Free Chancy (1968) by Louis L'amour Page B

anxious to have it known. I wanted no such reputation. The man I wanted to be like was Tarlton, I suppose. He was educated, respected, well dressed, and well liked. He had dignity and he was a gentleman, and these things I wanted more than anything else.
    It seems to me a man comes into this world with a little ready raw material--himself. His folks can only give him a sort of push, and a mite of teaching, but in the long run what a man becomes is his own problem. There've always been hard times, there've always been wars and troubles--famine, disease, and such-like--and some folks are born with money, some with none. In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, and none of those other things matter. In horses, dogs, and men it is character that counts.
    For the first time, I had a definite goal--two of them, in fact: to build a prosperous ranch, and to build myself into a man I could be pleased with. The last idea I'd had for some time, but it hadn't been formed into a goal until now. It had always been there, a sort of half-formed wish in the shadowy recesses of my mind; now it had come out into the open, and I had to do something about it.
    When I went back to Tennessee I wasn't going to be just a horse thief's son. My pa had been a good man, and the best way I could convince folks they had done him wrong was by being somebody myself.
    Tom Hacker rode out to where I sat my horse, watching the cattle. "You want some advice?" he said.
    "Try me."
    "Rest up. The horses are dead-beat. We should have twice the remuda we've got for a drive like this. If those boys catch up with us we'll make 'em wish they hadn't."
    "All right. We'll do it." I hooked a leg around the pommel. "You ever read much, Tom?"
    He gave me an odd look. "As a matter of fact, yes. When I can find something. A man can't carry much in his saddlebags." He paused. "Why do you ask?"
    "This here's a big country. It's going to need big men to handle it, and I figure a big man ought to have more in his mind than I've got. Tarlton's going to send me some books, but I'm lathering to get on with it."
    "I've got a couple," Hacker said. "I can't say they'd be considered an education, but they're mighty good reading." He stoked his pipe. "I've got Mayne Reid'sAfloat in the Forest, and Richardson'sBeyond the Mississippi ."
    "I'd like to read them."
    "Sure thing." He lighted his pipe. "When I left home I had four books. I swapped aMcGuffey's Reader with a storekeeper in Missouri for a copy ofMountains and Molehills, by Frank Marryat. You'd never believe the number of times I've swapped books along the way. Two or three times in the army, half a dozen times out on the trail. Seems like everybody's hungry for reading, and there's mighty few books going around. I swapped that Marryat book to a gambler in Cheyenne, and three years later I was offered the very same book, with my name writ in it, in Beeville, Texas. It sure does beat all how some of these books get around."
    We held the herd at that place for three days, keeping them off the horizon, and in the shallow valley along the stream. We rested ourselves and our horses, and the cattle seemed content to feed where they were. We ate, slept, yarned the hours away beside the fire; we repaired some gear, cleaned our guns, and watched the lazy cattle.
    It was a good time, but in us all was the feeling that it could not last. We had been fortunate, but we were in Indian country, and somewhere out there were our enemies.
    At daybreak on the third day we started them upstream, but moved them less than a mile, resting there for the last day on good fresh grass.
    On the fourth day we started them again, moving them easily, letting them walk and graze, but keeping them all the time on the move toward the west. Jim, who was riding point, came back to the drag about an hour before noontime.
    "I cut the trail of five shod horses," he said. "Maybe two days old ... came in from the south. One of them was Andy Miller's."
    So they were