Outlaw Breed ebook

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER I

THE history of Philip Slader did not originate on the day when he met the Newells, yet it took a definite turning point at that moment. Looking back for the best time to begin writing the narrative of Phil Slader, this time seems just the day one would want for introducing him.

There was a strong north wind beating sheets of rain against the colder face of Mount Crusoe. From the peaks of the big range, storm vapor came straight out to the south. Over that southern valley the clouds broke off in masses and whirled away toward the gray horizon.

The sun was not totally obscured. It shone through in warm patches and gave many golden moments during which the Newells looked up to the crags of Mount Crusoe and thanked the providence that had directed them to buy their land on the southern side of the range instead of the region of these tempests.

They had come so lately to this section of the land that they had not yet learned that one spoke there of a pitching horse instead of one who bucks. But John Newell knew as much about cows as could well be crowded into one mind, and since he came into the land well provided with funds, there was no doubt that he would succeed. The very first men from whom he bought cows agreed afterward that this was no tenderfoot. He knew beef when he saw it and he knew a right price from a wrong one. However, he began moderately, hesitating to show his hand or commit himself until he learned how cattle wintered in this locality. If all turned out as he hoped, he would invest heavily in the spring. In the meantime, as has been said, he was congratulating himself that he had not bought on the north side of the range. Then the brightness of the day ended; the evening stooped slowly upon them like a shadow leaning from the crests of Mount Crusoe, and with the blackness outside, and the windows trembling and the howling of the storm, they looked often at one another and smiled, half in fear and half in happiness as they tasted the full pleasure of their security.

The fire in the dining room was smoking badly; therefore the dinner table was spread in the kitchen. The family had finished soup and come to boiled beef and cabbage when they heard a knock on the door. Sam Newell, like a boy who knew his duties, rose to answer the summons, but his father called him back to his chair.

“You take a night like this,” muttered John Newell, and he glanced apologetically at his wife, “and you can’t tell who’ll be traveling around.”

As he stepped to the door and turned the knob, the wind struck the house so heavy a blow that the door pitched strongly back to the face of Newell. It left him staggered, half blinded with the force of the gale. He did not see, but he heard his wife crying:

“Why, John, it’s only a boy!”

Then Newell saw that it was only a boy. He was not more than fourteen, certainly, strongly built, and dressed in rags which the gusts of rain had drenched. He made no movement to step inside, but merely tilted his head back a little and looked quietly into the face of the rancher. Newell was startled. They were like the eyes of a man, and not of a young man, either. Such deliberation, such calm power should not lie in the eyes of a man until middle age.

“How’s things?” asked the boy.

“Why, dog-gone my heart!” muttered the rancher, and he took the youngster by the shoulder and pulled him inside.

He closed the door and turned to find the stranger as calm as ever, standing at ease with the water coursing down his clothes. His legs were bare from the knees down, and the smutch of mud, from a recent stumble in the dark, was now washing away from one tanned shin and turning to a muddy puddle around his naked toes.

But what his eyes saw was not the chief interest in the mind of Newell. In the tips of his fingers there was still a tingling feeling of the hard, sinewy muscles with which the shoulder of that boy was overlaid. A trained man, a hard-working man might have muscles like that, but never a child!

“What’s up? What’s up?” gasped out Newell. “Have your folks sent you here for help or something? What’s broke loose to send you out on a night like this, youngster? What brought you here?”

The stranger hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The light,” said he, “and the smell of the chuck.”

Here his glance wavered toward the table with its loaded plates and platters. Then he looked back to his questioner; there was no sign of emotion in him except a faint, faint quivering of his nostrils.

Mrs. Newell stood up in her place. Her voice was rich with indignation directed against the entire human race which had allowed a child to reach such a condition as this. She had seen that glance and she knew hunger when she saw it. What mother does not?

“Sammy!” she cried to her son, “take him up to your room as fast as you can jump and get him into some of your dry clothes. Quick, do you hear me? Don’t stand there like a booby. Nell, fetch another chair here to the table.”

Sammy lurched out of his chair, keeping upon the strange boy the stare of one enchanted. “Come on!” said he. “I’ll fix you up,” he added, as the boy from the outer night stared back, as though not comprehending.

Then he said: “I see. I’m kind of sloppy, ain’t I. Well, I’ll fix that!”

He opened the door behind him and slipped out, and though the wind was raging in a veritable screaming hurricane at that moment, the door was closed against it smoothly, gently. Mr. Newell blinked, for he knew what power of arm and fingers such a feat required.

His wife had clutched him and drawn him apart. “John, John,” she was whispering, “don’t let the children hear–but–did you ever see such a creature in your life?”

“Humph’,” said Newell.

“So wild, I mean,” said his wife, “and such a look–like a little animal.”

“He’s a queer one,” admitted her husband, “but the main thing is that he’s hungry. Feed him up, but I wouldn’t be too strong on giving him a suit of Sammy’s clothes. The clothes might walk away before the morning–Sammy, mind what you’re saying!”

He was squelching a remark of Sammy’s to his sister, to the effect that the stranger was “a funny-looking guy. Barber’s never bothered him any.”

“Aw, dad,” said Sammy, “I know. But look at that hair of his–clean down to his shoulders, and black and all sun-faded at the ends. Never seen such a mop of hair.”

“Saw, Sammy, not seen,” corrected his mother absently.

“Of course, we have to make the best of it,” she whispered to her spouse. “But couldn’t we send the children upstairs?”

“Rot!” said her husband. “The kid ain’t poison, is he? He’s not typhoid fever, I hope! Don’t be so finicky about your kids, mother!”

There was no chance for further discussion. The door was deftly opened and shut, and in the brief intermission, the stranger snapped into the room with a deft, gliding movement. You would not have said that he jumped. Few jumps could have meant such swift motion. He pointed to his clothes.

“They ain’t dripping now,” said he, “if that’s what bothered you, ma’am.”

“Gracious me!” cried Mrs. Newell. “The child has wrung them out. What an idea! Young man, would you sit all evening in sopping clothes like those?”

“Me? I’ve done it a million times, pretty near!” said the boy.

“Heavens!” exclaimed Mrs. Newell. “How could you?”

“Why, I’ve got a thick skin, I guess,” said the youngster.

She appealed to her husband with a desperate side glance.

“Let him have his own way,” said the rancher, more than a little relieved. “Sit yourself down here next to the stove, son.”

“Thanks,” said the boy, “but I fit in here pretty good. If you don’t mind, none.”

He drew the chair around to the farthest and the coldest corner of the table and there he sat down. Mrs. Newell began a noisy protest, but her husband stopped her. He himself had lived in rough countries and among rough men most of his life, and he understood. The place which the stranger had chosen, faced the door!

Something, therefore, was pursuing him. What could that be? If he were a runaway, from what home had this bundle of rags come? On this the rancher pondered while his wife heaped the plate of the waif. Mrs. Newell, feeling that she had been guilty of inhospitable thoughts, covered the breach with much talk.

“Sammy,” she said, “reach our new friend the bread plate.”

“I can reach,” said the waif. Extending a half-naked arm he transfixed the heel of the loaf with his hunting knife and transferred it to his plate.

Mrs. Newell was a little staggered, but she went on: “And give him the salt, Nelly. And you might find something to say to him!”

“I can’t see his face to talk to him,” said Nelly, aged eleven. “He hasn’t taken his hat off!”

Here the youngster removed his hat with the dignity of an Indian chief, wiped his long, sun-discolored hair back from his face, and fell to the serious work of eating. Now that the wide-brimmed felt hat no longer sloped across his face, the Newells saw eyes as black as the hair and the neck and chin and straight-lipped mouth of a man. They had hardly a chance to observe these features, they were so taken by the methods of eating which the stranger put in practice. The bread was used as a helpful wedge by which large quantities were piled upon the hunting knife and transferred to the waiting mouth with an admirable sense of balance, until Sammy broke into a peal of laughter.

“Sammy!” cried his mother.

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