The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-10-21

CHApTER II.

"a AAGAAt Va - WILL
VIM ALLEN was the sole owner and
proprietor of Allen Hacienda. His
y ranch, the Bar One, stretched for
miles up and down the Sweetwater VAL
ley. Bounded on the east and west by
the foothills, the tract was one of the
garden spots of Arizona. Southwark
lay the Sweetwater Ranch, owned by
Jack Payson. Northward was the home
ranch of the Lazy X, an Ishmaelitish
outfit, ever at petty war with the other
settlers in the district. 1t was a mis-
~cellaneous and constantly changing
crowd, recruited from rustlers from
Wyoming. gamblers from California,
half-breed outlaws from the Indian
Territory; in short, bad men" from
every section of the Western country.
They had a special grudge against Al
len and Payson, whom they held to be
accountable for the sudden disappear
ance, about q year before, of their
leader, Buck Mckee, a half-breed from
the Cherokee Strip. However, no other
leader had arisen equal to that master
full spirit, and their enmity expressed
itself only in such petty depredations as
changing brands on stray cattle from
the Bar One and Sweetwater ranches,
and the Sitting of the tongues of young
calves, so that these would be unable to
feed properly, and, as a result, be dis
owned by their mothers, w%hereupon the
Lazy K outfit would slap its brand on
them as mavericks.
Allen was a Kentuckian, who had
served in the Confederate Army as one
of Morgan's raiders, and so had re-
ceived, by popular brevet, the title of
colonel. AT the close of the war he
had come to Arizona with his young
wife Josephine, and had founded a
home on the Sweetwater. He was now
n of the cattle barons of the great
Southwest. Prosperity had not spoiled
him. Careless in his attire, cordial in
his manner, he was a man who was
loved and respected by his men, from
the newest tenderfoot to the veteran of
the clubhouse. His wife, however, was
not so highly regarded, for she had
never been able to recognize changes in
time or location and so was in perpetual
conflict with her environment. She at.
tempted to make the free and inde-
pendent cowboys of the Arizona plains
stand around" like the house servants
Of the Kentucky bluegrass; and
onc peTSiSttu III ZIG eILOTC u
manage her husband by the fem
mime artiflce of weeping. In the
days of her youth and beauty this had
been very effective, but now that these
had passed 1t was productive only OF
good-humored raillery from him, and
mirth from the bystanders.
mo wonder Jim has the finest ranch
in Arizony," the co boys were wont to
say, with Josephine a irrigatin' 1t all
the time"
Allen Hacienda was certainly a gar
den spot in that desert country. The
building was OF the old Mexican style,
ar architecture found, by centuries of
experience, to be suited best to the
climate and the materials of the land,
The house was only one story in height.
The rooms and o~utbuildings sprawled
over q wide expanse Of ground. The
lis were of NATIVE stone and adobe
clav: over them clambered grapevines.
In front Of the home Mrs. Allen had
planted a garden. A 'dobe wall cut off
the house from the corral and the
bunk-house. A heavy girder spanned
the distance from the low roof to the
top OF the BARR +. Latticework, sup
? rting a grapevine, formed, with a
rider. a gateway through which one