LITMIR.BIZ

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months ago he had been a responsible ranch foreman in the still farther west. Seasons of hard work behind, more seasons of hard work ahead. Sitting in the shade of a corral, he had thought about the back trail and in that instant the discovery every man makes sooner or later flashed devastatingly before him. He was twenty-six and the fine, fresh years of youth were going swiftly by. At the thought of it the savor of his cigarette went flat and all the old familiar objects about him became unsatisfactory. In the very heyday of physical and mental vigor what had he to look back upon but solemn plodding, and what could he look forward to but a straight and uneventful trail that in time dipped over the last hill? He had smoked the cigarette down to the end, risen and resigned to an astonished boss. Twenty minutes later he was riding forth, footloose and fancy free, neither knowing what he was to do or where he was to go. But he did know that the vast loneliness of the prairie impelled him to ride out and have a last taste of the heady, reckless days.

      "What's life for?" he murmured now to the brassy sky. "A little work, a little to eat, a little to drink—and then a sleep. It ain't enough. Every man's got the right to look back on some piece of foolishness. Well, if I stay around Casabella, I'll get all the foolishness I can absorb. Storm brewing, clouds in the distance. It'll be a bloody welter when it gets going and nothing in God's green earth can stop it. If I was wise, I'd keep right on going. But I'm tired of being wise—and I'm looking for a horse." Range wars were always grim affairs, but while his mind condemned the impulse to stay, his blood pulsed with a tightening excitement.

      He thought of Buck Manners, trying to match the inconsistencies of the man's nature. "Easy-going, packed full of deviltry, strong as a horse, laughs at most everything. But that grin conceals a heap of energy. I'd hate to be on the wrong side of any quarrel he was in. A left-handed, yellow-haired hellion. Nickum—he's true stuff, but why did he have to give me the razmataz?"

      Something brought him out of his long study. At the last glance he had been surrounded by emptiness. Now, out of the northeast, grew a fan-shaped cloud with a black core, a little like the image of a baby cyclone snorting across the prairie. In time the black core became a solid, moving shape and that in turn shifted to individual riders abreast. They were aiming at him; he knew that because their angle of travel was always broadside to him as he jogged sedately along. He swept the country on all other sides and narrowed his hazel eyes. "Seem to think they have business with me. Wonder if this is to be a formal or informal party?" He shifted in the saddle, let his finger tips brush the butt of his gun, and pulled down the rim of his hat. His shadow grew longer and the burning rays of a sinking sun began to catch the back of his head. The party had swerved to cut in front of him. Never varying the even tempo of his march, he was presently confronted by ten Box M riders, Driver Haggerty and Heck Seastrom to the fore. He halted. Haggerty's stringy, unpleasant wedge of a face poked forward.

      "What you doing here?"

      "What of it?" countered Charterhouse.

      "You know the rules," stated Haggerty, grinding down on his chew.

      Clint stared at the group emotionlessly. "I'm acquainted with the general rules of the road, yeah. But I can't nowise keep up with a lot of tinhorn house rules that some of these rinkydink counties keep making and changing. What rules do you happen to allude to?"

      "The deadline's what I mean," grunted Haggerty, increasingly sullen. "How come you're over it?"

      "Don't recall any chalk marks or fences or deep sea buoys on the road. What deadline?"

      "This ain't a fence country, brother. If you come from one, better get the hell back there. You're on Box M land, three miles deep from the deadline. What's your business?"

      "My business is minding my business," allowed Charterhouse calmly. "I seem to have trouble doing it. You Box M buzzards sure seem awful proud of a few sand-blistered sections that ain't worth spitting on. How do you get that way? What misled you into believing the Lord personally anointed this scope of range anyhow?"

      "I wouldn't get salty," growled Haggerty, a higher gleam of temper in his red eyes. "You may be a sure enough stranger and again mebbe you ain't. Pretty sassy, seems to me. Talked real large to old John, didn't you? How would you like to be left afoot out here and cool off?"

      "That's just the kind of an Indian I got you pegged to be."

      "Yeah?" snarled Haggerty. "Well, I'm apt to show you some more tricks besides. You know what happens to a man on the wrong side of the deadline?"

      Charterhouse studied the group. Excepting for Seastrom they sat like so many sacks of meal, slant-eyed and hostile, just exactly the kind of men to take their instructions seriously. Seastrom grinned frankly at him and built a cigarette with a slightly bored air.

      "Listen," said Charterhouse, using diplomacy's siren tongue, "I am aiming to ride across this flea-bit stretch of country and pass out of it. You boys have maybe swallowed enough of this real estate to consider you have a vested interest in it, which is all right with me. When I reach this said deadline I'll brush off my clothes so's I won't be packing any of your sacred soil away. That fair?"

      "You'll do just what I say you'll do," grunted Haggerty.

      Seastrom chuckled. "Hell's fire, Haggerty, he's all right. How could he know about a deadline? Let him fog on."

      "Shut up. I'll attend to this business."

      "Yeah?" murmured Seastrom, very mild. "You make another break like that to me and I'll begin to proceed to commence. I'm not your official pants buttoner."

      The two men swapped long glances. Haggerty's sour face flushed up a little and he jerked his elbow at Charter-house. "Get out of here. Ride three miles south—and stay out! You've had your warning and next time you're caught there won't be any debate."

      "Check," agreed Charterhouse, gathering his reins. "Being slapped twice today by your virtuous outfit, I'm beginning to feel you don't really admire me. Life's pretty short, Haggerty, to be so serious-minded. If I meet you again on open territory, I might enlarge on the subject."

      Haggerty jammed his horse against Charterhouse. "If you want to make any speeches to me, go ahead."

      "Never play another man's game," observed Charter-house.

      "I thought so! Beat it, yellow-belly!"

      "I'll bear that in mind," said Charterhouse without a trace of inflection. Swinging, he rode off, hearing Seastrom's lazy comment.

      "You're a fool, Haggerty. Crooked or straight, that man ain't meek enough to swallow those remarks. You stepped over the line." Then the party gathered up and swept westward.

      Charterhouse maintained the same level pace and the same indolent posture. But he was afire again, the hazel eyes stormy. The long nose pinched in at the nostrils and his mouth made a long thin line across the bronzed skin. The horse, without pressure, began to quicken and grew restless.

      "Easy," said Charterhouse softly. "Plenty of time, plenty of time. Long day and another one coming. I see I have got more business than looking for stolen gear. Evidently Mister Haggerty has forgotten men are supposed to stand accountable for their remarks. That's a lesson he will be soon taught."

      Since he had given his word to cross some imaginary deadline, he kept it stolidly—bearing constantly to the south. The sun sank and blue twilight began to fill up the arroyos like running water. Off easterly was the spread of a ranch and he curved for it while the moon strengthened in the sky and night fell down soundlessly and mysteriously. Then the lull of twilight was gone and a coyote mournfully announced the parade of night creatures. A yellow beam winked across the prairie, cutting through a velvet blackness that seemed to absorb the pale effort of the moon. The pony breathed beneath him, bridle chains tinkled—and elsewhere were only the musical reverberations of the earth.

      Ears tuned to this, Clint was suddenly aware of a deep, subdued drumming ahead. Horsemen curved out of yonder space and cut across the beam of light one at a time. Perhaps three, perhaps ten. He couldn't tell. But they had drawn into the ranch. When he arrived in front of the main house, he saw the shadowed horses waiting and heard talk coming out of the open front door. He eased himself, thought it over a long moment

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