Scott Burton on the Range

by Edward G. Cheyney

Then Scott remembered that in his impatience and lack of breath he had neglected to speak softly. Ever since that first day when Jed had surrendered to that soft, persuasive voice it had been the tone that appealed to him. One could talk him into almost anything but he did not yet know what it was to be forced or caught by craft. “What’s the matter, boy?” Scott asked quietly as he approached him once more, and Jed lowered his muzzle to Scott’s hand in apparent relief.

Scott mounted and rode eastward to intercept the Knobcone trail on the higher slope. Jed traveled all right but seemed exceedingly nervous and shied badly several times when they were going under a tree. Something had evidently scared him pretty badly and that something seemed to have been in a tree. They lost a little more time picking a way across two or three bad gullies, but finally came out on the Knobcone trail about a mile from the peak. There were no trees on this upper slope and Jed lost all his nervousness and pegged away at the steep grade like a good fellow.

As they reached the top Scott stretched his neck eagerly for a look into the valley and sank back into the saddle with an exclamation of disgust. It was a twin peak and the second one stood square in his path. The trail followed the saddle between the two peaks and ascended the second one about a mile away. Scott glanced at his watch. It was one o’clock. That blunder of Heth’s in misdirecting him had cost him at least three good hours. With a word to Jed he loped rapidly across the gentle dip of the saddle and was soon on top of the second peak.

There was nothing to interfere with the view there. It was magnificent. He seemed to be on the top of the world. There were plenty of other mountains but they all seemed lower, and far to the southwest was the main valley extending for miles and clear as crystal all the way. There was none of that hazy effect to which he had always been accustomed at home. And over there somewhere within range of his vision, if he had only known how to locate it, was the mighty seven thousand foot cut of the Grand Cañon.

“My,” he thought, “what a splendid place this would be for a look out.”

Only then did he remember why he had come. The magnificence of the view had carried him away. “Can see everything in the world from here except a fire. Not the faintest trace of smoke in all this end of Arizona. There’s the lookout on that peak over there to the northeast. If that jay over there has a glass, as he probably has, he can see me over here gawking around looking for his fool fire.”

He dismounted and settled down beside a rock for a careful survey of the country. He felt sure that there was no fire, for a smoke in that atmosphere would stand out like an electric sign in a country town, but he wanted to be entirely certain of it. Anyway it was already too late to see much of the sheep counting and he might as well take advantage of the opportunity to study the country.

Scott had always been very much interested in geology and he had never had a better chance. He had read much about that Southwest country. He knew that it had once been a great plateau which had eroded tremendously, leaving the mountain ridges and mesa tops at or near the original level, and cutting the valleys away to the level plains. And here it was all spread out before him like an open book. He could look across rows of mountain ridges practically all the same height and scattered about the plains were great square-sided, flat-topped mesas, of equal height and capped with the same hard substance. And he tried to imagine those mesas and ridges crumbling away, as they undoubtedly were doing, but so slowly that it could not be noticed, and the whole very gradually returning to a vast flat plain.

It was a fascinating picture and Scott found it hard to concentrate on the search for a wisp of smoke in the existence of which he had no faith. At last the lengthening shadows on the plains beside the mesas warned him that it was time to start for home. Jed was peacefully cropping the thin grass on the bald knob of the mountain peak and was in no more hurry to go than his master. With one more glance at the beauty of it all and one more determined search for smoke Scott mounted and turned Jed’s head toward home.

He rode slowly, enjoying the scenery and still dreaming of the mighty changes which had built that remarkable country and did not realize till he came into the shadow of the timber on the southeastern slope, that darkness would overtake him before he could reach the cabin. There was still another and better reason for him to stop dreaming. With the return to the timber Jed’s nervousness returned also. He nearly spilled Scott more than once by shying suddenly and dashing under a clump of trees at full speed.