The Texican. Coolidge Dane

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СКАЧАТЬ in any disagreement,

      I can play a leading hand.

      I—"

      A dark mass of hair shading a pair of eyes as black and inquisitive as a chipmunk's appeared suddenly in the vacant square of the doorway and instantly the bold cowboy stopped his song.

      "Good-morning, Miss Garcia," he said, bowing low, "won't you come in—now, Angy, do your duty or I'll beat you to death!" At this hasty aside Angevine Thorne did the honors, though with a bad grace.

      "Marcelina, this is Mr. Dalhart—you better go home now, your mother's callin' you."

      "I will not shake hands with a Texano!" pronounced Marcelina, stepping into the open and folding her arms disdainfully.

      "Come on in then and hear the music," suggested Pecos, peaceably.

      "Pah! The Tehannos sing like coyotes!" cried Marcelina, twisting up her lips in derision. "They are bad, bad men—mi madre say so. No, I go home—and when you are gone Babe will sing sweet moosic for me." She bowed, with a little smile for Babe, and glided through the doorway; and though he lingered about until Old Crit came in, Pecos Dalhart failed to catch another glimpse of this new queen of his heart.

      It was dusk when Crittenden rode into camp, and at sight of Pecos Dalhart sitting by the fire the cowman's drawn face, pinched by hunger and hard riding, puckered up into a knot.

      "What you doin' down here?" he demanded, when he had beckoned him to one side.

      "Come down for my pay," responded the cowboy, briefly.

      "Your pay," fumed Crittenden, "your pay! What do you need with money up at Carrizo? Say, have you been gittin' many?" he whispered, eagerly. "Have they been comin' in on you?"

      "Sure thing. Branded forty-two cows, thirty calves, and sixteen twos. But how about it—do I draw?"

      "Only thirty calves! W'y, what in the world have you been doin'? I could pick up that many mavericks on the open range. You must've been layin' down under a tree!"

      "That's right," agreed Pecos, "and talkin' to myse'f, I was that lonely. But if you'll kindly fork over that eighty that's comin' to me we'll call it square, all the same—I only branded about a thousand dollars' worth of cows for you."

      "Eighty dollars!" cried Old Crit. "W'y, I never agreed to nothin' like that—I said I'd give you sixty. But I'll tell you what I'll do," he added, quickly, "I'll make it eighty if you'll go up there for another month."

      "After I git my first month's pay they will be time to discuss that," replied Pecos Dalhart, and after a thousand protestations the cowman finally went down into his overalls and produced the money.

      "Now what about next month?" he demanded, sharply.

      "Nope," said Pecos, pocketing his eighty dollars, "too lonely—too much trouble collectin' my pay—don't like the job."

      "Give you eighty dollars," urged Crit, "that's a heap o' money for one month."

      "Nope, this'll last me a while—so long." He started toward the corral but Crittenden caught him by the arm instantly.

      "Here, wait a minute," he rasped, "what's the matter with you anyhow? I'm ridin' early and late on my round-up and dependin' on you to finish this job up! You ain't goin' to quit me right in the middle of it, are you?"

      "That's what," returned Pecos. "I ain't so particular about brandin' a maverick once in a while—every cowman does that—but this idee of stealin' from a man you never saw goes agin' me. I git to thinkin' about it, an' it ain't right!"

      "Aw, sho, sho, boy," protested Crittenden, "you don't want to mind a little thing like that—I thought you was a man with nerve. Now here, I can't stop to go out there now and I want to git that work finished up—I'll give you eight-y-five dol-lars to stay another month! This man Upton is the biggest cow-thief in the country," he went on, as Pecos shook his head, "it ain't stealin' to rob a thief, is it?"

      "Oh, ain't it?" inquired the cow-puncher, gravely, and he smiled grimly to himself as Crittenden endeavored to set his mind at rest. "All right then," he said, cutting short the cowman's labored justification of cattle-rustling, "I'll go you—for a hundred."

      "A hundred!" repeated Crittenden, aghast. "Well, for—all right, all right," he cried, as Pecos moved impatiently away. "Now you pull out of here the way you did before and I'll have Joe pack you over some more grub. A hundred dollars," he murmured, shaking his head at the thought, "that boy will ruin me."

      Early the next morning Pecos Dalhart rode slowly up the trail that led to Carrizo Springs and the deserted country beyond, a land where as yet the cowmen had not extended their sway. To his left rose the sharp granite spires of the Four Peaks, to the right gleamed the silvery thread of the Salagua, that mighty river that flowed in from the east; and all the country between was a jumble of cliffs and buttes and ridges and black cañons, leading from the mountains to the river.

      "So it ain't no crime to rob a thief, hey?" he muttered, when, topping the last ridge, he gazed down at Carrizo Springs and across at the white-worn trail which led into the wilderness beyond. "Well, if that's the case I might as well search out that country over there and git busy on Old Crit. A man's a dam' fool to steal a thousand dollars' worth of cattle and only git eighty dollars for it."

      Three days later, riding by a trail that led ever to the east, Pecos came upon a narrow valley filled with cottonwoods and wild walnuts and echoing to the music of running water. A fine brook, flowing down from the brushy heights of the Peaks, leaped and tumbled over the bowlders and disappeared through a narrow cleft below, where the two black walls drew together until they seemed almost to block the cañon. As Pecos rode cautiously down the creek-bed he jumped a bunch of cattle from the shade of the alders and, spurring after them as they shambled off, he saw that they bore the familiar U, even to the young calves. Undoubtedly they belonged to the same bunch that he had been working on over at Carrizo Springs—the fresh-branded calves and U cows that Crittenden was shoving over the Peaks. Riding farther down the gulch Pecos came upon a cave at the base of the overhanging cliff. In time past the Indians had camped there, but the ashes of their fires were bedded and only their crude pictures on the smoke-grimed rocks remained to tell the tale. It was the cave of Lost Dog Cañon.

      On their trip over the simple-minded José had spoken of a lost cañon somewhere over in the mountains but Pecos had never dreamed of finding a paradise like this. According to José the Cañon of Perro Perdito was haunted by a spirit which was muy malo, throwing down great rocks from the sides of the cañon and howling like a lost dog at night, but in the broad light of noonday Pecos was undaunted and he rode on into the tunnel-like box cañon until it pinched down to a mere cleft. It was an eerie place, but there never was a ghost yet that threw a track like a cow and, led on by their familiar foot-prints among the rocks, Pecos forged ahead until he stepped out suddenly into a new world. Behind him the pent and overhanging walls shut out the light of day but here the sun was shining into a deep valley where in exquisite miniature lay parks and grassy meadows, while cathedral spires of limestone, rising from the cañon floor, joined their mighty flanks to the rim-rock which shut the whole space in. The glittering waters of the Salagua, far below, marked a natural barrier to the south and as Pecos Dalhart looked at the narrow trail which had brought him in he began instinctively to figure on a drift fence, to close the entrance to the pocket, and make the hidden valley a mile-wide pasture and corral. All nature seemed conspiring to make him a cattle-rustler and this hidden pasture, with its grass and СКАЧАТЬ