Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 164: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

162 he had no time for her,and that she was the only woman on the ranch. - Not that every attention was not shown her, for Newton’s instructions as to the deference to be paid his daughter had been brief and pointed. -More than that, her very helplessness ap- __ pealed to the reckless men he had gathered - for the work in hand, so that the most of them treated her as if she were a princess and they her devoted knights. ' But at the great ranch, with its heavily armed riders always coming and going on unknown errands, its air of alert prepara- tion for some expected danger, she was a very lonely and frightened little girl. ‘So that a ride into Box Alder, and dinner with Mrs. Morgan, the landlady of the hotel, was an event. It could not be said that Mrs. Morgan was a lady of the clinging vine type. More than one hilarious puncher, who had disturbed the sacred quiet of her dining- room by too loud and unseemly mirth, had felt the weight of her good right arm, and one obstreperous youth had been thrown” bodily through a window; for she was gaunt and muscular, and ruled her domain with an - jron hand. But her heart was big and warm, and she took the motherless girl into it and petted her, and told her stories of the wild early days, when the first cowmen came into the country and held it against Indian war- _ parties and outlaw rustlers, and also against the big cattle companies which tried to run them out, and she was the only woman on __ the upper Verde. This day they sat in Mrs. Morgan’s room, which overlooked the street, and the girl’s attention was attracted to two men coming up the sidewalk. “‘Who are they?” she wanted to know. “They were at the rarich the other day to see my father.” Mrs. Morgan looked. “The oldest one is Frank Gorham, Wild Frank,” she said. “They say he’s afraid of -_ neither man nor devil and he killed many a man in the old days. But he’s good- hearted for all that and has many friends. He’s a leader among the cowmen; they all look to him and follow him. The other is young Ewing, Buck they call him, his name - being Buckner. ““My dear,” she went on, “I’m going to get that boy in while you’re here. He’s Adventure that scared of girls that it’s pitiful. At the dances he’ll always ask the married women, and when it’s ladies choice the girls, a half- dozen of the imps at once, will make a sport of asking him to dance, and hang on to him, and tell him how much they love him, which is more than half true, and he’ll blush, and stammer, and won’t know whether he’s standing on his head or his feet; and he’s a good dancer, too. “But maybe when he sees that scared little look you’ve always got he won’t be so frightened?” Despite the girl’s protest she got up, but paused to stare out of the window. “Will you look at that?” she exclaimed. For Crawford had turned a corner and he and Gorham stood face to face. Now Gorham had turned several glasses over his thumb that morning and was in high good humor. ~ “Buck,” he said, “‘will you look who’s here? As I’m a sinner it’s the gentleman that fenced the trail.”’ He hooked his thumbs into his belt and stood leering at Crawford. 2 “Stranger,” he remarked, “I’ve forgotten your name, which don’t matter. But if you feel hostile about what I called you the other day, or what I’m liable to call you now, let’s go out in the street and shoot it out.” He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. “T’ll bet you two to one, the size of your roll, that I plug you center the first shot and that you either miss or hit me around the edges, and Buck here will hold the stakes. Come on, be a sport,” he urged; but Craw- ford was not to be trapped. “The time hasn’t come for a showdown yet,” he replied, and turned away. ‘ Gorham took the end of the big handker- chief around his neck and wiped his eyes. “‘Ain’t this getting to be a —— of a country?” he mourned. ‘‘As soon as I ever laid eyes on that guy I had a hunch that he ought to be killed and I’ve made fight talk at him twice and he won’t bite. Come on, Buck, let’s go drown our sorrows.” But just then Mrs. Morgan called to them from the hotel. When she had made the exclamation the girl had jumped up. “What is it?”’ she wanted to know. “It’s Gorham trying to pick a fight with your father’sforeman. I’d heard that there was some trouble about the range; but ™ - iboo () <S com com