Free Rowdy Rides to Glory (1987) by Louis L'amour Page B

couple of days before to tell him the water hole at Point of Rocks was shrinking-th e only water supply for miles of range. It had been considered inexhaustible. Tha t was a matter which Rowdy must look into himself-and now.
    Mounting a steeldust he used for rough riding, he started off for the dim and lonel y land under the gigantic wall of the Rim. There, at the end of a trailing point o f rocks, lay the water hole.
    It was an hour's ride from the home ranch, and when he drew rein near the water hol e the sun was still almost an hour high. His fears were realized the instant his eye s fell upon what always had been a wide, clear pool, for around it lay a rim, at leas t six feet wide, of gray mud, indicating the shrinkage. This was the last straw.
    A hoof struck stone, and surprised, he glanced up. Lonely as this place was, othe r riders than the two men who worked fo r him hardly ever came to this water hole. But here was one and a girl.
    She was tall, slender, yet beautifully built. He wondered instantly who she was.
    He had never seen her before. Her dark hair was drawn to a loose knot at the nap e of her neck, and her eyes were big and dark. She was riding a splendid palomino mare , with an old-fashioned Spanish-type saddle.
    He swept off his hat and she flashed a quick smile at him. "You are Rowdy Horn?" s he inquired.
    "That's right, ma'am, but you've sure got the best of me. I thought I knew ever y girl in this country, and especially all of the pretty ones, but I see I don't."
    She laughed. "You wouldn't know me," she said sharply. "I'm Vaho Rainey."
    His interest quickened. The whole South Rim country knew about this girl, but sh e had never been seen around Aragon. The daughter of French and Irish parents, sh e had been left an orphan when little more than a baby, and brought up by old Cleetus , a wealthy Navaho chieftain. When she was fourteen she had been sent to a conven t in New Orleans, and after that had spent some time in New York and Boston befor e returning to the great old stone house where Cleetus lived.
    "Welcome to the Slash Bar," Rowdy said, smiling. "I met old Cleetus once. He's quit e a character." He grinned ruefully. "He sure made a fool out of me, one time."
    He told her how the old Indian had come to his cabin one miserable wintry night , half frozen and with a broken wrist. His horse had fallen on the ice. Rowdy had no t known who he was just any old buck, he had thought-but he had put Cleetus to bed , set the broken bone, and nursed the old man through the blizzard. Returning to th e cabin one day after the storm, he had found the old man gone, and with him a buc k skin horse. While the old man was still sick, Rowdy had offered him a blanket an d food when he left. These Cleetus had taken.
    Over a year later, Rowdy Horn had discovered, quite by accident, the identity o f the old man he had befriended. And he had learned that Cleetus was one of the wealthies t sheepmen among the Navahos, and one of the first to introduce Angora goats into th e lonely desert land where he lived.
    Vaho laughed merrily when she heard the story.
    "That's like him. So like him. Did he ever return the horse?"
    "No," Rowdy said drily, "he didn't. That was a good horse, too. "
    "He's a strange man, Rowdy," she said. He was glad, some how, that Vaho did not stan d on ceremony. He liked hearing her call him by his first name.
    "Maybe he could use a good man with his flocks," Rowdy suggested, a little bitterly.
    "I'm sure going to be hunting a job soon., , She looked at him quickly. "But you have this ranch? Is that not enough?"
    Rowdy did not know just why he had an impulse to tell this girl, a stranger, hi s trouble-but he did.
    `hrugging, Rowdy explained and Vaho Rainey listened at tentively, watching him wit h her wide dark eyes. She frowned thoughtfully at the receding water.
    "There must be a reason for this," she said. "There has always been water here. Neve r in the memory of the Navaho has this water hole been so