The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-02-16

AOAASA WI 4Ao4S Va Ac1 al
righteous indignation. Outraged men,
DRY flew back over enemy lines in
France, to cripple planes, inferno
every casualty. And this from his
father! His father who had ridden
bronchos and herded cattle under calm
skies and had come down through mid
die age easily, p~rosperously, and hap
PLY. Measuring his young knowledge
of ranch life against his war memories,
it seemed very safe and pleasant.
Anyhow" his father answered his
thoughts as though they had been spok-
en-, II wouldn't have lost the girl I
wanted because somebody else object
ed" He was heavily scornful, a trifle
anxious.
But you never wanted any woman
but mother, did you?"
mo"
And you got her"
"You bet I got her. You don't hap
pen to know how, do you?"
II know what she told Edith and Lii
and me She went out to the Black
Hills to visit Uncle Bert and met you
and you fell in love with each other
and were married"
$50? Just as easy as that, Ell? Well,
that's as much as she thought her
children ought to know. She's sure
that one mao stampede in the night,
milled into a happy home life by spec
ial dispensation of providence and a
mythical man she thinks she's married
to, never could be repeated.
But it might. Happiness isn't some
thing that just spills into your life like
sunshine. Nor success either. Success
in love any more than anything else.
They're by-products of some active per-
sonal quality. We have to work things
out for ourselves and men fight for
their women now the anne as they did
when they hit 'em over the head and
dragged 'em into their caves.
Here's what happened" He hes
itated, remembering, listening.
Thudding of horses hoofs pounding
through the saga all the way. From
a morning sixty years before when a
ten day old baby blinked at the Texas
sunlight from his cowboy fathers sad
die, getting used to the feel of a
horse pounding down through the
last hard riding chapter. They thudded
in the nearby corral and around the
cabin where a little boy was learning
to read and write from his school
teacher mother who died when the
primary lesson vas finished. They beat
he rhythm of life for the youngster who
began riding herd before his toes could
reach the stirrups, and for the boy
in his teens who was left with the
cowboys on the old Bar T ranch after
his father was killed by an outlaw
broncho.
Kendrick McVane punched COWS and
took most of his wages in calves and
read the books that had been his
mothers. BY the time he was thirty
he had cattle and land of his own,
was high in the councils of cattle kings,
was well read, prosperous, and lonely.
He never had had time to get married
even If he had known any m who
measured up to the memory of his
mother.
! This was the of man who
met her On the road to Minnesota.
II was riding into town." beginning
the part of the story that was new to
his son, riding on a hard run that I
hadn't outgrown yet"
Still that rhythmic thudding of
horses feet.
"As I passed her I could see she was
having trouble with her horse. He was
fretted and worried about something.
If he'd been mean he'd a bucked. When
I whirled round and pulled up beside
her I saw her saddle was wobbling. She
wasn't as good a horsewoman then as
she is now. I got down to fix it and
while I was busy with the cinch my
bronc, that was kinda locoed anyhow, lit
out over a hill and went out of sight.
We parleyed a little about what to do
and then, because she insisted, we went
down to the squawman's cabin and
changed her side-saddle for one of his
and I took her nice little buckskin and
went after my fool lbronc. We rode in
to Minnesota together and some wo-
man saw us and asked her what she
was doing riding round with Ken Nc
Vane, the cattle king That didn't
mean a thing to her and nobody men,
toned 1t to me. It was a long time
and too late before I knew who she
was.
"She rode alone a lot and it didn't
take me forever to find her trails and
follow EN-. You'd never believe such a
little woman could fill the world all
up the way she did. I'd never known
anybody like her. Pretty as cherry
blossoms and gay as a meadow lark.
But I rode along through all those
summer days without a suspicion of
where I was heading. I'd never known
anybody before that I could talk to
about things I'd read and things I'd
thought about when I was riding herd
at night and watching the stars. I'd
NASALC kTARRH