Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

_ Coulee at the = where eZ cabin had once. find his grandfather alone. other two weeks would any of his sons * — or grandsons return from the Reserve for Supplies. he had been turned away from the great ~ man’s door without even a sight of him. clover above the spring. One would hardly have guessed from his placid face that the long awaited fight was So near at hand. His present position af- forded him even a better view of the valley __ than was to be had from the coulee and, - Jeaning on his staff, he stood for many minutes gazing moodily at old Angel’s €aserto, a dazzling white in the afternoon sunlight. It pleased him to know that he would Not for an- Joseph thought of the time when It should be different this night. And - yet, he deliberately kept himself from form- ing any definite plan of what he must do. _ This meeting to-night must be free to pro- ceed as fate willed. At best, it could be ~ but the beginning of his grandfather’ S retri- bution. it may have been fancy, but Joseph felt = that Grimm and Slippy-foot caught his mood. Both were plainly nervous, and -_ when he gave the word to start back down _ the mountain they obeyed eagerly. The sun had dropped below the horizon by the time Joseph reached the coulee and - while Shppy-foot worked the flock until it was ready to bed down, Joseph cooked his supper. his face now. To his ears came the sounds A peculiar sadness rested upon he had always associated with evening— the calling of the whippoorwill, the cheep- _— ing of the plover in the sage and, from some -~ distant peak, the barking of a coyote. Un- — consciously he threw back his head and a wee up at the crest of Buckskin. ~ He found it as he had ever found it at = = this hour—inajestic in its rose colored mantle, the gift of the sun which he could - no- Jonger see. Already the valley was bathed in opalescent twilight. So vividly _ did these sights and sounds bring back the _ past that he turned and gazed across the ‘ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. re = to the roots. So, having made up __his mind to go to the valley that night, he -- moved across the mountain in the early _ afternoon, driving his sheep to the timber- a stood. All that was needed to complete the picture was his old home, a wisp of smoke curling lazily up from its wide chimney. Here he had stood a hundred times and more at this hour, the appetiz- ing aroma of supper’ in:his nostrils. So poignant were his-memories that he winced—all these years! He wet his lips with his tongue as he stared about him in the deepening twilight. Soon, night fell, and the valley faded from view. The time to go had arrived. Without invitation, Grimm fluttered to his shoulder. Slippy- foot needed no word and she slunk away. Joseph chose to follow the old trail which led into the valley by way of the Circle-Z fence—now just a fence, and no longer the barrier it once had been, for the West had changed. The boy communed with himself as he went along. The night had had its effect on him, and his thoughts were grim. . In the days since he had roamed the mountain as a boy, old Thad Taylor, the owner of the Circle-Z, had built a new ranch house at the mouth of the box canon in which Eagan .and Tiny Mears had weathered the great storm. Joseph caught the glow of its lighted windows as he reached the fence. He had known of it, and he went on without halting. Some minutes later the moon peeked over the shoulder of the mountain and bathed the valley with its mellow light. Before long, Joseph came to an arroyo through which a well-worn trail led to Angel Irosabal’s caserio. He turned into it, but he had proceeded only a little way when he saw Slippy-foot pause and raise her nose. He stopped short, and the bleating of a lamb reached his ears. It was off to his right in the tumbled malpais. He started on, but the lamb bleated again. It was a pitiable cry, hopeless and — entreating, and so out of key with his thoughts that Joseph trembled as he called Slippy-foot back and. started across the arroyo in the direction from which the lamb had called. Five minutes later Slippy-foot enced that she had found the lamb. ‘The coyote’s presence filled it with fear, and it bleated eo wet Joseph. reached it. —= Sn He saw ee Eom Ebooks: ——=—