Scott Burton on the Range

by Edward G. Cheyney

“Well, so long,” Scott said, “I certainly appreciate what you have done for me.”

“Haven’t had a chance yet,” Baxter replied cheerfully, “but I am praying for the opportunity. Don’t you think you better take my gun? I have another at the cabin.”

“No,” Scott laughed, “I might shoot myself. So long.”

Once more he was alone with his thoughts, taking to the hills like a hunted animal and not knowing who might be on his trail or where. At least he felt certain that no enemies were ahead of him and he did not fear those who followed as long as he was in the open. He was going into a new country and that always pleased him. The thought of his dangers was soon wiped out by the wildness and ruggedness of the mountains around him.

This trail was little more than a cow track and he lost sight of it several times, but Jed followed it as easily as a hound no matter how vague it seemed to Scott. If this was the only trail to the dam he thought the supervisor had picked a very good hiding place for him. Here and there the mountains receded enough to make a fairly respectable valley, but for the most part they crowded in pretty close and left little more than a narrow cañon. There were traces of a dry stream bed in the bottom of it and Scott guessed that it was the spillway for the dam in time of flood. He noticed that if there should be much of a run-off there would be scant room for the trail.

After two hours of steady climbing Jed emerged into a small flat, grassy and an ideal meadow. At the upper end of the flat was a heavy mason work wall, twenty feet high in the middle and stretching clear across from slope to slope. Back of it was a great amphitheater surrounded by mountain peaks. It was a magnificent picture and Scott sat for a few minutes drinking it in. The grandeur of it awed him a little, but it had a wonderful, mysterious beauty that fascinated him. He had often read of the eagle’s eyrie on the mountain peaks and now he felt that he had found it. The prospect of a week in that little cabin on the end of the dam would have been an unadulterated joy to him if it had not been for the silent hunter on the slopes below.

“Well, Jed, old boy, they were mighty considerate of you, anyway. I don’t know what there is in that cabin but if it is half as well stocked as this meadow I’ll be satisfied.”

He threw the saddle and bridle on the ground in one corner of the meadow near the end of the dam and turned Jed loose to graze. A tiny stream trickled through the dam, in one place, filling a little basin in the sod of the meadow. Jed drank long and deep and seemed perfectly contented with his surroundings. There was no danger of his wandering off even if he had not been so faithfully attached to Scott. No dog could have thought more of its master.

An examination of the cabin showed ample supplies to withstand a long siege. The view back into the encircling mountains was superb and down through the cut of the cañon was a vista of hill and gorge that extended clear to the main valley miles away. There was eighteen feet of crystal clear water in the reservoir which was about twenty acres in extent. To a man from the lake-sprinkled section of New England it was a welcome sight. It was the most water he had seen in that semi-arid country.

The dam itself was a rather poorly constructed mason work affair and its safety was a matter of anxiety every spring to the ranchers who lived in the valley below. Since it had come into the hands of the Service, a man had been stationed there whenever the melting of the snows in the surrounding mountains threatened an overflow. Scott could not imagine a more pleasant job under normal conditions. He even felt that he could enjoy it now for he felt very little fear of not being able to take care of himself in such a place.