The Long Dim TrailHooker, Forrestine C. (Forrestine Cooper)
General
The Long Dim Trail
Hooker, Forrestine C. (Forrestine Cooper)
Arizona -- Fiction; Cowboys -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
"If ever I catch that Greaser, I'll make him sweat blood," blustered
Glendon.
Paddy mounted the fence, settled himself, then filled his corn-cob pipe,
lighted it deliberately and took a deep puff before he remarked with a
grim smile, "Oi'll hilp yez do it, Glendon--when yez catch him!"
His wrinkled, gnarled hand smoothed the leg of his overalls, which had
originally been the orthodox blue of all self-respecting overalls, but
long since had succumbed to Paddy's washtub and vigorous muscles. Below
the edges of these anemic patched garments, loomed one old boot and one
shoe, laced crookedly with a piece of rawhide.
The hand ceased its caressing movement, and Paddy squinted up again at
Glendon, "Don't yez be afther fergittin', Glendon, whin yez catch him
I'll take a hand at him--wid yez."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Limber unsaddled his pony in the Cowboys' Rest, after the trainload had
pulled out. He found that the episode of the burnt cow was already being
discussed openly.
"Glendon's goin' to get into heaps of trouble if he ain't more careful,"
stated Buckboard to Limber. "He's mixin' in with a mighty bad bunch."
Limber hung his saddle on a peg and stood rubbing Peanut's nose gently.
"You're sure right, Buckboard;" he replied slowly. "I'm derned sorry
about it. I done all I knew how to pull him up, but 'tain't been no
good, so fur's I can see. What stumps me is why a fellow what has so
many chances to make good works as hard as Glen does a dodgin' 'em. He
come here with plenty dinero, had heaps of friends and a rich father to
back him. Then he was eddicated and has the dandiest wife that ever
stepped on earth. Sometimes I think he's plumb locoed."
"Mrs. Glendon's got a good-sized bunch of trouble just now and more a
comin', unless Glen wakes up and hits another trail pretty damn quick;"
growled Buckboard. "That Mexican woman is making a regular fool of him,
and gets every cent that he handles. I've been wondering how much longer
the stores will carry him. His herd don't amount to shucks any more."
"If I knowed a woman like Glendon's wife was waitin' for me at a ranch,
I'd think I was the richest man in Arizona Territory, even if the ranch
only had one room and I hadn't but five head of cows;" Limber spoke
earnestly, and old Buckboard, catching the look on the cowpuncher's
face, paused a second before he answered.
"There's plenty good men that would be a heap better to her than
Glendon, for all his fancy way of talking. But nobody can't do nothin'
to help a woman like her when she's tied up to a skunk like Glendon.
It's a damn shame, but a woman of her sort just goes along and plays out
the game with a lone hand. But she plays it square."
"I know. That's what makes it hard. I try to do what I can to help Glen,
just so's to ease the load on her, but he keep's pilin' it up more and
more every day."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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