WILD WEST By Bertrand W. Sinclair Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1926 Copyright, 1926 By Bertrand W. Sinclair. All rights reserved Published March, 1926 Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS I The Straw in the Wind II “Keep off the Grass!” III Machiavelli? IV One Step at a Time V Watchful Waiting VI Evidence in the Case VII A Rider and a Lady VIII “On With the Dance” IX A Different Sort of Dance X A Word and a Blow XI A Breathing Space XII The Opening Gun XIII Cornered XIV The Line of Least Resistance XV Echoes from Afar XVI Resurrection XVII A Challenge XVIII “The Seat of the Mighty” XIX A Course Deflected XX South of the River XXI A Matter of Business XXII A Near Showdown XXIII “Crossed Wires” XXIV The Backwash XXV Snipped Threads WILD WEST CHAPTER I--THE STRAW IN THE WIND Where a long spur of Chase Hill pitched down to the broken land bordering on Birch Creek, Robin Tyler came on what he had been seeking since sunrise. He pulled up his horse, sat sidewise in his saddle to roll a cigarette, to stare over the country, out over the wide roll of grassy ridges and sagebrush flats that ended abruptly in the confusion of the Bad Lands. As his eye marked single dots and groups of dots that were cattle and horses at rest and in motion, both near and far, a trampling of hoofs in a hollow below made his head turn sharply. He saw within a hundred yards the back and head and ears of a single animal and jumped his horse into a gallop with a touch of the spurs. He recognized that arched neck and brilliant mane; it flashed in the sun like burnished copper. “Oh, you Red Mike,” he shouted, “you’ll have to burn the earth now to keep me from ridin’ you on round-up.” In two jumps the gray cow horse Robin bestrode bounded over the low ridge. Below and beyond, a bunch of range horses, twenty or more, as wild as the elk that once grazed those slopes, stretched themselves like hounds on the trail of a running wolf. They were headed for a water hole and Robin was cutting them off. They lay low to the ground, manes and tails streaming, their hoofs beating the turf with a roll like snare drums. The horse Robin had shouted at ran in the lead, a beautiful sorrel beast with four white stockings and a star in his forehead. Red Mike knew what a mounted man on his trail meant. He was all for freedom. Behind him thundered the wild mares with their colts.