Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

FEUD FOR We knew who we didn’t like, and kept our fingers trigger-wise to get ’em before they got us. Also, we knew our friends. But this boy Bill, which inherits the Straight H when Steve passed out in the saddle, like he always said he would, Bill don’t know a friend from an enemy. He likes everybody,’ which ain’t a good plan, be- cause a lot of hombres in this wild desert ain’t made for affection, no more’n a rattle- snake. And Bill’s always grinning, which ain’t exactly a grown-up-man way of look~ in’ unless there’s something darn funny to grin about. And there wasn’t anything exactly hu- moresque, as the fiddler says, in the situa- tion here on the Straight H when young Bill came on to take charge of affairs. He hailed from somewhere east of the Hudson River, so he tells me, but I don’t know about the grazing back there, never going beyond Kansas City myself. He knew something about horseflesh, though, only he couldn’t get used to a Mexican saddle right off. And he sure could shoot with a funny little toy .gun, not more’n three inches long, Why, he could keep a tin can rolling in the air till it was so full of holes there wasn’t any tin left. What he got into out here on the Straight H was this: We had about a thousand yearlings here on the home ranch, and not enough food and water to take care of ’em proper. And we had to get ’em up to the range, ten miles up in the mountains, where the grass was green and long, and the water beneficial, as the drug-store says, in order to make ’em fat and get ’em ready for ship- ment East. Not just because we wanted to cash in on the high price of beef, which is a natural thing to want, but also for humanitarian reasons. If we didn’t, you folks back East would go without your porterhouse steaks, roast beef, or soup bones, accordin’ to your economy, and turn vegetarian, which is the next thing to bolshevik, I understand. Well, the fly on the ornament was this: The only way to get those yearlings up to the range was to drive ’em over the ranch belongin’ to a female of the species called Old Rose. This Rose senora would be as sour by any other name same as vinegar, AA THOUGHT. 369 I’ve seen some ornery critters in my time, but this Rose lady sure took the French pastry and won the brown derby in the Ornery Sweepstakes. And as for lettin’ us drive our yearlings over her ranch—say, if - she’d been the Beligan Rose they sing about, the Kaiser would never have left his home town on that little invasion picnic of his! We had to get those yearlings to that range, and we had to cross Old Rose’s place to do it, because old Baldy, which is a mighty steep but good-lookin’ mountain hereabouts, blocked us on one side and Lobos Cafion on the other. Rose had me stopped, I’ll admit without a blush, and she had old Steve stopped in his time. I was all for passin’ the buck to young Bill, but when I saw that grin of his and that friend- ly way I sad to myself, “‘ Our yearlings are goin’ to die!” This here feud between Old Rose and Steve had been goin’ on for as long as_I can remember, and before that, and both of ’em seemed to enjoy it. Steve would have died ten years ago of plain humdrum monotony if he hadn’t had this fight on his hands, and Rose too. Only Rose had a young girl she’d adopted to keep, her interested too—a girl named Molly, darned pretty, with a lot of yellow hair and a way with her that was as different from Rose as could be. IT always wondered how they could love each other, as they sure seemed to. Molly didn’t seem to have it in her to hate any- body, not even a Haskell like Steve, al- though Old Rose must have brought her up to shoot a Haskell on sight. So far as water was concerned, Old Rose was in the same boat as we were, only She didn’t have any stock to speak of. Her: land, like the Straight H home-place, was dry. We got our water in barrels, three miles away, at the pump of the Valley Development Company, which is all valley and no development, since they went broke on an irrigation project before they even stocked their place. Many a time I’ve seen little Molly drive down there, with three big barrels on a cart, to get what water they needed. And she always had a smile for me and a pleasant word, except when Rose COmiClMoolks.CGoOnmn