Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

ALKALTI, They rode on, neither speaking. Mason found that to have a companion who has cast his lot in with your judgment is to serve as a bolster to one’s confidence. He scarcely sensed that this was so, but in true Mason fashion he assumed, perhaps presumed, that leadership had been accord- ed him. Without mentioning his thoughts to Brant, he began planning not alone what he would do, but also what they would do. They reached Fort Laramie, and were received with gusto. All about the plains there were wintering wagons of every de- scription, and the place itself had altered greatly since the days of Jimmie’s recollec- tion. They .learned that many of the wagons they saw had been left where they were to stand until they should have rotted into the ground. Riders were constantly coming into the place for supplies, and scarcely a day passed that supply trains did not arrive from the East. News of the war was avidly received, and Jimmie learned that many of the soldiers had been called East and were engaged in fighting the South. On every hand there was talk of gold and of cattle. Tired-looking men appeared at the fort and showed pokes well filled with gold that they had salvaged from the hills, leaving in exchange for it the straightness of their shoulders, the youthful gleam of their eyes, the natural buoyance of life that fades so quickly in the solitudes. Men talked of land in the thousands of acres; of cattle in the thousands of head, Jimmie heard tales of the long cattle drives that men had made. He learned of the trouble ranchers were having with rustlers, and there was talk of forming vigilantes whose duty it would be to wage a war on the rustlers. He sensed that his father had led him into the fastness of an empire asleep, and that now he had come to an empire rousing itself. It seemed to him that the great plains, like a sleeping buffalo, had roused to the power of its own might, and was even then shaking off the fetters of centu- ries and lumbering to its feet to stand before the world as the newest and greatest of SS ve * ~__=. + es hs oe > - ee a Farber" 127 He caught the fever; felt the beating pulse of tremendous things; drank in avidly the stirring breath of life and prog- ress. He found work with one Frederick Ral- ston, whose name was soon to be em- blazoned across the hide of thirty thousand wandering steers. All during the winter he worked among the herd; learned much about cattle; perfected himself in the ways of a rancher, His mind seldom left the valley where his mother and Betty waited. Now and then he was referred to as Hell Bend Ma- son, but his reputation gained at Faro served the noble purpose of keeping him from trouble and gave him hours in which to think and to plan. Yet, when all was said and done, that thinking and planning was pitiable in its futility. The more he thought, the less he saw his way clear. He had no money with which to buy cattle; he had no land, no horses, no equipment. The result was that his thoughts grew not as thoughts, but as dogged determination. He was going into the cattle business. That became his Bible. Spring came, and Ralston drove his herd north toward the Black Hills. On all sides Jimmie heard that, once beyond the Bad Lands and over the hills, the prairie spread for endless miles, an ideal grazing ground, a perfect land for cattle. Brant continued with him when the great drive started out. He did so complainingly, but he did so. He frequently resorted to calling Jimmie a “ damned fool”; yet he clung to Jimmie’s determination even as Jimmie did himself. Naturally’ weak of nature, he was attracted to Jimmie’s strength of will. They journeyed northward slowly, the cattle fattening on the bunch grass even as they traveled. Brawls among the men were frequent; card playing cost the lives of two cowboys; liquor appeared mysteriously among the riders, and Ralston had his hands full in controlling them; but with the implacable force of its awakening the West grew, and in the growing seemed of its va volition to push that herd ever on- war = eS i ae ae o ee _ m = - S eee i so ae > ; ro > — ‘. oe te. Sn, See * ~ * — = : *. me Ji immie drew Lae the ae Se ze ws. et we Se ser rx —— ~ = ‘ L “4 ~ comichnoke. com —