LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 1

       Table of Contents

      Layout 4

      ​

      TRAILS TO TWO MOONS

       Table of Contents

      A NOVEL OF THE BIG COUNTRY

       CHAPTER I

      The day Old Man Ring, the sheepman of Teapot Creek, rode to Two Moons with news of importance, Original Bill Blunt, inspector for the Stockmen's Alliance, fared over the illimitable face of the Big Country at his duty.

      His duty was simple: A range inspector protected his employers from theft. This meant anything from reading a burnt brand on a yearling's flank to matching shot by shot, at any and all odds, with thieves. A dull day was one wherein the inspector convinced some raw nester from Missouri that every fat steer happening to pass his claim was not meat divinely sent to still the mouths of a clamorous brood in his ten-by-twelve cabin. It was a cardinal day which saw him flat behind the belly of his horse stretched head to ​ground—and with hot lead whimpering low, while behind the cut bank of yonder coulee picked marksmen of Zang Whistler's gang were coolly engaging to kill while their comrades ran off the stolen stock.

      Original Bill's life was one of variety; it was ebullient and replete with unpremeditated climaxes. Withal, the life of his choosing.

      He was of the cattle clan—born to it in that day when every youth in Texas looked forward to riding the trail with the longhorns, just as the Gloucester and New Bedford boy of the heroic age of sail looked through schoolhouse windows to high harbor spars. The chivalry of the cattle clan had been bred in him by long hours on night herd, by the harrowing moments of stampede in a thunderstorm, the rollicking fellowship of the round-up.

      Puncher, trail boss, outfit boss and owner; all four grades of the cattle clan's hierarchy had he passed; its wild, free code was his accolade. In this evil day when barbed wire crept across the free range and a meaner race of sheep herders and their voracious bands was come to dispute with his own people right to what had always been theirs by preëmption, Original Bill Blunt took his place on the ​covering line of the Great Retreat. A sense of duty, of loyalty to the order that was passing, placed him there. Certain peculiar qualifications, such as a watch-spring movement of hand to holster, a deadly aim and courage passing ordinary made him a competent inspector—the most competent in all the Big Country. His name was known from Platte Crossing to the Musselshell.

      Of smaller stature than the average man, bowed as to legs through a life on horseback, Original's arresting feature was a chest rounded as a wine tun by the great winds he 'd ridden against and the wild, free life of the range. Endurance passing ordinary was spelled by this torso. His head was small by comparison, thatched heavily with coal black hair. A smooth face was all broken into curious sectors by innumerable wind wrinkles. Black eyes had a disconcertingly steady gaze.

      Original rode freely but with an occasional eye to the ground for certain tracings and markings, the clay-stained bottom of an overturned pebble, a stalk of Jimson weed still green but broken. Unconsidered trifles such as any one not of the Big Country might very well fail to see, but telling a rounded story to ​the trailer. As he rode he crooned to himself—and to Tige, his little cutting horse, who was always an appreciative listener—a mournful ballad of the Black Hills:

      For cute little Two Bears or Commanche Bills;

       They'll lift your back hair in them dreary Black Hills.

       He sang because the trail was plain, because it carried to him intelligence he eagerly sought and there was every chance trouble lay ahead.

      So he descended from the high lands round Bad Water and came into the valley of the Teapot, a rough and tumble stream dropping straight down from the Spout, back in the Broken Horns. The dim trail he followed cut through some rough land, over a ford and up the tortuous alleys of coulees straight for a ranch house and corral set on the edge of hayfields. Before he came to the ranch house Original made a detour up a broad draw and drew rein at the rough poplar bars of a smaller corral—an inclosure not more than twenty feet square neatly hidden away in an alder thicket. Four yearling calves in the corral eyed him askance, shifting restlessly after the silly fashion of their kind.

      ​The horseman's trained eye picked out, even at a distance, burnt hair lines on their flanks, crude jobs with a running iron. He laughed shortly, turned his horse and pushed on to the log-built ranch house. Dropping carelessly from the saddle, he bridle-tied Tige to the ground and walked to the open door. A girl answered his knock on the slab frame.

      Her appearance in the sun-washed doorway, with the dark interior of the log house for a background, was a little startling. Startling because of the vivid white and gold of her—milk-white the full arms bared almost to shoulders; milk-white, with a carnation stripe on lips and morning blush on cheeks, her face. And above the brow the glow and glory of pale dandelion; where her hair dropped in a single thick braid over one shoulder it reflected against her round throat the color of mellow bellflowers. Crisp, like those golden fruits, crisp and inviting was her beauty. Only the eyes repelled. They were blue and cold as deep fiord water, sleepy slow in glance, innocent of all feminine tricks of coquetry. The brooding fatalism of the north countries lay behind their large irises. Yes, and something of the sultry anger of a spoiled child.

      ​Original swept off his hat and stood a bit abashed under the girl's steady, impersonal stare.

      "Ole Man Ring lives here, I take it," he began tentatively. She curtly nodded.

      "Maybe he 's out riding round somewheres?" Original ventured after a moment's pause in which no invitation to enter—cardinal courtesy of the Big Country—was forthcoming.

      "He 's gone to Two Moons," she said. She was standing with arms wide and hands braced against the rough frame of the door. The sunlight cut from the dark background a silhouette of her figure, all blue-gingham clad and cinctured loosely at the waist. A figure of lithe strength, more masculine than suggestive of womanly softness, albeit gloriously rounded. Her pose, blocking the doorway and with competent arms thrown out, emphasized the absence of welcome in her eyes. Original read the subtle hint of challenge in both pose and eyes and was piqued.

      "My name is Blunt—inspector for this range. If he was at home I was aiming to ask your father some particular questions, Miss—ah—Miss——"

      ​"My father don't know any cowmen," Hilma Ring answered shortly.

      "Never too late to get acquainted," he smiled. There was something disarming and ingenuous in Original's smile which on occasion had carried farther than a .45 bullet, but the Norsk stolidity in these blue eyes blasted his best efforts.

      "My father and I pick and choose the folks we know." Hilma gave the insult in a studied drawl; her chin was tilted out from the firm round of her throat, and blue-black eyes looked out from beneath lowered lids like the eyes of a panther firming

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