Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1941-07-17

easy throw together three hundred
head in couple of days. That
gives us a nice bunch of anyway
two thousand. The more the better
but with two thousand we'll make
our drive"
They slept that night under the
slowly falling snow. Roper himself
made coffee and routed out his rid
ers two hours before the first light.
They caught their horses in the dark,
with hands that fumbled the stiff
ened ropes; then split off in pairs
to comb the range.
For two days Roper watched the
enemy camp while the snow held
on, piling deeper and deeper mat;
then on the third day he returned
to the rendezvous as the roundup
men began struggling in.
Tex Long was the first one back.
"This range is plumb solid with
Stock" Tex declared "How many
head do you figure me and Kid
johnson scraped up, just us two?"
"Well," Roper grunted, upwards
OF a dozen-I should hope"
"Better'n six hundred head! Lord
Almighty, Bill! Figuring they're
worth twenty dollars apiece, and al
lowing that all the other boys do as
good, we're liable to get out of here
with around eighty thousand dollars
worth OF cattle! You realize that?"
But Roper was thinking of the let
ter In his pocket; the appeal of girl
who needed him in some unknown
way, and who did not even know
why he couldn't come.
All the next day they worked to
throw the little punches together into
trail herd. Not all of them had
done as well as Tex Long and Kid
johnson, but most of them had done
well enough. And then, at last, the
first herd privateered in the Great
Raid began to roll. A long instead
lily moving river of cattle poured
northWard, a dark weller in the thin
ming fall OF the snow. White-faces,
mostly, blocky and heavy, we'll win
tered on the prairie hay-Roper
counted two thousand six hundred
odd!
Pressed hard by the heavy force
of cowboys, the cattle bawled but
bumped along northward into the
valley of the Prairie Elk.
Rounding up within a days ride
OF Miles City itself, Roper's men had
taken this herd almost out of the
very corrals of Lasham's outposts;
and yet, so far as any of them
knew, that swift-moving drive repre-
sented harder blow than had ever
been struck a cattleman in single
raid. In all their months of effort
the winter wild bunch had been un-
able to achieve an equal reprisal
upon Lasham, and now they could
hardly believe their own success.
They forced the cattle hard, driv-
ing through the clogging snow at
rate incredible to men accustomed
to handling market herds.
The cattle that broke the way
through the snow kept dropping
back, blown and tired; but as fast as
they failed, others were forced for
horned, stag-legged steers of the old
Texas strain fought the riders,
breaking the heavy column repeat
edly in their wild-eyed thrusts for
liberty, and these were allowed to
get away. Gaunt, weak cattle Jagged
back, unable to keep up even under
the swapping rope ends of the tail
fhau oil -
drop out, promptly forgotten. Yet,
in that first day, the side riders
swept in enough north-roaming cat
tie to more than make up the loss.
Roper went with the herd as far
as Circle Horse Greek; but when
they had forded the shadows, crash
ing through the rotten ice, he turned
back. With him he took four men
who he believed would do what he
said. The cattle were moving more
slowly now, Flooding doggedly
through the heavy going; Tex Long
and the remaining eight men could
hold them to their way. What was
needed now was work of a different
kind, and Roper thought he knew
how that was to be done.
1t was his intention to fight a rear
guard action-not only for this first
herd, which would be delivered with
in the week to the Indians who would
spirit it away, but for the protec-
/! ton of all the rest of the wild bunch
raiding to westward.
But now as he neared the head of
the Little Dry, a rider came drop
ping down long slope upon racing
horse. His carbine was held above
his ragged sombrero in sign of
peace; and as he came near they
saw that it was Hat Crick Tommy.
Roper jumped his horse out to
meet Hat Crick. "What is it? Is
there any word? Did She
Tommy's face was haggard with
fatigue. 'She's gone!" he jerked
out. "She's been to Miles City-and
now she's gone!"
"Gone? Gone where?"
Nobody knows. She's missing
disappeared-strayed or lost or rus
tied, 1 don't know which! Her ia
theirs wild crazy, and every K-G
outfit in the north is cornhino tba