Adventure Magazine Cover — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

98 His own white-faced Herefords wandered up and down where twenty years before white-faced bulls had been introduced among the lank, rangy cattle to improve their weight, improve their beef, and tone them up to higher market value. Letare smiled as he watched his own pure-breds. They were beeves to be proud of. When he shipped, it was to have his stock corn-fed, stall-fed, because people were willing to pay extra prices for that kind, and he received that cent or two a pound on the hoof, which proved it was cheaper to raise good cattle than scrubs, a lesson many a rancher and farmer had yet to learn. Years of complaisance, however, did not cause Jet Letare to relax in his vigilance. He was himself peaceable; he committed no overt acts; he lived clean, even when there was temptation on the one hand to share the illicit profits of modern raiding methods, or on the other, to ride with men who came inviting him to ‘“‘a little fun.”’ Away off yonder, the Milk River boys were always up to some devilment. A number of them paid Jet occasional visits, sure of welcome, sure of pleasant talks about old times when the Wild Bunch were on the romp, but unable to persuade Jet to cut loose again. In his own little domain, however, he had a wild gang of cowboys to control. They were bad. He lked them because they were bad. They came to his place, finding it a convenient, far-back, out-of-the-way shelter. They must work, however. There were occasional disputes. Jet Letare, more than once, in the cause of injustice set men afoot with their sad- dles, and the thirty or forty mile walk along any of the devious trails did not at all appease the angry feelings of the men dis- mounted. Rumors around that there were killings on Curly Grass Creek were not con- firmed by court action. Letare had lost nothing in his ancient gun-draw skill, and he never rode without his revolvers. %5 INTO Letare’s domain, not three yr miles from his ranch-house, came ““~" Bob Alvorn. No one at Letare’s knew Bob had arrived, till Bob had home- steaded the 640 acres which Letare had used for years as his horse pasture. It was government land, arid on the maps, and subject to the claim of any man who was fool enough, or brave enough, to take it. Adventure There, on a low knoll, Bob built a sod house, with double-thick walls, and’ a com- mand of view extending three hundred yards in any direction. Right. beside the sod- house, Bob sank a well, and, at thirty feet, . struck an underground river, which squirted a four-inch stream six feet high, not thirty feet from the sod house. His wife, a comely woman, rejoiced. 3 Bob had money enough to buy a few head of cattle, which he promptly fenced in. He plowed up a hundred acres with a little tractor. He pushed an old prairie schooner trail into the old North-and-South Pike, bought a little flivver, and minded his own business. Jet Letare rode over to Corbeau, the county seat, and visited around for a week. His lawyer reported to him that Bob’s claim couldn’t be touched, for it had been declared arid, and luck had favored the homesteader. The water, the 640 acres, the choice bit of grazing land was the claim- ant’s, to have if he could hold it. Jet was very careful in his approaches at the county court. He heard there one thing that bade him pause. “‘Jet,”’ the prosecuting attorney said, ‘“‘if you kill that man, you’ll hang. If any of your men kill him, the sheriff and a posse, - sure as living, will come and break you to pieces. Those old days are gone. I know what you are thinking, and it is premedi- tated murder. It won’t do. You can’t get away with it. Buy him out, or let him stay.” ‘“‘There’s no way. That’s my country! That underground river flows right across my lan i ‘“‘And if you take it from him, blast it, or blow it, or tap it, he’s a valid claim against you—for ten thousand dollars dam- ages. Besides, he’ll get the water, too, in addition.” ‘“‘He won’t sell!” ‘““Why the should he?” ‘“‘And there’s no way?” Jet pressed the question. ‘“‘Well—”’ and the prosecutor grinned— “if he pulls his gun on you, and you kill him, that’s self-defense. But it’s got to be a cinch. You'll have to prove to the jury that it’s self-defense—and they’ll be mostly homesteaders, who haven’t much sympa- thy for old-time ranchers, for there are lots of them starving to death on lands that ought never to have been taken from MICLOOOK (©