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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abaede2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67475 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67475) diff --git a/old/67475-0.txt b/old/67475-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6216211..0000000 --- a/old/67475-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1912 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Where Stillwater Runs Deep, by B. M. -Bower - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Where Stillwater Runs Deep - -Author: B. M. Bower - -Release Date: February 22, 2022 [eBook #67475] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark. This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE STILLWATER RUNS DEEP *** - - - Where Stillwater Runs Deep - - By B. M. Bower - Author of “The Adam Chaser,” “The White Wolf Pack,” Etc. - - -[Illustration] - - He was an Irishman and a West Pointer and liked to fight. - But he was also Patrick R. O’Neill, ranger of the - Yellowstone National Forest, and his mission in Bad Cañon - was one of peace. And peace it was, but two-fisted! - - - - - CHAPTER I. READY FOR BUSINESS. - - -At the moment, Ed Murray, supervisor of the Absarokee Division of the -Yellowstone National Forest, was peeved. “Read that!” he snorted, -shoving a letter from his particular higher-ups in Washington into the -hands of his stolid secretary who, by the way, comprised the entire -office force of the Absarokee Division. - -The secretary obediently began reading in a slightly singsong tone: - - “Under separate cover we are mailing you blank township - maps. As a measure of economy you are instructed to have - some member of your office force sketch in the necessary - data, using the inclosed legends which have been made - official for all forest-service maps. We——” - -“That’s all—never mind the official trimmings,” Murray curtly -interrupted. “Point is this: You’re the office force. What’re you -going to do about it? Think you can fill in the maps?” - -While the secretary calmly ruminated upon the subject of map making, -Murray watched her with a twinkle of amusement, though that did not in -the least degree soften his resentment against Washington. - -“I could do anything on the typewriter if it would fit in the -machine,” Christine at length decided. “If they are big maps, I could -fold them lengthwise without carbon, but they might slip on the -roller, which is too slick. If it is figures, I do not mind so much, -but if it is those funny signs for surveying I must copy them with a -pen, and that is no joke if I am in a hurry. I think if it is much -work, Mr. Murray, I should get more wages.” - -“Huh! Well, as you say, making maps on a typewriter is no joke, and I -guess you’d earn your money all right!” Her employer noted the -clearing of Christine’s placid blue eyes, gave another inarticulate -snort and returned to his own problem, knowing that Christine was -unlikely to repeat his words. - -“Seems like I’ve got troubles enough in this district, fighting every -cowman, sheepman, timberman and nester in the State. I’m always -short-handed, always got a row on my hands with some one who thinks I -ought to turn the reserve over to him just because we used to punch -cows together! When I don’t, they think I’m trying to ride them on -account of some little argument over brands that might have come up -when I was stock inspector. - -“Some member of the office force!” he growled, remembering the letter. -“Huh! They must think I’m runnin’ two wagons and a regular round-up -crew in this office! Far as that goes, I could take my rangers and -work the reserve quicker than these darned cow outfits—picked ’em off -the range myself, most of them. But when it comes to making -maps—— They’re like you, Christine. You could do it on the typewriter, -you think; they might tackle it with a branding iron! Some member of -my office force! My gosh! Take this letter, Christine. I’ll tell them -poker-faced politicians in Washington what——” - -“Do you want that in the letter?” Christine lifted her plump white -hand to pluck the pencil from her silky blond hair. - -“Lord, no! Dog-gone that June 11th Act and its maps and pamphlets and -systems and all that bunk! What I’m going to need is a crew of civil -engineers and an addition on this office. Washington must think all -forest rangers are merely desk men! Why——” - -“Should that be incorporated in the body of the letter, Mr. Murray?” -Christine was patiently waiting with pencil point on her pad. “I could -make a note and beg to inform them in a polite way that you have no -office force and your secretary works until six o’clock sometimes——” - -“No!” shouted Murray. “What does Washington care how long my secretary -works? Take this—verbatim. None of your business-college trimmings—I -want it typed the way I say it! I’ll tell them——” - -The office door opened, admitting six feet of husky young manhood who -saluted Murray and snapped into attention while he took in the entire -office force with flicking glances of blue eyes that twinkled -habitually. It may go on record that the entire office force -instinctively patted its blond hair and modestly cast down its eyes of -blue—with sundry furtive inspections when it thought the military -visitor was not looking. - -“Are you the forest supervisor, sir?” Somehow the habitual twinkle in -the stranger’s eyes seemed to match a certain rollicky Irish tone of -his voice, as if he had a joke on the tip of his tongue and needed -scant encouragement to tell it. - -“I am. What can I do for you?” - -“You might read these letters of Recommendation, sir, and if they suit -you, then you might give me a job.” He grinned as he handed Murray two -letters and stepped back. - - * * * * * - -The first letter came from the national forest service and was signed -by the chief. It stated that the bearer, Patrick R. O’Neill, had at -his own request been transferred from Arizona to Montana, and was -competent to perform all duties pertaining to the forest service. The -other was from the supervisor of the Black Mesa National Forest, -Arizona, and spoke in highest terms of the qualifications of this same -Patrick O’Neill. Murray read both with care before he so much as -glanced again at the man. When he did, he saw Patrick O’Neill still -standing at attention, still with the twinkle in his eyes. - -“Huh! Seen army service, too, haven’t you?” - -“Yes, sir. Two years and a half at West Point.” - -“Holy mackerel! Two years and a half—you learned how to make maps, -didn’t you?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Lock the door, Christine! Quick, before he gets away! Damn it, man, -you’re needed in this office! Sit down and let’s talk. Christine, -can’t you tell a joke unless it’s labeled? Unlock that door!” - -“I was taught obedience to my employer by the business college. You -say I am to lock the door and I lock it. I should not read your mind -or some day I lose my job.” Christine unlocked the door which she had -obediently locked, sat down at her desk and began wiping the speckless -old typewriter before her, while she still patiently waited for the -letter her boss was going to write. - -“Tell me first why you quit West Point,” Murray was saying. “I’d have -given my left arm for such a chance when I was a young man.” - -“Technically speaking, I quit, Mr. Murray, but it was merely a -strategic move on my part. I’d rather walk out than be kicked out.” - -“Huh?” - -“Insubordination, sir. We had a major—an old woman he was, Mr. Murray. -Always putting us through our paces in civil engineering. One day he -called on me in class to explain just how I would go about raising a -hundred-and-fifty-foot flagpole. I said, ‘I would call a sergeant, -sir, and I would say to the sergeant, “Sergeant, take a detail of men -and raise that hundred-and-fifty-foot flagpole which you see lying -there.”’ - -“The major lost his temper, sir. He accused me of being facetious. I -replied that no one ever heard of an officer of the United States army -so violating the traditions of his rank as to perform the menial task -of raising flagpoles, and that I had clearly stated the method by -which I would go about it, just as he had requested me to do. The -major further forgot himself, sir. He called me an impudent young -puppy. I thereupon saluted and walked out of the classroom. My sojourn -at West Point ended shortly thereafter, sir.” Grin and twinkle -combined to give Patrick O’Neill a look of personified good humor. - -Murray roared with laughter; a circumstance unusual in that office -where worry perched like a raven on his file case. - -“How about making forest-service maps? Would you call upon the office -force and tell them to fill in the blank township maps with the proper -data—using a typewriter?” - -Patrick O’Neill laughed. “No, I think I’d prefer to make the maps -myself. It would be child’s play after the map making at West Point, -and help me to familiarize myself with forest boundaries before you -assign me to a district. If I can get hold of a couple of surfaced -boards and a two-by-four, Mr. Murray, I’ll just knock together a table -and set it beside that north window and go to work, sir.” - -“Huh! Christine, phone the lumber yard and tell them to let Pat -O’Neill have whatever material he wants to pick out, and send it up -here immediately. Say it’s for the forest service.” - -So this is how Patrick O’Neill, some time of West Point and lately of -Black Mesa, Arizona, came into the service of the Yellowstone National -Forest. - - - - - CHAPTER II. TOO MUCH MISERY. - - -“Ed, I’m through!” Ranger Cushman tossed his hat onto the pine table -where Pat O’Neill had whistled softly over the making of his maps, and -where he whistled no more now that the job was beautifully finished. -O’Neill was now waiting around the office with an expectant, eager -look in his eyes which Murray had studiously ignored while he pondered -the problem of keeping the happy Irishman busy. - -“Huh! What’s the trouble now? Cushman, I want you to meet Pat O’Neill; -been making maps; part of the office force now. Well, what’s wrong -with the Stillwater District this time?” - -“Ain’t this time, Ed. It’s _all_ the time, and I’m darned good and -tired of it. Man was not born to stand the grief I’ve stood with them -wild cats. I’m goin’ back to the peaceful life of roughin’ broncs for -a livin’. Why, them coyotes over on the Stillwater are so poison mean -they won’t even speak to each other, except when they call a -convention to devise ways and means of dealin’ me misery, and old -Boyce is chairman of the committee. - -“They’ve cut the wires on my pasture fence every night for a month, so -every time I want a horse I got to wrangle him afoot. They steal my -grub. I ride day an’ night, hazin’ cattle off the reserve, and they -drive ’em on faster than I can drive ’em off. Why, even the sheepmen -are gettin’ gay! Found two bands of sheep on the reserve, last week, -over Trout Creek way. Killed a few sheep and took a shot at the -herder, but that won’t stop ’em. They’ll keep a-comin’, now they’ve -started. - -“Another thing: Them darn timber pirates on Blind Bridger Creek are -cuttin’ everything they come to, regardless. Ed, it’d take a hull -regiment of rangers with a Gatlin’ gun apiece to keep that country -straight! Why, damn it, some of the cowmen even went so far as to hint -I was in on the rustlin’ that’s goin’ on over there. If there’s any -brand of cussedness they ain’t been up to, they’ll think it up while -I’m gone. You can save your breath, Ed. This time you can’t talk me -into goin’ back. I’m through! Ab-so-lutely, eternally through!” - -“Huh! Guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Cushman. This makes -the third time you’ve come in here bellerin’ that you’ve quit the -Stillwater.” He whirled his chair around and glared hard at Pat -O’Neill, who was making a map case of his own invention. “Now, what’re -_you_ lickin’ your chops for, like a dog watchin’ a Christmas dinner? -Think there’s a turkey leg comin’ to you outa this?” - -“Oh, doctor, but it listens sweet to my fightin’ Irish ears, Mr. -Murray!” Pat O’Neill retorted, with the faintest hint of a brogue in -his voice. - -“Huh! Think I’d give you the best ranger station in the Northwest? -Good, three-room log house, good barn, plenty of corrals, thirty acres -of alfalfa under ditch and over two hundred acres of good pasture land -fenced with a four-wire fence——” - -“Cut in two or three places every night,” Ranger Cushman dourly -interjected. - -“Well, yes, cut occasionally, but a fine pasture for all that. Most -important district in the Absarokee Division; settled clear up to the -base of the mountains with nesters, cow outfits, sheep ranches, all -dead set against the forest service——” - -“Puttin’ it mild!” again from Ranger Cushman. - -“Well, I admit they’re prejudiced some. Think I’d give that district -to a devil-may-care Irishman just because he happened to know how to -make up a batch of maps? Huh! What d’you expect me to do, O’Neill? -Give you the best and biggest—also the meanest and -fightin’est—district I’ve got in my division?” - - * * * * * - -For answer, Patrick O’Neill with the West Point figure and mien -facetiously pantomimed his emotions in a manner that sent the blond -secretary into shoulder-heaving convulsions of mirth. That is, he -tilted his head to one side, licked his tongue out over one corner of -his mouth and waggled a hand behind him like a tail. - -Ranger Cushman gave a great snort of laughter. Ed Murray roared and -lifted a boot toward the impudent mimic. - -“Sick ’em!” he chuckled. “Dog-gone yuh! I was going to send you over -to Stillwater to help Cushman whip that district into shape, but now -you’ll have to tackle it alone.” He eyed O’Neill thoughtfully, his -face gradually settling to a sober look. “I dunno about it, though. -Can you ride?” - -“Yes, sir.” O’Neill smelled serious business in the air and quit his -foolery. - -“Huh! That’s what you said when I asked you if you could make maps, -but—this is out West, remember. By riding, I mean—well, _riding_.” - -“They ride down in the Black Mesa country, sir.” O’Neill paused, with -the twinkle in his eyes. “I mean—they _ride_.” - -“Black Mesa—yeah, that’s right, you’re from that country. Wel-l—you’ll -be on your own, so to speak, once you get up there. You heard what -Ranger Cushman said about it. On the square, do you think you can -handle it?” - -“I’d like to try it, Mr. Murray.” - -Murray cocked a suspicious eye at him, probably wondering just what -lay back of that sudden modesty—coupled with the Irish tone and the -twinkle. He glanced at Cushman, caught the pitying smile on his -saturnine face and swung back to the desk, perhaps to hide a grin. - -“All right, O’Neill, you’ll take over the Stillwater District. You -will have charge of the grazing permits and the timber sales, of -course. You will find that the stockmen are inclined to resent the -grazing fee of thirty-five cents a head for their stock, and if it is -possible I should like to see a better feeling between the ranchers -and the forest service. The service is really a protection to the -stockmen, but as yet they look upon us as oppressors who delight in -interfering with their inalienable rights. Boyce, of the Bar B -Ranch—which is nearest the Stillwater station—is apparently the -bitterest enemy we have.” - -“He’s a devil!” growled Cushman. - -“He came from Boston, but that don’t make him any the less a cowman. -Do the best you can with him and all the rest, and I’ll back you up as -far as Washington will let me.” - -“That won’t mean a thing to yuh,” Ranger Cushman told O’Neill, with -the emphasis born of his late tribulations. “This absent treatment for -protection don’t go; not when you’ve got to fight them wild cats over -on the Stillwater. I had Washington and Ed Murray to back me up, -too—but my fences was cut just the same, I noticed!” - -“All in the day’s work!” O’Neill laughed, happy over the prospect. “I -learned to mend reserve fences down on the Black Mesa. They cut them -there, too—for a while.” - -“Meanin’, I reckon, that you tamed ’em down. But I notice you changed -your range just the same—and I’m changin’ mine. I ain’t goin’ to Black -Mesa, either.” - - - - - CHAPTER III. A BATTLE OF WORDS. - - -On a still, sunny day in July, Patrick O’Neill rode whistling down the -steep trail that led into Lodgepole Basin. From little openings in the -pines he could look down over a vast stretch of hills and valleys -which formed a part of his district—a peaceful scene which held him -silent for a space. The ranger station which would be his home lay -farther down in the basin, a tip of its flagpole showing white above a -grove of young pines. - -“Looks like heaven, after the jack pines and mesquite of Black Mesa,” -he observed to his horse that stood switching flies with philosophic -calm. “I’ll stand a lot of grief before I’ll quit. We’ll sure make a -home of this place, no foolin’. Cushman wasn’t Irish. Takes the Irish -to get a real human slant on folks. He’s a sour cuss—probably tried to -lord it over the natives, and they wouldn’t stand for it. - -“Don’t blame ’em. I wouldn’t let any iron-visaged ranger dictate much -to me, if I were a rancher. The human note—no up-stage attitude—just -be one of them, friendlylike and peaceful. That’s the ticket. Like -gentling a bronc, this thing is going to be. Treat ’em right and -they’ll treat you right.” - -Whereupon he resumed his whistling and jogged down to the comfortable -log house in the grove of lodgepole pines, opened all the windows and -went happily to work at what he called policing camp. After that he -got out the files and studied the grazing permits, the brands, owners -thereof and the territory assigned to each. It took the rest of the -day and most of the evening to memorize the stuff he felt he should -have ready behind the tip of his tongue, but he enjoyed it all and -repeated his cheerful prophecies concerning the work of gentling -Stillwater District. - -“That Bar B man, Boyce, seems to be the king-pin of this district,” he -mused, as he rode abroad over his domain to familiarize himself with -the topography of the country, just as he had made himself acquainted -with the records. “Next on the program comes the human contact. Think -I’ll just ride down and make friends with our Bostonian neighbor at -the Bar B. Must be educated and intelligent—we ought to have a good -deal in common. I’m educated, far above the average in -intelligence—oh, you Pat O’Neill! When you tell him that, he’ll love -you for your modesty if for nothing else!” - -So he turned his horse’s head toward the Bar B Ranch. - -The Honorable Standish Boyce of Boston was leaning over the front gate -as O’Neill rode up, whistling under his breath, as was the carefree -habit he had. A pair of field glasses dangled from the old man’s right -hand, as if he had been making certain of the horseman’s identity, had -recognized him as the new forest ranger and was now waiting to welcome -him according to precedent and his general opinion of all -forest-service men. - -Patrick O’Neill flung a limber leg over the cantle of his stock saddle -and stepped down with agile grace, smiling his Irish smile as he -strode forward with outstretched hand. - -“Mr. Boyce? I’m the new ranger in this district. O’Neill is my -name—Pat O’Neill.” - -“Well, what of it?” Boyce still stood with his arms folded upon the -gate, the field glasses swinging gently from their narrow strap. Cold -gray eyes had the Honorable Standish Boyce, set deep and close to a -high, thin nose. Beneath the nose, a thin, straight mouth, half hidden -beneath a growth of thin, white beard, pointed to match his nose. His -eyes had the impersonal glare of the bird he so closely resembled—an -Uncle Sam on the warpath, O’Neill thought swiftly. - -“Oh, nothing much, Mr. Boyce!” he grinned, firm in his purpose. -“Nothing, except that I understand you are one of the leading citizens -of our little community, as well as the largest user of the National -Forest, and I wanted to meet you.” - -“Well, you’ve met me. If you’re satisfied, I am. Now get off my ranch -and stay off.” - -The spirit of a thousand generations of fighting O’Neills rose and -looked out through the eyes of young Pat, but he hushed their battle -cry and somehow managed to keep his Irish grin. - -“You’re a bit hasty, Mr. Boyce. You and I will have a good deal of -business to transact together as time goes on. It will be much -pleasanter if we are friends, you know.” - -“Young man, I transact my business directly with Washington. I have -relatives who stand high in official circles, and by virtue of their -influence I enjoy privileges quite beyond your petty power to accord -me. Now will you do me the favor to leave this place?” - -“When the favor becomes mutual, yes. First, I want to tell you that -it’s my business to administer the affairs of this district on behalf -of the government. Whether you approve or disapprove of that fact is -of no concern to the government or to me. You may be twin brother to -the President of these United States for all I care, Mr. Boyce, but -the fact remains the same. Any business you have to transact with the -forest service, you will transact with me, its accredited -representative.” - - * * * * * - -Then the fighting O’Neills in him took a hand. They propelled him -forward so that his blazing Irish eyes were within a foot of the cold -gray ones. - -“Get this straight, old-timer! I’m running this neck of the woods—not -your relatives in Washington—and you may as well learn the fact right -here as farther down the creek! Your special privileges end right -here, you bean-brained old pie eater! From this minute on, you haven’t -got one damn privilege beyond what your neighbors enjoy, and if I -catch you trying to assume that you have, I’ll arrest you same as I -would any one else! Let that sink away down deep in your cosmic -consciousness, Mr. Boyce. The sooner you realize that this forest -service is not run for the special benefit of any individual, the less -grief you are going to have!” - -Boyce’s white-bearded jaw sagged in amazement. He swallowed twice, -shook a tremulous fist at the man who had the temerity to defy him, -and spluttered an epithet. - -“Calm yourself, Mr. Boyce,” O’Neill admonished, as he picked up the -reins to remount. “I expect that’s pretty hard to swallow, but you -needn’t choke over it.” - -“I— You— I’ll have you dismissed—kicked out in disgrace, you—you——” - -“Oh, go off and lie down! You make me tired,” O’Neill snarled -disgustedly from the saddle and loped back up the trail, thinking not -of Boyce, but of the girl he had seen walk her horse to the side porch -of the house and sit watching them, evidently listening. - -How much she had heard, he did not know—nor did he care at the moment. -But now he wished that he had thought of something wittily biting to -say at the last, instead of that hackneyed retort which any roughneck -puncher on the range might have made. - -The rasping voice of the Bar B Bostonian followed him, shouting -threats and imprecations which the increasing distance blurred to a -vague mouthing of rage. Bluster, O’Neill reminded himself, was always -a mark of weakness, or so folks said. If the rule held, then the -Honorable Standish Boyce was all bark and no bite, and could safely be -ignored. - - * * * * * - -He had ridden a mile along the side of a ridge, taking it easy on the -way home, when a horse lunged out through a clump of bushes into the -trail ahead of him and wheeled so that the rider faced him. It was the -girl he had seen at Boyce’s house, and she had evidently cut across -country with the deliberate intention of intercepting him. At any -rate, she was waiting for him to ride up. Which Patrick O’Neill did -right willingly. - -“Good afternoon, Mr. Ranger,” she greeted him coolly, when he drew -near. “I’m Isabelle Boyce, and I’m supposed to be a chip off the old -block. At least, the neighbors say I am.” - -O’Neill laughed as he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his -thick, brown hair. “I’d have to prove that for myself, Miss Boyce. Is -this a continuation——” - -“Oh, no, indeed! It’s an explanation. I heard how father talked to -you, and I heard how you talked back to father. So I just thought——” - -“If you heard your father, you must admit I had the patience of Job -and used it.” - -“And left father boiling!” she laughed, flicking the bushes with her -quirt. “I was really in hopes, Mr. er—er——” - -“Patrick O’Neill, at your service.” Pat reined in alongside her and -the horses started on up the trail at a walk. - -“Oh, you’re Irish! I was in hopes the new ranger would understand and -sympathize with the people of the Stillwater District, but if you’re -Irish, I suppose you’ll want to fight over nothing, like all the -rest.” - -“Not necessarily, Miss Boyce. Your father ordered me off the ranch, -when all I wanted to do was give him a cordial shake of the hand and -say I hoped we might be friends. I merely expostulated a bit against -the discourtesy. I could not fail to understand him, but as for -sympathizing—— Well, I’d first like to know what’s wrong with him.” - -“The same thing that’s wrong with all the rest of the Stillwater -people, Mr. O’Neill. All you rangers seem to have overlooked the fact -that this is an isolated country, where it’s very difficult to keep a -fine sense of values. This world in here is bounded by cows, horses, -crops and kids. The men are only servants to their live stock, and the -women are slaves to the men. No one seems able to take a day off, to -get out of the rut. They live in shacks, for the most part, and life -is a monotonous grind of the very things that have made them so narrow -and sordid. - -“Even my father,” she continued, “though he is intelligent and -educated and can look back upon worth-while things, has grown as -narrow as the rest. They are bored to death, and don’t even know it, -so they hate themselves and each other, and squabble over trifles -that——” - -“Well, they needn’t take out their spite on the forest service,” Pat -grumbled, just to keep her going. - -“Oh, but they do!” she came back at him eagerly, her eyes alight with -interest in her subject. “You’re—meaning the forest service—the only -thing they can all band together to fight, don’t you see? Once you -take that community spirit away from them, I don’t know what would -happen. It’s the primitive impulse of self-preservation, working out -in a normal, primitive way. It requires a common enemy—hunger, the -menace of some terrible creature of the wild, protection against some -element that would destroy, and which no one man is strong enough to -conquer alone; just as the cave men gathered on the cliffs and rolled -rocks down upon the saber-toothed tiger. We call it community spirit, -in our psychology classes—that’s where I learned it. - -“Here, they have plenty to sustain life according to their standards, -and there aren’t any saber-toothed tigers, so—they pretend to -themselves that the forest service is a menace, and they band together -for the fight. He’s an outlet for their emotions, Mr. O’Neill. A -psychological safety valve. Also,” she added, forestalling an Irish -rebellion which she may have seen rising in his eyes, “it’s -misdirected energy, of course. But it explains my father’s awful -conduct, doesn’t it?” - -Patrick O’Neill gave her a keen look. “It explains your father,” he -admitted, “but sure, and it don’t change the temper of him, divil a -bit!” Then he laughed. “So the answer seems to be, Miss Boyce, that -since they are bored with the monotony of their existence and must -have some excitement, I’m to wallop the livin’ daylights out of the -lot of them! And it’s not so sorry a prospect as you might suppose,” -he added dryly. - -“I don’t mean that at all, and you know it!” she flashed, showing a -hint of her father’s temper—though she showed it very prettily, -O’Neill thought. “You seem intelligent. Why don’t you use your -personality——” - -“I will, Miss Boyce, and my fists along with it!” - -“Your personality,” she went on, ignoring him, “to give them a pride -in the forest service? Make them see that it is really their best -friend, that it protects their range and gives each one a fair share -of the grazing. If you can win them over to yourself as a man, you can -win them over to the forest service as an institution which has their -welfare at heart.” - -“And force them back to whippin’ pups for excitement, and fightin’ -each other. I don’t see——” - -“That’s because you won’t see,” she told him impatiently. “I have it -all analyzed, but I can’t do anything myself to help Stillwater—they -call me ‘Queen Isabelle,’ and say I’m stuck up, and like my father. -But you—if you can make them like you, the work is half done. Won’t -you try, Mr. O’Neill? I heard how you talked to father, and while I -admit he is terribly exasperating, still, that attitude of yours won’t -make him love the service any better. If you’d seize every opportunity -to make each individual like you personally——” - -“I will that!” cried Patrick O’Neill, beaming upon her with the Irish -twinkle which she had perhaps noticed. “I grasp the idea, and I find -it wonderful! But I shall need encouragement and advice—and might I -begin with yourself, Miss Boyce?” - -“Get along with you!” cried Queen Isabelle. “I _told_ you the Irish——” - -She struck her horse with the quirt and galloped away from him, -flushed and biting her lip to keep back the laughter. Then she halted -and wheeled, a short distance away. “I’ll advise you about the best -way to approach father,” she called to him sweetly. “I can get his -real opinion of you as a man——” - -“Sure, and I had that same by word of mouth, Miss Boyce!” - -“And if you really need help or advice at any time, I’ll be glad to -have you call on me.” - -“It’s a great deal of trouble you are taking, Miss Boyce, just for a -lone ranger, but I’ll be delighted to avail myself of the privilege -you so kindly ex——” - -Queen Isabelle laughed and rode toward him again. “Remember, Mr. -O’Neill, that I have lived in this isolated place for more than a -year—ever since I finished school. I’m like the rest of the -natives—bored to death. Only, I know it and am seizing a small -opportunity to direct my energy in some useful channel. You may laugh, -but I really mean it. Just living is not enough. I must be doing -something. So if I can help you win the Stillwater over to the forest -service and make friends of the two, I shall be much more contented -with my lot in life; which is staying at home with father and making -him as happy as possible. - -“That,” she added with dignity, “is my sole reason for waylaying you -in this bold manner. I could see that you were getting an entirely -erroneous view of the situation in your district, and that you were in -a fair way to widen the breach between the settlers and the -government. We’d be having regular feuds over the forest reserve in -another year, just as some of the mountaineers of Kentucky fight the -revenue officers. Oh, I have given the matter careful thought, I -assure you! You are not like the other rangers, and if you really have -the interests of the service at heart, you will do all in your power -to promote a better feeling here.” - -“I will that, Miss Boyce! It’s a sweet little task you’ve set me, but -with your constant guidance and encouragement I’ll do it.” - -She gave him a quick, suspicious glance, refusing to laugh at his -slightly exaggerated Irish optimism. “Just meet the people with -kindness and courtesy, Mr. O’Neill. When you match temper with temper, -as you did just now with father, you merely drop from a superior -mental height to the level of—of Gus Peterson, owner of the Box S, who -lives to fight and to boast of his brutal victories. Father knows -better, and so do you, but he has permitted himself to drop into the -ways of the country. There isn’t even that excuse for you at all, -don’t you see?” - -“Miss Boyce, _you_ have the pitiless logic of a _Portia_,” Patrick -O’Neill sighed. “For the first time in my life, I humbly apologize for -my fightin’ Irish temper, and I promise to be a saint from this -moment, so that Stillwater mothers shall beg the little ones at their -knees to be sweet, loving little gentlemen and ladies, like the kind, -forgiving young man at the ranger station, who would not hurt a fly. -And for the encouragement to be that same, I shall choose Thursday as -the day which I am allowed by a thoughtful government each week for -policing camp, and I shall call if I may, and smile if I am kicked -out.” - -“I ride nearly every day,” returned Isabelle Boyce, with a smile. -“Always on Thursday I ride toward Castle Creek. Good-by, and remember -that a soft answer turneth away wrath. I shall expect a good report of -the week.” - -“A sweet little handicap she’s put upon me!” mused Patrick O’Neill, as -he jogged homeward across the hills. “I’m to swallow my temper—that’s -turned me out of my home and my school and every job I’ve ever held in -my life! Pat, me lad, the girl is more dangerous than the old man, and -it’s well for you if you face that fact at once!” - - - - - CHAPTER IV. ODDS AGAINST HIM. - - -Cottonwoods and quaking aspens along the creeks flaunted leaves of -golden yellow to prove that fall had come, and Ranger O’Neill whistled -a love tune under his breath as he rode down to Bad Cañon post office -for his mail. Strange as it may seem, he was at peace with his -neighbors—or so he would have told you, with a twinkle in his eye -which might mean more than he would care to explain. - -No mother of the Stillwater has yet been overheard in lauding the -saintliness of Patrick O’Neill, it is true. But neither had he skinned -his knuckles to enforce the rules and regulations of the forest -service, and Isabelle Boyce thought well of his efforts and was still -quite willing to ride out on a Thursday afternoon and give him -encouragement and advice. - -“But I’ll have a matter or two to tell her next Thursday, I’m -thinking,” he broke off his whistling to mutter, speaking to his horse -for want of other companionship, as is the way of men who live much -alone. “I’ve the small triumph of being asked to sit down with the -boss of the Seven L to dinner when I rode up last Saturday to his -house. The first ranger who ever did that, I’m sure. It’s something I -can boast of to Queen Isabelle. - -“Also I held my temper in the matter of the sheep I found trespassing -on the Trout Creek Range, and if I told the owner I’d hold the band -for damages next time he drove them on, and charge him a full season’s -grazing fee to boot, I did it politely and only once called him spawn -of the devil and let it go at that. - -“Then there’s the timber sale on Blind Bridger Creek—I handled that -thief of a Blanding like a diplomat, which same I shall point out to -Queen Isabelle. He’d broken his contract with deliberate intent, -piling the logs this way and that in the yard, instead of all tops in -one direction, according to agreement. I could have quarreled with the -man and made a great talk and stir, but I did not. I calmly—and I -shall describe how calmly it was done!—I very calmly scaled butts and -tops as they came, and let Blanding splutter at the loss and be damned -to him. He’ll yard his logs according to contract next time, I’m -thinking! - -“Pat, me lad, you’ve much to be proud of, and I shall tell her so. I -shall likewise point out the fact that I’m aware her respected father, -and others as well, are running far more cattle on the forest than -their permits call for, but that I am shutting one eye to that, since -the season is nearly over anyway, and I’ve no mind to fight the entire -Stillwater at this time. But when next the permits are issued, -there’ll be no violations without the penalty attached. And for these -good deeds perhaps the queen will reward me by consenting to a little -fishing trip next Thursday!” - -Whereupon Patrick O’Neill resumed his whispered whistling of the love -tune he liked best, and rode contentedly into the tiny settlement that -was called Bad Cañon post office to distinguish it from the cañon -itself, and into an event which spoiled whatever vanity he may have -indulged in because of his saintliness. - -A small group of rangemen sat dangling spurred heels from the narrow -platform in front of the store, smoking and gossiping of this thing -and that, when Patrick O’Neill rode jauntily up to the hitch rail and -dismounted, still whistling the love tune under his breath. From the -tail of his eye he saw them jerk thumbs in his direction, exchange a -muttered sentence or two and laugh. Young Patrick O’Neill did not like -that—being Irish; but being a saint for the moment as well, he let it -pass. - - * * * * * - -As he approached the store, he nodded casually toward a man or two -whom he disliked the least, and would have walked inside quite -inoffensively had not Gus Peterson, the owner of the Box S brand, -reached out a hairy paw and caught O’Neill by the arm. - -“Aw, don’t be in such a damn hurry!” he arrogantly commanded. “I’d -like to know what you let them sheep do with my grass. I think you’re -one hell of a ranger! You can’t tell cows from sheeps! I paid good -money for that grass. And I don’t stand for no damn ranger lettin’ -sheep come and eat my grass!” - -“Take your dirty claw off me!” snapped the saintly Patrick O’Neill, as -he threw off Peterson’s hand. “No sheep are on your grazing ground, -and you know it. And I think,” he added meaningly, “if you’d count -your cattle, you’d find you were getting your money’s worth of grass, -all right!” - -“Yes, my cows ate grass before you come here an’, by damn, they eat -grass when you go! Maybe you charge money for breathin’ air! Maybe——” - -“And if I did, I’d collect the same, remember that! I’m running this -proposition, my fine bully, as you’ll find out if you stick around a -while. You’re going to pay for the grass your cows eat on the national -forest—and you’ll pay for the cows on the range, mind you! As for the -sheep—— Well, I’m running that end of it, too.” - -“Yes, you’ll be runnin’ out of this country!” Peterson bellowed -truculently, his red face thrust close to the blazing eyes of Ranger -O’Neill. “We don’t need no damn forest ranger in here as a boss. We -can run our cows without help from the government, and we’ll run you -out just like we ran out the other damn rangers!” - -“And when,” grated Patrick O’Neill, no longer wishing to be counted a -saint, “do you expect to start running me out?” - -“I’ll start now!” bawled Peterson, as he dived forward with -outstretched arms for the grappling hold which was his pet way of -crushing an enemy. - -Patrick O’Neill stepped backward and waited until the huge arms had -all but embraced him. Then he lifted his right knee sharply, grabbed -Peterson’s head and jerked it down upon that knee. The impact was -terrific. The big rancher staggered back with a roar of pain and -baffled rage, and as he straightened, he got a frightfully direct blow -in his middle and another on the jaw that snapped his head backward. A -second blow found the big jaw, and Peterson of the Box S, bully of the -Stillwater District, crumpled down in a heap and lay there. - -“Git him!” yelled a lanky cow-puncher, one of Boyce’s riders, as -Patrick O’Neill knew well. The puncher came in with a sideswipe, two -others at his heels. - -Patrick O’Neill grinned and gave him the neatest uppercut West Point -boxers could teach him. A man at his right tried to trip him, while -the Boyce man came in again, and it was right then that the spirit of -all the wild, fighting O’Neills came into its own. - -Young Patrick—no more a saint—lost a sleeve from his coat, which was -likewise split up the back to his collar. He barked a knuckle against -a man’s teeth—who thereafter grew a mustache to hide the gap in his -grin—and his lip was cut where a flailing fist found him. But, oh, how -the fighting spirit of all the Irish O’Neills did glory in the fray! - -“Cleaned ’em cleaner than a new shotgun!” the postmaster reported the -incident to his wife that night. - -Ranger Patrick O’Neill did not whistle a love tune as he rode home -with his mail, but that was chiefly because of his swollen lip, for -the fighting spirit of the O’Neills once aroused was hard to down. - -“Pat, me lad, I think you’d better not broach the subject of a fishing -trip, next Thursday,” he reflected, as he climbed the steep trail up -along the west bank of Limestone Creek. “I think you’ll be better -considerin’ how you’re to convince Queen Isabelle that you’re a man of -peace.” And then he sighed, and grinned as well as his stiff and puffy -lip would permit. “But oh, doctor! It sure was one lovely scrimmage -while it lasted, and it did the heart of me good to hear them howl -that they’d had enough!” he murmured unrepentantly, and flexed his -sore muscles in pleasant retrospection. - - * * * * * - -With the lip still swollen, and standing askew in a sardonic smile of -irony which his twinkling eyes belied, Patrick O’Neill rode with some -secret trepidation next Thursday to make his weekly report to the girl -whom he had now called “Queen Isabelle” to her face. - -She listened in silence to his cheerful account of the manner in which -he had taught Blanding a lesson in good pine timber, and when he had -stressed his mild demeanor as much as he dared, she looked at him -coldly and said: - -“I’ve heard another story of how you, representing the government, -cheated Mr. Blanding out of more than twenty-five thousand feet of -timber by scaling the butts of his logs instead of the tops. According -to your version, he brought the loss on himself, so I’ll say nothing -about that—except that as a measure of winning the Stillwater to -friendship with the forest service, you seem to have made haste -backward. The timber men are all up in arms over what they call a -government steal, and Blanding says he is going to write to Washington -and have you removed. We can’t very well call that a gain in friendly -confidence, but I suppose it will straighten out in time. What else, -Mr. Ranger?” - -Patrick O’Neill thereupon told her of the trespassing sheep and how he -had dealt with the owner. - -“That’s better,” she praised him, “though if I know anything about old -Jensen, you aren’t through with him yet by any means. You’ll have to -go carefully there, if you want to avoid trouble. Is that all?” And -she looked very meaningly at the swollen lip. “You’ve hurt yourself, I -see. Did you fall off your horse, Mr. O’Neill?” - -“I did not,” Pat returned, in a distressed tone. “A Bar B man—the -long-legged one you call ‘Little Bill’—flung out a hand in his sleep, -as it were, and it chanced to graze my lip. It’s no more than a -scratch, for the man was unconscious—or nearly so—when he made the -gesture. I’m sure he never meant to touch me there, Queen Isabelle. -And now I have to tell you that I had dinner at the Seven L Ranch last -Saturday——” - -“Little Bill didn’t mean to strike you in the mouth, I know,” said -Isabelle, disregarding the change of subject. “What he meant to -do—what he still means to do, in fact, is to beat your blinkety-blink, -do-re-mi-sol-dough brains out and spread them thinly over the entire -Stillwater district. Or, at least, that is what I heard him saying as -I rode past the bunk house last evening. I suppose he was dreaming -while he slept!” - -“I think he must have been, Queen Isabelle, and others along with -him.” - -“I suppose he also dreamed that you swaggered up to him and others at -the post office, and boasted that you would show them who was running -this country, thereupon attacking them with your loaded quirt.” - -Patrick O’Neill stared fixedly into her face, his own a bit pale under -his tan. He swung his horse short around in the trail then and started -back the way they had come. - -“Where away, Mr. Bad Man?” Isabelle’s voice held a note of panic under -the raillery. - -Ranger O’Neill held his horse to a walk while he looked back at her. -“I was going to bring Little Bill to you and hear him admit how the -tongue of him lied,” he said grimly. “Or you may come with me, if it -pleases you better than to wait.” He looked at her, eyes demanding an -answer. - -Isabelle laughed as she rode up to him. “I was only teasing you, Mr. -Ranger Man,” she said pacifically, perhaps because she understood the -look she saw in his eyes. “The postmaster’s wife told me all about it. -She saw the whole thing through the window, and heard what was said. I -can’t blame you for fighting them, and since you did fight, I’m glad -you whipped the bunch. Do please get down off your high horse, you man -of peace, and let’s talk seriously. I don’t blame you for -fighting—they must learn to respect you, I suppose, before they will -ever come to like you, and if you had backed down from Peterson, every -cowboy in the country would despise you for it. Not one of them would -ever have taken you seriously after that, or given you anything but -contempt. - -“Little Bill happens to be a great crony of Peterson’s outfit, though -why he doesn’t work for the Box S instead of for father I never could -tell you. He isn’t so awfully popular with our boys. Most of our -riders are pretty good fellows, as you would discover for yourself if -there wasn’t this grudge against the forest reserve which keeps you -seeing their most disagreeable traits. - -“One thing I wanted to tell you, ranger man, is that Peterson and his -bunch are going to ‘get’ you, on account of that fight. I heard Little -Bill telling the boys so. He wanted them to go in on the scheme, but -they wouldn’t do it: or, at least, that’s what I understood from what -I overheard.” - -“I take it your father would not object to the plan, at any rate.” -Patrick O’Neill was not smiling now. - -“Father? He never would have anything to do with it! I—I happen to -know, ranger, that he has a scheme of his own for getting rid of you.” - -“Yes? And if I might ask——” - -“I shouldn’t tell you, because it isn’t going to work, anyway. He -merely wrote to his brother-in-law—who is my uncle, of course—in -Washington, asking him to see that you are removed from this district -as your conduct is most obnoxious. But that doesn’t mean anything at -all, for I wrote in the very next mail to my uncle, and told him that -father is merely prejudiced against the forest service in general, and -that—that you are the most competent ranger we have ever had here. I -said he must not pay any attention to father. He won’t, either. I -lived with Uncle John and Aunt Martha while I was in school, and they -know just how cranky and unreasonable father can be. So that’s all -right. But Peterson is a different proposition. From what Little Bill -said——” - -“I think,” said Ranger O’Neill, turning to his horse, “I had better go -and have a little talk with our friend Peterson.” - -“You will not!” Isabelle caught him by the arm. “That’s exactly what -you must _not_ do! I only told you so that you would be on your guard -and refuse to be drawn into any argument, as you were at Bad Cañon the -other day. Can’t you see? If you know how they feel, you can avoid -coming into contact with them until they forget about it. It’s only -because they were licked, and Peterson hates that worse than anything -else.” - -“And would you have me stick close to my station, then?” O’Neill’s -eyes held a sparkle it was as well Isabelle did not see. “And what -then, if they come after me there?” - -“That,” cried Isabelle, “is beside the point! They would never dare -attack you at the station. What I think they will do is probably start -another quarrel with you, and when you are silly enough to fight, they -mean to—to shoot you, for all I know! Little Bill said: ‘We’re goin’ -to get him, next time, and get him _good_! And you’ve got to keep out, -I tell you. All this fighting is exactly what they want.’ - -“And they’ll get what they’re wantin’ or my name is not Patrick -O’Neill! Leave go my arm, Queen Isabelle, and let me carry the war to -the enemy’s camp—for that’s what they taught me at West Point, and -it’s one thing they taught that I thoroughly approve!” - -“Oh,” wailed Isabelle, while tears of anger stood in her eyes, “you’re -such a blithering fool! All you Irish can think of is fighting! You’re -worse than Cushman or Waller or any of the other shoot-’em-up rangers -that had to leave or get killed. You _promised_ me you’d win them to -you with kindness and courtesy, and if you break that promise, I hope -they break your head!” - -“And thank you for that same, Miss Boyce,” said Patrick O’Neill, with -icy politeness, as he sprang to the saddle. “It’s a fine example of -kindness and courtesy you’re setting me now—as like your father as one -white bean is like another! So I’ll pass it along to Peterson and -Little Bill, and crack their heads as you so sweetly wish them to do -by me!” - -He lifted his hat from his thick brown hair and gave her a courtly bow -that left her furiously stamping her foot and gritting her teeth at -him as he galloped away, headed north to the Box S Range that lay -along Bad Cañon Creek, between Lodgepole Basin and Trout Creek where -the sheep had entered. That the trail led homeward as well never once -occurred to Isabelle, who saw him going foolhardily to place his head -in the jaws of the lion that roared for his bones to crunch; in other -words, to fight on their own ground Peterson and his crowd that had -boasted how they would get him. - -“She’ll do me the favor to be thinking of me now,” said Patrick -O’Neill to himself, though he never once looked back. - - - - - CHAPTER V. PLOTTERS AT WORK. - - -As the valley of the Stillwater River—so named because of its -swiftness—approaches the high Rockies, it is divided into many -sections by the streams that go rushing down to join the larger river; -so that the valley resembles a giant hand with outstretched fingers -pointing toward the higher peaks to the westward. - -Each branch bears a name which grew out of its most conspicuous -characteristic, and little timber grows in the valley but crowds close -to the base of the mountains. So the broad plateaus that lie between -the tributaries of the Stillwater make wonderful grazing ground, while -the creeks running down the cañons are bordered with willows and -quaking aspen groves that give shelter to the cattle and horses that -tread down the trails from higher ground to water. - -Before the national forest reserve brought this fine cattle country -under its supervision and allotted to each settler certain -well-defined grazing grounds for which he must pay an annual fee based -upon the number of animals which feed thereon, Stillwater Valley saw -many a range battle waged between rival ranchers. Now that the -national forest service held all the range—or at least the best of it -next the mountains—the fight went much the same, except that the -policing of the forest injected a new factor into the struggle. -Isabelle Boyce was right, and Ranger Cushman also summed up the -situation rather accurately. The stockmen were ready to fly at each -other’s throats for little cause, but they stood as one man against -the forest service. - -“And it’s man by man that I must take them and make them see sense, if -I have to crowd it down the throats of them with my fist!” mused -Patrick O’Neill, as he reined his horse into the trail that led with -steep and devious turnings down into Bad Cañon, which he must cross in -order to reach Peterson’s home ranch. - -“I’ll talk to him fair,” Pat promised himself. “No man shall ever say -that Ranger O’Neill rushed into a fight for the pure love of the -scrimmage, without first giving the enemy a chance to eat his words -and go in peace. I’ll first reason with the big bully—should it so -happen that I have time enough for that. Then if he comes at me—which -he will!—I’ll use the fists God gave me for the purpose, and drive my -meaning home to the point of his jaw. - -“For to teach a dog new tricks you must first convince him that you’re -the master of him—and faith, I shall point that out to Queen Isabelle, -should some rumors of what is to take place to-day reach her before -next Thursday. They’ll likely be out riding, since it’s the round-up -time, and he’ll have his friends about him, so that none can say I -took an unfair advantage of the man.” - - * * * * * - -So, thinking piously of his duty to Peterson, he rode splashing into -Bad Cañon Creek. A mountain trout the length of his forearm slid from -under the very feet of his horse and, with one flip of his tail, -darted into the shadow of a still pool sheltered by a mossy boulder, -and Ranger O’Neill forgot the duty which brought him there and pulled -back to the gravelly bank, dismounting in haste. For fishing stood -close to fighting in his Irish heart, and there were other trout lying -like slaty, living shadows in the depth of that pool. - -To cut a short, pliable willow row and take a white miller from the -fine assortment of flies hooked into his hatband was the work of two -minutes, with another spent in unwinding trout line and leader from a -small card in his breast pocket, where he kept his book of cigarette -papers. Then O’Neill led his horse into the shade and tied him there -against wandering, pulled his hat low over his eyes to shield them -from whipping brush and sun glare alike, and stepped catwise to the -brink of the pool. - -His tutelage of Peterson could wait, while the trout stream called to -the sporting blood of him. He got two trout from that small pool, -threaded their panting gills on a bit of line which he tied to his gun -belt—on the left side of him, since he was no fool after all—and began -fishing upstream, going stealthily from riffle to pool, oblivious to -all else for the time being, like all born anglers held entranced with -the whipping of a fly out over a mountain stream, skittering it above -the water to tempt the king of all wiliness from his dusky retreat -beneath a rock. - -Any trout fisherman knows the lure of the next pool above, and the -next, and yet another. Patrick O’Neill crept warily upstream, parting -the bushes with care, landing each trout in silence and putting back -all but the largest of his catch. Just one more pool would he whip -before he turned back, he promised himself, and stole up to a -willow-bordered spot, where the slack water lay enticingly under a -high bank grown thick with bushes. - - * * * * * - -He stopped to reach forward, poised for the cast, then froze in his -tracks as some one beyond the bushes spoke his name. He turned his -head and stared upward, but could see nothing save the yellow-leaved -thicket. - -“Aw, that damn ranger!” came Peterson’s drawling voice. “Forget him! -Plenty of time for gettin’ him outa the way. Now we’ll settle about -the cattle for Whiskers. When will he be through gatherin’ ’em?” - -“We’re through now with the bunch I told yuh about,” the voice of -Little Bill made reply. “All you can git away with safe. They was -throwed in on Castle Creek yesterday. That’s the reason the old man’s -been keepin’ cattle outa Castle Creek, so the feed’ll be good to hold -his beef steers on till he gits ready to trail ’em out.” - -“Somebody’ll stay with ’em, perhaps. Will you be the one, Bill?” - -“Aw, they don’t need herdin’, Gus. The drift fence holds ’em from -crossin’ to Drew’s range and they won’t work back up over the ridge -the other way—not with the feed like it is in there. That’s the way -old Boyce figures on savin’ men’s wages. He’ll throw all the beef in -there fast as we gather, and make one drive out. I’m s’posed to be -huntin’ strays over here, Gus.” - -Peterson grunted, and another voice which O’Neill did not recognize -spoke up, offering a few choice remarks on the subject of Boyce’s -stinginess. He was answered by yet another, and when Peterson spoke -again, a third man’s voice was raised in protest. - -“If you take ’em up around Lodgepole Basin and across Squaw Gulch and -that way—why, hell! You might just as well ride up to Boyce and tell -’em you got his steers—and what’ll he do to yuh! He’s goin’ to miss -the bunch first time any one rides to Castle Creek, an’ a blind man -could foller their trail. - -“Now, what yuh want to do is take ’em out on Drew’s range, on -Limestone. We can break the drift fence there and make it look like -the cattle done it, and take the bunch out that way, on Drew’s range, -and haze some of Drew’s cattle back through the fence onto Castle -Creek. That way, old Boyce won’t miss his cattle for a week, maybe. -Neither will Drew, because he ain’t half through with his round-up -yet. When they’re ready to make their drive out, it’ll look like the -cattle got mixed up, is all. And if Boyce don’t find his steers over -on Drew’s range, let ’em lock horns over it if they want to! They’re -always fighting, anyway, over the line or some darn thing. - -“That way, there ain’t any mysterious tracks across Myers Creek and up -Squaw Gulch way, and it’s about as close to where you want to hold -’em, Gus. Time the brands is healed and you get ’em down outa that -high basin, winter’ll be on and you’re dead safe. You’ll make a late -drive this year with your beef, that’s all, and you’ll have all Box S -brands—see? If that damn O’Neill don’t go prowling around up there-” - -“Aw, what’s goin’ to take him up there? That basin is hemmed in on all -sides with young lodgepole pines, and the chances are he don’t even -know it’s there. Yeah, that scheme oughta work fine, Gus. We’ll see -yuh as far as the hideout, for five dollars a head, and from then on -you’ll have to handle it alone.” - -“You fellows should help change the brands, too, for five dollars,” -Peterson objected. “A five-spot just for drivin’ the cattle is too -much. I won’t pay five dollars for just to-night’s work.” - - * * * * * - -While they wrangled over the money, Patrick O’Neill went down the -creek to where his horse was tied, mounted and urged the animal across -the creek and up the farther side of the cañon, taking a trail that -led sharply away from his objective, which was the trail up from Bad -Cañon to the Box S Ranch. He wanted very much to see the three men -whose voices he failed to recognize. - -Little Bill and Peterson, the ranger could swear to, if it came to a -court trial for cattle stealing, but he would feel much easier in his -mind if he had the added evidence of meeting the group riding up the -cañon where he had heard them planning the details of the crime. - -Morenci, the horse, was sweating to his ears when O’Neill finally -reached the trail he wanted and loped along it to Bad Cañon. The -detour had been made in record time, but even so he was too late, as -he was forced to admit when he rode down to the creek at the point -where he had heard the discussion, and found the men gone. A -windowless log hut set back from the creek bank beyond the willow -thicket had been their meeting place, he discovered. There were signs -enough of their presence—cigarette stubs on the dirt floor, burned -matches, boot tracks, while farther back from the creek he found the -place where they had tied their horses. - -“They went down the creek, and I missed them entirely,” he decided -ruefully, at last. “Rode straight away from them as if the devil was -after me, when all I had to do was stop where I was, at the creek with -my fishing tackle, and they’d have been atop of me before they knew I -was there—and me with the best and most peaceful excuse any man could -want! Pat, me lad, you should be well booted for that blunder!” - -That night they would make the drive, they had said. They were wise to -hurry the job, since there was little time to spare before the winter -snows would send the stolen herd down from the high basin; and the -altered brands would take some time to heal so that the theft would -not be apparent. Furthermore, it was only a matter of days until Boyce -or Drew would discover the broken drift fence and begin to search for -strayed cattle. - -Ranger O’Neill rode with a cigarette gone cold from neglect between -his lips while he pondered the best manner of protecting Boyce. He -could ride to the Bar B and warn them—— - -“But what if those strange men are Bar B riders?” he argued the point -with himself. “Or what if Boyce is not at home, or more likely starts -his tongue wagging at me and stirs the Irish before I get out the -news? I’d ride away and let Peterson put through the steal—if Boyce -makes me mad enough. And the time is short for a ride to the Bar B and -back again to Castle Creek soon enough to stop them. - -“Morenci, you’ve the mark of a good cow pony in the way you handle -yourself on range inspection, and if you work fast enough, I’m -thinking we can handle this little matter alone; though it’s little -encouragement I’ve lately received for playing the patron saint to old -Boyce. Still, there’s a way to work it that appeals to my sense of -humor, and it’s that we’re going to do. So shake a leg, Morenci! -You’ve a lot of violent exercise between you and your feed box -to-night.” - -And Patrick O’Neill, for the first time that day, whistled under his -breath, as he galloped, to show how content he was with his mission. - - - - - CHAPTER VI. A QUICK CHANGE. - - -Later Pat O’Neill did not whistle, though he still rode in haste. The -afternoon was older than he had suspected when he rode up out of Bad -Cañon and across the high grazing ground that lay between his fishing -place and Lodgepole Basin. He had a plan which he felt would work -beautifully, if only he had time for it; but now with the sinking of -the sun, he was not so sure. A great deal depended upon his horse, and -he had not spared the animal in his roundabout ride to cut the -homeward trail of Peterson and his men. - -“First, I must be sure that Boyce’s steers are safe,” he decided, and -crossed Limestone Creek with a splash and a clatter of hoofs on the -stones. “It’s a new range the Bar B cattle are on, and if I can read -the mind of cow brutes, they have traveled as far down the creek as -they can go. They will not be satisfied to stay at the upper end of -the bottom where the grass is quite as good, but must range farther in -the vain hope of finding range that pleases them better. At any rate, -it’s worth the gamble.” - -As he opened the wire gate in the drift fence which separated Drew’s -range from Boyce’s on Castle Creek just above its junction with -Limestone, the parklike basin was dusky with the coming of night, but -as he led his horse through, closed the gate and remounted, a steer -snorted dew from its nostrils not far away. O’Neill turned and rode -that way, peering down satisfiedly at the dark forms of the Bar B beef -steers bedded down on a rise of ground just back from the creek and -the mosquitoes and close to the fence. - -“What did I tell you, Morenci? Now, rout them up and we’ll haze them -on down the fence toward Picket Pin. If it’s through a fence they want -to travel, they may try the other side of the fence on Picket Pin and -welcome—and the farther they drift, the safer they’ll be, though it -will make more work for the Bar B riders.” - -When he had finished that job and the Bar B steers were plodding in -the dark to find another bed ground on Picket Pin, Patrick O’Neill -cautiously lighted a match in the crown of his hat and looked at his -watch. - -“Eight o’clock and our work only begun! Get away from here, Morenci, -and show the stuff that’s in you!” And striking into a cow path that -wound through thickets of aspen and across little open glades, he -pelted away up Castle Creek to the steep trail where the rim rock -broke down in a great slide of boulders on the divide between Myers -Creek and Castle. - -When he reached Lodgepole Basin, his watch said ten o’clock and Ranger -O’Neill had a deep crease between his eyebrows, for Morenci was wet to -his ears—and that not from splashing through creeks, though he had -crossed two—and there were more cattle to be moved. - -But these were Peterson’s and Ranger O’Neill was not so gentle. Across -Lodgepole Basin, he galloped, to where a hundred head or more of Box S -cattle ranged happily enough and had for their bed ground a knoll not -far from Squaw Gulch, which was not very distant from the Myers Creek -divide. For the Stillwater Forest Reserve, you must know, is a network -of streams and their cañons, once you are back in the hills. - -So Ranger O’Neill made a hasty gathering of Peterson’s cattle and -hazed them along at a lumbering gallop to the fenced gap in the rim -rock and so down into the Castle Creek pasture which was leased to -Boyce. Just for good measure he rode after them and threw a hastily -gathered rock or two, and the cattle went down the creek as if a full -crew rode hard at their heels. - -Ranger O’Neill pulled up and listened until the last sound of whipping -brush and the clicking of cloven feet against the rocks had died to -silence. The cattle were tired after that headlong drive up Myers -Creek to the rim. It had been steep in places and only the manner in -which he had rushed them along had held them to the trail. Morenci was -standing with his feet slightly braced—the mark of a tired horse—and -his flanks palpitating with exhaustion. O’Neill listened while the -horse caught his wind, then suddenly he leaned forward and gave the -reeking neck a grateful slap. - -“Not a dozen horses in the district could have done it, and that’s the -truth, Morenci!” Then he fell silent, though his thoughts went on -quite as definitely as if he were actually speaking them. - -“No sound of riders down below there, so the cattle will quiet down -before Peterson comes for them—he chooses late hours for his stealing, -thank the Lord! So now let him steal his own stock, though what he’ll -think or what he’ll say when he sees their brands in the morning, I -sure would like to know. I’d like to go and collect a bit of gratitude -from Queen Isabelle and the Honorable Standish Boyce for this night’s -work, but that will have to wait until Thursday, for I’m due at Blind -Bridger to-morrow. But when I do see her, she will admit I’m doing -much to promote peace and quiet along the Stillwater, I’m thinking.” - -Wherefore Ranger Patrick O’Neill was a contented young man although a -weary one as he rode home under the cool stars of midnight. Morenci -got an extra rubdown as well as his supper before O’Neill went away to -the cabin to fill his own empty stomach. The fish he had caught were -far past their fresh toothsomeness and he threw them away and dined -upon what happened to stand ready cooked in the cupboard. But it was a -good night’s work and he grinned over it frequently. - -“Murray would appreciate that!” O’Neill chuckled, as he pulled off his -boot. He was thinking of Peterson’s slack-jawed amazement when he -recognized the cattle he had stolen away from Castle Creek that night. - -The ranger’s last thought as he put his head on the pillow was of the -peppery Bar B owner and his probable mystification when he found his -beef herd over on the Picket Pin. Some one would catch a tongue -lashing, O’Neill suspected. - -“But I’ll ride over and tell him about it before he has time to -discover the change of pasture,” he comforted himself. “Peterson was -counting on a week or so before the rustling would be suspected, and -I’ll see Boyce before then. And Isabelle,” he added sleepily, and then -began to dream of all that he would have to say. - - - - - CHAPTER VII. FROM BAD TO WORSE. - - -“Sure and a most loyal subject bows before the queen this day!” cried -Patrick O’Neill, with his best brogue and a somewhat self-satisfied -grin on his face. “I was scarce hoping you’d ride out to meet me, and -that’s why I was taking the short cut to the Bar B this morning. I’ve -things to report that——” - -“I should think you would have,” Isabelle Boyce told him sharply. -“With all this mix-up over the cattle, and the trouble it’s making, I -should think you would have something to say on the subject! Do you -know how Tod Drew’s cattle came to be on father’s best range, and -father’s beef herd over on that barren ground that wouldn’t furnish -grazing for a sheep? And the drift fence down——” - -“Do I know? It’s a night’s sleep I lost in getting full knowledge of -the mystery, Queen Isabelle! I drove your father’s cattle to the -Picket Pin——” - -“Indeed?” So much meaning may be crowded into one word with a rising -inflection that Patrick O’Neill felt a momentary panic. “I hope, Mr. -O’Neill, you will oblige me with your reasons for so astounding a -piece of trouble making. I am frankly curious to know what possessed -you to commit such a deed.” - -“It was a good deed, of which I am proud to tell,” he informed her, -secretly pleased at the dramatic change he would presently produce in -her mood. “On last Friday afternoon I chanced to hear a plan to steal -your father’s gathering of beef steers which he was holding on Castle -Creek. Peterson was the leader, and they meant to tear down the drift -fence between your father’s range and Drew’s, and drive out the steers -that way. They would then drive as many of Drew’s cattle as they could -handily gather through the fence and onto Castle Creek, so that it -would look as though the cattle had broken down the drift fence and -were trespassing of their own accord, and it would not be suspected at -once that the beef herd was stolen. Castle Creek Basin being brushy in -the hollows, the plan had a fair chance of success. - -“I failed to see the men—and that was a bit of bad guessing, of which -I am not proud. But I recognized the voice of a Bar B rider, among -others. It was late, and though I could have waited at the drift fence -and held them up when they came, I could bring no charge against them -unless they had actually stolen the cattle. So I thought I would play -a trick on Peterson. - -“I went to Castle Creek and moved the Bar B steers out of harm’s -way—regretting the poor pasturage but having little time to choose a -range for them. Then I rode back to Lodgepole, where a bunch of -Peterson’s cattle grazed, took them across Squaw Gulch to the head of -Myer’s Creek, and up over the divide and through the gap to Castle -Creek Basin. It was fast work and it was pretty work, Miss Boyce, and -I repeat that I am proud of it!” - - * * * * * - -With lips slightly parted and eyes wider than usual, Isabelle stared -at him and did not speak. So presently the grin smoothed itself from -his lips and the twinkle died in his eyes and left a puzzled look -there, which could easily turn hostile. - -“Would you rather I had let them take your father’s whole beef herd -and run the fat off them getting them into some hidden place in the -mountains? Or perhaps you think I should have confronted Peterson and -fought the lot of them!” - -“Of course I don’t think you should do anything so insane! But it -couldn’t be much worse. Why didn’t you come and tell father? Why did -you let days go by without saying a word? Is it possible you don’t -know that father and Tod Drew are always at sword’s points over -something, and jump at the least excuse for quarreling? You’ve managed -to stir up a pretty mess, Mr. O’Neill. You may have saved father’s -beef herd—but what is that when he and Drew have sent each other -warning that it will be shoot on sight from now on? I’ve had all I -could do to keep father from riding over and killing Drew -deliberately!” - -“It couldn’t be for what I did the other night,” O’Neill protested. -“What if the fence is down and Drew’s cattle were found on your -father’s range? That’s not a shooting matter, with sane men.” - -Isabelle gave him a withering look. “Oh, how can you be so dense! Do -you suppose for one minute that father could ride to Castle Creek and -discover Tod Drew’s cattle there, and his own driven over on Picket -Pin—because there was no fence broken down _there_ to lay the blame on -the cattle!—without doing something about it? He drove Drew’s cattle -off with his six-shooter. He killed one and crippled another so Drew -had to have it shot. If Tod Drew had been at that drift fence, Mr. -O’Neill, there would have been murder! There will be yet, if something -isn’t done to stop them, for Tod Drew shot our cattle with a shotgun! -For a man who was going to do such great things in psychology,” she -cried distractedly, “and instill both liking and respect for the -forest service into the hearts of the Stillwater men, you have -promoted as bloodthirsty a feud as ever happened anywhere! The only -difference is that it is confined to two men, so far—though the -cowboys are just as likely to take it up as not, just for the -excitement of it!” - -“I have received no instructions, Miss Boyce, for guarding the morals -of other men,” Patrick O’Neill said somewhat stiffly. “But since your -respected parent has not yet committed a murder as well as a felony -against his neighbor’s property, I have time enough perhaps to curb -his homicidal tendencies. A bit of an explanation will clear the air, -I’m thinking.” And he reached for Morenci’s dragging bridle reins. - -“You’re never going to face them _now_ and tell them you did it?” -Isabelle’s voice rose to a high note of protest. “They’ll kill you!” - -But Ranger O’Neill was in the saddle and away, pelting along to Drew’s -place, since that was closer than the Bar B. Isabelle watched him out -of sight, then mounted and galloped up the road in the dust cloud he -left behind him, her heart beating queerly, away up in her throat. - - * * * * * - -It is strange how training oft will drop away from a man like a -garment of winter grown uncomfortable as summer approaches, yet fall -into place when the need of it arises again. So with Ranger Patrick -O’Neill when he pulled up his horse at Drew’s gate. In the years since -West Point he had put aside much of his military bearing in everyday -life, and he had gone rather irresponsibly out to meet life, with his -rollicky Irish manner to the front because it was easy to wear. - -Yet when he dismounted and walked up the path to the house, his back -was straight and his step was alert, his chest was out and his belt -was in and his eyes looked with keen discernment straight into the -leathery countenance of Tod Drew, who glanced cautiously out of a -near-by window before he opened the door to his insistent knocking. - -“Mr. Drew, I came to report what I know of the drift fence being -broken between your range and the Bar B lease on Castle Creek last -Friday night.” And Ranger O’Neill forthwith explained, with malice -toward none and naming no names, but making himself perfectly clear -for all that. - -“I have no direct evidence upon which to convict these men, for I -failed to get a sight of them. There was little time to forestall -them, Mr. Drew, but I did what seemed to me best as a measure of -precaution. Since there has been a misunderstanding in the matter of -the cattle, I stand ready to make a fair adjustment of whatever -damages may have resulted from my removal of the Bar B herd without -due notice. I want you to go with me to call upon Mr. Boyce, and I -feel sure we can arrive at a friendly understanding.” Then, and not -until then, Drew had a glimpse of the grin that was so much a part of -Patrick O’Neill. - -Drew gave O’Neill a peculiar, squinting look. “Say, me and that old -he-wolf has promised to swap lead however and wherever we meet up with -each other!” he stated emphatically, at last. “I’ll have to ride up -a-shootin’, or he’ll likely think I’m scared and plug me fer a sheep!” - -“Not if I ride with you,” urged Patrick O’Neill. - -“Dern that ole pelican! he shot two steers fer me——” - -“And you killed one or two for him, but if necessary I can arrange to -pay for the damages. There’s nothing like going straight out toward -trouble, Mr. Drew. Nine times in ten it backs out of sight as you ride -toward it. If you’re willing to take a chance——” - -“Oh, I was goin’ to ride over there and have it out with him,” Drew -told him, with dark meaning. “I’m willin’ to meet the old coot -halfway, whether it’s shootin’ or shakin’ hands!” - -“I’ve had it in mind to get you two together and see what can be done -about clearing out this rustling. You may be the next to suffer, you -know. I’m here to do whatever you two think best——” - -“Well, I got an idea we might set some kinda trap——” - - * * * * * - -Shortly thereafter, Isabelle Boyce reined her horse out of the trail -to let the two riders pass. Her heart was still beating heavily in her -throat, but she would not acknowledge the smiling salute she received -from Ranger O’Neill. They were headed for her father’s ranch, but she -refused to hurry after them; instead, she waited a while before she -turned her horse toward home. Of course, with Tod Drew talking and -gesticulating in his usual manner, she could not think that he was -going to do murder. Ranger O’Neill would put a stop to all that. But -her father would rave and threaten and she doubted whether he would -stop long enough to listen to the story which Ranger O’Neill had to -tell, or believe it when it was told. - -But when she rode up to the house, there stood the two horses tied to -the fence, and there were no high voices to be heard. She stood for a -minute on the porch, looking and listening. A murmur of conversational -tones floated out from the living room, and she went in and stood just -outside the closed door, eavesdropping with no compunction whatever. - -“If one of my men is involved in this nefarious spoilation of the -range,” her father’s rasping voice was saying, “I see no way of -exculpating the others until such time as the thieves are apprehended. -Mr. O’Neill, I must concur in one statement which you have made, and -that is the statement that leasers of government property are entitled -to government protection. I shall write to my relative, who stands -very close to the head of the department of forestry in Washington——” - -Isabelle gave a relieved little laugh which caught in her throat like -a strangled sob, and ran upstairs to choose a dainty dress—just in -case Ranger O’Neill was invited to stay for supper. - - -[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 7, 1926 issue -of The Popular magazine.] - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE STILLWATER RUNS DEEP *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/67475-0.zip b/old/67475-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a096e77..0000000 --- a/old/67475-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/67475-h.zip b/old/67475-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index bd43a0b..0000000 --- a/old/67475-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/67475-h/67475-h.htm b/old/67475-h/67475-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 7cee501..0000000 --- a/old/67475-h/67475-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1987 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<head> - <meta charset="UTF-8" /> - <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Where Stillwater Runs Deep, by B. M. Bower</title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> - <style> - body { margin-left:8%; margin-right:8%; } - p { text-indent:1.15em; margin-top:0.1em; margin-bottom:0.1em; text-align:justify; } - h2 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; page-break-before: always; - font-size:1.0em; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - .ce { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - .wi001 { margin-left:12%; width:75% } - .x-ebookmaker .wi001 { margin-left:17%; width:65% } - .mt01 { margin-top:1em; } - .mb01 { margin-bottom:1em; } - h1 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.4em; margin-top:1em; } - .tn { background-color:linen; font-size:0.8em; border:1px solid silver; margin-top:1.8em; margin-left:8%; margin-bottom:1em; width:80%; padding:0.4em 2%; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Where Stillwater Runs Deep, by B. M. Bower</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Where Stillwater Runs Deep</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: B. M. Bower</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 22, 2022 [eBook #67475]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark. This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE STILLWATER RUNS DEEP ***</div> -<div class='ce'> -<h1 style='margin-bottom:0em;'>Where Stillwater Runs Deep </h1> -<div style='font-size:1.1em;'>By B. M. Bower </div> -<div style='font-size:0.8em;margin-bottom:2em;'>Author of “The Adam Chaser,” “The White Wolf Pack,” Etc. </div> -</div> -<div id='i001' class='mt01 mb01 wi001'> - <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -</div> -<blockquote> -<p><span style='font-size:0.9em'>He was an Irishman and a West Pointer and liked to fight. But he was -also Patrick R. O’Neill, ranger of the Yellowstone National Forest, -and his mission in Bad Cañon was one of peace. And peace it was, but -two-fisted!</span></p> - -</blockquote> -<h2>CHAPTER I. READY FOR BUSINESS.</h2> - -<p>At the moment, Ed Murray, supervisor of the Absarokee Division of the -Yellowstone National Forest, was peeved. “Read that!” he snorted, -shoving a letter from his particular higher-ups in Washington into the -hands of his stolid secretary who, by the way, comprised the entire -office force of the Absarokee Division.</p> - -<p>The secretary obediently began reading in a slightly singsong tone:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>“Under separate cover we are mailing you blank township maps. As a -measure of economy you are instructed to have some member of your -office force sketch in the necessary data, using the inclosed legends -which have been made official for all forest-service maps. We——”</p> - -</blockquote> -<p>“That’s all—never mind the official trimmings,” Murray curtly -interrupted. “Point is this: You’re the office force. What’re you -going to do about it? Think you can fill in the maps?”</p> - -<p>While the secretary calmly ruminated upon the subject of map making, -Murray watched her with a twinkle of amusement, though that did not in -the least degree soften his resentment against Washington.</p> - -<p>“I could do anything on the typewriter if it would fit in the -machine,” Christine at length decided. “If they are big maps, I could -fold them lengthwise without carbon, but they might slip on the -roller, which is too slick. If it is figures, I do not mind so much, -but if it is those funny signs for surveying I must copy them with a -pen, and that is no joke if I am in a hurry. I think if it is much -work, Mr. Murray, I should get more wages.”</p> - -<p>“Huh! Well, as you say, making maps on a typewriter is no joke, and I -guess you’d earn your money all right!” Her employer noted the -clearing of Christine’s placid blue eyes, gave another inarticulate -snort and returned to his own problem, knowing that Christine was -unlikely to repeat his words.</p> - -<p>“Seems like I’ve got troubles enough in this district, fighting every -cowman, sheepman, timberman and nester in the State. I’m always -short-handed, always got a row on my hands with some one who thinks I -ought to turn the reserve over to him just because we used to punch -cows together! When I don’t, they think I’m trying to ride them on -account of some little argument over brands that might have come up -when I was stock inspector.</p> - -<p>“Some member of the office force!” he growled, remembering the letter. -“Huh! They must think I’m runnin’ two wagons and a regular round-up -crew in this office! Far as that goes, I could take my rangers and -work the reserve quicker than these darned cow outfits—picked ’em off -the range myself, most of them. But when it comes to making -maps—— They’re like you, Christine. You could do it on the typewriter, -you think; they might tackle it with a branding iron! Some member of -my office force! My gosh! Take this letter, Christine. I’ll tell them -poker-faced politicians in Washington what——”</p> - -<p>“Do you want that in the letter?” Christine lifted her plump white -hand to pluck the pencil from her silky blond hair.</p> - -<p>“Lord, no! Dog-gone that June 11th Act and its maps and pamphlets and -systems and all that bunk! What I’m going to need is a crew of civil -engineers and an addition on this office. Washington must think all -forest rangers are merely desk men! Why——”</p> - -<p>“Should that be incorporated in the body of the letter, Mr. Murray?” -Christine was patiently waiting with pencil point on her pad. “I could -make a note and beg to inform them in a polite way that you have no -office force and your secretary works until six o’clock sometimes——”</p> - -<p>“No!” shouted Murray. “What does Washington care how long my secretary -works? Take this—verbatim. None of your business-college trimmings—I -want it typed the way I say it! I’ll tell them——”</p> - -<p>The office door opened, admitting six feet of husky young manhood who -saluted Murray and snapped into attention while he took in the entire -office force with flicking glances of blue eyes that twinkled -habitually. It may go on record that the entire office force -instinctively patted its blond hair and modestly cast down its eyes of -blue—with sundry furtive inspections when it thought the military -visitor was not looking.</p> - -<p>“Are you the forest supervisor, sir?” Somehow the habitual twinkle in -the stranger’s eyes seemed to match a certain rollicky Irish tone of -his voice, as if he had a joke on the tip of his tongue and needed -scant encouragement to tell it.</p> - -<p>“I am. What can I do for you?”</p> - -<p>“You might read these letters of Recommendation, sir, and if they suit -you, then you might give me a job.” He grinned as he handed Murray two -letters and stepped back.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>The first letter came from the national forest service and was signed -by the chief. It stated that the bearer, Patrick R. O’Neill, had at -his own request been transferred from Arizona to Montana, and was -competent to perform all duties pertaining to the forest service. The -other was from the supervisor of the Black Mesa National Forest, -Arizona, and spoke in highest terms of the qualifications of this same -Patrick O’Neill. Murray read both with care before he so much as -glanced again at the man. When he did, he saw Patrick O’Neill still -standing at attention, still with the twinkle in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Huh! Seen army service, too, haven’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. Two years and a half at West Point.”</p> - -<p>“Holy mackerel! Two years and a half—you learned how to make maps, -didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Lock the door, Christine! Quick, before he gets away! Damn it, man, -you’re needed in this office! Sit down and let’s talk. Christine, -can’t you tell a joke unless it’s labeled? Unlock that door!”</p> - -<p>“I was taught obedience to my employer by the business college. You -say I am to lock the door and I lock it. I should not read your mind -or some day I lose my job.” Christine unlocked the door which she had -obediently locked, sat down at her desk and began wiping the speckless -old typewriter before her, while she still patiently waited for the -letter her boss was going to write.</p> - -<p>“Tell me first why you quit West Point,” Murray was saying. “I’d have -given my left arm for such a chance when I was a young man.”</p> - -<p>“Technically speaking, I quit, Mr. Murray, but it was merely a -strategic move on my part. I’d rather walk out than be kicked out.”</p> - -<p>“Huh?”</p> - -<p>“Insubordination, sir. We had a major—an old woman he was, Mr. Murray. -Always putting us through our paces in civil engineering. One day he -called on me in class to explain just how I would go about raising a -hundred-and-fifty-foot flagpole. I said, ‘I would call a sergeant, -sir, and I would say to the sergeant, “Sergeant, take a detail of men -and raise that hundred-and-fifty-foot flagpole which you see lying -there.”’</p> - -<p>“The major lost his temper, sir. He accused me of being facetious. I -replied that no one ever heard of an officer of the United States army -so violating the traditions of his rank as to perform the menial task -of raising flagpoles, and that I had clearly stated the method by -which I would go about it, just as he had requested me to do. The -major further forgot himself, sir. He called me an impudent young -puppy. I thereupon saluted and walked out of the classroom. My sojourn -at West Point ended shortly thereafter, sir.” Grin and twinkle -combined to give Patrick O’Neill a look of personified good humor.</p> - -<p>Murray roared with laughter; a circumstance unusual in that office -where worry perched like a raven on his file case.</p> - -<p>“How about making forest-service maps? Would you call upon the office -force and tell them to fill in the blank township maps with the proper -data—using a typewriter?”</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill laughed. “No, I think I’d prefer to make the maps -myself. It would be child’s play after the map making at West Point, -and help me to familiarize myself with forest boundaries before you -assign me to a district. If I can get hold of a couple of surfaced -boards and a two-by-four, Mr. Murray, I’ll just knock together a table -and set it beside that north window and go to work, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Huh! Christine, phone the lumber yard and tell them to let Pat -O’Neill have whatever material he wants to pick out, and send it up -here immediately. Say it’s for the forest service.”</p> - -<p>So this is how Patrick O’Neill, some time of West Point and lately of -Black Mesa, Arizona, came into the service of the Yellowstone National -Forest.</p> - -<h2>CHAPTER II. TOO MUCH MISERY.</h2> - -<p>“Ed, I’m through!” Ranger Cushman tossed his hat onto the pine table -where Pat O’Neill had whistled softly over the making of his maps, and -where he whistled no more now that the job was beautifully finished. -O’Neill was now waiting around the office with an expectant, eager -look in his eyes which Murray had studiously ignored while he pondered -the problem of keeping the happy Irishman busy.</p> - -<p>“Huh! What’s the trouble now? Cushman, I want you to meet Pat O’Neill; -been making maps; part of the office force now. Well, what’s wrong -with the Stillwater District this time?”</p> - -<p>“Ain’t this time, Ed. It’s <i>all</i> the time, and I’m darned good and -tired of it. Man was not born to stand the grief I’ve stood with them -wild cats. I’m goin’ back to the peaceful life of roughin’ broncs for -a livin’. Why, them coyotes over on the Stillwater are so poison mean -they won’t even speak to each other, except when they call a -convention to devise ways and means of dealin’ me misery, and old -Boyce is chairman of the committee.</p> - -<p>“They’ve cut the wires on my pasture fence every night for a month, so -every time I want a horse I got to wrangle him afoot. They steal my -grub. I ride day an’ night, hazin’ cattle off the reserve, and they -drive ’em on faster than I can drive ’em off. Why, even the sheepmen -are gettin’ gay! Found two bands of sheep on the reserve, last week, -over Trout Creek way. Killed a few sheep and took a shot at the -herder, but that won’t stop ’em. They’ll keep a-comin’, now they’ve -started.</p> - -<p>“Another thing: Them darn timber pirates on Blind Bridger Creek are -cuttin’ everything they come to, regardless. Ed, it’d take a hull -regiment of rangers with a Gatlin’ gun apiece to keep that country -straight! Why, damn it, some of the cowmen even went so far as to hint -I was in on the rustlin’ that’s goin’ on over there. If there’s any -brand of cussedness they ain’t been up to, they’ll think it up while -I’m gone. You can save your breath, Ed. This time you can’t talk me -into goin’ back. I’m through! Ab-so-lutely, eternally through!”</p> - -<p>“Huh! Guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Cushman. This makes -the third time you’ve come in here bellerin’ that you’ve quit the -Stillwater.” He whirled his chair around and glared hard at Pat -O’Neill, who was making a map case of his own invention. “Now, what’re -<i>you</i> lickin’ your chops for, like a dog watchin’ a Christmas dinner? -Think there’s a turkey leg comin’ to you outa this?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, doctor, but it listens sweet to my fightin’ Irish ears, Mr. -Murray!” Pat O’Neill retorted, with the faintest hint of a brogue in -his voice.</p> - -<p>“Huh! Think I’d give you the best ranger station in the Northwest? -Good, three-room log house, good barn, plenty of corrals, thirty acres -of alfalfa under ditch and over two hundred acres of good pasture land -fenced with a four-wire fence——”</p> - -<p>“Cut in two or three places every night,” Ranger Cushman dourly -interjected.</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, cut occasionally, but a fine pasture for all that. Most -important district in the Absarokee Division; settled clear up to the -base of the mountains with nesters, cow outfits, sheep ranches, all -dead set against the forest service——”</p> - -<p>“Puttin’ it mild!” again from Ranger Cushman.</p> - -<p>“Well, I admit they’re prejudiced some. Think I’d give that district -to a devil-may-care Irishman just because he happened to know how to -make up a batch of maps? Huh! What d’you expect me to do, O’Neill? -Give you the best and biggest—also the meanest and -fightin’est—district I’ve got in my division?”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>For answer, Patrick O’Neill with the West Point figure and mien -facetiously pantomimed his emotions in a manner that sent the blond -secretary into shoulder-heaving convulsions of mirth. That is, he -tilted his head to one side, licked his tongue out over one corner of -his mouth and waggled a hand behind him like a tail.</p> - -<p>Ranger Cushman gave a great snort of laughter. Ed Murray roared and -lifted a boot toward the impudent mimic.</p> - -<p>“Sick ’em!” he chuckled. “Dog-gone yuh! I was going to send you over -to Stillwater to help Cushman whip that district into shape, but now -you’ll have to tackle it alone.” He eyed O’Neill thoughtfully, his -face gradually settling to a sober look. “I dunno about it, though. -Can you ride?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.” O’Neill smelled serious business in the air and quit his -foolery.</p> - -<p>“Huh! That’s what you said when I asked you if you could make maps, -but—this is out West, remember. By riding, I mean—well, <i>riding</i>.”</p> - -<p>“They ride down in the Black Mesa country, sir.” O’Neill paused, with -the twinkle in his eyes. “I mean—they <i>ride</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Black Mesa—yeah, that’s right, you’re from that country. Wel-l—you’ll -be on your own, so to speak, once you get up there. You heard what -Ranger Cushman said about it. On the square, do you think you can -handle it?”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to try it, Mr. Murray.”</p> - -<p>Murray cocked a suspicious eye at him, probably wondering just what -lay back of that sudden modesty—coupled with the Irish tone and the -twinkle. He glanced at Cushman, caught the pitying smile on his -saturnine face and swung back to the desk, perhaps to hide a grin.</p> - -<p>“All right, O’Neill, you’ll take over the Stillwater District. You -will have charge of the grazing permits and the timber sales, of -course. You will find that the stockmen are inclined to resent the -grazing fee of thirty-five cents a head for their stock, and if it is -possible I should like to see a better feeling between the ranchers -and the forest service. The service is really a protection to the -stockmen, but as yet they look upon us as oppressors who delight in -interfering with their inalienable rights. Boyce, of the Bar B -Ranch—which is nearest the Stillwater station—is apparently the -bitterest enemy we have.”</p> - -<p>“He’s a devil!” growled Cushman.</p> - -<p>“He came from Boston, but that don’t make him any the less a cowman. -Do the best you can with him and all the rest, and I’ll back you up as -far as Washington will let me.”</p> - -<p>“That won’t mean a thing to yuh,” Ranger Cushman told O’Neill, with -the emphasis born of his late tribulations. “This absent treatment for -protection don’t go; not when you’ve got to fight them wild cats over -on the Stillwater. I had Washington and Ed Murray to back me up, -too—but my fences was cut just the same, I noticed!”</p> - -<p>“All in the day’s work!” O’Neill laughed, happy over the prospect. “I -learned to mend reserve fences down on the Black Mesa. They cut them -there, too—for a while.”</p> - -<p>“Meanin’, I reckon, that you tamed ’em down. But I notice you changed -your range just the same—and I’m changin’ mine. I ain’t goin’ to Black -Mesa, either.”</p> - -<h2>CHAPTER III. A BATTLE OF WORDS.</h2> - -<p>On a still, sunny day in July, Patrick O’Neill rode whistling down the -steep trail that led into Lodgepole Basin. From little openings in the -pines he could look down over a vast stretch of hills and valleys -which formed a part of his district—a peaceful scene which held him -silent for a space. The ranger station which would be his home lay -farther down in the basin, a tip of its flagpole showing white above a -grove of young pines.</p> - -<p>“Looks like heaven, after the jack pines and mesquite of Black Mesa,” -he observed to his horse that stood switching flies with philosophic -calm. “I’ll stand a lot of grief before I’ll quit. We’ll sure make a -home of this place, no foolin’. Cushman wasn’t Irish. Takes the Irish -to get a real human slant on folks. He’s a sour cuss—probably tried to -lord it over the natives, and they wouldn’t stand for it.</p> - -<p>“Don’t blame ’em. I wouldn’t let any iron-visaged ranger dictate much -to me, if I were a rancher. The human note—no up-stage attitude—just -be one of them, friendlylike and peaceful. That’s the ticket. Like -gentling a bronc, this thing is going to be. Treat ’em right and -they’ll treat you right.”</p> - -<p>Whereupon he resumed his whistling and jogged down to the comfortable -log house in the grove of lodgepole pines, opened all the windows and -went happily to work at what he called policing camp. After that he -got out the files and studied the grazing permits, the brands, owners -thereof and the territory assigned to each. It took the rest of the -day and most of the evening to memorize the stuff he felt he should -have ready behind the tip of his tongue, but he enjoyed it all and -repeated his cheerful prophecies concerning the work of gentling -Stillwater District.</p> - -<p>“That Bar B man, Boyce, seems to be the king-pin of this district,” he -mused, as he rode abroad over his domain to familiarize himself with -the topography of the country, just as he had made himself acquainted -with the records. “Next on the program comes the human contact. Think -I’ll just ride down and make friends with our Bostonian neighbor at -the Bar B. Must be educated and intelligent—we ought to have a good -deal in common. I’m educated, far above the average in -intelligence—oh, you Pat O’Neill! When you tell him that, he’ll love -you for your modesty if for nothing else!”</p> - -<p>So he turned his horse’s head toward the Bar B Ranch.</p> - -<p>The Honorable Standish Boyce of Boston was leaning over the front gate -as O’Neill rode up, whistling under his breath, as was the carefree -habit he had. A pair of field glasses dangled from the old man’s right -hand, as if he had been making certain of the horseman’s identity, had -recognized him as the new forest ranger and was now waiting to welcome -him according to precedent and his general opinion of all -forest-service men.</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill flung a limber leg over the cantle of his stock saddle -and stepped down with agile grace, smiling his Irish smile as he -strode forward with outstretched hand.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Boyce? I’m the new ranger in this district. O’Neill is my -name—Pat O’Neill.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what of it?” Boyce still stood with his arms folded upon the -gate, the field glasses swinging gently from their narrow strap. Cold -gray eyes had the Honorable Standish Boyce, set deep and close to a -high, thin nose. Beneath the nose, a thin, straight mouth, half hidden -beneath a growth of thin, white beard, pointed to match his nose. His -eyes had the impersonal glare of the bird he so closely resembled—an -Uncle Sam on the warpath, O’Neill thought swiftly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing much, Mr. Boyce!” he grinned, firm in his purpose. -“Nothing, except that I understand you are one of the leading citizens -of our little community, as well as the largest user of the National -Forest, and I wanted to meet you.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ve met me. If you’re satisfied, I am. Now get off my ranch -and stay off.”</p> - -<p>The spirit of a thousand generations of fighting O’Neills rose and -looked out through the eyes of young Pat, but he hushed their battle -cry and somehow managed to keep his Irish grin.</p> - -<p>“You’re a bit hasty, Mr. Boyce. You and I will have a good deal of -business to transact together as time goes on. It will be much -pleasanter if we are friends, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Young man, I transact my business directly with Washington. I have -relatives who stand high in official circles, and by virtue of their -influence I enjoy privileges quite beyond your petty power to accord -me. Now will you do me the favor to leave this place?”</p> - -<p>“When the favor becomes mutual, yes. First, I want to tell you that -it’s my business to administer the affairs of this district on behalf -of the government. Whether you approve or disapprove of that fact is -of no concern to the government or to me. You may be twin brother to -the President of these United States for all I care, Mr. Boyce, but -the fact remains the same. Any business you have to transact with the -forest service, you will transact with me, its accredited -representative.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>Then the fighting O’Neills in him took a hand. They propelled him -forward so that his blazing Irish eyes were within a foot of the cold -gray ones.</p> - -<p>“Get this straight, old-timer! I’m running this neck of the woods—not -your relatives in Washington—and you may as well learn the fact right -here as farther down the creek! Your special privileges end right -here, you bean-brained old pie eater! From this minute on, you haven’t -got one damn privilege beyond what your neighbors enjoy, and if I -catch you trying to assume that you have, I’ll arrest you same as I -would any one else! Let that sink away down deep in your cosmic -consciousness, Mr. Boyce. The sooner you realize that this forest -service is not run for the special benefit of any individual, the less -grief you are going to have!”</p> - -<p>Boyce’s white-bearded jaw sagged in amazement. He swallowed twice, -shook a tremulous fist at the man who had the temerity to defy him, -and spluttered an epithet.</p> - -<p>“Calm yourself, Mr. Boyce,” O’Neill admonished, as he picked up the -reins to remount. “I expect that’s pretty hard to swallow, but you -needn’t choke over it.”</p> - -<p>“I— You— I’ll have you dismissed—kicked out in disgrace, you—you——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, go off and lie down! You make me tired,” O’Neill snarled -disgustedly from the saddle and loped back up the trail, thinking not -of Boyce, but of the girl he had seen walk her horse to the side porch -of the house and sit watching them, evidently listening.</p> - -<p>How much she had heard, he did not know—nor did he care at the moment. -But now he wished that he had thought of something wittily biting to -say at the last, instead of that hackneyed retort which any roughneck -puncher on the range might have made.</p> - -<p>The rasping voice of the Bar B Bostonian followed him, shouting -threats and imprecations which the increasing distance blurred to a -vague mouthing of rage. Bluster, O’Neill reminded himself, was always -a mark of weakness, or so folks said. If the rule held, then the -Honorable Standish Boyce was all bark and no bite, and could safely be -ignored.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>He had ridden a mile along the side of a ridge, taking it easy on the -way home, when a horse lunged out through a clump of bushes into the -trail ahead of him and wheeled so that the rider faced him. It was the -girl he had seen at Boyce’s house, and she had evidently cut across -country with the deliberate intention of intercepting him. At any -rate, she was waiting for him to ride up. Which Patrick O’Neill did -right willingly.</p> - -<p>“Good afternoon, Mr. Ranger,” she greeted him coolly, when he drew -near. “I’m Isabelle Boyce, and I’m supposed to be a chip off the old -block. At least, the neighbors say I am.”</p> - -<p>O’Neill laughed as he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his -thick, brown hair. “I’d have to prove that for myself, Miss Boyce. Is -this a continuation——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, indeed! It’s an explanation. I heard how father talked to -you, and I heard how you talked back to father. So I just thought——”</p> - -<p>“If you heard your father, you must admit I had the patience of Job -and used it.”</p> - -<p>“And left father boiling!” she laughed, flicking the bushes with her -quirt. “I was really in hopes, Mr. er—er——”</p> - -<p>“Patrick O’Neill, at your service.” Pat reined in alongside her and -the horses started on up the trail at a walk.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re Irish! I was in hopes the new ranger would understand and -sympathize with the people of the Stillwater District, but if you’re -Irish, I suppose you’ll want to fight over nothing, like all the -rest.”</p> - -<p>“Not necessarily, Miss Boyce. Your father ordered me off the ranch, -when all I wanted to do was give him a cordial shake of the hand and -say I hoped we might be friends. I merely expostulated a bit against -the discourtesy. I could not fail to understand him, but as for -sympathizing—— Well, I’d first like to know what’s wrong with him.”</p> - -<p>“The same thing that’s wrong with all the rest of the Stillwater -people, Mr. O’Neill. All you rangers seem to have overlooked the fact -that this is an isolated country, where it’s very difficult to keep a -fine sense of values. This world in here is bounded by cows, horses, -crops and kids. The men are only servants to their live stock, and the -women are slaves to the men. No one seems able to take a day off, to -get out of the rut. They live in shacks, for the most part, and life -is a monotonous grind of the very things that have made them so narrow -and sordid.</p> - -<p>“Even my father,” she continued, “though he is intelligent and -educated and can look back upon worth-while things, has grown as -narrow as the rest. They are bored to death, and don’t even know it, -so they hate themselves and each other, and squabble over trifles -that——”</p> - -<p>“Well, they needn’t take out their spite on the forest service,” Pat -grumbled, just to keep her going.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but they do!” she came back at him eagerly, her eyes alight with -interest in her subject. “You’re—meaning the forest service—the only -thing they can all band together to fight, don’t you see? Once you -take that community spirit away from them, I don’t know what would -happen. It’s the primitive impulse of self-preservation, working out -in a normal, primitive way. It requires a common enemy—hunger, the -menace of some terrible creature of the wild, protection against some -element that would destroy, and which no one man is strong enough to -conquer alone; just as the cave men gathered on the cliffs and rolled -rocks down upon the saber-toothed tiger. We call it community spirit, -in our psychology classes—that’s where I learned it.</p> - -<p>“Here, they have plenty to sustain life according to their standards, -and there aren’t any saber-toothed tigers, so—they pretend to -themselves that the forest service is a menace, and they band together -for the fight. He’s an outlet for their emotions, Mr. O’Neill. A -psychological safety valve. Also,” she added, forestalling an Irish -rebellion which she may have seen rising in his eyes, “it’s -misdirected energy, of course. But it explains my father’s awful -conduct, doesn’t it?”</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill gave her a keen look. “It explains your father,” he -admitted, “but sure, and it don’t change the temper of him, divil a -bit!” Then he laughed. “So the answer seems to be, Miss Boyce, that -since they are bored with the monotony of their existence and must -have some excitement, I’m to wallop the livin’ daylights out of the -lot of them! And it’s not so sorry a prospect as you might suppose,” -he added dryly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean that at all, and you know it!” she flashed, showing a -hint of her father’s temper—though she showed it very prettily, -O’Neill thought. “You seem intelligent. Why don’t you use your -personality——”</p> - -<p>“I will, Miss Boyce, and my fists along with it!”</p> - -<p>“Your personality,” she went on, ignoring him, “to give them a pride -in the forest service? Make them see that it is really their best -friend, that it protects their range and gives each one a fair share -of the grazing. If you can win them over to yourself as a man, you can -win them over to the forest service as an institution which has their -welfare at heart.”</p> - -<p>“And force them back to whippin’ pups for excitement, and fightin’ -each other. I don’t see——”</p> - -<p>“That’s because you won’t see,” she told him impatiently. “I have it -all analyzed, but I can’t do anything myself to help Stillwater—they -call me ‘Queen Isabelle,’ and say I’m stuck up, and like my father. -But you—if you can make them like you, the work is half done. Won’t -you try, Mr. O’Neill? I heard how you talked to father, and while I -admit he is terribly exasperating, still, that attitude of yours won’t -make him love the service any better. If you’d seize every opportunity -to make each individual like you personally——”</p> - -<p>“I will that!” cried Patrick O’Neill, beaming upon her with the Irish -twinkle which she had perhaps noticed. “I grasp the idea, and I find -it wonderful! But I shall need encouragement and advice—and might I -begin with yourself, Miss Boyce?”</p> - -<p>“Get along with you!” cried Queen Isabelle. “I <i>told</i> you the Irish——”</p> - -<p>She struck her horse with the quirt and galloped away from him, -flushed and biting her lip to keep back the laughter. Then she halted -and wheeled, a short distance away. “I’ll advise you about the best -way to approach father,” she called to him sweetly. “I can get his -real opinion of you as a man——”</p> - -<p>“Sure, and I had that same by word of mouth, Miss Boyce!”</p> - -<p>“And if you really need help or advice at any time, I’ll be glad to -have you call on me.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a great deal of trouble you are taking, Miss Boyce, just for a -lone ranger, but I’ll be delighted to avail myself of the privilege -you so kindly ex——”</p> - -<p>Queen Isabelle laughed and rode toward him again. “Remember, Mr. -O’Neill, that I have lived in this isolated place for more than a -year—ever since I finished school. I’m like the rest of the -natives—bored to death. Only, I know it and am seizing a small -opportunity to direct my energy in some useful channel. You may laugh, -but I really mean it. Just living is not enough. I must be doing -something. So if I can help you win the Stillwater over to the forest -service and make friends of the two, I shall be much more contented -with my lot in life; which is staying at home with father and making -him as happy as possible.</p> - -<p>“That,” she added with dignity, “is my sole reason for waylaying you -in this bold manner. I could see that you were getting an entirely -erroneous view of the situation in your district, and that you were in -a fair way to widen the breach between the settlers and the -government. We’d be having regular feuds over the forest reserve in -another year, just as some of the mountaineers of Kentucky fight the -revenue officers. Oh, I have given the matter careful thought, I -assure you! You are not like the other rangers, and if you really have -the interests of the service at heart, you will do all in your power -to promote a better feeling here.”</p> - -<p>“I will that, Miss Boyce! It’s a sweet little task you’ve set me, but -with your constant guidance and encouragement I’ll do it.”</p> - -<p>She gave him a quick, suspicious glance, refusing to laugh at his -slightly exaggerated Irish optimism. “Just meet the people with -kindness and courtesy, Mr. O’Neill. When you match temper with temper, -as you did just now with father, you merely drop from a superior -mental height to the level of—of Gus Peterson, owner of the Box S, who -lives to fight and to boast of his brutal victories. Father knows -better, and so do you, but he has permitted himself to drop into the -ways of the country. There isn’t even that excuse for you at all, -don’t you see?”</p> - -<p>“Miss Boyce, <i>you</i> have the pitiless logic of a <i>Portia</i>,” Patrick -O’Neill sighed. “For the first time in my life, I humbly apologize for -my fightin’ Irish temper, and I promise to be a saint from this -moment, so that Stillwater mothers shall beg the little ones at their -knees to be sweet, loving little gentlemen and ladies, like the kind, -forgiving young man at the ranger station, who would not hurt a fly. -And for the encouragement to be that same, I shall choose Thursday as -the day which I am allowed by a thoughtful government each week for -policing camp, and I shall call if I may, and smile if I am kicked -out.”</p> - -<p>“I ride nearly every day,” returned Isabelle Boyce, with a smile. -“Always on Thursday I ride toward Castle Creek. Good-by, and remember -that a soft answer turneth away wrath. I shall expect a good report of -the week.”</p> - -<p>“A sweet little handicap she’s put upon me!” mused Patrick O’Neill, as -he jogged homeward across the hills. “I’m to swallow my temper—that’s -turned me out of my home and my school and every job I’ve ever held in -my life! Pat, me lad, the girl is more dangerous than the old man, and -it’s well for you if you face that fact at once!”</p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IV. ODDS AGAINST HIM.</h2> - -<p>Cottonwoods and quaking aspens along the creeks flaunted leaves of -golden yellow to prove that fall had come, and Ranger O’Neill whistled -a love tune under his breath as he rode down to Bad Cañon post office -for his mail. Strange as it may seem, he was at peace with his -neighbors—or so he would have told you, with a twinkle in his eye -which might mean more than he would care to explain.</p> - -<p>No mother of the Stillwater has yet been overheard in lauding the -saintliness of Patrick O’Neill, it is true. But neither had he skinned -his knuckles to enforce the rules and regulations of the forest -service, and Isabelle Boyce thought well of his efforts and was still -quite willing to ride out on a Thursday afternoon and give him -encouragement and advice.</p> - -<p>“But I’ll have a matter or two to tell her next Thursday, I’m -thinking,” he broke off his whistling to mutter, speaking to his horse -for want of other companionship, as is the way of men who live much -alone. “I’ve the small triumph of being asked to sit down with the -boss of the Seven L to dinner when I rode up last Saturday to his -house. The first ranger who ever did that, I’m sure. It’s something I -can boast of to Queen Isabelle.</p> - -<p>“Also I held my temper in the matter of the sheep I found trespassing -on the Trout Creek Range, and if I told the owner I’d hold the band -for damages next time he drove them on, and charge him a full season’s -grazing fee to boot, I did it politely and only once called him spawn -of the devil and let it go at that.</p> - -<p>“Then there’s the timber sale on Blind Bridger Creek—I handled that -thief of a Blanding like a diplomat, which same I shall point out to -Queen Isabelle. He’d broken his contract with deliberate intent, -piling the logs this way and that in the yard, instead of all tops in -one direction, according to agreement. I could have quarreled with the -man and made a great talk and stir, but I did not. I calmly—and I -shall describe how calmly it was done!—I very calmly scaled butts and -tops as they came, and let Blanding splutter at the loss and be damned -to him. He’ll yard his logs according to contract next time, I’m -thinking!</p> - -<p>“Pat, me lad, you’ve much to be proud of, and I shall tell her so. I -shall likewise point out the fact that I’m aware her respected father, -and others as well, are running far more cattle on the forest than -their permits call for, but that I am shutting one eye to that, since -the season is nearly over anyway, and I’ve no mind to fight the entire -Stillwater at this time. But when next the permits are issued, -there’ll be no violations without the penalty attached. And for these -good deeds perhaps the queen will reward me by consenting to a little -fishing trip next Thursday!”</p> - -<p>Whereupon Patrick O’Neill resumed his whispered whistling of the love -tune he liked best, and rode contentedly into the tiny settlement that -was called Bad Cañon post office to distinguish it from the cañon -itself, and into an event which spoiled whatever vanity he may have -indulged in because of his saintliness.</p> - -<p>A small group of rangemen sat dangling spurred heels from the narrow -platform in front of the store, smoking and gossiping of this thing -and that, when Patrick O’Neill rode jauntily up to the hitch rail and -dismounted, still whistling the love tune under his breath. From the -tail of his eye he saw them jerk thumbs in his direction, exchange a -muttered sentence or two and laugh. Young Patrick O’Neill did not like -that—being Irish; but being a saint for the moment as well, he let it -pass.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>As he approached the store, he nodded casually toward a man or two -whom he disliked the least, and would have walked inside quite -inoffensively had not Gus Peterson, the owner of the Box S brand, -reached out a hairy paw and caught O’Neill by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Aw, don’t be in such a damn hurry!” he arrogantly commanded. “I’d -like to know what you let them sheep do with my grass. I think you’re -one hell of a ranger! You can’t tell cows from sheeps! I paid good -money for that grass. And I don’t stand for no damn ranger lettin’ -sheep come and eat my grass!”</p> - -<p>“Take your dirty claw off me!” snapped the saintly Patrick O’Neill, as -he threw off Peterson’s hand. “No sheep are on your grazing ground, -and you know it. And I think,” he added meaningly, “if you’d count -your cattle, you’d find you were getting your money’s worth of grass, -all right!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, my cows ate grass before you come here an’, by damn, they eat -grass when you go! Maybe you charge money for breathin’ air! Maybe——”</p> - -<p>“And if I did, I’d collect the same, remember that! I’m running this -proposition, my fine bully, as you’ll find out if you stick around a -while. You’re going to pay for the grass your cows eat on the national -forest—and you’ll pay for the cows on the range, mind you! As for the -sheep—— Well, I’m running that end of it, too.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you’ll be runnin’ out of this country!” Peterson bellowed -truculently, his red face thrust close to the blazing eyes of Ranger -O’Neill. “We don’t need no damn forest ranger in here as a boss. We -can run our cows without help from the government, and we’ll run you -out just like we ran out the other damn rangers!”</p> - -<p>“And when,” grated Patrick O’Neill, no longer wishing to be counted a -saint, “do you expect to start running me out?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll start now!” bawled Peterson, as he dived forward with -outstretched arms for the grappling hold which was his pet way of -crushing an enemy.</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill stepped backward and waited until the huge arms had -all but embraced him. Then he lifted his right knee sharply, grabbed -Peterson’s head and jerked it down upon that knee. The impact was -terrific. The big rancher staggered back with a roar of pain and -baffled rage, and as he straightened, he got a frightfully direct blow -in his middle and another on the jaw that snapped his head backward. A -second blow found the big jaw, and Peterson of the Box S, bully of the -Stillwater District, crumpled down in a heap and lay there.</p> - -<p>“Git him!” yelled a lanky cow-puncher, one of Boyce’s riders, as -Patrick O’Neill knew well. The puncher came in with a sideswipe, two -others at his heels.</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill grinned and gave him the neatest uppercut West Point -boxers could teach him. A man at his right tried to trip him, while -the Boyce man came in again, and it was right then that the spirit of -all the wild, fighting O’Neills came into its own.</p> - -<p>Young Patrick—no more a saint—lost a sleeve from his coat, which was -likewise split up the back to his collar. He barked a knuckle against -a man’s teeth—who thereafter grew a mustache to hide the gap in his -grin—and his lip was cut where a flailing fist found him. But, oh, how -the fighting spirit of all the Irish O’Neills did glory in the fray!</p> - -<p>“Cleaned ’em cleaner than a new shotgun!” the postmaster reported the -incident to his wife that night.</p> - -<p>Ranger Patrick O’Neill did not whistle a love tune as he rode home -with his mail, but that was chiefly because of his swollen lip, for -the fighting spirit of the O’Neills once aroused was hard to down.</p> - -<p>“Pat, me lad, I think you’d better not broach the subject of a fishing -trip, next Thursday,” he reflected, as he climbed the steep trail up -along the west bank of Limestone Creek. “I think you’ll be better -considerin’ how you’re to convince Queen Isabelle that you’re a man of -peace.” And then he sighed, and grinned as well as his stiff and puffy -lip would permit. “But oh, doctor! It sure was one lovely scrimmage -while it lasted, and it did the heart of me good to hear them howl -that they’d had enough!” he murmured unrepentantly, and flexed his -sore muscles in pleasant retrospection.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>With the lip still swollen, and standing askew in a sardonic smile of -irony which his twinkling eyes belied, Patrick O’Neill rode with some -secret trepidation next Thursday to make his weekly report to the girl -whom he had now called “Queen Isabelle” to her face.</p> - -<p>She listened in silence to his cheerful account of the manner in which -he had taught Blanding a lesson in good pine timber, and when he had -stressed his mild demeanor as much as he dared, she looked at him -coldly and said:</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard another story of how you, representing the government, -cheated Mr. Blanding out of more than twenty-five thousand feet of -timber by scaling the butts of his logs instead of the tops. According -to your version, he brought the loss on himself, so I’ll say nothing -about that—except that as a measure of winning the Stillwater to -friendship with the forest service, you seem to have made haste -backward. The timber men are all up in arms over what they call a -government steal, and Blanding says he is going to write to Washington -and have you removed. We can’t very well call that a gain in friendly -confidence, but I suppose it will straighten out in time. What else, -Mr. Ranger?”</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill thereupon told her of the trespassing sheep and how he -had dealt with the owner.</p> - -<p>“That’s better,” she praised him, “though if I know anything about old -Jensen, you aren’t through with him yet by any means. You’ll have to -go carefully there, if you want to avoid trouble. Is that all?” And -she looked very meaningly at the swollen lip. “You’ve hurt yourself, I -see. Did you fall off your horse, Mr. O’Neill?”</p> - -<p>“I did not,” Pat returned, in a distressed tone. “A Bar B man—the -long-legged one you call ‘Little Bill’—flung out a hand in his sleep, -as it were, and it chanced to graze my lip. It’s no more than a -scratch, for the man was unconscious—or nearly so—when he made the -gesture. I’m sure he never meant to touch me there, Queen Isabelle. -And now I have to tell you that I had dinner at the Seven L Ranch last -Saturday——”</p> - -<p>“Little Bill didn’t mean to strike you in the mouth, I know,” said -Isabelle, disregarding the change of subject. “What he meant to -do—what he still means to do, in fact, is to beat your blinkety-blink, -do-re-mi-sol-dough brains out and spread them thinly over the entire -Stillwater district. Or, at least, that is what I heard him saying as -I rode past the bunk house last evening. I suppose he was dreaming -while he slept!”</p> - -<p>“I think he must have been, Queen Isabelle, and others along with -him.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose he also dreamed that you swaggered up to him and others at -the post office, and boasted that you would show them who was running -this country, thereupon attacking them with your loaded quirt.”</p> - -<p>Patrick O’Neill stared fixedly into her face, his own a bit pale under -his tan. He swung his horse short around in the trail then and started -back the way they had come.</p> - -<p>“Where away, Mr. Bad Man?” Isabelle’s voice held a note of panic under -the raillery.</p> - -<p>Ranger O’Neill held his horse to a walk while he looked back at her. -“I was going to bring Little Bill to you and hear him admit how the -tongue of him lied,” he said grimly. “Or you may come with me, if it -pleases you better than to wait.” He looked at her, eyes demanding an -answer.</p> - -<p>Isabelle laughed as she rode up to him. “I was only teasing you, Mr. -Ranger Man,” she said pacifically, perhaps because she understood the -look she saw in his eyes. “The postmaster’s wife told me all about it. -She saw the whole thing through the window, and heard what was said. I -can’t blame you for fighting them, and since you did fight, I’m glad -you whipped the bunch. Do please get down off your high horse, you man -of peace, and let’s talk seriously. I don’t blame you for -fighting—they must learn to respect you, I suppose, before they will -ever come to like you, and if you had backed down from Peterson, every -cowboy in the country would despise you for it. Not one of them would -ever have taken you seriously after that, or given you anything but -contempt.</p> - -<p>“Little Bill happens to be a great crony of Peterson’s outfit, though -why he doesn’t work for the Box S instead of for father I never could -tell you. He isn’t so awfully popular with our boys. Most of our -riders are pretty good fellows, as you would discover for yourself if -there wasn’t this grudge against the forest reserve which keeps you -seeing their most disagreeable traits.</p> - -<p>“One thing I wanted to tell you, ranger man, is that Peterson and his -bunch are going to ‘get’ you, on account of that fight. I heard Little -Bill telling the boys so. He wanted them to go in on the scheme, but -they wouldn’t do it: or, at least, that’s what I understood from what -I overheard.”</p> - -<p>“I take it your father would not object to the plan, at any rate.” -Patrick O’Neill was not smiling now.</p> - -<p>“Father? He never would have anything to do with it! I—I happen to -know, ranger, that he has a scheme of his own for getting rid of you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes? And if I might ask——”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t tell you, because it isn’t going to work, anyway. He -merely wrote to his brother-in-law—who is my uncle, of course—in -Washington, asking him to see that you are removed from this district -as your conduct is most obnoxious. But that doesn’t mean anything at -all, for I wrote in the very next mail to my uncle, and told him that -father is merely prejudiced against the forest service in general, and -that—that you are the most competent ranger we have ever had here. I -said he must not pay any attention to father. He won’t, either. I -lived with Uncle John and Aunt Martha while I was in school, and they -know just how cranky and unreasonable father can be. So that’s all -right. But Peterson is a different proposition. From what Little Bill -said——”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Ranger O’Neill, turning to his horse, “I had better go -and have a little talk with our friend Peterson.”</p> - -<p>“You will not!” Isabelle caught him by the arm. “That’s exactly what -you must <i>not</i> do! I only told you so that you would be on your guard -and refuse to be drawn into any argument, as you were at Bad Cañon the -other day. Can’t you see? If you know how they feel, you can avoid -coming into contact with them until they forget about it. It’s only -because they were licked, and Peterson hates that worse than anything -else.”</p> - -<p>“And would you have me stick close to my station, then?” O’Neill’s -eyes held a sparkle it was as well Isabelle did not see. “And what -then, if they come after me there?”</p> - -<p>“That,” cried Isabelle, “is beside the point! They would never dare -attack you at the station. What I think they will do is probably start -another quarrel with you, and when you are silly enough to fight, they -mean to—to shoot you, for all I know! Little Bill said: ‘We’re goin’ -to get him, next time, and get him <i>good</i>! And you’ve got to keep out, -I tell you. All this fighting is exactly what they want.’</p> - -<p>“And they’ll get what they’re wantin’ or my name is not Patrick -O’Neill! Leave go my arm, Queen Isabelle, and let me carry the war to -the enemy’s camp—for that’s what they taught me at West Point, and -it’s one thing they taught that I thoroughly approve!”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” wailed Isabelle, while tears of anger stood in her eyes, “you’re -such a blithering fool! All you Irish can think of is fighting! You’re -worse than Cushman or Waller or any of the other shoot-’em-up rangers -that had to leave or get killed. You <i>promised</i> me you’d win them to -you with kindness and courtesy, and if you break that promise, I hope -they break your head!”</p> - -<p>“And thank you for that same, Miss Boyce,” said Patrick O’Neill, with -icy politeness, as he sprang to the saddle. “It’s a fine example of -kindness and courtesy you’re setting me now—as like your father as one -white bean is like another! So I’ll pass it along to Peterson and -Little Bill, and crack their heads as you so sweetly wish them to do -by me!”</p> - -<p>He lifted his hat from his thick brown hair and gave her a courtly bow -that left her furiously stamping her foot and gritting her teeth at -him as he galloped away, headed north to the Box S Range that lay -along Bad Cañon Creek, between Lodgepole Basin and Trout Creek where -the sheep had entered. That the trail led homeward as well never once -occurred to Isabelle, who saw him going foolhardily to place his head -in the jaws of the lion that roared for his bones to crunch; in other -words, to fight on their own ground Peterson and his crowd that had -boasted how they would get him.</p> - -<p>“She’ll do me the favor to be thinking of me now,” said Patrick -O’Neill to himself, though he never once looked back.</p> - -<h2>CHAPTER V. PLOTTERS AT WORK.</h2> - -<p>As the valley of the Stillwater River—so named because of its -swiftness—approaches the high Rockies, it is divided into many -sections by the streams that go rushing down to join the larger river; -so that the valley resembles a giant hand with outstretched fingers -pointing toward the higher peaks to the westward.</p> - -<p>Each branch bears a name which grew out of its most conspicuous -characteristic, and little timber grows in the valley but crowds close -to the base of the mountains. So the broad plateaus that lie between -the tributaries of the Stillwater make wonderful grazing ground, while -the creeks running down the cañons are bordered with willows and -quaking aspen groves that give shelter to the cattle and horses that -tread down the trails from higher ground to water.</p> - -<p>Before the national forest reserve brought this fine cattle country -under its supervision and allotted to each settler certain -well-defined grazing grounds for which he must pay an annual fee based -upon the number of animals which feed thereon, Stillwater Valley saw -many a range battle waged between rival ranchers. Now that the -national forest service held all the range—or at least the best of it -next the mountains—the fight went much the same, except that the -policing of the forest injected a new factor into the struggle. -Isabelle Boyce was right, and Ranger Cushman also summed up the -situation rather accurately. The stockmen were ready to fly at each -other’s throats for little cause, but they stood as one man against -the forest service.</p> - -<p>“And it’s man by man that I must take them and make them see sense, if -I have to crowd it down the throats of them with my fist!” mused -Patrick O’Neill, as he reined his horse into the trail that led with -steep and devious turnings down into Bad Cañon, which he must cross in -order to reach Peterson’s home ranch.</p> - -<p>“I’ll talk to him fair,” Pat promised himself. “No man shall ever say -that Ranger O’Neill rushed into a fight for the pure love of the -scrimmage, without first giving the enemy a chance to eat his words -and go in peace. I’ll first reason with the big bully—should it so -happen that I have time enough for that. Then if he comes at me—which -he will!—I’ll use the fists God gave me for the purpose, and drive my -meaning home to the point of his jaw.</p> - -<p>“For to teach a dog new tricks you must first convince him that you’re -the master of him—and faith, I shall point that out to Queen Isabelle, -should some rumors of what is to take place to-day reach her before -next Thursday. They’ll likely be out riding, since it’s the round-up -time, and he’ll have his friends about him, so that none can say I -took an unfair advantage of the man.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>So, thinking piously of his duty to Peterson, he rode splashing into -Bad Cañon Creek. A mountain trout the length of his forearm slid from -under the very feet of his horse and, with one flip of his tail, -darted into the shadow of a still pool sheltered by a mossy boulder, -and Ranger O’Neill forgot the duty which brought him there and pulled -back to the gravelly bank, dismounting in haste. For fishing stood -close to fighting in his Irish heart, and there were other trout lying -like slaty, living shadows in the depth of that pool.</p> - -<p>To cut a short, pliable willow row and take a white miller from the -fine assortment of flies hooked into his hatband was the work of two -minutes, with another spent in unwinding trout line and leader from a -small card in his breast pocket, where he kept his book of cigarette -papers. Then O’Neill led his horse into the shade and tied him there -against wandering, pulled his hat low over his eyes to shield them -from whipping brush and sun glare alike, and stepped catwise to the -brink of the pool.</p> - -<p>His tutelage of Peterson could wait, while the trout stream called to -the sporting blood of him. He got two trout from that small pool, -threaded their panting gills on a bit of line which he tied to his gun -belt—on the left side of him, since he was no fool after all—and began -fishing upstream, going stealthily from riffle to pool, oblivious to -all else for the time being, like all born anglers held entranced with -the whipping of a fly out over a mountain stream, skittering it above -the water to tempt the king of all wiliness from his dusky retreat -beneath a rock.</p> - -<p>Any trout fisherman knows the lure of the next pool above, and the -next, and yet another. Patrick O’Neill crept warily upstream, parting -the bushes with care, landing each trout in silence and putting back -all but the largest of his catch. Just one more pool would he whip -before he turned back, he promised himself, and stole up to a -willow-bordered spot, where the slack water lay enticingly under a -high bank grown thick with bushes.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>He stopped to reach forward, poised for the cast, then froze in his -tracks as some one beyond the bushes spoke his name. He turned his -head and stared upward, but could see nothing save the yellow-leaved -thicket.</p> - -<p>“Aw, that damn ranger!” came Peterson’s drawling voice. “Forget him! -Plenty of time for gettin’ him outa the way. Now we’ll settle about -the cattle for Whiskers. When will he be through gatherin’ ’em?”</p> - -<p>“We’re through now with the bunch I told yuh about,” the voice of -Little Bill made reply. “All you can git away with safe. They was -throwed in on Castle Creek yesterday. That’s the reason the old man’s -been keepin’ cattle outa Castle Creek, so the feed’ll be good to hold -his beef steers on till he gits ready to trail ’em out.”</p> - -<p>“Somebody’ll stay with ’em, perhaps. Will you be the one, Bill?”</p> - -<p>“Aw, they don’t need herdin’, Gus. The drift fence holds ’em from -crossin’ to Drew’s range and they won’t work back up over the ridge -the other way—not with the feed like it is in there. That’s the way -old Boyce figures on savin’ men’s wages. He’ll throw all the beef in -there fast as we gather, and make one drive out. I’m s’posed to be -huntin’ strays over here, Gus.”</p> - -<p>Peterson grunted, and another voice which O’Neill did not recognize -spoke up, offering a few choice remarks on the subject of Boyce’s -stinginess. He was answered by yet another, and when Peterson spoke -again, a third man’s voice was raised in protest.</p> - -<p>“If you take ’em up around Lodgepole Basin and across Squaw Gulch and -that way—why, hell! You might just as well ride up to Boyce and tell -’em you got his steers—and what’ll he do to yuh! He’s goin’ to miss -the bunch first time any one rides to Castle Creek, an’ a blind man -could foller their trail.</p> - -<p>“Now, what yuh want to do is take ’em out on Drew’s range, on -Limestone. We can break the drift fence there and make it look like -the cattle done it, and take the bunch out that way, on Drew’s range, -and haze some of Drew’s cattle back through the fence onto Castle -Creek. That way, old Boyce won’t miss his cattle for a week, maybe. -Neither will Drew, because he ain’t half through with his round-up -yet. When they’re ready to make their drive out, it’ll look like the -cattle got mixed up, is all. And if Boyce don’t find his steers over -on Drew’s range, let ’em lock horns over it if they want to! They’re -always fighting, anyway, over the line or some darn thing.</p> - -<p>“That way, there ain’t any mysterious tracks across Myers Creek and up -Squaw Gulch way, and it’s about as close to where you want to hold -’em, Gus. Time the brands is healed and you get ’em down outa that -high basin, winter’ll be on and you’re dead safe. You’ll make a late -drive this year with your beef, that’s all, and you’ll have all Box S -brands—see? If that damn O’Neill don’t go prowling around up there-”</p> - -<p>“Aw, what’s goin’ to take him up there? That basin is hemmed in on all -sides with young lodgepole pines, and the chances are he don’t even -know it’s there. Yeah, that scheme oughta work fine, Gus. We’ll see -yuh as far as the hideout, for five dollars a head, and from then on -you’ll have to handle it alone.”</p> - -<p>“You fellows should help change the brands, too, for five dollars,” -Peterson objected. “A five-spot just for drivin’ the cattle is too -much. I won’t pay five dollars for just to-night’s work.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>While they wrangled over the money, Patrick O’Neill went down the -creek to where his horse was tied, mounted and urged the animal across -the creek and up the farther side of the cañon, taking a trail that -led sharply away from his objective, which was the trail up from Bad -Cañon to the Box S Ranch. He wanted very much to see the three men -whose voices he failed to recognize.</p> - -<p>Little Bill and Peterson, the ranger could swear to, if it came to a -court trial for cattle stealing, but he would feel much easier in his -mind if he had the added evidence of meeting the group riding up the -cañon where he had heard them planning the details of the crime.</p> - -<p>Morenci, the horse, was sweating to his ears when O’Neill finally -reached the trail he wanted and loped along it to Bad Cañon. The -detour had been made in record time, but even so he was too late, as -he was forced to admit when he rode down to the creek at the point -where he had heard the discussion, and found the men gone. A -windowless log hut set back from the creek bank beyond the willow -thicket had been their meeting place, he discovered. There were signs -enough of their presence—cigarette stubs on the dirt floor, burned -matches, boot tracks, while farther back from the creek he found the -place where they had tied their horses.</p> - -<p>“They went down the creek, and I missed them entirely,” he decided -ruefully, at last. “Rode straight away from them as if the devil was -after me, when all I had to do was stop where I was, at the creek with -my fishing tackle, and they’d have been atop of me before they knew I -was there—and me with the best and most peaceful excuse any man could -want! Pat, me lad, you should be well booted for that blunder!”</p> - -<p>That night they would make the drive, they had said. They were wise to -hurry the job, since there was little time to spare before the winter -snows would send the stolen herd down from the high basin; and the -altered brands would take some time to heal so that the theft would -not be apparent. Furthermore, it was only a matter of days until Boyce -or Drew would discover the broken drift fence and begin to search for -strayed cattle.</p> - -<p>Ranger O’Neill rode with a cigarette gone cold from neglect between -his lips while he pondered the best manner of protecting Boyce. He -could ride to the Bar B and warn them——</p> - -<p>“But what if those strange men are Bar B riders?” he argued the point -with himself. “Or what if Boyce is not at home, or more likely starts -his tongue wagging at me and stirs the Irish before I get out the -news? I’d ride away and let Peterson put through the steal—if Boyce -makes me mad enough. And the time is short for a ride to the Bar B and -back again to Castle Creek soon enough to stop them.</p> - -<p>“Morenci, you’ve the mark of a good cow pony in the way you handle -yourself on range inspection, and if you work fast enough, I’m -thinking we can handle this little matter alone; though it’s little -encouragement I’ve lately received for playing the patron saint to old -Boyce. Still, there’s a way to work it that appeals to my sense of -humor, and it’s that we’re going to do. So shake a leg, Morenci! -You’ve a lot of violent exercise between you and your feed box -to-night.”</p> - -<p>And Patrick O’Neill, for the first time that day, whistled under his -breath, as he galloped, to show how content he was with his mission.</p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VI. A QUICK CHANGE.</h2> - -<p>Later Pat O’Neill did not whistle, though he still rode in haste. The -afternoon was older than he had suspected when he rode up out of Bad -Cañon and across the high grazing ground that lay between his fishing -place and Lodgepole Basin. He had a plan which he felt would work -beautifully, if only he had time for it; but now with the sinking of -the sun, he was not so sure. A great deal depended upon his horse, and -he had not spared the animal in his roundabout ride to cut the -homeward trail of Peterson and his men.</p> - -<p>“First, I must be sure that Boyce’s steers are safe,” he decided, and -crossed Limestone Creek with a splash and a clatter of hoofs on the -stones. “It’s a new range the Bar B cattle are on, and if I can read -the mind of cow brutes, they have traveled as far down the creek as -they can go. They will not be satisfied to stay at the upper end of -the bottom where the grass is quite as good, but must range farther in -the vain hope of finding range that pleases them better. At any rate, -it’s worth the gamble.”</p> - -<p>As he opened the wire gate in the drift fence which separated Drew’s -range from Boyce’s on Castle Creek just above its junction with -Limestone, the parklike basin was dusky with the coming of night, but -as he led his horse through, closed the gate and remounted, a steer -snorted dew from its nostrils not far away. O’Neill turned and rode -that way, peering down satisfiedly at the dark forms of the Bar B beef -steers bedded down on a rise of ground just back from the creek and -the mosquitoes and close to the fence.</p> - -<p>“What did I tell you, Morenci? Now, rout them up and we’ll haze them -on down the fence toward Picket Pin. If it’s through a fence they want -to travel, they may try the other side of the fence on Picket Pin and -welcome—and the farther they drift, the safer they’ll be, though it -will make more work for the Bar B riders.”</p> - -<p>When he had finished that job and the Bar B steers were plodding in -the dark to find another bed ground on Picket Pin, Patrick O’Neill -cautiously lighted a match in the crown of his hat and looked at his -watch.</p> - -<p>“Eight o’clock and our work only begun! Get away from here, Morenci, -and show the stuff that’s in you!” And striking into a cow path that -wound through thickets of aspen and across little open glades, he -pelted away up Castle Creek to the steep trail where the rim rock -broke down in a great slide of boulders on the divide between Myers -Creek and Castle.</p> - -<p>When he reached Lodgepole Basin, his watch said ten o’clock and Ranger -O’Neill had a deep crease between his eyebrows, for Morenci was wet to -his ears—and that not from splashing through creeks, though he had -crossed two—and there were more cattle to be moved.</p> - -<p>But these were Peterson’s and Ranger O’Neill was not so gentle. Across -Lodgepole Basin, he galloped, to where a hundred head or more of Box S -cattle ranged happily enough and had for their bed ground a knoll not -far from Squaw Gulch, which was not very distant from the Myers Creek -divide. For the Stillwater Forest Reserve, you must know, is a network -of streams and their cañons, once you are back in the hills.</p> - -<p>So Ranger O’Neill made a hasty gathering of Peterson’s cattle and -hazed them along at a lumbering gallop to the fenced gap in the rim -rock and so down into the Castle Creek pasture which was leased to -Boyce. Just for good measure he rode after them and threw a hastily -gathered rock or two, and the cattle went down the creek as if a full -crew rode hard at their heels.</p> - -<p>Ranger O’Neill pulled up and listened until the last sound of whipping -brush and the clicking of cloven feet against the rocks had died to -silence. The cattle were tired after that headlong drive up Myers -Creek to the rim. It had been steep in places and only the manner in -which he had rushed them along had held them to the trail. Morenci was -standing with his feet slightly braced—the mark of a tired horse—and -his flanks palpitating with exhaustion. O’Neill listened while the -horse caught his wind, then suddenly he leaned forward and gave the -reeking neck a grateful slap.</p> - -<p>“Not a dozen horses in the district could have done it, and that’s the -truth, Morenci!” Then he fell silent, though his thoughts went on -quite as definitely as if he were actually speaking them.</p> - -<p>“No sound of riders down below there, so the cattle will quiet down -before Peterson comes for them—he chooses late hours for his stealing, -thank the Lord! So now let him steal his own stock, though what he’ll -think or what he’ll say when he sees their brands in the morning, I -sure would like to know. I’d like to go and collect a bit of gratitude -from Queen Isabelle and the Honorable Standish Boyce for this night’s -work, but that will have to wait until Thursday, for I’m due at Blind -Bridger to-morrow. But when I do see her, she will admit I’m doing -much to promote peace and quiet along the Stillwater, I’m thinking.”</p> - -<p>Wherefore Ranger Patrick O’Neill was a contented young man although a -weary one as he rode home under the cool stars of midnight. Morenci -got an extra rubdown as well as his supper before O’Neill went away to -the cabin to fill his own empty stomach. The fish he had caught were -far past their fresh toothsomeness and he threw them away and dined -upon what happened to stand ready cooked in the cupboard. But it was a -good night’s work and he grinned over it frequently.</p> - -<p>“Murray would appreciate that!” O’Neill chuckled, as he pulled off his -boot. He was thinking of Peterson’s slack-jawed amazement when he -recognized the cattle he had stolen away from Castle Creek that night.</p> - -<p>The ranger’s last thought as he put his head on the pillow was of the -peppery Bar B owner and his probable mystification when he found his -beef herd over on the Picket Pin. Some one would catch a tongue -lashing, O’Neill suspected.</p> - -<p>“But I’ll ride over and tell him about it before he has time to -discover the change of pasture,” he comforted himself. “Peterson was -counting on a week or so before the rustling would be suspected, and -I’ll see Boyce before then. And Isabelle,” he added sleepily, and then -began to dream of all that he would have to say.</p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VII. FROM BAD TO WORSE.</h2> - -<p>“Sure and a most loyal subject bows before the queen this day!” cried -Patrick O’Neill, with his best brogue and a somewhat self-satisfied -grin on his face. “I was scarce hoping you’d ride out to meet me, and -that’s why I was taking the short cut to the Bar B this morning. I’ve -things to report that——”</p> - -<p>“I should think you would have,” Isabelle Boyce told him sharply. -“With all this mix-up over the cattle, and the trouble it’s making, I -should think you would have something to say on the subject! Do you -know how Tod Drew’s cattle came to be on father’s best range, and -father’s beef herd over on that barren ground that wouldn’t furnish -grazing for a sheep? And the drift fence down——”</p> - -<p>“Do I know? It’s a night’s sleep I lost in getting full knowledge of -the mystery, Queen Isabelle! I drove your father’s cattle to the -Picket Pin——”</p> - -<p>“Indeed?” So much meaning may be crowded into one word with a rising -inflection that Patrick O’Neill felt a momentary panic. “I hope, Mr. -O’Neill, you will oblige me with your reasons for so astounding a -piece of trouble making. I am frankly curious to know what possessed -you to commit such a deed.”</p> - -<p>“It was a good deed, of which I am proud to tell,” he informed her, -secretly pleased at the dramatic change he would presently produce in -her mood. “On last Friday afternoon I chanced to hear a plan to steal -your father’s gathering of beef steers which he was holding on Castle -Creek. Peterson was the leader, and they meant to tear down the drift -fence between your father’s range and Drew’s, and drive out the steers -that way. They would then drive as many of Drew’s cattle as they could -handily gather through the fence and onto Castle Creek, so that it -would look as though the cattle had broken down the drift fence and -were trespassing of their own accord, and it would not be suspected at -once that the beef herd was stolen. Castle Creek Basin being brushy in -the hollows, the plan had a fair chance of success.</p> - -<p>“I failed to see the men—and that was a bit of bad guessing, of which -I am not proud. But I recognized the voice of a Bar B rider, among -others. It was late, and though I could have waited at the drift fence -and held them up when they came, I could bring no charge against them -unless they had actually stolen the cattle. So I thought I would play -a trick on Peterson.</p> - -<p>“I went to Castle Creek and moved the Bar B steers out of harm’s -way—regretting the poor pasturage but having little time to choose a -range for them. Then I rode back to Lodgepole, where a bunch of -Peterson’s cattle grazed, took them across Squaw Gulch to the head of -Myer’s Creek, and up over the divide and through the gap to Castle -Creek Basin. It was fast work and it was pretty work, Miss Boyce, and -I repeat that I am proud of it!”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>With lips slightly parted and eyes wider than usual, Isabelle stared -at him and did not speak. So presently the grin smoothed itself from -his lips and the twinkle died in his eyes and left a puzzled look -there, which could easily turn hostile.</p> - -<p>“Would you rather I had let them take your father’s whole beef herd -and run the fat off them getting them into some hidden place in the -mountains? Or perhaps you think I should have confronted Peterson and -fought the lot of them!”</p> - -<p>“Of course I don’t think you should do anything so insane! But it -couldn’t be much worse. Why didn’t you come and tell father? Why did -you let days go by without saying a word? Is it possible you don’t -know that father and Tod Drew are always at sword’s points over -something, and jump at the least excuse for quarreling? You’ve managed -to stir up a pretty mess, Mr. O’Neill. You may have saved father’s -beef herd—but what is that when he and Drew have sent each other -warning that it will be shoot on sight from now on? I’ve had all I -could do to keep father from riding over and killing Drew -deliberately!”</p> - -<p>“It couldn’t be for what I did the other night,” O’Neill protested. -“What if the fence is down and Drew’s cattle were found on your -father’s range? That’s not a shooting matter, with sane men.”</p> - -<p>Isabelle gave him a withering look. “Oh, how can you be so dense! Do -you suppose for one minute that father could ride to Castle Creek and -discover Tod Drew’s cattle there, and his own driven over on Picket -Pin—because there was no fence broken down <i>there</i> to lay the blame on -the cattle!—without doing something about it? He drove Drew’s cattle -off with his six-shooter. He killed one and crippled another so Drew -had to have it shot. If Tod Drew had been at that drift fence, Mr. -O’Neill, there would have been murder! There will be yet, if something -isn’t done to stop them, for Tod Drew shot our cattle with a shotgun! -For a man who was going to do such great things in psychology,” she -cried distractedly, “and instill both liking and respect for the -forest service into the hearts of the Stillwater men, you have -promoted as bloodthirsty a feud as ever happened anywhere! The only -difference is that it is confined to two men, so far—though the -cowboys are just as likely to take it up as not, just for the -excitement of it!”</p> - -<p>“I have received no instructions, Miss Boyce, for guarding the morals -of other men,” Patrick O’Neill said somewhat stiffly. “But since your -respected parent has not yet committed a murder as well as a felony -against his neighbor’s property, I have time enough perhaps to curb -his homicidal tendencies. A bit of an explanation will clear the air, -I’m thinking.” And he reached for Morenci’s dragging bridle reins.</p> - -<p>“You’re never going to face them <i>now</i> and tell them you did it?” -Isabelle’s voice rose to a high note of protest. “They’ll kill you!”</p> - -<p>But Ranger O’Neill was in the saddle and away, pelting along to Drew’s -place, since that was closer than the Bar B. Isabelle watched him out -of sight, then mounted and galloped up the road in the dust cloud he -left behind him, her heart beating queerly, away up in her throat.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>It is strange how training oft will drop away from a man like a -garment of winter grown uncomfortable as summer approaches, yet fall -into place when the need of it arises again. So with Ranger Patrick -O’Neill when he pulled up his horse at Drew’s gate. In the years since -West Point he had put aside much of his military bearing in everyday -life, and he had gone rather irresponsibly out to meet life, with his -rollicky Irish manner to the front because it was easy to wear.</p> - -<p>Yet when he dismounted and walked up the path to the house, his back -was straight and his step was alert, his chest was out and his belt -was in and his eyes looked with keen discernment straight into the -leathery countenance of Tod Drew, who glanced cautiously out of a -near-by window before he opened the door to his insistent knocking.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Drew, I came to report what I know of the drift fence being -broken between your range and the Bar B lease on Castle Creek last -Friday night.” And Ranger O’Neill forthwith explained, with malice -toward none and naming no names, but making himself perfectly clear -for all that.</p> - -<p>“I have no direct evidence upon which to convict these men, for I -failed to get a sight of them. There was little time to forestall -them, Mr. Drew, but I did what seemed to me best as a measure of -precaution. Since there has been a misunderstanding in the matter of -the cattle, I stand ready to make a fair adjustment of whatever -damages may have resulted from my removal of the Bar B herd without -due notice. I want you to go with me to call upon Mr. Boyce, and I -feel sure we can arrive at a friendly understanding.” Then, and not -until then, Drew had a glimpse of the grin that was so much a part of -Patrick O’Neill.</p> - -<p>Drew gave O’Neill a peculiar, squinting look. “Say, me and that old -he-wolf has promised to swap lead however and wherever we meet up with -each other!” he stated emphatically, at last. “I’ll have to ride up -a-shootin’, or he’ll likely think I’m scared and plug me fer a sheep!”</p> - -<p>“Not if I ride with you,” urged Patrick O’Neill.</p> - -<p>“Dern that ole pelican! he shot two steers fer me——”</p> - -<p>“And you killed one or two for him, but if necessary I can arrange to -pay for the damages. There’s nothing like going straight out toward -trouble, Mr. Drew. Nine times in ten it backs out of sight as you ride -toward it. If you’re willing to take a chance——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I was goin’ to ride over there and have it out with him,” Drew -told him, with dark meaning. “I’m willin’ to meet the old coot -halfway, whether it’s shootin’ or shakin’ hands!”</p> - -<p>“I’ve had it in mind to get you two together and see what can be done -about clearing out this rustling. You may be the next to suffer, you -know. I’m here to do whatever you two think best——”</p> - -<p>“Well, I got an idea we might set some kinda trap——”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>Shortly thereafter, Isabelle Boyce reined her horse out of the trail -to let the two riders pass. Her heart was still beating heavily in her -throat, but she would not acknowledge the smiling salute she received -from Ranger O’Neill. They were headed for her father’s ranch, but she -refused to hurry after them; instead, she waited a while before she -turned her horse toward home. Of course, with Tod Drew talking and -gesticulating in his usual manner, she could not think that he was -going to do murder. Ranger O’Neill would put a stop to all that. But -her father would rave and threaten and she doubted whether he would -stop long enough to listen to the story which Ranger O’Neill had to -tell, or believe it when it was told.</p> - -<p>But when she rode up to the house, there stood the two horses tied to -the fence, and there were no high voices to be heard. She stood for a -minute on the porch, looking and listening. A murmur of conversational -tones floated out from the living room, and she went in and stood just -outside the closed door, eavesdropping with no compunction whatever.</p> - -<p>“If one of my men is involved in this nefarious spoilation of the -range,” her father’s rasping voice was saying, “I see no way of -exculpating the others until such time as the thieves are apprehended. -Mr. O’Neill, I must concur in one statement which you have made, and -that is the statement that leasers of government property are entitled -to government protection. I shall write to my relative, who stands -very close to the head of the department of forestry in Washington——”</p> - -<p>Isabelle gave a relieved little laugh which caught in her throat like -a strangled sob, and ran upstairs to choose a dainty dress—just in -case Ranger O’Neill was invited to stay for supper.</p> - -<div class='tn'> - <p style='text-indent:0'>Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in - the June 7, 1926 issue of <i>The Popular</i> magazine.</p> -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE STILLWATER RUNS DEEP ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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