The Boss of the Lazy Y | Page 4

came, dry-eyed, through the ordeal, raging inwardly,
but silent. And that night, after his father had gone to bed, he stole
stealthily out of the house, threw a saddle and bridle on his favorite
pony and rode away. Such had been his youth.
That had been thirteen years ago. He was twenty-eight now and had
changed a little--for the worse. During the days of his exile he had
made no friends. He had found much experience, he had become
self-reliant, sophisticated. There was about him an atmosphere of cold
preparedness that discouraged encroachment on his privacy. Men did
not trifle with him, because they feared him. Around Durango, where
he had ridden for the Bar S outfit, it was known that he possessed
Satanic cleverness with a six-shooter.
But if he was rapid with his weapons he made no boast of it. He was
quiet in manner, unobtrusive. He was taciturn also, for he had been
taught the value of silence by his parents, though in his narrowed
glances men had been made to see a suggestion of action that was more
eloquent than speech. He was a slumbering volcano of passion that
might at any time become active and destroying.
Gazing now from under the brim of his hat at the desolate, silent world
that swept away from the base of the hill on whose crest he sat, his lips
curved with a slow, bitter sneer. During the time he had been on the hill
he had lived over his life and he saw its bleakness, its emptiness, its
mystery. This was his country. He had been born here; he had passed
days, months, years, in this valley. He knew it, and hated it. He sneered
as his gaze went out of the valley and sought the vast stretches of the
flaming desert. He knew the desert, too; it had not changed. Riding
through it yesterday and the day before he had been impressed with the
somber grimness of it all, as he had been impressed many times before

when watching it from this very hill. But it was no more somber than
his own life had been; its brooding silence was no deeper than that
which dwelt in his own heart; he reflected its spirit, its mystery was his.
His life had been like--like the stretching waste of sky that yawned
above the desert, as cold, hard, and unsympathetic.
He saw a shadow; looked upward to see the Mexican eagle winging its
slow way overhead, and the sneer on his lips grew. It was a prophecy,
perhaps. At least the sight of the bird gave him an opportunity to draw
a swift and bitter comparison. He was like the eagle. Both he and the
bird he detested were beset with a constitutional predisposition to rend
and destroy. There was this difference between them: The bird feasted
on carrion, while he spent his life stifling generous impulses and
tearing from his heart the noble ideals which his latent manhood
persisted in erecting.
For two hours he sat on the hill, watching. He saw the sun sink slowly
toward the remote mountains, saw it hang a golden rim on a barren
peak; watched the shadows steal out over the foothills and stretch
swiftly over the valley toward him. Mystery seemed to awaken and fill
the world. The sky blazed with color--orange and gold and violet; a veil
of rose and amethyst descended and stretched to the horizons,
enveloping the mountains in a misty haze; purple shafts shot from
distant canyons, mingling with the brighter colors--gleaming,
shimmering, ever-changing. Over the desert the colors were even more
wonderful, the mystery deeper, the lure more appealing. But Calumet
made a grimace at it all, it seemed to mock him.
He rose from the rock, mounted his pony, and rode slowly down into
the valley toward the Lazy Y ranch buildings.
He had been so busy with his thoughts that he had not noticed the
absence of cattle in the valley--the valley had been a grazing ground for
the Lazy Y stock during the days of his youth--and now, with a start, he
noted it and halted his pony after reaching the level to look about him.
There was no sign of any cattle. But he reflected that perhaps a new
range had been opened. Thirteen years is a long time, and many

changes could have come during his absence.
He was about to urge his pony on again, when some impulse moved
him to turn in the saddle and glance at the hill he had just vacated. At
about the spot where he had sat--perhaps two hundred yards distant--he
saw a man on a horse, sitting motionless in the saddle, looking at him.
Calumet wheeled his own pony and faced the man. The vari-colored
glow