to Tame a Land (1955) by Louis L'amour Read Free Book Online

had stayed the night, and when I went to th e barn for my saddle, he followed along. "I'll go with you," h e said. "Three is better than two."
    Reading their sign was no problem. I'd been livin g too long like an Indian. The three of us rode fast, knowing as we did that they were going clear out of th e country. We could tell that from the direction they took.
    There was nothing that way, nothing at all for miles.
    Hetrick had a fine new rifle, and Kipp was well armed..
    As for me, I still had the old Joslyn .50, although it wa s pretty nigh worn out now. But I knew that old carbin e and could make it talk.
    The thieves took the horses into a stream and followe d it for miles, but that isn't the trick some folks think it is , and it didn't wipe out their trail the way they expected.
    A horse makes a deep track in wet sand and sometimes th e tracks don't wash out very soon.
    So water or not, we held to their trail until they lef t the stream and took out across a sandy flat. From tha t they reached some prairie, but the dew was wet on th e grass and the horses had knocked the grass down an d you could follow it at a rtrot.
    On the fourth day of trailing the thieves had slowe d down. We were coming up fast until we smelled a woo d fire, and then we started walking our horses. We wer e going down a long slope covered with pines when w e saw the branding fire.
    We bunched a little as we neared the fire and the y were busy and didn't see us until a horse whinnied. On e man dropped his branding iron and a thin trail of smok e lifted from the grass where the iron fell.
    There were four of them, four to our three. They stoo d waiting for us as we walked our horses nearer, four toug h looking men from the rough country. One of them was a lean, hatchet-faced man with hair that curled over hi s shirt collar. He had gray-striped trousers tucked into hi s boot tops.
    "Reckon you got the wrong horses," I said.
    The big man with the black beard looked nervously a t the one with the hatchet face. I was watching him, too. H e had a bronco look about him that spelled trouble, an d I could see it plain. He wore his gun tied down and hi s right hand was ready. And they were four to our three.
    "You think so?" Hatchet Face was doing the talking.
    One of the others was an Indian or a breed, a square.- j awed man with a wide face and a beaded vest.
    "The horses belong to Hetrick, here. I broke them all.
    We're taking them back."
    "Are you, now?" Hatchet Face smiled and showed som e teeth missing. "You're a long ways from home, boys, an d we've got the number on you. That means we keep th e horses."
    Kipp and Hetrick were forgotten. I could feel tha t lonely feeling again, the feeling of trouble coming, and o f being poised and ready for it. It was the something tha t happened to me when something was coming up.
    "No," I said, choosing my words careful-like. "Yo u are four to three, but with us it's just one to one."
    Hetrick had a wife and daughter, and I knew he wa s no fighting man, although he would be right with m e when the chips were down. I wanted to keep this shor t and quick, and I had an idea that I might do it b y keeping the fight between the two of us. The other s didn't look ambitious about a shoot-out. Black Bear d would back up quick if he had the chance. The man I' d called was number one and if there was to be a fight, h e would make it.
    His face thinned down, seemed to sharpen. He had no t expected that. There was a quick calculation in his eyes.
    Old Blue walked forward two steps, then stopped. I w as looking right down the muzzle of his courage.
    "Yes," I said it low and straight at him. "You have thi s wrong, Bronco. I'm the man you think you are."
    He measured me, not liking it. "What's that mean?"
    "It means we take our horses. It means if you reach fo r a gun, I'll kill you."
    Never before had I talked like that to any man. No r did I know where the confidence came from, but it wa s there, as it had been when Logan Pollard