Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-06-27

Gently buried when 4 llOcA OF cIeQltOrS
flew in like bu22ardS, TO lay hoiu or
everything he had held. Jud was lucky
to save his saddle ana one Sor.el geld
ing from the crash. Il before the
fresh earth had settled over old Pat
Donlan. ,Jud Milholland rolled his ex-
ira pair of sox in his slicker, saddled
his sorrel, and headed south. the spirit
of Greg Milholland pointing the way.
He worked at the old JOD. He
worked at the Two Diamond over on
the Badger. He even went rs far south
as old Fort Garland, down on the RIO
Grande. But ever he would drift back
toward the Arkansas. toward the Fly
ing Pan. where Red Ike, bald, as an
egg and with a flaming red beard like
q Hebrew prophet. ruled Il COOK
shack. where one-eyed BIZ teSS mad
been the foreman more than twenty
five years, where Greg Milholland had
worked when he met Marie La Tour.
Ever would Jud DRIFT back home"
where the buffalo sod began to smell
fresh OF a March day when the trickles
of ice water buckled down the hill
sides from the dwindllng snow banks.
BY the time the Dawn colt was a two
year-old Red Ike had growled TO one
eyed Bill Fess, "Jud'S Just like his
daddy-got his heart SCI on a filly,
and I reckon he'll go through hell
to get her"
Fess nodded. But he slowly ven
tured. blinking his one gray eye like
an owl. "once he's got her. how longll
he want her? Remember Marie"
And Red Ike nodded solemnly.
Jud had chased the miSt-gray filly
a hundred times, ana never yet had he
been within rope length OF her.
The spring she turned three Dawn
took up with a leggy black stud,
lured a couple OF skittish Frying Pan
mares to turn wild and follow her,
and took to the Little Muddy Badlands.
The badlands lie like a giant, three
fingered hand. cut off III some long
forgotten battle Of the gods and flung
there on the plains. its two mile fin
gers thruSting out toward the south,
its sandstone mesa thumb toward the
west and its three mile square palm a
maze of wild plum, sage, cactus and
gravel hills. Near the center of the
palm is a deep, clear pool fed by a
spring sweet AS dew and cold as jan
uary, and in the canyon between the
ring finger and the index there are
two brackish pools where range cattle
and antelope often water.
Half a dozen times that spring Jud
rode down there, spent two or three
days poking about the weird canyons,
losing himself in the trails and cross
trails-of which there were thousands
Dawn and her followers.
In August Jud went to Bill Tess.
I'm going to lay off a month or so,
Bill, if it don't pinch you none"
mot at all, Jud." But there was a
suspicious light in Fess' eye. Some
thing special on?"
Nope. Just want to drift down to
the Badlands a week or So"
Not half an hour later Red Ike's
prophetic beard was waggling in agi-
tation.
Just like his daddy" Ike growled
while Bill sat in a corner and smoked
What did his daddy do but pike of
for a month when he seen he want
getting nowhere with that La Tour
girl? And didn't Greg come back with
the girl in a hackamore? Mark my
word, Bill, Jud1l come home with that
filly at the end of a lead rope"
But Ike was wrong. Jud came home
with Shorty limping at the end of a
lead rope. And Jud was riding the
Dawn filly.
Jud told them but few details of the
chase or capture. He had gone down
there alone, and he came back riding
Dawn. That was all the curious ones
needed to know.
But Jud, if he lived to a thousand
never would forget that moonlit night
when his rope settled around DaWn's
gray neck.
He had chased her over the brush
and over the hills for three solid weeks
He had found that of an evening she
usually took to the trail around the tiE
of the Thumb, and that if he chased
her she Scurried around, through
gully in the Palm, and back along The
Thumb, completing the circle. Their
he had spotted an old water course
that cut directly up over the Thumb
a sort OF pathway hidden by brush anC
brambles. And then the moon cam
full, and Jud saddled Shorty and tool
after Dawn and her followers.
For half a mile, there in the moon.
light, she ran s~traightaway toward tht
end of the Thumb. Jud put old Shorty
hard to it, pressed to within three
hundred yards. Then he came to thu
water course, and the wild one spec
, around the end OF the Thumb. Ju(
could go up and over, a scant fiv,
lluIlUIGu ydIOS, Willie 0dWIl Spcu Ol
around the curve, nearly a mile. An(
Jud would be there beside the trai
on the other side when she cam,
: laundering past. He would be within
: rope length of her at last.
: The way up vas rough, boulder
strewn, but Shorty took it at a jerk,
, lope. The way down was through loosI
! gravel and shale, and Shorty took i
! mostly on his launches. Then, twent
yards from the trail where Dawn woult
come with flying hoofs, Shorty trippe,
, on a root, stumbled, and fell.
Jud was off in a leap. With a ierI
: he yanked the lariat from the pomme'
Half a dozen jumps and he was at tn
, trail edge. And Dawn was thunderin'
! down at him, big rs a mastodon Their
in the moonlight.
Jud's rope shot out like a tongu
of silver. Dawn heard the hiss, trie,
T to swerve. Too late! The twang 0
the rope as it tautened was like tn
note Of a mighty bow string.
Jud's boot heels ripped twin furrow
five feet along the sod at that frs
2 lunge. Dawn nearly went head owe
tail. Then she spun about, saw tn
puny human being at the far end G
0 the rope that bound her throat, an
lunged toward the freedom of tn
: plains. And again Jud's boot heel