Man Size

William Macleod Raine

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• Publié par: chuif
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 57
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Man Size, by
William MacLeod Raine
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Title: Man Size
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Release Date: December 8, 2003 [eBook #10404]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK MAN SIZE***
E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock,
Josephine Paolucci, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
MAN-SIZEBY
WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
AUTHOR OF
THE BIG-TOWN ROUND UP,
OH, YOU TEX! ETC
1922
TO
CAPTAIN SIR CECIL E. DENNY, BART.
OF THE FIRST THREE HUNDRED RIDERS OF
THE PLAINS
WHO CARRIED LAW INTO THE LONE LANDSAND MADE THE SCARLET AND GOLD
A SYNONYM FOR
JUSTICE, INTEGRITY, AND INDOMITABLE
PLUCKCONTENTS
I. IN THE DANGER ZONE
II. THE AMAZON
III. ANGUS McRAE DOES HIS DUTY
IV. THE WOLFERS
V. MORSE JUMPS UP TROUBLE
VI. "SOMETHING ABOUT THESE GUYS"
VII. THE MAN IN THE SCARLET JACKET
VIII. AT SWEET WATER CREEK
IX. TOM MAKES A COLLECTION
X. A CAMP-FIRE TALE
XI. C.N. MORSE TURNS OVER A LEAF
XII. TOM DUCKS TROUBLEXIII. THE CONSTABLE BORES THROUGH
DIFFICULTIES
XIV. SCARLET-COATS IN ACTION
XV. KISSING DAY
XVI. A BUSINESS DEAL
XVII. A BOARD CREAKS
XVIII. A GUN ROARS
XIX. "D' YOU WONDER SHE HATES ME?"
XX. ONISTAH READS SIGN
XXI. ON THE FRONTIER OF DESPAIR
XXII. "MY DAMN PRETTY LI'L' HIGH-STEPPIN'
SQUAW"
XXIII. A FORETASTE OF HELL
XXIV. WEST MAKES A DECISION
XXV. FOR THE WEE LAMB LOSTXXVI. A RESCUE
XXVII. APACHE STUFF
XXVIII. "IS A' WELL WI' YOU, LASS?"
XXIX. NOT GOING ALONE
XXX. "M" FOR MORSE
XXXI. THE LONG TRAIL
XXXII. A PICTURE IN A LOCKET
XXXIII. INTO THE LONE LAND
XXXIV. THE MAN-HUNTERS READ SIGN
XXXV. SNOW-BLIND
XXXVI. THE WILD BEAST LEAPS
XXXVII. NEAR THE END OF A LONG CROOKED
TRAIL
XXXVIII. OVER A ROTTING TRAIL
XXXIX. A CREE RUNNER BRINGS NEWSXL. "MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T-EN GUERRE"
XLI. SENSE AND NONSENSE
XLII. THE IMPERATIVE URGE
CHAPTER I
IN THE DANGER ZONE
She stood on the crown of the hill, silhouetted
against a sky-line of deepest blue. Already the sun
was sinking in a crotch of the plains which rolled to
the horizon edge like waves of a great land sea. Its
reflected fires were in her dark, stormy eyes. Its
long, slanted rays were a spotlight for the tall, slim
figure, straight as that of a boy.
The girl's gaze was fastened on a wisp of smoke
rising lazily from a hollow of the crumpled hills.
That floating film told of a camp-fire of buffalo
chips. There was a little knitted frown of worry onher forehead, for imagination could fill in details of
what the coulée held: the white canvas tops of
prairie schooners, some spans of oxen grazing
near, a group of blatant, profane whiskey-
smugglers from Montana, and in the wagons a
cargo of liquor to debauch the Bloods and Piegans
near Fort Whoop-Up.
Sleeping Dawn was a child of impulse. She had all
youth's capacity for passionate indignation and
none of the wisdom of age which tempers the
eager desire of the hour. These whiskey-traders
were ruining her people. More than threescore
Blackfeet braves had been killed within the year in
drunken brawls among themselves. The plains
Indians would sell their souls for fire-water. When
the craze was on them, they would exchange furs,
buffalo robes, ponies, even their wives and
daughters for a bottle of the poison.
In the sunset glow she stood rigid and resentful,
one small fist clenched, the other fast to the barrel
of the rifle she carried. The evils of the trade came
close to her. Fergus McRae still carried the gash
from a knife thrust earned in a drunken brawl. It
was likely that to-morrow he would cut the trail of
the wagon wheels and again make a bee-line for
liquor and trouble. The swift blaze of revolt found
expression in the stamp of her moccasined foot.
As dusk fell over the plains, Sleeping Dawn moved
forward lightly, swiftly, toward the camp in the
hollow of the hills. She had no definite purpose
except to spy the lay-out, to make sure that herfears were justified. But through the hinterland of
her consciousness rebellious thoughts were racing.
These smugglers were wholly outside the law. It
was her right to frustrate them if she could.
Noiselessly she skirted the ridge above the coulée,
moving through the bunch grass with the wary care
she had learned as a child in the lodges of the
tribe.
Three men crouched on their heels in the glow of a
camp-fire well up the draw. A fourth sat at a little
distance from them riveting a stirrup leather with
two stones. The wagons had been left near the
entrance of the valley pocket some sixty or seventy
yards from the fire. Probably the drivers, after they
had unhitched the teams, had been drawn deeper
into the draw to a spot more fully protected from
the wind.
While darkness gathered, Sleeping Dawn lay in the
bunch grass with her eyes focused on the camp
below. Her untaught soul struggled with the
problem that began to shape itself. These men
were wolfers, desperate men engaged in a
nefarious business. They paid no duty to the British
Government. She had heard her father say so.
Contrary to law, they brought in their vile stuff and
sold it both to breeds and tribesmen. They had no
regard whatever for the terrible injury they did the
natives. Their one intent was to get rich as soon as
possible, so they plied their business openly and
defiantly. For the Great Lone Land was still a
wilderness where every man was a law to himself.