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AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE RIDER OF THE RUBY HILLS
OFTEN THE MOST beautiful parts of western states are only to be found far from highways; a casual traveler can pass through, say, Arizona or Nevada, without being able to see much of what the areas have to offer. For example, in Arizona the great pine forests of the White Mountain area, their running, rushing streams and wild game, lie hidden away from major highways, although the roads through them are usually excellent.
Monument Valley, the San Francisco Mountains, and other places, also lie off the highways.
In Nevada, the beautiful Ruby Mountains lie somewhat to the south of Elko and its highway. The Rubies soar up to 11,000 feet, with several beautiful lakes and the waterfalls of Lamoille Canyon. It is lovely, inspiring country, and every pass and every canyon has its story of Indians, mining, and cattle, of lost mines, buried treasure, and gun battles.
THE RIDER OF THE RUBY HILLS
CHAPTER I
Losing Bet
THERE WAS A lonely place where the trail ran up to the sky. It turned sharply left on the very point of a lofty promontory overlooking the long sweep of the valley below. Here the trail offered to the passerby a vision at this hour. Rosy-tipped peaks and distant purple mountains could be seen, beyond the far reach of the tall grass range.
Upon the very lip of the rocky shelf sat a solitary horseman. He was a man tall in the saddle, astride a strangely marked horse. Its head was held high; its ears were pricked forward with attention riveted upon the valley, as though in tune with the thoughts of its rider—thoughts that said there lay a new country, with new dangers, new rewards, and new trails.
The rider was a tall man, narrow hipped and powerful of chest and shoulder. His features were blunt and rugged, so that a watcher might have said, “Here is a man who is not handsome, but a fighter.” Yet he was good-looking in his own hard, confident way. He looked now upon this valley as Cortez might have looked upon the Valley of Mexico.
He came alone and penniless, but he did not come as one seeking favors. He did not come hunting a job. He came as a conqueror.
For Ross Haney had made his decision. At twenty-seven he was broke. He sat in the middle of all he owned, a splendid Appaloosa gelding, a fine California saddle, a .44 Winchester rifle, and two walnut-stocked Colt .44 pistols. These were his all. Behind him was a life that had taken him from a cradle in a covered wagon to the hurricane deck of many a hardheaded bronc.
It was a life that had left him rich in experience but poor in goods of the world. The experience was the hard-fisted experience of hard winters, dry ranges, and the dusty bitterness of cattle drives. He had fought Comanches and rustlers, hunted buffalo and horse thieves. Now he had decided that it all had brought him nothing but grief and more riding. Now he was going to ride for himself, to fight for himself.
His keen dark eyes from under the flat black brim of his hat studied the country below with a speculative glint. His judgment of terrain would have done credit to a general, and in his own way Ross Haney was a general. His arrival in the Ruby Valley country was, in its way, an invasion.
HE WAS A young man with a purpose. He did not want wealth but a ranch, a well-watered ranch in a good stock country. That his pockets were empty did not worry him, for he had made up his mind, and as men had discovered before this, Ross Haney with his mind made up was a force to be reckoned with.
Nor was he riding blind into a strange land. Like a good tactician he had gathered his information carefully, judged the situation, the terrain, and the enemy before he began his move.
This was new country to him, but he knew the landmarks and the personalities. He knew the strength and the weakness of its rulers, knew the economic factors of their existence, knew the stresses and the strains within it. He knew that he rode into a valley at war—that blood had been shed and that armed men rode its trails day and night. Into this land he rode a man alone, determined to have his own from the country, come what may, letting the chips fall where they might.
With a movement of his body he turned the gelding left down the trail into the pines, a trail where at this late hour it would soon be dark, a trail somber, majestic in its stillness under the columned trees.
As he moved under the trees, he removed his hat and rode slowly. It was a good country, a country where a man could live and grow, and where if he was lucky, he might have sons to grow tall and straight beside him. This he wanted. He wanted no longer the far horizons. He wanted his own hearth fire, the creak of his own pump, the heads of his own horses looking over the gate bars for his hand to feed them. He wanted peace, and for it he came to a land at war.
A flicker of light caught his eye, and the faint smell of wood smoke. He turned the gelding toward the fire, and when he was near, he swung down. The sun’s last rays lay bright through the pines upon this spot. The earth was trampled by hoofs, and in the fire itself the ashes were gray but for one tiny flame that thrust a bright spear upward from the end of a stick.
Studying the scene, his eyes held for an instant on one place where the parched grass had been blackened in a perfect ring.
His eyes glinted with hard humor. “A cinch ring artist. Dropped her there to cool and she singed the grass. A pretty smooth gent, I’d say.”
Not slick enough, of course. A smarter man or a less confident one would have pulled up that handful of blackened grass and tossed it into the flames.
There had been two men here, his eyes told him. Two men and two horses. One of the men had been a big man with small feet. The impressions of his feet were deeper and he had mounted the larger horse.
Curiously, he studied the scene. This was a new country for him and it behooved a man to know the local customs. He grinned at the thought. If cinch ring branding was one of the local customs, it was a strange one. In most sections of the country the activity was frowned upon, to say the least. If an artist was caught pursuing his calling, he was likely to find himself at the wrong end of a hair rope with nothing under his feet.
The procedure was simple enough. One took a cinch ring from his own saddle gear and holding it between a couple of sticks, used it when red hot like any other branding iron. A good hand with a cinch ring could easily duplicate any known brand, depending only upon his degree of skill.
Ross rolled and lighted a smoke. If he were found on the spot it would require explaining, and at the moment he had no intention of explaining anything. He swung his leg over the saddle and turned the gelding down trail once more.
Not three miles away lay the cow town known as Soledad. To his right and about six miles away was an imposing cluster of buildings shaded beneath a splendid grove of old cotton- woods. Somewhat nearer, and also well shaded, was a smaller ranch.
Beyond the rocky ridge that stretched an anxious finger into the lush valley was Walt Pogue’s Box N spread.
THE FARTHER RANCH belonged to Chalk Reynolds, his RR outfit being easily the biggest in the Ruby Hills country. The nearer ranch belonged to Bob and Sherry Vernon.
“When thieves fall out,” Ross muttered aloud, “honest men get their dues. Or that’s what they say. Now I’m not laying any claim to being so completely honest, but there’s trouble brewing in this valley. When the battle smoke blows away, Ross Haney is going to be top dog on one of these ranches.
“They’ve got it all down there. They have range, money, power. They have gunhands riding for them, but you and me, Rio, we’ve only got each other.”
He was a lone wolf on the prowl. Down there they ran in packs, and he would circle the packs, alone. When the moment came, he would close in.
“There’s an old law, Rio, that only the strong survive,” he said. “Those ranches belong to men who were strong, and some of them still are. They were strong enough to take them from other men, from smaller men, weaker men. That’s the story of Reynolds and Pogue. They rustled cows until they grew big, and now they sit on the housetops and crow. Or they did, until they began fightin’ one another.”
“Your reasoning,” the cool, quiet voice was feminine, “is logical, but dangerous. I might suggest that when you talk to your horse, you should be sure his are the only ears!”
She sat well in the saddle, poised and alert. There was a quirk of humor at the corners of her mouth and nothing of coyness or fear in her manner. Every inch of her showed beauty, care, and consideration of appearances that was new to him, but beneath it there was both fire and steel—and quality.
“That’s good advice,” he agreed, measuring her with his eyes. “Very good advice.”
“Now that you’ve looked me over,” she suggested coolly, “would you like to examine my teeth for age?”
He grinned, unabashed. “No, but now that I’ve looked you over I’d say you are pretty much of a woman. The kind that’s made for a man!”
She returned his glance and then smiled as if the remark had pleased her. So she changed the subject. “Just which ranch do you plan to be top dog on when the fighting is over?”
“I haven’t decided,” he said frankly. “I’m a right choosy sort of man when it comes to horses, ranches, and women!”
“Yes?” She glanced at the gelding. “I’d say your judgment of horses isn’t obvious by that one. Not that he isn’t well shaped, and I imagine he could run, but you could do better.”
“I doubt it.” He glanced at her fine, clean-limbed Thoroughbred. “I’d bet a little money he can outrun that beauty of yours, here to Soledad.”
Her eyes flashed. “Why, you idiot! Flame is the fastest horse in this country. He comes of racing stock!”
“I don’t doubt it,” Haney agreed. “He’s a fine horse. But I’ll bet my saddle against a hundred dollars that this Appaloosa will kick dust in his face before we get to Soledad!”
She laughed scornfully, and her head came up. “You’re on!” she cried, and her red horse gave a great bound and hit the trail running. That jump gave the bay the start, but Ross knew his gelding.
