Copper Streak Trail

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Author of Stepsons Of Light , Good Men And True , West Is West , etc.
1917
The stage line swung aside in a huge half-circle, rounding the northern end of the Comobabi Range and swinging far out to skirt the foothills. Mr. Peter Johnson had never been to Silverbell: his own country lay far to the north, beyond the Gila. But he knew that Silverbell was somewhere east of the Comobabi, not north; and confidently struck out to find a short cut through the hills. From Silverbell a spur of railroad ran down to Redrock. Mr. Johnson's thought was to entrain himself for Tucson.
The Midnight horse reached along in a brisk, swinging walk, an optimistic walk, good for four miles an hour. He had held that gait since three o'clock in the morning, with an hour off for water and breakfast at Smith's Wells, the first stage station out from Cobre; it was now hot noon by a conscientious sun—thirty-six miles. But Midnight did not care. For hours their way had been through a trackless plain of uncropped salt grass, or grama, on the rising slopes: now they were in a country of worn and freshly traveled trails: wise Midnight knew there would be water and nooning soon. Already they had seen little bands of horses peering down at them from the high knolls on their right.
Midnight wondered if they were to find sweet water or alkali. Sweet, likely, since it was in the hills; Midnight was sure he hoped so. The best of these wells in the plains were salt and brackish. Privately, Midnight preferred the Forest Reserve. It was a pleasant, soft life in these pinewood pastures. Even if it was pretty dull for a good cow-horse after the Free Range, it was easier on old bones. And though Midnight was not insensible to the compliment Pete had paid him by picking him from the bunch for these long excursions to the Southland deserts, he missed the bunch.