The Range Boss Part 1

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Range Boss, by Charles Alden Seltzer

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t.i.tle: The Range Boss

Author: Charles Alden Seltzer

Ill.u.s.trator: Frank E. Schoonover

Release Date: June 10, 2008 [EBook #25754]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANGE BOSS ***

Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Ill.u.s.tration: Randerson watches the newcomers [Page 2]]

THE RANGE BOSS

BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER

AUTHOR OF THE BOSS OF THE LAZY Y, ETC.

ILl.u.s.tRATED BY FRANK E. SCHOONOVER

NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co.

1916 ------ Published September, 1916 ------ Copyrighted in Great Britain

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I At Calamity Crossing 1 II The Sympathetic Rescuer 12 III At the Flying W 33 IV A Memory of the Rider 42 V Love vs. Business 56 VI A Man and His Job 65 VII How an Insult Was Avenged 78 VIII What Uncle Jepson Heard 97 IX "Somethin's Gone Out of Them" 104 X The Law of the Primitive 111 XI Hagar's Eyes 130 XII The Rustlers 143 XIII The Fight 160 XIV The Rock and the Moonlight 166 XV The Runaway Comes Home 184 XVI Two Are Taught Lessons 188 XVII The Target 202 XVIII The Gunfighter 217 XIX Ready Gun and Clean Heart 233 XX The Bubble--Dreams 245 XXI One Too Many 254 XXII Into Which a Girl's Trouble Comes 265 XXIII Banis.h.i.+ng a Shadow 278 XXIV Realizing a Pa.s.sion 291 XXV A Man Is Born Again 313 XXVI A Dream Comes True 328

ILl.u.s.tRATIONS

PAGE

Randerson watches the newcomers Frontispiece

"I am Ruth Harkness, the new owner of the Flying W" 64

The twilight was split by a red streak 96

The grim, relentless figure behind him grew grotesque and gigantic in his thoughts 320

THE RANGE BOSS CHAPTER I

AT CALAMITY CROSSING

Getting up the shoulder of the mesa was no easy job, but judging from the actions and appearance of wiry pony and rider it was a job that would be accomplished. For part of the distance, it is true, the man thought it best to dismount, drive the pony ahead of him, and follow on foot. At length, however, they reached the top of the mesa, and after a breathing spell the man mounted and rode across the table-land.

A short lope brought pony and rider to a point where the mesa sloped down again to meet a plain that stretched for miles, to merge into some foothills. A faint trail came from somewhere through the foothills, wound over the plain, and followed a slope that descended to a river below the rider, crossed the stream, led over a level, up another slope, to another plain, and so away into the distance.

Up and down the river the water ran deeply in a canyon, the painted b.u.t.tes that flanked it lending an appearance of constriction to its course, but at the crossing it broadened formidably and swirled splas.h.i.+ngly around numerous rocks that littered its course.

The man's gaze rested briefly on the river and the crossing.

"She's travelin' some, this mornin'," he said aloud, mentally referring to the water. "I reckon that mud over there must be hub deep on a buckboard," he added, looking at the level on the opposite side of the crossing. "I'd say, if anybody was to ask me, that last night's rain has made Calamity some risky this mornin'--for a buckboard." He drew out a silver timepiece and consulted it with grave deliberation. "It's eleven.

They'd be due about now--if the Eight O'clock was on time--which she's never been knowed to be." He returned the timepiece to the pocket and rode along the edge of the mesa away from the river, his gaze concentrated at the point where the trail on the plains below him vanished into the distant foothills. A little later he again halted the pony, swung crossways in the saddle and rolled a cigarette, and while smoking and watching drew out two pistols, took out the cylinders, replaced them, and wiped and polished the metal until the guns glittered brightly in the swimming sunlight. He considered them long before restoring them to their places, doubt in his gaze. "I reckon she's been raised a lot different," was his mental conclusion.

"But anyway, I reckon there ain't nothin' in Poughkeepsie's name to give anyone comin' from there any right to put on airs." He tossed the b.u.t.t of the cigarette away and frowned, continuing his soliloquy: "The Flyin' W ain't no place for a lady. Jim Pickett an' Tom Chavis ain't fit for no lady to look at--let alone talkin' to them. There's others, too. Now, if she was comin' to the Diamond H--why, shucks! Mebbe she wouldn't think I'm any better than Pickett an' Chavis! If she looks anything like her picture, though, she's got sense. An'--"

He saw the pony flick its ears erect, and he followed its gaze to see on the plain's trail, far over near where it melted into the foothills, a moving speck crawling toward him.

He swung back into the saddle and smilingly patted the pony's neck.

"You was expectin' them too, wasn't you, Patches? I reckon you're a right knowin' horse!"

He wheeled the pony and urged it slowly back over the mesa, riding along near the edge until he reached a point behind a heavy post-oak thicket, where he pulled the pony to a halt. From here he would not be observed from the trail on the plains, and he again twisted in the saddle, sagging against the high pommel and drawing the wide brim of his hat well over his eyes, shading them as he peered intently at the moving speck.

He watched for half an hour, while the speck grew larger in his vision, finally a.s.suming definite shape. He recognized the buckboard and the blacks that were pulling it; they had been inseparable during the past two years--for Bill Harkness, the Flying W owner, would drive no others after his last sickness had seized him, the sickness which had finally finished him some months before. The blacks were coming rapidly, shortening the distance with the tireless lope that the plains' animal uses so effectively, and as they neared the point on the mesa where the rider had stationed himself, the latter parted the branches of the thicket and peered between them, his eyes agleam, the color deepening in his face.