In the Bad Lands

By Bertrand W. Sinclair
Author of “Out of the Blue,” “Easy Money,” Etc.
“Bad Land” Bill, the new rider, was a likable kid, but he was a mystery to the bunch at the Wineglass range. And when another strange individual stumbled into the light of the camp fire one night, the mystery deepened.
Against a window that faced the west bank of Plentywater, Charlie Shaw flattened his nose for a minute. April showers bring May flowers. Charlie grinned—because the April shower had become a snowstorm. The morning rain had turned into wet flakes the size of a thumb nail, eddying out of a darkened air. Now the ground lay six inches under a coat of arctic down. Tough on the sheepmen with lambing in full swing. Charlie grinned again. Cattle could stand it. The tougher the better. Sheep were a thorn in the rangeman’s tenderest side. They were becoming too plentiful for cow outfits to regard them with indifference. Shaw was not vindictive—but the less lambs the more grass for cattle.
Most of the stuff floating through his brain was idle thought. But his looking was not idle. The Benton trail skirted the rim of the plateau that flowed up to the hollow of Plentywater, and one of his riders was due from the stage road with mail. Bad weather had penned Charlie close for days. He was bored. Lacking action, he craved something to read. There might be letters. He stared through a brief let-up in the ballet of the snowflakes. Then the white curtain closed so that looking was vain. Charlie went back to the fireplace and yawned over a cigarette.
Boots thumped on the porch. Jerry Smith came in with the mail, cursed the water, clanked his spurs out again. Charlie looked over a letter or two, and buried himself in a Fort Benton newspaper until the cook called him to supper.
He marked a new face at the long table. A slim, dark youngster, thin faced, thin lipped, neatly dressed. He had white, even teeth that shone when he opened his mouth. But he only opened it for the purpose of stowing food. Charlie looked him over once. Riders came and went at all seasons. In the spring they drifted, and restless ones, from one range to another, looking for a job, looking for variety, looking for horses—genial nomads.