COPYRIGHT © 1962 BY ALBERT G. MILLER

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

       Chapter 1

      THE WILD WHITE MARE

      Pete Wilkie, the scrappy old foreman of Jim Newton’s Broken Wheel Ranch, lay in bed fast asleep. The grin on his face indicated that he was having one of his “happy” dreams.

      “Ever since I was knee-high to a snake’s chin,” he had once told Joey, “I’ve on’y had two kinds of dreams: happy or turrible. I cain’t figger it out, Joey; I never have any of them in-between kinda dreams, like reg’lar folks do.”

      In Pete’s “turrible” dreams, which were always the same, he found himself being thrown from a bucking bronc before the eyes of a jeering rodeo crowd. These dreams usually ended by his falling out of bed.

      His “happy” dreams, on the other hand, were assorted. In some of them he was the world’s champion trick rider and roper, in others he was either the fastest gun in the West or owner of the King Ranch in Texas. But the happy dream that Pete was enjoying this cold February night was a brand new kind. He had discovered a uranium mine and had money enough to buy everything that had ever caught his eye in the Western Section of the mail-order catalogue.

      “Let’s see now,” he muttered in his sleep. “I think I’ll buy me one of them Stetson hats with the five-inch brim. Mebbe I’ll even order two of ’em, seein’ as how they’re only a measly ninety dollars apiece.”

      Joey Newton had somehow come into the dream, and was looking over Pete’s shoulder. “Lookit here, Joey,” said the old man, pointing to the catalogue. “It says here this hat’s got seven x’s on the sweatband. That means it’s the best doggone top piece money kin buy.”

      Joey whistled softly. “Boy, Pete, it must be great to be as rich as you are.”

      Pete chuckled. “It shore is. Say, Joey, is there anythin’ special you got a cravin’ fer? Jest name it an’ I’ll buy it fer you.”

      Joey thought for a minute. “Gosh, Pete, I can’t think of a thing I want. But look, how about buying something for Fury?”

      Pete snorted. “Now what in tarnation would you buy fer a horse that’s already got everythin’? Fury’s got a good master, a good home, an’ all the feed he needs to keep him fat an’ sassy.”

      “That’s right, he has,” Joey agreed.

      Pete’s happy dream continued, as the pale moonlight crept across the outside of the ranch house and shone through the window upon his smiling face. Below the hatband line, the face was sun-darkened to the color of an outside cut of roast beef. Above the line, the forehead was white as the pillow. The old man’s grin broadened as he turned the pages of the catalogue and decided to order himself a fifty-dollar pair of handmade boots.

      At that moment, for the first time in Pete’s life, his happy dream turned “turrible.” To his dismay, he found himself riding a bucking horse before thousands of screaming people. The bawling bronc seemed to be trying to hammer Pete’s spine into his neck, as the dust boiled up beneath its thundering hoofs. With one hand Pete got himself a strangle hold on the saddle horn. With the other he grabbed a fistful of the animal’s mane. Now the hoof-beats seemed even louder than the clamor of the crowd. As his mount did a corkscrew turn in mid-air, Pete went flying like the man shot out of a cannon at the circus. He landed with a thump and, as he rolled over to avoid being trampled by the pounding hoofs, his head cracked against the leg of the bureau. He woke up yelling, and discovered that, as usual, he had fallen out of bed.

      As the angry old man scrambled to his feet, he realized that the sound of hoofbeats was actual and not merely part of his dream. A horse was galloping down the road toward the ranch gate. With his bare feet slapping the cold floor, he ran to his bedroom door, opened it, and stood blinking as the lights went on in the living room. Jim and Joey were already there in their pajamas. Pete gathered his flapping nightshirt around his spindly legs and scurried toward the hearth, which was still warm from the dying fire.

      “What in tarnation’s goin’ on outside?” he demanded. “What kind of a danged fool’d be ridin’ a horse in the middle of the night? An’ don’t say ‘Paul Revere,’ ’cause I heered that joke when I was no bigger’n a hoptoad.”

      “It’s Fury!” Joey cried. “He ran away! I saw him from my window!”

      “How’d he git outa the barn?” Pete yelled. “Didn’t you bolt the door?”

      “Sure I did! But Fury can slide the bolt with his muzzle. You know that!”

      “Yeah, I do know it!” Pete shouted sourly. “An’ that’s what you git fer givin’ a horse a trick education! He wakes everybody up at three o’clock in the mornin’, when it’s cold enough to freeze the snout off a brass hyena.”

      Jim raised his hand and spoke commandingly. “All right, knock it off, both of you. You sound like a couple of bickering kids.”

      “But Jim,” Joey said in a despairing voice, “it’s Fury! He’s gone! What’re we going to do?”

      “We’ll discuss that after we put on bathrobes and slippers. Hurry it up, before we all get pneumonia.”

      When Jim and Joey returned to the living room, Pete was still standing on the hearth with his back to the poked-up fire. He had tucked up the rear of his nightshirt in order to capture some of the rising heat.

      Joey wrinkled his forehead. “Fury hasn’t run away from the ranch since I first came here to live. That’s when he went out to fight the white stallion. I can’t understand why he’s done it again tonight.”

      “Wal, he shore ruined one of my happy dreams,” Pete growled, rubbing his head. “An’ he raised a lump on my noggin, too.” Jim glanced at him and grinned. “Yep,” Pete admitted sheepishly, “I fell outa bed agin, dadgum it!”

      Jim looked thoughtfully down into the fire. Even in his heavy woolen bathrobe the tall boss of the Broken Wheel looked vigorous and athletic, and his face beneath the light blond hair was handsome and wind-burned.

      “Why do you think Fury ran away, Jim?” Joey asked. “Do you think he went to fight another stallion?”

      “I doubt it, Joey. There hasn’t been a killer stallion in this region since the white one.”

      “Yer right,” Pete agreed. “If there was, we woulda heerd tell of him long before this.”

      “Of course,” Jim continued, “there are stallions guarding the mares of the mustang herds in the hills, but those aren’t killers. Fury wouldn’t break out to look for a fight with one of those fellows.”

      Pete snapped his bony fingers. “The mares! That gives me an idee, Jim. Could be that Fury wants a companion to kinda settle down with.”

      “That same thought occurred to me,” Jim said.

      Joey looked at Jim, with disbelief written on his face. “But Fury has companions, right here on the ranch. He’s got you and Pete and me, and plenty of horses to keep him company.”

      “That’s true, Joey,” Jim agreed softly, “but we can’t argue with an animal’s natural instincts.”

      “I know that, but golly, I . . .” Joey’s voice trailed off as he walked to the window and stared into the night. Jim and Pete exchanged sympathetic glances and waited for him to continue. In a moment Joey turned and spoke in a small, hopeless voice. “I can’t believe that Fury’d leave us for—well—for anything.” He returned to the fireplace and laid his hand on Jim’s arm. “Jim, can’t we ride out now and bring him back?”

      “Not in the middle of the night, Joey. It would be a fool’s errand.”

      “Then