BOOK TWO—THE BATTLE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[“With a boldness that gripped his throat he slipped his hand along the back of the arbor seat”]
[“The woman sitting there on her chafing horse stared back at him”]
[“Sanders twisted round in his chair and began to draw from his pocket a grimy memorandum book”]
[“Behind them broke a bellowing tumult, as the foremost cattle began to plunge downward into the cañon”]
JUSTIN WINGATE, RANCHMAN
BOOK ONE—THE PREPARATION
CHAPTER I
THE DREAMER AND THE DREAM
Before swinging out of the saddle in front of the little school house which was serving as a church, Curtis Clayton, physician and philosopher, looked over the valley which held the story of a romantic hope and where he was to bury his own shattered dream. The rain of the morning had cleared away the bluish ground haze, the very air had been washed clean, and the land lay revealed in long levels and undulating ridges. Behind towered the mountain, washed clean, too, its flat top etched against the sky and every crag and peak standing out sharp and hard as a cameo.
Clayton’s broncho pawed restlessly on the edge of a grass-grown cellar. All about the tiny cluster of unoccupied houses were other grass-grown cellars, and the foundation lines of vanished buildings, marking the site of the abandoned town. Beside the school house, from which came now the sound of singing, horses were tied to a long hitching rack. A few farm wagons stood near, the unaccustomed mud drying on their wheels.