The Coolidge examiner., 1931-07-31

| ATOuHo r1CT.
but he came down on his knees
| just on the farther edge, rolled, and
slid down the gully side into the
ditch. The girl had flung herself
free. My claim was fifty yards
away. So was the girl with her
/ dying horse. She lay there on the
| prairie. AS | raced toward her
my own poor little mount was near
ly gone by this time-she scrambled
| to@ her knees. | can. see her face
now, black with cinders and SCOT
and dirt, her hair all over her shoul-
! ders, her cheek bleeding where she
| had struck a stone in her fall, her
black tights torn, her little short
skirt sagging. She sort of sat up
and looked around her. Then she
staggered to her feet before
| reached her and stood there sway
ing, and pushing her hair out of her
eyes like some one who'd been
asleep. She pointed down the gully.
The black of her face streaked
with tears.
"'Shoot himl she said. I can't.
His two forelegs are broken.
Gods sakep
$50 l off my horse and down to
the gully's edge. There the animal
lay, his eyes all whites, his poor
legs doubled under him, his fanks
black and sticky with sweat and
dirt. He was done for, all right. |
| took out my six-shOoter and aimed
! right between his eyes. He kicked
once, sort of leaped-or tried to,
and then lay still. | stood there a
minute, TO see if he had to have an
other. He was so game that, some
way, l didn't want to give him more
than he needed.
Then something made me turn
around. The girl had mounted my
mustang. She was off toward the
creek section. Before l had moved
ten PAGES she had reached the very
piece | had marked in my mind for
my own. She leaped from the horse.
ripped off her skirt, tied it to her
riding whip that she still held tight
in her hand, dug the whip butt into
the soil of the prairie-planted her
fag-and the land was hers by
right of claim"
Yancey Cravat stopped talking.
| There was a moment of stricken
silence. Sabra Cravat staring, star
| ing at her husband with great
round eyes. Lewis Venable, limp,
yellow, tremulous. Felice venabIe.
upright and quivering. 1t was she
who spoke first. And when she did
she was every inch the thrifty de-
| scendant of French forbears; moth
ing of the southern belle about her.
"Yancey Cravat, do you mean
that you let her have your quarter
, section on the creek that you had
gone to the Indian territory for!
That you had been gone a month
for! That you had left your wife
and child for! That"
Nov, mammal You saw that
all the Venable in Sabra was sum-
moned to keep the tears from her
eyes, and that thus denied they had
crowded themselves into her trem-
| OAAllS NOISCs ANOW.
Don't you now mamma mel
What of the land that you were to
have had! 1t was bad enough to
think of your going to that wilder
ness, but to" She paused. Her
voice took on a new and more sin
lister note. Il don't believe a word
of it." She whirled on Yancey, her
black eyes blazing. "Why did you
let that trollop in the black tights
have that land?"
Yancey regarded this question
with considerable judicial calm, but
Felice, knowing him, might have
been warned by the way his great
head was lowered like that of a
charging bull buffalo.
IF it had been a man l could
have shot him. A good many had
to, to keep the land they'd run fair
ly for. But you can't shoot a
woman"
"Why not?" demanded the erst-
while southern belle. sharply.
! (TO BE CONTINUED)