Molly turned away and went into the house.
Jack went back to the corral, where he leaned on the fence and tried to decide what to do. Naturally his sympathies were with the cattleman. He had been born and raised in the Lo Lo Valley, steeped in the lore of the rangeland; a top-hand cowboy at sixteen.
He had known Molly King when they were both attending the little cow-town school at Totem City, when the fathers of both were struggling for supremacy in the valley. Then came a day, when accusations were hurled at Eph King and his outfit. He was accused of wholesale cattle stealing, but no arrests were made. The cattlemen, headed by Marsh Hartwell, bought him out at a fair price and sent him out of the country.
But whether through his ill-gotten gains or through his own ability, Eph King became the sheep king of the Sunland Basin, a vast land to the north of Lo Lo, a land that was a constant threat to Lo Lo.
But there was one thing in the cattlemen’s favor: The sheep would have to come through the pass at the head of Kiopo Cañon, where old Ed Barber kept daily watch of the slopes which led off into Sunland.
Jack Hartwell again met Molly King in Medicine Tree, which was the home town of the King family. It was circus day. The recognition had been mutual and old scores were forgotten. They spent the day together, like a couple of kids out of school, drinking pink lemonade and feeding peanuts to the one elephant. It was not a big circus.
For several months after that Jack Hartwell found excuses to go to Medicine Tree. Then one day he came back to the Arrow ranch with a wife. They had eloped. Big Marsh Hartwell listened to their explanations, his face blue with suppressed anger, while Mrs. Hartwell, a frail little, gray-haired woman, with pleading blue eyes, clutched her apron with both blue-veined hands and watched her husband anxiously.
“So that’s it, eh?” Marsh Hartwell nodded slowly, his eyes almost shut. “You went over there and married her, did yuh. You married Eph King’s daughter.”
“Father!”
Ma Hartwell put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off.