Free The Overlanders by Nelson Nye

blockheads had made his crack about a “sorrel filly.” Stifling a yawn he saw the forward-hunched gauntness of Idaho drift out of the gloom.
    “Damn funny thing,” the gunfighter said, “we ain’t seen more of them broncs those two rannies is supposed to be raisin’. I run off one stray and Rip choused a couple. Way that pair acted, a feller would think these goddamn rocks was bulgin’ with stock.”
    “Range ain’t fenced,” Grete said without giving much thought to the matter. “God, but I’m tired!” He yawned again, allowing the horse to carry him away from the gunfighter. Then he skreaked round to call, “I sent Rip and Frijoles back to the fire to catch some sleep.”
    He didn’t know if Idaho heard him or not. He guessed it didn’t make any hell of a lot of difference. He hadn’t forgot what he was doing here. His mind never strayed far from Crotton. It never strayed very far away from Sary either, and this tendency he despised as an indicated soft streak in a purpose that was otherwise as hard as rage could make it.
    Perhaps he drowsed. It looked like some of the mares had gone to sleep on their feet. Something got through to him, rousing him enough to pull the chin off his chest. Sary’s voice said out of the darkness, “You’d better get off that horse before you fall off.”
    “I’m all right,” Grete muttered.
    “That’s pure stubbornness talking. This crew can’t take the punishment you’re giving it — a man’s got to rest. Listen to me, Grete —”
    “I’m awright,” he snarled, angered.
    “You’re not all right and neither are the rest of them. You don’t have to kill yourselves nursing this stock. The stud will take care of… Anyway, I haven’t seen any — have you?”
    Farraday knuckled his eyes, trying to grind the sleep out of them, dragging his hands down across the rasp of unshaved cheeks. “Have I what?”
    “Seen any loose stock. For horse ranchers that pair don’t seem to have many horses. I’ve got a feeling,” she said darkly, “there’s something wrong here someplace.”
    Grete stared at her blearily. The flutter of her words flapping round inside his head vaguely stirred something touched by Idaho when the man had spoken to him earlier; but he couldn’t seem to get his thoughts scraped together.
    “You don’t know that pair, do you?” Sary’s voice prodded him.
    “How the hell,” he said irrelevantly, “does that one-eyed wooden-legged cook stick a saddle?”
    “He’s got a cut-off rifle scabbard rigged for a stirrup. Here —” she passed her water bag to him. “Splash some of that on your face and pay attention.”
    He noticed while he was doing this the nervous way she kept peering off into the dark. He sleeved his cheeks and gave her back the corked bag. “Supposing,” she said, “someone
had
started a ranch here. That pair we saw don’t have to be the ranchers. They could be somebody Curly Bill —”
    “By God!” he said, suddenly coming wide awake.
    “They could have been here to hold up this drive. One of them even now might be riding —”
    “I can damn soon find out!” he said, thinking how goddamn stupid he’d been. He gave her a kind of wondering look, for the first time actually considering this woman.
    She smiled at him oddly with her head tipped back so that starlight showed the faint shine of her teeth. “Perhaps we’ve both,” she said softly, “been thinking things we’ve had no right to.” They stared a moment longer. Impulsively she put out a hand and he took it, feeling a confusion of warmth rush all through him.
    Then, recalling his plans, he turned loose of her, anger lashing the sick shame that unaccountably laid hold of him. Was he a child to be swayed by the swish of a skirt!
    Swearing under his breath he sent the horse curvetting away, wheeling its head toward the deep stain of trees that twenty yards out cut across the trail to hide the ranch’s distant buildings.
    The horse hadn’t hardly got