Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 04 - Sudden Outlawed(1934) by Oliver Strange Read Free Book Online Page B

Indians
about.”
                 This
was an unanswerable argument and again Sudden had to give in; he was beginning
to realize that here was a young woman who usually got what she wanted. Riding
side by side along the ravine he had an opportunity to study her more closely.
She rode astride, cowboy fashion, and was clearly at home in the saddle, her
slender form swaying in rhythm with the movements of her mount. Her neat
shirt-waist, divided skirt, and riding-boots with tiny silver spurs provided a
costume which showed her youthful figure to advantage. From beneath the
broad-brimmed felt hat peeped rebellious brown curls which the sunlight turned
to copper. He noted the wide-spaced brown eyes, the straight little nose, the
firm but rounded chin, and spoke his thought:
                 “Yu
didn’t oughta be ridin’ alone so far from home.” For a moment he feared she
would resent the remark as an impertinence , and then
she smiled. “I know it. Dad warned me, but I thought the Indians were quiet
now. you see, I have been East, at college, for some
time.”
                 “Injuns
is never quiet till they’re like—him,” the young man said grimly, with a jerk
of his thumb backwards. “I’d oughta got that other; I’ve a hunch I’ll be seein’
him again.”
                 “I
hope I don’t,” the girl said fervently. “I’ll never forget that hideous painted
face. If you hadn’t come …”
                 To
take her away from the subject he mentioned that he too had recently returned
from the East, and she looked at him with a new interest.
                 “Would
you care to live there?” she asked.
                 He
shook his head and smiled. “I couldn’t stand it,” he confessed. “This is my
country; a man can breathe without feel-in’ he’s robbin’ another fella of air;
there’s room for all.”
                 “Except
the Indian,” she said, a little sadly.
                 “Why,
yo’re right,” he agreed. “An’ it’s shorely an odd thought that the time is
comin’ when, in this vast land, there won’t be a place for the men who once
owned it all. When the buffalo an’ the game have gone, the redskin will follow.
                 He
ain’t adaptable; educate him all yu please an’ he’s still a savage at heart.”
                 “A
case of the survival of the fittest?” she suggested.
                 “No,
ma’am,” her companion replied. “The Injun will lie, steal, an’ murder, but if
yo’re his friend he’ll die for yu. Some o’ the white men who are wipin’ him out
will do all them things an’ sell their own kin for a
few dollars. On top o’ that, the red man is a healthy hater.”
                 “You
rate that a virtue?” she said surprisedly.
                 He
nodded, his face—which when he smiled was that of a boy—hard and grim as
granite.
                 The
look warned her that she had plumbed hidden depths and aroused her woman’s
curiosity; in the hope that he would respond in kind, she went on to speak of
herself. He learned that she was not really an Eden, the rancher having adopted
her some years earlier, when the death of her father—his old friend—left her
unprotected.
                 “He
has been very, very good to me,” she finished softly. Her innocent little ruse
proved unsuccessful. He told her his name and that was all. When she ventured a
half-question, she received—as she had feared—only a half-answer:
                 “I’m
just takin’ a look at the country,” he said.
                 “I’m
glad you chose this bit of it to-day,” Carol smiled. “We are near the ranch; I
must prepare for a tongue-lashing from Dad.”
                 “He
needn’t to know,” Sudden pointed out. “Yo’re safe now; I can fade—”