William MacLeod Raine - The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine

William MacLeod Raine

A Texas Ranger, Brand Blotters, The Sheriff's Son, Wyoming, Mavericks, Yukon Trail, Tangled Trails, Gunsight Pass, Man Size…

Published by

Books

- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

musaicumbooks@okpublishing.info

2020 OK Publishing

EAN 4064066386023

Wyoming Wyoming A Story of the Outdoor West Table of Contents Chapter 1. A Desert Meeting Chapter 2. The King of the Big Horn Country Chapter 3. An Invitation Given and Accepted Chapter 4. At the Lazy D Ranch Chapter 5. The Dance at Fraser's Chapter 6. A Party Call Chapter 7. The Man from the Shoshone Fastnesses Chapter 8. In the Lazy D Hospital Chapter 9. Miss Darling Arrives Chapter 10. A Shepherd of the Desert Chapter 12. Mistress and Maid Chapter 13. The Two Cousins Chapter 14. For the World's Championship Chapter 15. Judd Morgan Passes Chapter 16. Hunting Big Game Chapter 17. Run to Earth Chapter 18. Playing for Time Chapter 19. West Point to the Rescue Chapter 20. Two Cases of Discipline Chapter 21. The Signal Lights Chapter 22. Exit the “King” Chapter 23. Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting

Ridgway of Montana

A Texas Ranger

Bucky O'Connor

Mavericks

Brand Blotters

Crooked Trails and Straight

The Vision Splendid

A Daughter of the Dons

The Highgrader

Steve Yeager

Yukon Trail

The Sheriff's Son

A Man Four-Square

The Big-Town Round-Up

Oh, You Tex!

Gunsight Pass

Tangled Trails

Man Size

The Fighting Edge

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. A Desert Meeting

Chapter 2. The King of the Big Horn Country

Chapter 3. An Invitation Given and Accepted

Chapter 4. At the Lazy D Ranch

Chapter 5. The Dance at Fraser's

Chapter 6. A Party Call

Chapter 7. The Man from the Shoshone Fastnesses

Chapter 8. In the Lazy D Hospital

Chapter 9. Miss Darling Arrives

Chapter 10. A Shepherd of the Desert

Chapter 12. Mistress and Maid

Chapter 13. The Two Cousins

Chapter 14. For the World's Championship

Chapter 15. Judd Morgan Passes

Chapter 16. Hunting Big Game

Chapter 17. Run to Earth

Chapter 18. Playing for Time

Chapter 19. West Point to the Rescue

Chapter 20. Two Cases of Discipline

Chapter 21. The Signal Lights

Chapter 22. Exit the “King”

Chapter 23. Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting

Table of Contents

An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped swiftly down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, dusty road, while its occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on the great panorama that stretched before her. The earth rolled in waves like a mighty sea to the distant horizon line. From a wonderful blue sky poured down upon the land a bath of sunbeat. The air was like wine, pure and strong, and above the desert swam the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. Surely here was a peace primeval, a silence unbroken since the birth of creation.

It was all new to her, and wonderfully exhilarating. The infinite roll of plain, the distant shining mountains, the multitudinous voices of the desert drowned in a sunlit sea of space—they were all details of the situation that ministered to a large serenity.

And while she breathed deeply the satisfaction of it, an exploding rifle echo shattered the stillness. With excited sputtering came the prompt answer of a fusillade. She was new to the West; but some instinct stronger than reason told the girl that here was no playful puncher shooting up the scenery to ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination conceived something more deadly; a sinister picture of men pumping lead in a grim, close-lipped silence; a lusty plainsman, with murder in his heart, crumpling into a lifeless heap, while the thin smoke-spiral curled from his hot rifle.

So the girl imagined the scene as she ran swiftly forward through the pines to the edge of the butte bluff whence she might look down upon the coulee that nestled against it. Nor had she greatly erred, for her first sweeping glance showed her the thing she had dreaded.

In a semicircle, well back from the foot of the butte, half a dozen men crouched in the cover of the sage-brush and a scattered group of cottonwoods. They were perhaps fifty yards apart, and the attention of all of them was focused on a spot directly beneath her. Even as she looked, in that first swift moment of apprehension, a spurt of smoke came from one of the rifles and was flung back from the forked pine at the bottom of the mesa. She saw him then, kneeling behind his insufficient shelter, a trapped man making his last stand.

From where she stood the girl distinguished him very clearly, and under the field-glasses that she turned on him the details leaped to life. Tall, strong, slender, with the lean, clean build of a greyhound, he seemed as wary and alert as a panther. The broad, soft hat, the scarlet handkerchief loosely knotted about his throat, the gray shirt, spurs and overalls, proclaimed him a stockman, just as his dead horse at the entrance to the coulee told of an accidental meeting in the desert and a hurried run for cover.

That he had no chance was quite plain, but no plainer than the cool vigilance with which he proposed to make them pay. Even in the matter of defense he was worse off than they were, but he knew how to make the most of what he had; knew how to avail himself of every inch of sagebrush that helped to render him indistinct to their eyes.

One of the attackers, eager for a clearer shot, exposed himself a trifle too far in taking aim. Without any loss of time in sighting, swift as a lightning-flash, the rifle behind the forked pine spoke. That the bullet reached its mark she saw with a gasp of dismay. For the man suddenly huddled down and rolled over on his side.

His comrades appeared to take warning by this example. The men at both ends of the crescent fell back, and for a minute the girl's heart leaped with the hope that they were about to abandon the siege. Apparently the man in the scarlet kerchief had no such expectation. He deserted his position behind the pine and ran back, crouching low in the brush, to another little clump of trees closer to the bluff. The reason for this was at first not apparent to her, but she understood presently when the men who had fallen back behind the rolling hillocks appeared again well in to the edge of the bluff. Only by his timely retreat had the man saved himself from being outflanked.

It was very plain that the attackers meant to take their time to finish him in perfect safety. He was surrounded on every side by a cordon of rifles, except where the bare face of the butte hung down behind him. To attempt to scale it would have been to expose himself as a mark for every gun to certain death.

It was now that she heard the man who seemed to be directing the attack call out to another on his right. She was too far to make out the words, but their effect was clear to her. He pointed to the brow of the butte above, and a puncher in white woolen chaps dropped back out of range and swung to the saddle upon one of the ponies bunched in the rear. He cantered round in a wide circle and made for the butte. His purpose was obviously to catch their victim in the unprotected rear, and fire down upon him from above.

The young woman shouted a warning, but her voice failed to carry. For a moment she stood with her hands pressed together in despair, then turned and swiftly scudded to her machine. She sprang in, swept forward, reached the rim of the mesa, and plunged down. Never before had she attempted so precarious a descent in such wild haste. The car fairly leaped into space, and after it struck swayed dizzily as it shot down. The girl hung on, her face white and set, the pulse in her temple beating wildly. She could do nothing, as the machine rocked down, but hope against many chances that instant destruction might be averted.