Knights of the Range. Zane Grey
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be American. That is why I kept you away at school so many years. If I had brought you up heah, in the Spanish environment which pertained until recently, you would have been all Valverde. I had the greatest respect for your mother. You know that. But I wanted you to grow up as a true American in education, speech and spirit.”
“Dad, was that any reflection upon Don Carlos Valverde?” queried Holly, with proud, dark eyes upon him. There was something passionate and alien in her that could never be wholly eradicated. And Britt, who loved her as his own, felt glad this was so.
“No. I had a high regard for Don Carlos, and these early Spanish families. Both Kit Carson and Lucien Maxwell married into them.”
“Were you ashamed of my—mother?”
“Absolutely no, my child. I was proud of her beauty and quality.”
“Did you love her?”
“Holly, I think I may say yes with an honest heart. But, dear, when I met Carlotta I was a wild young Texan, a gay blade in love with every pretty face I saw. It is hard to confess to you that when I became infatuated with your mother, I did not go to Don Carlos honorably and ask for her hand. I knew only too well that he would have raged and thrown me out. Carlotta was hardly more than fifteen. . . . I—I ran off with her. But I married her in San Antonio. As I grew to love her more I regretted havin’ been the cause of estrangement between Carlotta and Don Carlos. She was an only child. In time he forgave her. You were born soon after that. Then followed the happiest years of our lives. Don Carlos left Carlotta this ranch. After the war I drove a cattle herd up from Texas, and have prospered ever since.”
Britt liked that frank confession of the Colonel’s, and when he saw Holly’s reaction he thought it was well. If there had ever been any brooding doubts in the girl’s mind, they were dispelled then and forever. She embraced her father.
“Thank you, Dad,” she whispered. “It’s all right now—except you mustn’t frighten me again.”
The moment seemed sweet and far-reaching for Britt. All was well that ended well. This home-coming of Holly Ripple had been fraught with dismay as well as dread. She had been an unknown factor. But now the old ranger revelled in the faith he had doggedly held in the girl he himself had named.
“Lass, I never told you how I come to call you Holly,” he said, as the girl sat up again, to smile with wet eyes. “I had a sweetheart once an’ thet was her name.”
“Sweetheart?—Cappy, you used to call me that when I was little. I’m horribly jealous. What was she like? Did you—run off with her as Dad did with my mother? Please tell me.”
“Some day,” replied Britt, rising, and he patted the glossy head. “Kurnel, I’ve seen a few happier days than this, far away an’ long ago. But not many. Shore you will be long heah with us. What fun you’ll have teachin’ this big-eyed lass to handle hawses, to shoot an’ rope, to run the cowboy ootfits ragged, to be mistress of this great house an’ do honor to yore name! An’ I—wal, I’ll go ahaid with my plans.”
“Plans! What plans, Cappy?” queried the girl. “You began that speech sadly. You grew really eloquent. Then you end with that hawk-eye glinting and with news of plans. If I am to become mistress of Don Carlos’ Rancho, I shall be your boss. Oh, what a dance I’ll lead you! . . . But come, tell me. Do your plans include a party to celebrate my return?”
“Holly, that shall be my job,” interrupted her father. “I will give such a party as was never seen heah in New Mexico. And every year thereafter, on the anniversary of that date, you must repeat it.”
“Oh, glorious!” she cried, rapturously. “My first party.”
“Britt, bring on your wild outfits!” sang the Colonel, keen and glad-eyed. “Bring on your riders, rangers, cowboys, outlaws, desperadoes, gunmen, and killers! Don Carlos’ Rancho shall flourish many a year!”
“Wild outfits!—Cowboys—desperadoes—killers?” echoed Holly, mystified, her great eyes like dark, glowing stars.
“Holly, it is Britt’s plan to surround you with the wildest and most dangerous outfit of men ever gathered on a western ranch,” announced the Colonel.
“Oh-h!—But why?”
“Wal, lass, the idee is to save you an’ yore cattle when the times grow bad,” interposed Britt.
“How perfectly wonderful! . . . Don Carlos’ Rancho! Holly Ripple’s outfit! . . . Dad, I shall fall in love with every single one of them. That is the penalty you must suffer for penning me up with books. Nine long years! And I was born on the range! . . . Cappy Britt, henceforth Old Hawk-eye, you will need your keen sight. Bring on your wild cowboys!”
* * * *
Britt paced his slow, clinking way down the flowered path toward the bunk-house. Hard upon his excitation followed a pensive sadness. Only he realized what lay in store for Holly Ripple. Let her enjoy the girlish freedom she had been denied. Let her ride and laugh while her father was with her and the days burned with all the glamour of a New Mexican summer. For the shadow on the horizon would soon loom into dark groups of horsemen, strange, silent, formidable; and the languorous serenity of Don Carlos’ Rancho would be gone.
Chapter Two
Two eventful and fast-flying years later, almost to the day, Cap Britt sat his horse on the high slope above the mouth of Paso del Muerte, and with grim, bitter revolt in his heart, forced himself to admit that the evil times of his prophecy had come.
“They been comin’ ever since the Kurnel died,” he muttered darkly. “Slow but shore! . . . Wal, by Gawd, I didn’t get my hard ootfit none too soon.”
Britt gazed down across the eight miles of rolling gray rangeland, and on up the long slope to Don Carlos’ Rancho, standing like a picturesque fort, red and green on the high divide between the two great valleys. Holly Ripple was there on the porch, no doubt at this very moment with glass levelled upon him. It was that powerful glass which had brought about the present critical situation. He had a string of several hundred horses ranging up Paso del Muerte, among which were a number of the fine blooded Ripple stock. And the day before Britt had sent three of his riders over there to report on this drove of horses. They had not returned. For riders to lie out a night or several nights was nothing for the foreman to concern himself about. But early that morning Britt had taken a sweep of the range with the glass. And he had picked out one of those dark compact bunches of horsemen that were no longer rare on the range. They had disappeared up the pass. If they were not rustlers they were horse-thieves, a distinction with a difference. Holly Ripple had been unconcerned about the increasing loss of cattle, but highly indignant at the stealing of some of her thoroughbreds. Britt’s big outfit of cowboys was scattered all over the range for that day on various jobs. When he rode down at Holly’s order he expected to pick up some of the cowboys at White Pool; at least Stinger, Beef Talman, and Jim, who should have been there. But they were not there. Whereupon Britt had climbed the slope to the pass alone.
Dobe Cabin, in a grove of green and white aspen trees, lay beneath Britt in the mouth of the wide canyon. A substantial fence of peeled poles stretched from slope to slope. That bunch of riders who had roused the foreman’s suspicions had left the big gate open. Presently Britt espied dust clouds far up the winding pass, and soon after that a line of horses coming at a jogtrot. Britt waited until a number of dark riders on dark horses appeared; and then he dated the war on the Ripple range from that moment.
“Wal, it had to come, so why not right now?” he soliloquized, sombrely, and headed his mount down the slope. Arriving at the fence he got off his horse and closing the big gate he awaited developments with watchful vigilance and active mind. Britt scanned the slopes for some of his riders. He was going to need them presently. Horses and cattle grazed below, and under the mesa a few shaggy black buffalo had strayed up from the south. Britt was hard put to it to decide whether to ambush the raiders or meet them out in the open. In the former case he was pretty sure to be shot in a brush with eight or ten desperate men,