Read Online Over on the Dry Side by Louis L’Amour - Free Book Online

of misty like. Twenty years old.…Lots of married women weren’t that old. Still, she was pretty. Maybe even beautiful.
    Right then I made up my mind. I was going to see for myself. I hadn’t seen no woman in more’n a year.
    Looked like I’d have to be mighty careful. From the way Pa acted, Mac Mowatt must be something fierce. And I’d heard talk of Strawn, myself. An’ he was a killer sure enough.
    When he was in Kansas there was talk of him. He’d killed a man around Abilene, and another on a cattle drive. You heard a lotta stories of such men in them days. Talk went up and down the trails. There wasn’t no newspapers, but where a man stopped there was always somebody with a story to tell. There was talk of trails, gunfighters, Indians and the like, along with talk of wild horses like the famous white pacing stallion. That was a story ever’body heard, in sev’ral different accounts. And stories of mean steers, even the length of their horns, and of horseback rides men had taken.
    Them western horses, mustang stock, were tough and wild. When they run the rough country on their own they’d travel days to water, graze far out from the holes they knew best, and range back to ’em ever’ now and then for a drink.
    Herds them days was big…hundreds of horses runnin’ together, maybe sometimes thousands, and some fine stock among ’em. That surely couldn’t last. Horse-hunters was always weedin’ out the best breedin’ stock for themselves.
    Next day, I give some serious study to Owen Chantry. He was a hard man who’d rode some rough trails, and he shaped up like trouble. Still, the day he nailed that gent’s hand he could have killed him…an’ some would say he should.
    I said it. He looked at me sharply. “I should have, Doby. I’m just a damn fool sometimes. I should have killed him. Because somebody will sure enough have it to do.”
    Then when we were alone outside, he said, “That was a nice thing you did, Doby. Leaving the flowers.”
    Well, I blushed. I never figured him knowing anying about it. “I found the pot, an’…well. I figured she was a lonely woman.…”
    â€œIt was a nice thing to do.” He paused a moment, looking westward across the wild, broken land. “When you ride, Doby, make sure you carry a gun and keep your eyes open. That’s a bad outfit up there.”
    â€œMaybe,” I said.
    He shot me a glance. “You think otherwise?”
    â€œMaybe they’ll get friendly, like.…They’re
her
folks.”
    â€œThey’re not blood-kin.”
    â€œAin’t no matter. I ain’t anxious to shoot nobody.”
    He just looked at me again and walked away to the end of the porch. All I could think of was riding to the mountains again. I was wishful of meeting up with that woman…that girl. I wanted to see for myself.
    We didn’t have much to say, come breakfast. Chantry talked with Pa about bringin’ some good cattle into the country. On the dry side of the mountains like we were, there wasn’t much water, but still, there was enough so cattle could drink, and the forage was pretty good stock feed.
    Same time I was thinkin’ of that girl I was also thinkin’ of that golden treasure Chantry had told us Mowatt believed was there. Owen Chantry took it light, but maybe he was just tryin’ to talk us out of lookin’. Somebody’d gone to a whole lot of trouble if it was just a little thing. Didn’t make sense to me that a growed-up man would set that much store by anything but gold or jewels, like.
    Seemed to me a mighty silly thing that a man would risk his life to save a little old book, maybe nobody but a schoolmarm would put a value on. There just had to be gold up yonder.
    A thought came to me, but I put it quick away. A thought that maybe my dream was replacing the golden-haired girl with a golden treasure