The Quirt

The Quirt, by B.M. Bower

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Title: The Quirt
Author: B.M. Bower
Illustrator: Anton Otto Fischer
Release Date: September 3, 2006 [EBook #19166]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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QUIRT ***

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[Illustration: Cover]

THE QUIRT

=By B.M. Bower=
GOOD INDIAN
LONESOME LAND
THE UPHILL CLIMB
THE GRINGOS
THE RANCH AT THE WOLVERINE
THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND
JEAN OF THE LAZY A
THE PHANTOM HERD
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
STARR, OF THE DESERT
THE LOOKOUT MAN
CABIN FEVER
SKYRIDER
THE THUNDER BIRD
RIM O' THE WORLD
THE QUIRT

[Illustration: Al's gun spoke, and Warfield sagged at the knees and the

shoulders, and slumped to the ground. FRONTISPIECE. See page
294.]

THE QUIRT
BY B.M. BOWER

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY ANTON OTTO FISCHER

[Illustration]

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1920

Copyright, 1920,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
* * * *
All rights reserved
Published May, 1920 Reprinted, May, 1920 Reprinted, July, 1920
Reprinted, October, 1920

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LITTLE FISH 1

II. THE ENCHANTMENT OF LONG DISTANCE 12
III. REALITY IS WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING 22
IV. "SHE'S A GOOD GIRL WHEN SHE AIN'T CRAZY" 38
V. A DEATH "BY ACCIDENT" 54
VI. LONE ADVISES SILENCE 68
VII. THE MAN AT WHISPER 85
VIII. "IT TAKES NERVE JUST TO HANG ON" 100
IX. THE EVIL EYE OF THE SAWTOOTH 115
X. ANOTHER SAWTOOTH "ACCIDENT" 126
XI. SWAN TALKS WITH HIS THOUGHTS 144
XII. THE QUIRT PARRIES THE FIRST BLOW 158
XIII. LONE TAKES HIS STAND 168
XIV. "FRANK'S DEAD" 178
XV. SWAN TRAILS A COYOTE 192
XVI. THE SAWTOOTH SHOWS ITS HAND 200
XVII. YACK DON'T LIE 216
XVIII. "I THINK AL WOODRUFF'S GOT HER" 233
XIX. SWAN CALLS FOR HELP 245
XX. KIDNAPPED 255
XXI. "OH, I COULD KILL YOU!" 264

XXII. "YACK, I LICK YOU GOOD IF YOU BARK" 277
XXIII. "I COULDA LOVED THIS LITTLE GIRL" 284
XXIV. ANOTHER STORY BEGINS 296

THE QUIRT
CHAPTER ONE
LITTLE FISH
Quirt Creek flowed sluggishly between willows which sagged none too
gracefully across its deeper pools, or languished beside the rocky
stretches that were bone dry from July to October, with a narrow
channel in the center where what water there was hurried along to the
pools below. For a mile or more, where the land lay fairly level in a
platter-like valley set in the lower hills, the mud that rimmed the pools
was scored deep with the tracks of the "TJ up-and-down" cattle, as the
double monogram of Hunter and Johnson was called.
A hard brand to work, a cattleman would tell you. Yet the TJ
up-and-down herd never seemed to increase beyond a niggardly three
hundred or so, though the Quirt ranch was older than its lordly
neighbors, the Sawtooth Cattle Company, who numbered their cattle by
tens of thousands and whose riders must have strings of fifteen horses
apiece to keep them going; older too than many a modest ranch that
had flourished awhile and had finished as line-camps of the Sawtooth
when the Sawtooth bought ranch and brand for a lump sum that looked
big to the rancher, who immediately departed to make himself a new
home elsewhere: older than others which had somehow gone to pieces
when the rancher died or went to the penitentiary under the stigma of a
long sentence as a cattle thief. There were many such, for the Sawtooth,
powerful and stern against outlawry, tolerated no pilfering from their
thousands.

The less you have, the more careful you are of your possessions.
Hunter and Johnson owned exactly a section and a half of land, and for
a mile and a half Quirt Creek was fenced upon either side. They hired
two men, cut what hay they could from a field which they irrigated, fed
their cattle through the cold weather, watched them zealously through
the summer, and managed to ship enough beef each fall to pay their
grocery bill and their men's wages and have a balance sufficient to buy
what clothes they needed, and perhaps pay a doctor if one of them fell
ill. Which frequently happened, since Brit was becoming a prey to
rheumatism that sometimes kept him in bed, and Frank occasionally
indulged himself in a gallon or so of bad whisky and suffered
afterwards from a badly deranged digestion.
Their house was