Lonesome Land

  CHAPTER XVI. MANLEY'S NEW TACTICS

  To the east, to the south, to the north went the riders of the Wishbone,gathering the cattle which the fires had driven afar. No rivers stoppedthem, nor mountains, nor the deep-scarred coulees, nor the plains. It wasManley's first experience in real round-up work, for his own little herd hehad managed to keep close at home, and what few strayed afar were turnedback, when opportunity afforded, by his neighbors, who wished him well. Nowhe tasted the pride of ownership to the full, when a VP cow and her calfmingled with the milling Wishbones and Double Diamonds. He was proud of hisbrand, and proud of the sentiment which had made him choose Val's initials.More than once he explained to his fellows that VP meant Val Peyson, andthat he had got it recorded just after he and Val were engaged. He was notsentimental about her now, but he liked to dwell upon the fact that he hadbeen; it showed that he was capable of fine feeling.

  More dominant, however, as the weeks passed and the branding went on,became the desire to accumulate property--cattle. The Wishbone brand wentscorching through the hair of hundreds of calves, while the VP scared tens.It was not right. He felt, somehow, cheated by fate. He mentally figuredthe increase of his herd, and it seemed to him that it took a long while,much longer than it should, to gain a respectable number in that manner. Hecast about in his mind for some rich acquaintance in the East who might beprevailed upon to lend him capital enough to buy, say, five hundred cows.He began to talk about it occasionally when the boys lay around in theevenings.

  "You want to ride with a long rope," suggested Bob Royden, grinning openlyat the others. "That's the way to work up in the cow business. Capitalnothing! You don't get enough excitement buying cattle; you want to steal'em. That's what I'd do if I had a brand of my own and all your ambitionsto get rich."

  "And get sent up," Manley rounded out the situation. "No, thanks." Helaughed. "It's a better way to get to the pen than it is to get rich, fromall accounts."

  Sandy Moran remembered a fellow who worked a brand and kept it up for sevenor eight years before they caught him, and he recounted the tale betweenpuffs at his cigarette. "Only they didn't catch him" he finished. "Apuncher put him wise to what was in the wind, and he sold out cheap to atenderfoot and pulled his freight. They never did locate him." Then, with apointed rock which he picked up beside him, he drew a rude diagram or twoin the dirt. "That's how he done it," he explained. "Pretty smooth, too."

  So the talk went on, as such things will, idly, without purpose save topass the time. Shop talk of the range it was. Tales of stealing, of workingbrands, and of branding unmarked yearlings at weaning time. Of this bigcattleman and that, who practically stole whole herds, and thereby tooklong strides toward wealth. Range scandals grown old; range gossip all ofit, of men who had changed a brand or made one, using a cinch ring at atiny fire in a secluded hollow, or a spur, or a jackknife; who were caughtin the act, after the act, or merely suspected of the crime. Of "sweat"brands, blotched brands, brands added to and altered, of trials, ofshootings, of hangings, even, and "getaways" spectacular and humorous andpathetic.

  Manley, being in a measure a pilgrim, and having no experience to drawupon, and not much imagination, took no part in the talk, except that helistened and was intensely interested. Two months of mingling with men whotalked little else had its influence.

  That fall, when Manley had his hay up, and his cattle once more rangingclose, toward the river and in the broken country bounded upon the west bythe fenced-in railroad, three calves bore the VP brand--three husky heifersthat never had suckled a VP mother. So had the range gossip, sown by chancein the soil of his greed of gain and his weakening moral fiber, bornefruit.

  The deed scared him sober for a month. For a month his color changed andhis blood quickened whenever a horseman showed upon the rim of Cold SpringCoulee. For a month he never left the ranch unless business compelled himto do so, and his return was speedy, his eyes anxious until he knew thatall was well. After that his confidence returned. He grew more secretive,more self-assured, more at ease with his guilt. He looked the Wishbone mensquarely in the eye, and it seldom occurred to him that he was a thief; orif it did, the word was but a synonym for luck, with shrewdness behind.Sometimes he regretted his timidity. Why three calves only? In a deeplittle coulee next the river--a coulee which the round-up had missed--hadbeen more than three. He might have doubled the number and risked no morethan for the three. The longer he dwelt upon that the more inclined he wasto feel that he had cheated himself.

  That fall there were no fires. It would be long before men grew carelesswhen the grass was ripened and the winds blew hot and dry from out thewest. The big prairie which lay high between the river and Hope was dottedwith feeding cattle. Wishbones and Double Diamonds, mostly, with here andthere a stray.

  Manley grew wily, and began to plan far in advance. He rode here and there,quietly keeping his own cattle well down toward the river. There wasshelter there, and feed, and the idea was a good one. Just before the riverbroke up he saw to it that a few of his own cattle, and with them someWishbone cows and a steer or two, were ranging in a deep, bushy coulee,isolated and easily passed by. He had driven them there, and he left themthere. That spring he worked again with the Wishbone.

  When the round-up swept the home range, gathering and branding, it chancedthat his part of the circle took him and Sandy Moran down that way. It washot, and they had thirty or forty head of cattle before them when theyneared that particular place.

  "No need going down into the breaks here," he told Sandy easily. "I'vebeen hazing out everything I came across lately. They were mostly my own,anyway. I believe I've got it pretty well cleaned up along here."

  Sandy was not the man to hunt hard riding. He went to the rim of the couleeand looked down for a minute. He saw nothing moving, and took Manley's wordfor it with no stirring of his easy-going conscience. He said all right,and rode on.