The Boss of the Lazy Y

Boss of the Lazy Y, by Charles
Alden Seltzer

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Title: The Boss of the Lazy Y
Author: Charles Alden Seltzer
Illustrator: J. Allen St. John
Release Date: August 10, 2006 [EBook #19026]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS
OF THE LAZY Y ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Calumet remained unshaken.]

THE BOSS OF THE LAZY Y
BY
CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER

AUTHOR OF
THE COMING OF THE LAW, THE TWO-GUN MAN, ETC.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
J. ALLEN ST. JOHN

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1915
Published April, 1915

Copyrighted in Great Britain

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I.
The Home-Coming of Calumet Marston II. Betty Meets the Heir III.
Calumet's Guardian IV. Calumet Plays Betty's Game V. The First
Lesson VI. "Bob" VII. A Page from the Past VIII. The Toltec Idol IX.
Responsibility X. New Acquaintances XI. Progress XII. A Peace
Offering XIII. Suspicion XIV. Jealousy XV. A Meeting in the Red Dog
XVI. The Ambush XVII. More Progress XVIII. Another Peace
Offering XIX. A Tragedy in the Timber Grove XX. Betty Talks
Frankly XXI. His Father's Friend XXII. Neal Taggart Visits XXIII. For
the Altars of His Tribe

ILLUSTRATIONS
Calumet remained unshaken . . . . . . Frontispiece
"Get up, or I will shoot you like a dog!" she said.
Her appearance was now in the nature of a transformation.
Calumet stepped in.

THE BOSS OF THE LAZY Y
CHAPTER I
THE HOME-COMING OF CALUMET MARSTON
Shuffling down the long slope, its tired legs moving automatically, the
drooping pony swerved a little and then came to a halt, trembling with
fright. Startled out of his unpleasant ruminations, his lips tensing over
his teeth in a savage snarl, Calumet Marston swayed uncertainly in the
saddle, caught himself, crouched, and swung a heavy pistol to a

menacing poise.
For an instant he hesitated, searching the immediate vicinity with rapid,
intolerant glances. When his gaze finally focused on the object which
had frightened his pony, he showed no surprise. Many times during the
past two days had this incident occurred, and at no time had Calumet
allowed the pony to follow its inclination to bolt or swerve from the
trail. He held it steady now, pulling with a vicious hand on the reins.
Ten feet in front of the pony and squarely in the center of the trail a
gigantic diamond-back rattler swayed and warned, its venomous,
lidless eyes gleaming with hate. Calumet's snarl deepened, he dug a
spur into the pony's left flank, and pulled sharply on the left rein. The
pony lunged, swerved, and presented its right shoulder to the swaying
reptile, its flesh quivering from excitement. Then the heavy revolver in
Calumet's hand roared spitefully, there was a sudden threshing in the
dust of the trail, and the huge rattler shuddered into a sinuous, twisting
heap. For an instant Calumet watched it, and then, seeing that the
wound he had inflicted was not mortal, he urged the pony forward and,
leaning over a little, sent two more bullets into the body of the snake,
severing its head from its body.
"Man's size," declared Calumet, his snarl relaxing. He sat erect and
spoke to the pony:
"Get along, you damned fool! Scared of a side-winder!"
Relieved, deflating its lungs with a tremulous heave, and unmindful of
Calumet's scorn, the pony gingerly returned to the trail. In thirty
seconds it had resumed its drooping shuffle, in thirty seconds Calumet
had returned to his unpleasant ruminations.
A mile up in the shimmering white of the desert sky an eagle swam on
slow wing, shaping his winding course toward the timber clump that
fringed a river. Besides the eagle, the pony, and Calumet, no living
thing stirred in the desert or above it. In the shade of a rock, perhaps,
lurked a lizard, in the filmy mesquite that drooped and curled in the
stifling heat slid a rattler, in the shelter of the sagebrush the sage hen

might have nestled her eggs in the hot sand. But these were fixtures.
Calumet, his pony, and the eagle, were not. The eagle was Mexican; it
had swung its mile-wide circles many times to reach the point above
the timber clump; it was migratory and alert with the hunger lust.
Calumet watched it with eyes that glowed bitterly and balefully. Half
an hour later, when he reached the river