Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  Chess had been loyal; he had kept her secret, but always, womanlike, she feared he would betray her to Chane. More and more the lovableness of the boy manifested itself to her. He was a friend, a comrade, a brother. Yet at times he exasperated her so exceedingly that she could scarcely keep from flying at him to slap and scratch. Chess never let her forget that she loved Chane.

  MELBERNE began the second day in this place he had chosen to labor and end his years with an energy and heartiness that augured well for his ultimate achievements.

  After breakfast he dictated letters which Sue wrote for him, sitting on the ground beside the camp fire, with her writing case on her lap. Then he dispatched Utah and Miller on the long wagon trip back to Wund.

  “Pack your guns an’ don’t be slow in usin’ them,” was his last instruction.

  Next he set to work with all the men available to fence the mouths of two verdant prongs at the head of the canyon, where he turned loose all his horses. He now had over fifty head, counting the mustangs he had bought from Chane. Toddy Nokin had promised to return in the spring with another band to sell. Melberne had conceived the idea of raising horses as well as cattle. He had vision. He saw into the future when horses would not be running wild over every range, when well-bred stock would be valuable. It took half the day to erect those cedar and spruce fences.

  “Wal, now we can breathe easy an’ look around,” he said. “Shore was afraid one of them stallions down there would come up heah an stampede us.”

  “Melberne, you’ll want this canyon free of wild horses,” said Chane, thoughtfully. “Because your stock will never be safe where wild stallions are ranging. You know tame horses, once they get away, make the wildest of wild horses.”

  “Wal, what’re you foreman of this heah Melberne outfit for?” rejoined Melberne, jovially.

  Chane laughed pleasantly. That pleased him. “We’ll get busy and catch the best of the wild stock in here, then drive the rest out. It’s a big country down here. You can’t tell what we’ll run into.”

  “Mebbe Panquitch, huh? Forgot that stallion, didn’t you?”

  “Forgot Panquitch? I guess not. I’ll bet I’ve thought of him a thousand times since I saw him. There’s his range, Melberne.”

  Chane swept a slow hand aloft toward the yellow rampart, so high and far away that the black fringe of cedars and piñons looked like a thin low line of brush.

  “On top, hey? Wild Horse Mesa!” ejaculated Melberne, craning his neck. “Chane, I reckon if Panquitch ranges up there he’s no longer a horse. He’s an eagle.”

  In the afternoon Sue accompanied her father and the riders out upon a venture that promised thrilling excitement. Alonzo, the Mexican vaquero, was to give an exhibition of his ability to run down and rope wild horses. Sue heard Chane tell her father that Alonzo was the only rider he had ever known who could accomplish this. It seemed a fair and honest matching of speed and endurance against the wild horse, with the advantage all his. Sue imagined it would be worth a good deal to see the vaquero at work.

  Melberne had abandoned any further idea of cruel practices in the capturing of wild horses.

  Creasing with a rifle bullet, a method considerably used in Nevada and Utah, was to his mind as obnoxious as barbed-wire. A skilled marksman could shoot a wild horse through the outer edge of the nape of the neck and so stun him that capture was easy. The fault with this method of creasing, as it was called, was that if the bullet did a little more than crease, which happened more times than not, it killed the horse.

  Water-hole trapping was a humane and easy and exciting way to catch wild horses, but seldom or never did it yield the best results — that is, the fastest and finest horses, especially the stallions, would refuse to enter the trap, or if they did they broke out or leaped the fence or killed themselves. Wild- horse wranglers, however, liked this method, and often employed it. First they located a spring or water hole much frequented by wild horses, and round it they constructed a large corral of poles or logs, and mostly cedar trees which they cut whole and dragged into close formation, leaving space for a wide gate. This gate had to be one that could be shut quickly. When the trap was completed the hunters watched by night for the wild horses to come in to drink. It was always necessary to hide on the side against which the wind blew from the horses. Otherwise their keen noses would soon detect the scent of man. Not always on the first or the second night did the horses enter the trap. But usually their thirst conquered their suspicions. When a number had gone in to drink the hunters rushed out to close the gate.

  Chane Weymer’s favorite method, so he told Melberne, was to find a favorable location where wild horses grazed, and one preferably with natural obstructions to flight, such as a wall of rock, or a canyon rim on one side. Then cedar trees were cut and dragged to make a long fence, a wing that stretched as far as needful, perhaps a mile in extreme instances. At the point where this fence joined the wall, or, if there was a canyon rim, at the apex of the triangle, a large corral was built. The wild horses would be chased and driven toward this fence and down into the corral.

  “I’ve often tried a method that I got on to by accident,” said Chane as they were riding along. “It takes a mighty fast horse, though. I’m keen now to try it with Brutus. But this particular place wouldn’t suit. The idea is for a rider on the fast horse to get in front of a bunch of wild horses and ride away from them. Other riders must be on both sides and behind the wild horses, driving them. Now the strange fact is this. If the rider in front can keep ahead of the wild horses they will follow him clear to a trap corral. Such drives begin with a small bunch. But as they run along they draw in other wild horses, and at the end of a fifteen-mile drive upward of a hundred and fifty might be in the band.”

  “Huh! There’d shore be fun in that,” replied Melberne. “But I reckon none of them stunts would work with your stallion Panquitch.”

  “Hardly,” declared Chane, with a short laugh. “If he’s ever caught it’ll be by an accident or trick.”

  The riders kept close to the western wall, under cover of the cedars that lined the gentle slope of the wide gray grassy canyon. Thus they avoided frightening the several scattered bands of wild horses that dotted the meadow-like expanse.

  To Sue the ride was a continually growing delight. What a perfectly beautiful and amazing place! The deer trotted away into the spruce, scarcely showing fear. Small game was abundant. Birds in flocks fluttered up at the approach of the horses. The high wall was notched like a saw, and each indentation appeared to be a deep fissure, red-walled, thick with green spruce and russet oak and golden cottonwood. Winding gray aisles of sage led back mysteriously; huge blocks of cliff choked some passages; caverns yawned. Along the outside of the main wall the scattered groups of oak, the lines of spruce, the dots of cedar looked as if they had been planted on the gray grassy level to insure effect of stateliness, of park-like beauty. Though it was crisp October weather above, down here the sun shone warm and wild flowers bloomed everywhere, nodding in the soft breeze.

  Three or four miles from camp Chane led the riders out into the open, stationing them wide apart across the canyon, for the purpose of keeping the wild horses at that end so Alonzo could have favorable opportunity to chase them.

  Sue stayed with her father, who had a central stand. The lithe, sinewy vaquero resembled an Indian jockey. He wore neither coat, hat, nor boots. Sue inquired how could he manage to race without spurs?

  “Shore, I’m blessed if I know,” replied her father. “But he shore looks good to me. All muscle. No bones. Reckon he doesn’t weigh more’n a feather.”

  Sue thought Alonzo made a picturesque figure as he sat his black racer, scanning the level grassland. His horse was not a beauty, but he had every other qualification of greatness. He was lean, long, slim, powerful of chest, ragged and wiry, with a challenging look. He quivered under the bare heels of the vaquero. Around his middle was belted a broad surcingle. This appeared no less than a band with a ring in the right
side, and to this ring was fastened the end of the thin, greasy, snake- like lasso Alonzo carried in loops. Alonzo rode bareback. His horse did not have even a bridle.

  “Wal, Sue, I reckon this will be as good as a show,” said Melberne.

  Presently Alonzo gave his horse a gentle kick. No spur could have brought better response. The horse sprung from one leap into a long easy lope. How lightly he moved! He did not even raise the dust. And the dark-skinned rider seemed a part of him. Sue had learned that the Mexican vaqueros were the great horsemen of the Southwest, from whom all the cattle-driving and bronco-busting cowboys had learned their trade. It had been a heritage from Texas, and Texas had learned it from Mexico. Sue did not see how it was possible for a rider to sit his horse so perfectly.

  Alonzo headed to go round the closest band of wild horses, so to place them between him and the riders on the stands across the canyon. The wild horses saw him, stood erect and motionless, watching for a moment, then began to move restlessly. When he had approached to within a quarter of a mile they broke and ran eastward. Sue uttered a little cry of delight at the beauty and wildness of their appearance and action. The leader, evidently not a stallion, was red in color, and there were whites, blacks, tans, and bays, all actuated as by one instinct. Like the wind they raced, long tails and manes streaming behind them. Then suddenly it appeared that in one bound they had halted and wheeled at once, to gaze back at this lone rider. Presently it developed that the red mustang had espied enemies to the east. Chane and Chess were riding in to turn them back toward Alonzo.

  But first the wild horses trotted this way and that, fiery in motion, proud and wild, intolerant of this intrusion upon their lonely precincts. Alonzo kept a little to the north of their position, no doubt fearing a break in that unprotected direction. But manifestly the wild horses knew the unobstructed open distance lay in the opposite direction. Sue espied other bands farther off, gathering together, trotting to and fro, evincing the same curiosity that had at first affected the band upon whom Alonzo had concentrated.

  Sue enjoyed this watching experience to the full. The surroundings were such as to exalt her. Calm acceptance of this place of rugged grandeur and isolation was not possible to Sue. The dry sweet air, unbreathed; the blue sky above the great walls; the gray meadow with its waving grass; the borders of green; and then the wild horses and the riders, and the surety that this was to be a clean fine race devoid of deceit or brutality — all this appealed powerfully to Sue, waking again that something which the Utah upland had discovered in her.

  The moment came when the vaquero launched his black into the race. Sue, who had seen racehorses leave the post, could not but recognize the superiority of Alonzo’s black. All in a second he seemed wild, too. The band of horses broke and ran, in a way to make their former running seem slow. They stretched out to the east, and the fleetest forged to the front. The red leader had two rivals for supremacy, and these three drew away from the others, though not far.

  Alonzo did not appear to gain. He kept to the north of his quarry. His reason for this was obvious. For perhaps half a mile eastward this position was maintained, then shots from Chane’s gun acted like a wall upon the running wild horses. They sheered in abrupt curve toward the open, and were turned by Chess back toward the west. Here the wonderful race began.

  The vaquero had now only to head directly toward them to gain the distance that he had been behind. If the fleetness of those wild horses was something thrillingly incredible, that of Alonzo’s black was even more so, because he carried weight. No doubt the vaquero meant this particular race to be short, or perhaps this was his method. At any rate he closed in on the rear of that band, and began to pass mustang after mustang. He wanted to rope one of the best and fleetest.

  Wild horses and pursuer were now racing back toward where Sue and her father waited, and the line on which they would pass, if they kept straight, was scarcely two hundred yards.

  “Oh, dad, they’ll come close,” cried Sue.

  “You bet. Reckon I’ll shoot to scare them if they head closer.... Say, Sue, look at that half-breed ride!”

  The stretched-out band did head closer toward Melberne’s stand, and probably would have broken through the line had he not fired his gun. That made the leaders swerve a little north. It also enabled Sue to get a perfect view of the race. The rhythmic thud of flying hoofs thrilled her ears. Thin puffs of dust shot up. The lean, swift wild mustangs rushed on apace. The very action of them suggested wildness, fleetness, untamableness — spirits in harmony with their wonderful flight. But to Sue they did not seem frightened.

  As they came on the Mexican gained foot by foot upon the leaders. He could have roped his pick of those behind. But plain it was he wanted one of the three. Sue had only admiration for Alonzo, and something greater for his horse, yet her heart was with the wild mustangs.

  “Run! Oh, you beauties, run!” she cried, wildly. “He can’t keep up long.”

  “Go it, Alonzo,” roared her father, in stentorian voice. “Ketch me that red mare.”

  But Melberne’s ambition was not to be, and Sue’s hopes were only half fulfilled. The black racer was running so terribly that soon he must fall or break his stride. Yet he could only hold the place he had gained. He could not run down the fleet leaders; and as they passed, a wild and beautiful sight to a lover of horses, Sue saw them begin to draw a little away from Alonzo. He saw it, too. The long looped lasso began to swing round his head and he closed in on the horses behind the leaders. Then, at this full speed, he cast the rope. It shone in the sunlight; it streaked out, and fell.

  “He’s got one. Whoop!” yelled Melberne.

  Sue was not so sure. Presently, however, she saw Alonzo’s horse break his stride, sway and sag, catch himself to go on slower and slower. The band of wild horses swept on and beyond, to disclose one of their number madly plunging and fighting Alonzo’s rope. Then it ran wild, dragging the black. Alonzo appeared to be running with this mustang, yet at the same time holding back. They went a mile or more north, turned to the west, and then faced back again.

  Meanwhile Sue and Melberne watched. “Oh, I’m glad, but I’m sorry, too,” said Sue.

  “Haw! Haw! You’ll shore make a fine horse-wrangler’s wife.”

  “Dad!” expostulated Sue.

  “Wal, there’s no cowboy to marry, or school-teacher or preacher out heah,” declared her father. “You shore gotta marry somebody some day.”

  The subject did not appeal to Sue and she rode a little way to meet Alonzo, who appeared to have gained some control over the lassoed mustang. She saw the original band of wild horses halt far to the west, and turn about to see if they were still being chased. Chane galloped up to join Melberne, and Chess appeared to be coming.

  In a few moments more Sue saw a captured mustang at close quarters, and one that she could gaze at in pleasure, without seeing any evidence of the things that had alienated her.

  The mustang was a beautiful animal, a gray-blue in color, with extremely long mane and tail, black as a raven. Alonzo’s rope had gone over its head and one foreleg, so that the noose had come taut around its shoulders and between its forelegs at the breast.

  “Wal, he couldn’t have done better with his hands,” declared Melberne. “No chokin’ round the neck, no breakin’ legs.”

  “He’s a wonder,” replied Chane. “By golly! I thought once he’d get in reach of the red mare. Say, there’s a horse.”

  “What’ll we do now with this heah one?” inquired Melberne.

  “We’ll throw him, tie his feet, and let him lay a little while. Alonzo is good for another race on his black. Then I’d like him to ride Brutus. I’ll be darned if I don’t believe he can rope that red mare off Brutus.”

  THAT evening at sunset Melberne’s outfit were a happy, merry party. The environment perhaps had something to do with satisfaction, and then the day had been gratifying. Alonzo had roped three wild mustangs, and one of them was the red mare, which had fallen prey to the
vaquero’s unerring lasso and to the fleetness of Brutus.

  This occasion was the first time Sue had ever seen Chane Weymer happy. He was more of a boy than Chess. The victory of his horse over the wild mustang must have been the very keenest of joys. His dark face, clean-shaven and bronzed, shone in the sunset glow, and his eyes sparkled. He even had a bright look and nod for Sue.

  There was one thing forced home to Sue, perhaps, she reflected at the moment when Chane condescended to observe that she was still on the earth. This was, that after the wonderful day, and now facing in mute rapture a sunset of extraordinary glory of gold and rose and purple, seeing for the first time the phenomenon told by Chane about the lilac and lavender haze on Wild Horse Mesa, she could not call herself unhappy.

  “Melberne, I reckon I see two of Toddy Nokin’s Piutes riding down the trail,” observed Chane, shading his eyes from the last golden glare of the sun.

  “Ahuh! I see them,” replied Melberne. “Ridin’ in for supper, hey?”

  Chane looked thoughtful, and, watching the Indians, he shook his head ponderingly, as if he could not just quite understand their coming. Presently two little mustangs, with the wild- appearing riders unmistakably Indian, rode out of the cedars and came across the level in a long swinging lope.

  “One of them is Sosie’s brother,” said Chane, peering hard down the bench. “And, by golly! the other one is her husband.”

  With that Chane strode down to meet them, and at the foot of the bench he detained them in conversation for some minutes. Presently they dismounted and, slipping the saddles and bridles, they let the mustangs go, and accompanied Chane up to the camp fire.

  Sue had seen Sosie’s brother, but not her husband. He was a slender Indian, with lean, dark handsome face and somber eyes. He did not smile or talk, as did his comrade. He carried a shiny carbine which he rested on the instep of his moccasined foot.