Thrilling Ranch Stories, November, 1933
ORMA LEWIS pulled her calico chestnut curls, blended smoothly with its pony to a halt on a small rise and
background of juniper studded bluffs and
Ndrank in the pine-scented breeze that jagged buttes.
came in gentle waves over Painted Mesa. She gazed off across the purple-shadowed canyons BEFORE her the broken lands extended as far and arroyos with eyes that sparkled with the as she could see, making jagged outlines on joy of seeing the friendly and restful hills two sides, rough natural boundaries that
again. The figure of the girl perched erect on separated her father’s B-L Ranch from the
the patch pony, divided skirt, and cream barren wastes on the other side of the divide.
sombrero cocked jauntily over a wild tangle of But now the sharp crags were softened in the
Thrilling Ranch Stories
2
afternoon sun, and the sawtooth hills took on white, she noted. His eyes were gray, she
shadows in grotesque and lovely shapes and decided. Then they seemed blue. At any rate, shades.
they were deep and, although he was young, As the girl relaxed on her horse they had tiny crows feet barely showing in the drinking in the loveliness of her old home, she corners, indications that he had spent a
was utterly unconscious of her immediate lifetime out in the sun.
surroundings. The juniper and pine covered crag beside the trail formed a table a bit higher IT SEEMED comfortable, lying there and
than her head, a thicket of tangled shrubbery being fanned by such a stranger, but Norma to which she gave no attention at the moment.
made an effort to get up.
On the tableland and several yards
“What happened?” she asked.
behind her a slinking yellow form crept
“Nothing much.” His voice was deep
forward on noiseless padded feet. Step by
and cool, like springs of fresh water under silent step, belly to the ground, it skimmed shady trees. “You almost had an accident. It’s through its green concealment.
all over now. Feel better?” Norma sat up
Now it was directly over the girl’s
experimentally, then got to her feet.
head, crouching, green eyes narrow and sharp.
“I don’t think any bones are broken,”
The girl was gazing dreamily at the distant she answered, examining a long scratch that hills.
could be seen on her arm through a rip in her Then it sprang. Lightning quick! The
sleeve.
air suddenly became filled with reeling, flying She looked at her horse. The animal
forms.
stood near-by, trembling. Several long welts The terrified little horse screamed. A
and scratches were raised on his back. She shot roared, and the pony lunged. Norma stepped over to the animal and patted his head Lewis felt herself thrown spinning over her while she examined his wounds. Her face
animal’s head.
went white and she felt terribly weak.
She landed in a heap against a great boulder
“Panther?” she asked huskily.
and her senses began deserting her. A pungent
“Yes, miss,” the man replied. “He
odor permeated her consciousness, a sprang from that boulder over your head. I got decidedly unpleasant odor, it was. And then in a lucky shot just as he came sailing down she lost all control of herself and everything on you.”
went black.
Norma
shivered.
“Ought to be careful while ridin’ these
“YOU feelin’ better now, miss?” It was a
trails, miss. The panthers are awfully hungry quiet masculine voice, full of assurance and this spring. Been starving all winter, and now comfort, that brought her back to her senses.
they’re killing cattle and even full grown Slowly, through the haze of her mind,
horses.”
a form took outline. She was lying in the
Norma looked about her but did not
shade of the boulder and a man was kneeling see the dead animal.
over her, fanning her face with his almost-
“Where is it?” she asked.
white Stetson.
“Threw it behind the boulder,” the man
Norma opened one eye a little wider,
said. “Hoped you wouldn’t see it. No use to then dared open the other and give the man upset you more.”
more careful scrutiny.
“Thanks, but I’m not so easily upset.
He was slender, and his silk shirt was
I’ve seen lots of them around here. May I see
The Renegade of Painted Mesa 3
it?”
could do for me—that is, if you would.”
The man led her around the boulder
SO he didn’t intend to tell her his name.
and showed her the dead animal. Its wicked Norma bit her lips to hide her annoyance. But mouth was open, exposing needle-sharp teeth.
she answered. “Why, of course. Anything I
Its velvet-covered claws were slightly
could do—”
flecked with blood.
“Thanks a lot,” the man answered
A bullet hole squarely behind the quickly. “I hear some horses coming. There’ll shoulder spoke eloquently of the accuracy of be friends of yours in the party. Now I’ll just the stranger’s aim.
call this little incident square if you’ll promise Norma turned away with a shrug. me not to say anything about it happening. Or
“You didn’t finish telling me all of what if you have to, don’t mention that you saw happened,” she said to the man beside her.
anybody. I’m sorry I can’t explain right now.
“That was all. He just jumped and I
Is that a bargain?”
just shot. When he landed on your horse he
“Of course,” the girl returned. “If you
sunk his claws in and your pony did a song ask me not to—”
and dance and you landed on that stone.”
The man interrupted again. “Much
obliged. And watch out for panthers.” And
SONG and dance, indeed! Norma smiled at
then as an afterthought, “—of all kinds.”
the stranger’s efforts to make his rescue sound Puzzled, Norma Lewis saw the
so matter of fact.
stranger jam his hat on his head and disappear
“Oh, I see,” she said mischievously.
around the boulder, then a few moments later
“It’s as simple as all that.”
she heard the clump of galloping hooves,
The man made some kind of distinct at first, then growing fainter until depreciating gesture with his hands.
there was nothing but silence.
“Well, even if saving girls from
The girl gave her attention to her
panthers is a simple, everyday occurrence with horse, still wondering at the strange action of you, I ought to thank you for what you’ve
the stranger. She was examining the scratches done.”
on the animal when a party of three riders
“It
wasn’t
anything,” the man assured
appeared on the trail and brought their mounts her.
up short.<
br />
“All right, I’ll take your word for it,
The foremost rider in the party was her
Mr.—” she looked at him questioningly for a father’s foreman, Bart Bradley. She had seen moment. Then to cover the silence she said, the other two working about the place.
“I’m Norma Lewis.” Another silence. “This is
“Howdy, Miss Lewis,” Bradley said,
my father’s place—Bob Lewis—”
easing himself across his saddle. “What’s the The man seemed not to have noticed
trouble?”
her hesitation when she expected him to give his name. Or, if he had noticed it, he choose to HIS piercing black eyes roved over the girl’s act as though he hadn’t.
dusty clothes and came to rest on the bleeding
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Lewis,” he
hips of the pony. “Them’s panther scratches, said. He spoke absently, looking off toward ain’t they?”
one of the valleys. Then after a moment he
“Yes,” the girl answered reluctantly.
turned and eyed her frankly.
Remembering her promise to the stranger, she
“You said something about thanking
tried to head off any more questions. “He
me,” he said. “I reckon there is something you jumped on Patch, but I shot him before he did
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4
much damage. Everything’s all right now,
“Because we’re out looking for him
thanks.”
now. Somebody seen him headed this way, so Bradley looked at the girl in a way that
we’re makin’ up a surprise necktie party for sent an uncomfortable shiver down her back.
him.”
“You sure are lucky,” he said, “and brave,” he
“Oh.” The girl looked queerly at her
added patronizingly. “It ain’t every girl brave father’s foreman, then quirted her horse and enough to shoot a painter.”
galloped off down the trail to the ranch house.
The girl mounted her horse, eager to
Bradley turned in his saddle and
be gone.
watched her until she was out of sight, and the
“Where’s the animal?” Bradley asked
light in his eyes would have made her very her.
uncomfortable had she seen it. Then he joined The girl nodded toward the boulder.
the men who were still looking at the dead
“Behind there.”
panther.
The two riders left the foreman and
nosed their horses around the massive stone.
NORMA LEWIS prepared supper for her
Bradley, seemingly losing interest in the dead father with restless hands. This first night after panther, eased his horse over beside the girl’s her return from a winter spent with friends in animal.
Denver was turning out a failure.
“Miss Norma,” he said. “Things has
Old Bob Lewis was so worried that he
been pretty bad since you been on your trip seemed not to realize that his daughter had back East. Cattle is disappearin’ wholesale.
returned. He sat at the table and ate quickly Some was stole last night.
and silently while Norma sat across from him,
“And folks has been seein’ a stranger,
uncomfortable and nervous.
a puncher feller around lately. I’d advise you Time and time again there came back
to kinda keep clear o’ these here badlands.
to her the events of the afternoon, the stranger Cow hustlers kinda resents folks nosin’ who wouldn’t tell his name, and who around where they’re workin’.”
disappeared so abruptly the moment he knew Norma bit her lips, filled with that somebody was coming up the trail. And resentment at the foreman for having said the foreman, a man her father had hired while what he did, and a sense of guilt, as though she was away; the man’s gaze had made her
she had been having an intrigue with a cattle feel unclean.
thief. She felt as though she were caught in an Old Bob got up from the table and
illegal act.
without a word buckled on his gun belt and
“Why—I’m not afraid,” she said joined his foreman and men out at the corral.
lamely.
From the kitchen door, Norma heard
“No, I know you ain’t,” Bradley determined voices and the stamping of horses’
answered. “But you’d better stay away from feet.
this neck o’ the woods.” His eyes searched her Presently she heard them ride away
face eagerly. “You ain’t seen anybody around, into the darkness and she sat under a tree have you?”
beside the house and waited. The hours
Norma Lewis looked off into the stretched out slowly, as though the night distance for a long moment. Then slowly she would never end.
turned to her questioner.
“If I see any cattle thieves around I’ll
AFTER a while the moon came up, casting a
report it right away. Why do you ask?”
feeble yellow light over the prairie and
The Renegade of Painted Mesa 5
deepening the blackness in the hills where her get goin’.”
father had gone with his men. And still time Then he turned to the girl. “You can
seemed endless.
just blame yourself if yore dad’s dead,” he Then, at last she heard hoof beats, faint
shot at her. “If you hadn’t lied to me out there at first, then louder, until at last three today this might not have happened.”
horsemen dashed up to the corral and slid to a
“I didn’t tell you I was talking to
stop. The men were off their animals and
anybody out there,” Norma said lamely. She stripping off their saddles to change them to was humiliated that she had got herself into fresh horses when Norma ran to them.
this unpleasant position. It seemed now that
“Did you catch him—where’s father?”
the man she had lied for had turned out a
she asked incoherently.
murderer as well as a cattle thief.
“Old Bob’s shot—he done it. We’re
“Maybe not in them words, but there
gonna run him down.”
was a man there. He shot that painter.”
“But where’s father? Tell me what
“How do you know?”
happened!” Norma demanded with increased
“Because if you shot him, how come
excitement.
he was shot with a forty-five slug when your Bart Bradley took the girl gently by the
gun is a thirty-two? That little pistol of yours arm and patted her back. “Don’t worry. We’ll wouldn’t kill a panther.”
find him.”
Anger surged up in the girl and,
A chill ran down Norma’s back as the
without answering the foreman’s accusation, man’s hand rested on her. “Please tell me what she turned suddenly and ran toward the house.
happened!” she repeated.
In the depths of her emotion she positively
“I was just going to tell you,” Bradley
hated the thoughts of the man who had got her returned. “We was out hunting that man you into all this trouble. “I hope they find him and was talking to this afternoon. We flushed him hang him,” she said between sobs.
in that malapais, and in the chase we got separated. We heard a shot, an’ yore dad EVEN as Bradley and his men rode off, she didn’t show up, so the rustler must have shot was getting into riding clothes and strapping him. We’re gonna find ’em both now.”
her little gun about her waist. They were
hardly out of sight when she was out to the NORMA’S fing
ernails dug into the palms of
corral throwing a bridle on her pony.
her hands.
“Patch,” she said, as she climbed up on
“Have one of the man saddle Patch,”
a corral pole and mounted, “you have to show she ordered.
me the way to that stranger. I’m going to find
“No!” Bradley said in a voice of him just as soon as I find dad.”
authority. “You couldn’t do no good.”
The sure-footed little animal led her
“Don’t tell me what to do,” the girl
over the trail that she herself could hardly said sharply. “I must find father. Please have make out in the darkness. His mile-eating gait my horse saddled.”
had brought her almost to the point of her Bradley was adamant. “No!” he said.
afternoon’s adventure when the horse stopped
“Your dad may be dead now and I’m in dead still and pricked up his ears.
charge. It’s too dangerous for you out there.”
Listening carefully the girl found the
The foreman turned to one of his men
cause—another horse was whinnying off to
and handed him a key. “Lock her saddle in the the left, out of sight in the scrub pines and shed,” he ordered. “And shake a leg; we gotta boulders.
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6
The girl loosened the gun in her holster
Norma caught her breath, hesitated for
and turned her horse’s nose toward the sound.
a moment, then her hand came up with her
Her heart pumped madly but she rode gun.
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