Steve Yeager

Steve Yeager, by William
MacLeod Raine

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Title: Steve Yeager
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #19055]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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YEAGER ***

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STEVE YEAGER BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America
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COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED
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[Illustration: RUTH]
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Contents
I STEVE MAKES A MISTAKE 1 II "ENOUGH'S A-PLENTY" 10 III
CHAD HARRISON 25 IV THE EXTRA 33 V YEAGER ASKS
ADVICE 42 VI PLUCKING A PIGEON 56 VII STEVE TELLS TOO
MUCH TRUTH 71 VIII THE HEAVY GETS HIS TIME 79 IX
GABRIEL PASQUALE 86 X A NIGHT VISIT 96 XI CHAD
DECIDES TO GET BUSY 112 XII INTO THE DESERT 121 XIII
THE NIGHT TRAIL 131 XIV THE CAVE MEN 140 XV STEVE
WINS A HAM SANDWICH 153 XVI THE HEAVY PAYS A DEBT
166 XVII PEDRO CABENZA 175 XVIII HARRISON OVERPLAYS
HIS HAND 181 XIX THE TEXAN 194 XX NEAR THE END OF HIS
TRAIL 207 XXI A STAGE PREPARED FOR TRAGEDY 216 XXII
A CONSPIRACY 223 XXIII TRAPPED 229 XXIV THE PRISONER
247 XXV THE TEXAN TAKES A LONG JOURNEY 257 XXVI AT
SUNSET 266 XXVII CULVERA RECONSIDERS 274 XXVIII AS
LONG AS LIFE 284
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STEVE YEAGER
CHAPTER I

STEVE MAKES A MISTAKE
Steve Yeager held his bronco to a Spanish trot. Somewhere in front of
him, among the brown hill swells that rose and fell like waves of the
sea, lay Los Robles and breakfast. One solitary silver dollar, too
lonesome even to jingle, lay in his flatulent trouser pocket. After he and
Four Bits had eaten, two quarters would take the place of the big
cartwheel. Then would come dinner, a second transfer of capital, and
his pocket would be empty as a cow's stomach after a long drive.
Being dead broke, according to the viewpoint of S. Yeager, is right and
fitting after a jaunt to town when one has a good job back in the hills.
But it happened he had no more job than a rabbit. Wherefore, to keep
up his spirits he chanted the endless metrical version of the adventures
of Sam Bass, who
"... started out to Texas a cowboy for to be, And a kinder-hearted
fellow you scarcely ever'd see."
Steve had not quit his job. It had quit him. A few years earlier the Lone
Star Cattle Company had reigned supreme in Dry Sandy Valley and the
territory tributary thereto. Its riders had been kings of the range. That
was before the tide of settlement had spilled into the valley, before
nesters had driven in their prairie schooners, homesteaded the
water-holes, and strung barb-wire fences across the range. Line-riders
and dry farmers and irrigators had pushed the cowpuncher to one side.
Sheep had come bleating across the desert to wage war upon the cattle.
Finally Uncle Sam had sliced off most of the acreage still left and
called it a forest reserve.
Wherefore the Lone Star outfit had thrown up its hands, sold its
holdings, and moved to Los Angeles to live. Wherefore also Steve
Yeager, who did not know Darwin from a carburetor, had by process of
evolution been squeezed out of the occupation he had followed all of
his twenty-three years since he could hang on to a saddle-horn. He had
mournfully foreseen the end when the schoolhouse was built on Pine
Knob and little folks went down the road with their arms twined around
the waist of teacher. After grizzled Tim Sawyer made bowlegged tracks

straight for that schoolmarm and matrimony, his friends realized that
the joyous whoop of the puncher would not much longer be heard in
the land. The range-rider must dwindle to a farmer or get off the earth.
Steve was getting off the earth.
Since Steve was of the sunburnt State, still a boy, and by temperament
incurably optimistic, he sang cheerfully. He wanted to forget that he
had eaten neither supper nor breakfast. So he carried Mr. Bass through
many adventures till that genial bandit
"... sold out at Custer City and there got on a spree, And a tougher lot of
cowboys you never'd hope to see."
Four Bits had topped a rise and followed the road down in its winding
descent. After the nomadic fashion of Arizona the trail