The Heart of the Range | Page 2

road-agent only last
month."
"Which the huh-holdup business is too easy for a live man," opined Mr.
Dawson. "We want somethin' mum-more diff-diff-diff'cult, me an'
Swing do, so we're goin' to Arizona where the gold grows. No more
wrastlin' cows. No more hard work for us. _We're_ gonna get rich
quick, we are. What you laughin' at?"
"I never laugh," denied Mr. Richie. "When yo're stakin' out claims don't
forget me."
"We won't," averred Mr. Dawson, solemnly. "Le's have another."
They had another--several others.

The upshot was that when Mr. Richie (who was the lucky possessor of
a head that liquor did not easily affect) departed homeward at four P.M.,
he left behind him a sadly plastered Mr. Dawson.
Mr. Tunstall, of course, was still sleeping deeply and noisily. But Mr.
Dawson had long since lost interest in Mr. Tunstall. It is doubtful
whether he remembered that Mr. Tunstall existed. The two had begun
their party immediately after breakfast. Mr. Tunstall had succumbed
early, but Mr. Dawson had not once halted his efforts to make the
celebration a huge success. So it is not a subject for surprise that Mr.
Dawson, some thirty minutes after bidding Mr. Richie an affectionate
farewell, should stagger out into the street and ride away on the horse
of someone else.
The ensuing hours of the evening and the night were a merciful blank
to Mr. Dawson. His first conscious thought was when he awoke at
dawn on a side-hill, a sharp rock prodding him in the small of the back
and the bridle-reins of his dozing horse wound round one arm. Only it
was not his horse. His horse was a red roan. This horse was a bay. It
wasn't his saddle, either.
"Where's my hoss?" he demanded of the world at large and sat up
suddenly.
The sharp movement wrung a groan from the depths of his being. The
loss of his horse was drowned in the pains of his aching head. Never
was such all-pervading ache. He knew the top was coming off. He
knew it. He could feel it, and then did--with his fingers. He groaned
again.
His tongue was dry as cotton, and it hurt him to swallow. He stood up,
but as promptly sat down. In a whisper--for speech was torture--he
began to revile himself for a fool.
"I might have known it," was his plaint. "I had a feelin' when I took that
last glass it was one too many. I never did know when to stop. I'd like
to know how I got here, and where my hoss is, and who belongs to this
one?"

He eyed the mount with disfavour. He had never cared for bays.
"An' that ain't much of a saddle, either," he went on with his soliloquy.
"Cheap saddle--looks like a boy's saddle--an' a old saddle--bet Noah
used one just like it--try to rope with that saddle an' you'd pull the horn
to hellen gone. Wonder what's in that saddle-pocket."
He pulled himself erect slowly and tenderly. His knees were very shaky.
His head throbbed like a squeezed boil, but--he wanted to learn what
was in that saddle-pocket. Possibly he might obtain therein a clue to the
horse's owner.
He slipped the strap of the pocket-flap, flipped it open, inserted his
fingers, and drew forth a small package wrapped in newspaper and tied
with the blue string affected by the Blue Pigeon Store in Farewell.
Mr. Dawson balanced the package on two fingers for a reflective
instant, then he snapped the string and opened the package.
"Socks an' a undershirt," he said, disgustedly, and started to say more,
but paused, for there was something queer about that undershirt. His
head was still spinning, and his eyes were sandy, but he perceived quite
plainly that there were narrow blue ribbons running round the neck of
that undershirt. He unrolled the socks and found them much longer in
the leg than the kind habitually worn by men. Mr. Dawson agitatedly
dived his hand once more into the saddle-pocket. And this time he
pulled out a tortoise-shell shuttle round which was wrapped several
inches of lingerie edging. But Mr. Dawson did not call it lingerie
edging. He called it tatting and swore again.
"That settles it," he said, cheerlessly. "I've stole some woman's cayuse."

CHAPTER II
THE YELLOW DOG
It was a chastened Racey Dawson that returned to Farewell. He went

directly to the blacksmith shop.
"'Lo, Hoss Thief," was Piney Jackson's cheerful greeting.
"Whose is it?" demanded Racey Dawson, wiping his hot face. "Whose
hoss have I stole?"
"Oh, you'll catch it," chuckled the humorous Piney. "Yep, you betcha.
You've got a gall, you have. Camly prancing out of a saloon an'
glooming onto a lady's hoss. What kind o' doin's is that, I'd like to
know?"