The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-02-23
= CFutl dstans of Vieks cosds- Control Plan IA each Vicks

nown she had perjured herself. And
why? I might be guilty of murder. It
might have been the bullet from nv
gun. Things looked pretty black, but
there wa that strange little streak of
light zigzagging around.
The high powered drama of a mur-
der trial is something nobody knows
anything about till he sits in a stiff
chair beside his lawyer remembering
the shot he fired and waits for the
verdict. There were middle aged men
among us who had been honest, hard
working GOV punchers all their lives.
And this broke their hearts. Gray hair
ed men were sobbing like children
while We waited. A few who'd had a
lot of experience with the sheep and
cattle war counted it all in the DAYS
work. Some young fellows-just kids,
who didn't realize what they were up
against-went to sleep and had to be
walked up to hear the verdict.
Twelve men stomped back into the
courtroom like a dozen bow legged
Judgment days. The foreman stood in
the box and said something startling in
"AA AAAPSA OoAAo, hA11u VI VOlCG. 1
knew then what I'd been expecting.
I'VE find the fourteen defendants
not guilty as charged in the indict-
ment."
"AI at once the courtroom was like
a stampeded bunch of cattle. But all
I saw was CasWel take his sister by
the arm and cut her out of the crowd.
She didn't look toward me ever then
Qn6 tho Y,n1inf IF that - o~,.S%f11 Gail F11%
1t didn't mean anything. Caswell had
won. He'd turned off the sunlight"
But Uncle Bert? We've been friends
with him always. Even you"
That's how clever your mother is"
And he isn't in the sheep business"
Not since then.
HE never knew he'd won and he was
mad as a trapped coyote over his de-
feat. He set about closing out his in
tereSts to go back east and stay. He
But he wasn't stealing away between
days and having folks think he was
broke up over a matter of one dead
sheep herder and a miscarriage of jus
tice that turned fourteen murderous
hoodlums loose. So he was having a
big dance out at his ranch the night
UC4O1C ~ 1C4U. f1llO C1lC lCdV1llS WdS
pretty close when I heard about it. I
didn't have much time. I had to work
quick.
1T vas a bang-up party. Towns
people, sheepmen, officers from Fort
Meade, and as many ladies as could be
rounded up with EN-. Special orchestra
from Deadwood. Carriages, buggies,
light wagons, saddle horses crowded in
the corrals. Women from the post and
the towns came in party dresses. Ranch
women wore shirt waists and dark
skirts. Some men had pumps and
boiled shirts and some hob nailed boots
and dark flannels.
"Of course, nc cowmen were invited,
but I went anyhow and got there a lit
tie after midnight. I rode up close to
the house and got the attention of m
of the Cinnamon somehow and sent
him in with a message. Then I eased
away down to the point where the trail
from the north crossed the road. It
was a bright, starry night and pretty
soon I saw her coming acros the shad-
owed space between the cabins, her
white dress trailing, and when she
came close I leaned down from the sad
! die to speak to her. With what I had
in mind I couldn't afford to get off.
She didn't seem to notice I was i'm
polite.
II said I'd heard she was going away
the next day and she said she was.
That was why she'd come out. To tell
me good-by. But I wasn't saying good
y just yet. I'd come to find out what
her answer would have been if Buck
Hardy hadn't cut in at the wrong time.
So I asked her: HAS all this made any
Inference between us? Just us? Leav-
ing out the rest of the world?'
"She said softlike-tears in her voice
1ebbe, that we couldn't leave out the
est of the world.
But I insisted. Suppose we could?
ust suppose.
1--WE could hear the music of the
violins and the shouts of the caller and
see the queer black moving shadows
of the dancers against the squares of
yellow light. Editha's world was
Rowling her. All around us stretched
he interminable m~onotonous brown
be clamping down between us in an
other t%wenty-four hours. I couldn't let
that happen. Unless-So I put the
question straight.
"'Would you have told me you low
ed me? Do you?'
"She answered a little breathlessly:
Yes, I do love you. I always will love
ou. But we never
81 reached down and caught her
round the waist and lifted her into the
saddle in front of me, and we were off
and away like a wind that knows where