I may as well learn to be able to protect myself--if occasion arises."

"That's a heap sensible. You c'n never tell when you'll have to do some shootin' out here. Not at men, especial," he grinned, "but you'll run across things--a wolf, mebbe, that'll get fresh with you, or a sneakin' coyote that'll kind of make the hair raise on the back of your neck, not because you're scared of him, but because you know his mean tricks an' don't admire them, or a wildcat, or a hydrophobia polecat, ma'am," he said, with slightly reddening cheeks; "but mostly, ma'am, I reckon you'll like shootin' at side-winders best. Sometimes they get mighty full of fight, ma'am--when it's pretty hot."

"How long will it take you to teach me to shoot?" she asked.

"That depends, ma'am. I reckon I could show you how to pull the trigger in a jiffy. That would be a certain kind of shootin'. But as for showin' you how to hit somethin' you shoot at, why, that's a little different. I've knowed men that practiced shootin' for years, ma'am, an' they couldn't hit a barn if they was inside of it. There's others that can hit most anything, right handy. They say it's all in the eye an' the nerves, ma'am--whatever nerves are."

"You haven't any nerves, I suppose, or you wouldn't speak of them that way."

"If you mean that I go to hollerin' an' jumpin' around when somethin' happens, why I ain't got any. But I've seen folks with nerves, ma'am."

He was looking directly at her when he spoke, his gaze apparently without subtlety. But she detected a gleam that seemed far back in his eyes, and she knew that he referred to her actions of the other night.

"Why, I didn't, ma'am. I didn't mention any names. But of course, a woman's got nerves; they can't help it."

"Of course men are superior," she taunted.

She resisted an inclination to laugh, for she was rather astonished to discover that man's disposition to boast was present in this son of the wilderness. Also, she was a little disappointed in him.

But she saw him redden.

"I ain't braggin', ma'am. Take them on an average, an' I reckon woman has got as much grit as men. But they show it different. They're quicker to imagine things than men. That makes them see things where there ain't anything to see. A man's mother is always a woman, ma'am, an' if he's got any grit in him he owes a lot of it to her. I reckon I owe more to my mother than to my father."

His gaze was momentarily somber, and she felt a quick, new interest in him. Or had she felt this interest all along--a desire to learn something more of him than he had expressed?

"You might get off your horse and sit in the shade for a minute. It is hot, you've had a long ride, and I am not quite ready to begin shooting," she invited.

He got off Patches, led him to the shade of the house, hitched him, and then returned to the porch, taking a chair near her.

"Aunt Martha says you were born here," Ruth said. "Have you always been a cowboy?"

A flash that came into his eyes was concealed by a turn of the head. So she had asked Aunt Martha about him.

"I don't remember ever bein' anything else. As far back as I c'n recollect, there's been cows hangin' around."

"Have you traveled any?"

"To Denver, Frisco, Kansas City. I was in Utah, once, lookin' over the Mormons. They're a curious lot, ma'am. I never could see what on earth a man wanted half a dozen wives for. One can manage a man right clever. But half a dozen! Why, they'd be pullin' one another's hair out, fightin' over him! One would be wantin' him to do one thing, an' another would be wantin' him to do another. An' between them, the man would be goin' off to drown himself."

"But a woman doesn't always manage her husband," she defended.

"Don't she, ma'am?" he said gently, no guile in his eyes. "Why, all the husbands I've seen seemed to be pretty well managed. You can see samples of it every day, ma'am, if you look around. Young fellows that have acted pretty wild when they was single, always sort of steady down when they're hooked into double harness. They go to actin' quiet an' subdued-like--like they'd lost all interest in life. I reckon it must be their wives managin' them, ma'am."

"It's a pity, isn't it?" she said, her chin lifting.

"The men seem to like it, ma'am. Every day there's new ones makin' contracts for managers."

"It ain't time, yet, ma'am," he returned, looking straight at her, his eyes narrowed, with little wrinkles in the corners. "I'm waitin' for you to tell Masten that you don't want to manage him."

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