Sheriff Miller had a different slant on the affair. He was a mountainman himself. All his life he had dealt with cowhands and miners. He recognized that Sam was acting as most of them would act under the same conditions. He blamed himself because he had thought Sam too old to have any fire left.
“I’m not too proud of this job,” he said sourly to the major.
“You’d better do your duty,” the major snapped.
The sheriff nodded his head. He turned to Sam.
“Now get what you want. We’re going. I’ll go into the cabin with you just to make sure you don’t try anything else.”
“I don’t reckon I need anything,” Sam answered.
4. Desert Winter
Life for the wild horses in the desert was a never-ending battle for food, for protection, and for the chance to slip through the gray dawn to a water hole where eager muzzles could be thrust into murky, yellow water. The chestnut stallion was a hard but wise leader. He knew that man controlled the best of the grazing lands, that mounted riders patrolled the foothills and the deep valleys back against the mountains. He had only savage disdain for the geldings and mares who submitted to man’s saddle and steel bit. No patriot ever cherished his freedom more than the chestnut stallion.
In the desert there were Indian hunters to be watched for. The Navajo people were not like the whites in their way of life. They were wandering nomads, following their herds, never making a home in any permanent spot. In summer they built branch-covered shelters. In the winter they crowded into log and mud hogans. They were children of the wild, untamed desert, as cunning as the gray lobo. The Navajo had strange customs. Among them the women owned the sheep, the goats, the hogan and the children. The men owned the horses, and the hunting weapons, along with the turquoise jewelry they wore. Horses to a Navajo were the same as gold to a white man, they were his measure of wealth and standing. So the Navajo men stalked the wild bands, capturing colts and mares to add to their wealth.