CONTENTS
WILD WEST
CHAPTER I
THE STRAW IN THE WIND
Where a long spur of Chase Hill pitched down to the broken land bordering on Birch Creek, Robin Tyler came on what he had been seeking since sunrise. He pulled up his horse, sat sidewise in his saddle to roll a cigarette, to stare over the country, out over the wide roll of grassy ridges and sagebrush flats that ended abruptly in the confusion of the Bad Lands. As his eye marked single dots and groups of dots that were cattle and horses at rest and in motion, both near and far, a trampling of hoofs in a hollow below made his head turn sharply. He saw within a hundred yards the back and head and ears of a single animal and jumped his horse into a gallop with a touch of the spurs. He recognized that arched neck and brilliant mane; it flashed in the sun like burnished copper.
“Oh, you Red Mike,” he shouted, “you’ll have to burn the earth now to keep me from ridin’ you on round-up.”
In two jumps the gray cow horse Robin bestrode bounded over the low ridge. Below and beyond, a bunch of range horses, twenty or more, as wild as the elk that once grazed those slopes, stretched themselves like hounds on the trail of a running wolf. They were headed for a water hole and Robin was cutting them off. They lay low to the ground, manes and tails streaming, their hoofs beating the turf with a roll like snare drums. The horse Robin had shouted at ran in the lead, a beautiful sorrel beast with four white stockings and a star in his forehead. Red Mike knew what a mounted man on his trail meant. He was all for freedom. Behind him thundered the wild mares with their colts.
For a week, at odd times, Robin had been looking for that particular horse. Now he stood in his stirrups, whooping in sheer exultation of the chase. It didn’t matter how much he excited them. They were as wild as hawks and would run themselves out anyway. He meant to head them off from water, turn them back up the ridge and when they tired he would bunch them in a corral he knew, rope out Red Mike and lead him home.
He headed the wild bunch and turned them once. But a badger hole hidden in the grass undid him. The gray put a forefoot in the hole, went down as if shot, rolled over twice and scrambled to his feet, trembling. Robin fell clear, unhurt, except for the jar. He gathered up the reins, swung to his saddle. The gray took a step. Robin dismounted, stood looking with a frown. His mount had twisted a leg, wrenched a shoulder. He walked on three feet. Riding him was out of the question.
“Damn all badgers, anyway!” young Tyler muttered.
He looked after the band of broom tails streaking it westward up the ridge. As he watched they came to a stop, stood with up-pricked ears. Robin knew precisely what they would do; stand awhile, circle wide and make for that watering place by a cautious detour. He wanted Red Mike. He needed him now more than ever. And he was afoot in the blistering midsummer heat, fifteen miles from the nearest ranch, in a region where no rider could be expected to heave in sight.