Free Zane Grey by To the Last Man

bold."
    "Ahuh! ... An' what's likely to come of this mess?" queried Jean.
    "Ask your dad," replied Blaisdell.
    "I will. But I reckon I'd be obliged for your opinion."
    "Wal, short an' sweet it's this: Texas cattlemen will never allow the
range they stocked to be overrun by sheepmen."
    "Who's this man Greaves?" went on Jean. "Never run into anyone like
him."
    "Greaves is hard to figure. He's a snaky customer in deals. But he
seems to be good to the poor people 'round heah. Says he's from
Missouri. Ha-ha! He's as much Texan as I am. He rode into the Tonto
without even a pack to his name. An' presently he builds his stone
house an' freights supplies in from Phoenix. Appears to buy an' sell a
good deal of stock. For a while it looked like he was steerin' a
middle course between cattlemen an' sheepmen. Both sides made a
rendezvous of his store, where he heard the grievances of each. Laterly
he's leanin' to the sheepmen. Nobody has accused him of that yet. But
it's time some cattleman called his bluff."
    "Of course there are honest an' square sheepmen in the Basin?" queried
Jean.
    "Yes, an' some of them are not unreasonable. But the new fellows that
dropped in on us the last few year—they're the ones we're goin' to
clash with."
    "This—sheepman, Jorth?" went on Jean, in slow hesitation, as if
compelled to ask what he would rather not learn.
    "Jorth must be the leader of this sheep faction that's harryin' us
ranchers. He doesn't make threats or roar around like some of them.
But he goes on raisin' an' buyin' more an' more sheep. An' his herders
have been grazin' down all around us this winter. Jorth's got to be
reckoned with."
    "Who is he?"
    "Wal, I don't know enough to talk aboot. Your dad never said so, but I
think he an' Jorth knew each other in Texas years ago. I never saw
Jorth but once. That was in Greaves's barroom. Your dad an' Jorth met
that day for the first time in this country. Wal, I've not known men
for nothin'. They just stood stiff an' looked at each other. Your dad
was aboot to draw. But Jorth made no sign to throw a gun."
    Jean saw the growing and weaving and thickening threads of a tangle
that had already involved him. And the sudden pang of regret he
sustained was not wholly because of sympathies with his own people.
    "The other day back up in the woods on the Rim I ran into a sheepman
who said his name was Colter. Who is he?
    "Colter? Shore he's a new one. What'd he look like?"
    Jean described Colter with a readiness that spoke volumes for the
vividness of his impressions.
    "I don't know him," replied Blaisdell. "But that only goes to prove my
contention—any fellow runnin' wild in the woods can say he's a
sheepman."
    "Colter surprised me by callin' me by my name," continued Jean. "Our
little talk wasn't exactly friendly. He said a lot about my bein' sent
for to run sheep herders out of the country."
    "Shore that's all over," replied Blaisdell, seriously. "You're a
marked man already."
    "What started such rumor?"
    "Shore you cain't prove it by me. But it's not taken as rumor. It's
got to the sheepmen as hard as bullets."
    "Ahuh! That accunts for Colter's seemin' a little sore under the
collar. Well, he said they were goin' to run sheep over Grass Valley,
an' for me to take that hunch to my dad."
    Blaisdell had his chair tilted back and his heavy boots against a post
of the porch. Down he thumped. His neck corded with a sudden rush of
blood and his eyes changed to blue fire.
    "The hell he did!" he ejaculated, in furious amaze.
    Jean gauged the brooding, rankling hurt of this old cattleman by his
sudden break from the cool, easy Texan manner. Blaisdell cursed under
his breath, swung his arms violently, as if to throw a last doubt or
hope aside, and then relapsed to his former state. He laid a brown
hand on Jean's knee.
    "Two years ago I called the cards," he said, quietly. "It means a
Grass Valley war."
    Not until late that afternoon did Jean's father broach the subject
uppermost in his mind. Then at an