"Why, when I die, ye idiot, mebbe now, mebbe later, jist whenever I bed down fer the last time. Here I am, over ninety years old. I can't go on livin'! It's agin nature. I want to make ready when it comes. I'm ready and I want everything else to be jist as ready as I am."
Landy Spencer drummed his knotty fingers on the armchair and looked thoughtfully at the old Nestor seated at his fireside. Ninety years old! Seventy years of activity in a territory where activity was enforced, if one were to live. Strange stories, legends now, were told of the doings of this gaunt, eagle-beaked, shaggy-browed old man who now, chatted complacently of death. Very true, none living was able to verify them. Those who had passed on told only fragments, and Jim Lough, neither verified nor denied.
One legend persisted. Landy had heard it long before coming to the district. It related to the beginning days of the great cattle game of the grasslands—days before the coming of the vast herds and the problems they brought. It concerned the destinies of those who followed fast in the footsteps of the trailmakers and sought to establish a business where there was neither law nor precedent. Sordid days, these. The honest men were not yet organized; the dishonest and criminal were unrestrained by laws. Cattle and kine were taken furtively or openly to these very hills and vales where Jim Lough now lived in quietude and peace. Here they were held until a sufficient number was collected for the drive to the marches and markets that lay east of the Virginia Dale.
Jim Lough was a youngster then, without ownership of herds or home, but he was not content to see the weak and unorganized robbed, without recourse. Alone, he made trips over the forbidden trails to the places of the illicit exchange; then back to the grasslands again he organized a posse of five and laid his trap. In a narrow pass this robber band was successfully ambushed and by effective gunfire, reduced from eight to three. The three surrendered. By every rule of the game, in a new land where there was neither law, nor courts nor sheriffs, the culprits must be hung, and hung on the spot where apprehended. But to this Jim Lough demurred. "We'll swing 'em where it counts," he announced grimly, and the cavalcade set out on the two-days' journey to the Skeel's cabin, the reputed hangout of the lawless and criminals of the new country. The posse found the cabin deserted, except for the presence of a lame, old man who was reported as the cook for the outfit. He was loaded on a horse and headed northward out of the country. The rest of the livestock was turned from the corrals and the cabin and stables set afire. Then, as a fitting finish to the work of the hour, the three culprits were hung on extended limbs of trees bordering the ruins.
"Now the skunks will have something to look at when they come back here to plan their stealing," Jim Lough had said as the posse dispersed.
But "the skunks" never came back, and through the long winter and most of the following summer the ghastly mementos of early justice swayed and swung, until the ravens and winds made merciful disposition of the bodies.
In the next few years there was peace in the grasslands, and the settlers prospered as others joined. But it was not always so. For with more settlers came greed and avarice. Laws were made, regulations were had, rules announced and they were not always fair. Greed, sometimes sat in the councils, and the avaricious bent the rules. Then, there were other wars in which justice and fairness ran not parallel with Greed-made law.
Grassland remembered young Jim Lough and his stern and speedy methods and now as an older man, he was often called to council and to lead.
But the problems were not of easy solution; the 'right side' of the controversy was not always obvious, but under Jim Lough's leadership the greedy must surrender self-appropriated water holes, odious fences were banished and grazing allotments went to the needy as well as the greedy. In these things, Jim Lough made enemies as well as friends, but cared as little for the one as he appreciated the other.
Landy Spencer, drummed knotty fingers on the arm of his chair as he listened to Jim Lough's explanations of his arrangements for a splendid funeral. At last he spoke. "Jim, I used to think that ye'd make a fine gov'ner. I know ye make a dandy good district marshal, but ye are slippin'—goin' addled 'bout this funeral business. A-settin' here tryin' to run things en you deceased, that-a-way. Ye know, well en' good, that the folks livin' will take charge of them obsequies; hit'll be about ten years from now, I figger; en yore plans will fit in about like a last-year's birdnest. Ye have jist about as much to do a-bossin' that party as ye'll have in selectin' yer harp en halo when ye git inside the pearly gates. Ten years from now, thar won't be a cow hand ner a gun outside a dude ranch er a rodeo. Singin' 'The Lament' would be about as well understood as recitin' a Latin epic."