On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set - Coolidge Dane страница 67
Название: On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set
Автор: Coolidge Dane
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066383084
isbn:
“Uh, you was surprised, was ye?” snarled Swope, who had been glowering at him malignantly through his long recital. “Mebbe –– ”
“Yes, I was surprised!” retorted Creede angrily. “And I was like the man that received the gold-headed cane –– I was pleased, too, if that’s what you’re drivin’ at. I don’t doubt you and Jasp sent that dam’ Greaser in there to sheep us out, and if he got killed you’ve got yourself to thank for it. He had no business in there, in the first place, and in the second place, I gave you fair warnin’ to keep ’im out.”
“You hear that, Mr. Officer?” cried the sheepman. “He admits making threats against the deceased; he –– ”
“Just a moment, just a moment, Mr. Swope,” interposed the deputy sheriff pacifically. “Did you have any words with this Juan Alvarez, Mr. Creede, when you saw him in the cañon? Any trouble of any kind?”
“No, we didn’t have what you might call trouble –– that is, nothin’ serious.”
“Well, just what words passed between you? This gentleman here is the coroner; we’ve got the body down at the ranch house, and we may want to suppeenie you for the inquest.”
“Glad to meet you, sir,” said Creede politely. “Well, all they was to it was this: when I rode in there and see that dam’ Mexican standin’ up on a ledge with his eyes bulgin’ out, I says, ‘What in hell –– I didn’t know you was here!’ And he says, ‘Oh, that’s all right.’”
“Jest listen to the son-of-a-gun lie!” yelled Jim Swope, beside himself with rage. “Listen to him! He said that was all right, did he? Three thousand head of sheep stompeded –– ”
“Yes,” roared Creede, “he said: ‘That’s all right.’ And what’s more, there was another Mexican there that heard him! Now how about it, officer; how much have I got to take off this dam’ sheep puller before I git the right to talk back? Is he the judge and jury in this matter, or is he just a plain buttinsky?”
“I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to key down a little,” replied the deputy noncommittally, “and let’s get through with this as soon as possible. Now, Mr. Creede, you seem to be willing to talk about this matter. I understand that there was some shots fired at the time you speak of.”
“Sure thing,” replied Creede. “Juan took a couple of shots at me as I was goin’ down the cañon. He looked so dam’ funny, sittin’ up on that ledge like a monkey-faced owl, that I couldn’t help laughin’, and of course it riled him some. But that’s all right –– I wouldn’t hold it up against a dead man.”
The deputy sheriff laughed in spite of himself, and the coroner chuckled, too. The death of a Mexican sheep-herder was not a very sombre matter to gentlemen of their profession.
“I suppose you were armed?” inquired the coroner casually.
“I had my six-shooter in my shaps, all right.”
“Ah, is that the gun? What calibre is it?”
“A forty-five.”
The officers of the law glanced at each other knowingly, and the deputy turned back toward the ranch.
“The deceased was shot with a thirty-thirty,” observed the coroner briefly, and there the matter was dropped.
“Umm, a thirty-thirty,” muttered Creede, “now who in –– ” He paused and nodded his head, and a look of infinite cunning came into his face as he glanced over his shoulder at the retreating posse.
“Bill Johnson!” he said, and then he laughed –– but it was not a pleasant laugh.
CHAPTER XXII
PORTENTS OF WAR
There were signs of impending war on Bronco Mesa. As God sent the rain and the flowers and grass sprang up they grappled with each other like murderers, twining root about root for the water, fighting upward for the light –– and when it was over the strongest had won. Every tree and plant on that broad range was barbed and fanged against assault; every creature that could not flee was armed for its own defence; it was a land of war, where the strongest always won. What need was there for words? Juan Alvarez was dead, shot from some distant peak while rounding up his sheep –– and his sheep, too, were dead.
They buried the boss herder under a pile of rocks on Lookout Point and planted a cross above him, not for its Christian significance, nor yet because Juan was a good Catholic, but for the Mexicans to look at in the Spring, when the sheep should come to cross. Jim Swope attended to this himself, after the coroner had given over the body, and for a parting word he cursed Jeff Creede.
Then for a day the world took notice of their struggle –– the great outside world that had left them to fight it out. Three thousand head of sheep had been killed; mutton enough to feed a great city for a day had been destroyed –– and all in a quarrel over public land. The word crept back to Washington, stripped to the bare facts –– three thousand sheep and their herder killed by cattlemen on the proposed Salagua Reserve –– and once more the question rose, Why was not that Salagua Reserve proclaimed? No one answered. There was another sheep and cattle war going on up in Wyoming, and the same question was being asked about other proposed reserves. But when Congress convened in December the facts began to sift out: there was a combination of railroad and lumber interests, big cattlemen, sheepmen, and “land-grabbers” that was “against any interference on the part of the Federal Government,” and “opposed to any change of existing laws and customs as to the grazing of live stock upon the public domain.” This anomalous organization was fighting, and for years had been fighting, the policy of the administration to create forest reserves and protect the public land; and, by alliances with other anti-administration forces in the East, had the President and his forester at their mercy. There would be no forestry legislation that Winter –– so the newspapers said. But that made no difference to the Four Peaks country.
Only faint echoes of the battle at Washington reached the cowmen’s ears, and they no longer gave them any heed. For years they had been tolled along by false hopes; they had talked eagerly of Forest Rangers to draw two-mile circles around their poor ranches and protect them from the sheep; they had longed to lease the range, to pay grazing fees, anything for protection. But now they had struck the first blow for themselves, and behold, on the instant the sheep went round, the grass crept back onto the scarred mesa, the cattle grew fat on the range! Juan Alvarez, to be sure, was dead; but their hands were clean, let the sheepmen say what they would. What were a few sheep carcasses up on the high mesa? They only matched the cattle that had died off during the drought. When they met a sheep-herder now he gave them the trail.
Tucked away in a far corner of the Territory, without money, friends, or influence, there was nothing for it but to fight. All nature seemed conspiring to encourage them in their adventure –– the Winter came on early, with heavy rains; the grass took root again among the barren rocks and when, in a belated rodéo, they gathered their beef steers, they received the highest selling price in years. All over Arizona, and in California, СКАЧАТЬ