Free Following the Grass by Harry Sinclair Drago

come so soon.
    He put the slate upon his knees, and with the sleeve of his coat rubbed out his mother’s words. He wished they had not come just yet, for he wanted to be alone. He grabbed his hat and walked to the door as Kincaid knocked.
    Joseph’s eyes told their own story.
    â€œI’m mighty sorry, Joseph,” Kincaid muttered. “The Doc was off to Quinn River, but I guess he couldn’t have done nothing.”
    Joseph nodded dumbly.
    â€œYou go off up the mountain for a spell,” Kincaid went on. “I’ll do what I can here.”
    Later, in a crude coffin of his own making, he and Joseph buried Margarida. Enriquez looked from one to the other—the burial left nothing undone. What was to become of him? Kincaid caught the herder’s questioning look; he wondered, too. It was necessary that he go back to his own ranch. Something definite must be done about Joseph. That night he spoke to him about the future.
    â€œYou can’t stay here, my boy,” Kincaid said.
    â€œI’m not aiming to stay here,” Joseph answered. “My grandpa can have the place. Guess the best thing for me to do is to roll up a few things and go.”
    â€œThe sheep are yours, Joseph. Irosabal didn’t get them thrown in when he bought the mountain. How many head do you reckon on?”
    â€œNigh four hundred,” the boy replied without any show of interest. He couldn’t take the sheep along with him to the vague and distant land to which he was going.
    â€œThe market’s about six dollars a head now,” Kincaid muttered, busy with his pencil. “That won’t be so bad. If you say so, I’ll sell the sheep for you. It’ll give you enough to get a decent education, Joseph.”
    Joseph shook his head at the word education. Kincaid shook his head, too :
    â€œI don’t mean Paradise . When I say education, I mean back East—Chicago, or some place like that. You know, Joseph, your daddy just about saved my life once. He’d never let me do anything to pay him back. I swear he must have been waiting to have me do it for you instead of him . Ain’t no one been near you but me. Don’t seem as if any one cared what happened to you, but old Tabor Kincaid.
    â€œI’d adopt you, Joseph, sure as shooting, if I thought your grandpap would let me. The law don’t give me any right to sell your sheep—you being a minor, and me no legal guardian of you, but I’m going to do it. I won’t see old Angel grab them, and have you bound out to boot!
    â€œMaybe he’ll make me some trouble, but he’ll find he ain’t fighting a ten year old boy and his mammy. But we ain’t got no time to waste, Joseph. What do you say?”
    â€œYou been most like a daddy to me, since mine went away,” the little fellow replied cautiously. “I reckon I’d be pretty mean not to do as you say. But I’ve got to come back here some day. I’ve got something to do here that I mustn’t never forget.”
    â€œI guess I know what you mean,” Kincaid murmured. “And I’m not saying you shouldn’t come back. But I want you to come back a man, Joseph.”
    â€œThat’s what my mother said,” Joseph agreed. “And I reckon that’s the way I’m coming back.”

CHAPTER VI.

THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE.
    T HERE are two roads by which one may enter Paradise Valley from the north. The more traveled one cuts through the Santa Rosa Forest Reserve and, after swinging around the face of Hinkey Summit, drops into the valley in a series of easy grades. The other road curves to the east, skirting Buckskin, and does not turn north until it strikes Antelope Springs.
    In May, when the herds and flocks are going into the Reserve for the summer, both roads are ground to powder beneath the hoofs of countless sheep and cattle. A saddle, or low hog-back, connects Buckskin with the Santa Rosa range. A trail