Arizona Clan by Zane Grey

Author:Zane Grey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Reading Essentials
Published: 1958-07-30T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Next morning at dawn Dodge was surprised to meet Uncle Bill at the barn saddling a horse. A blanket and rifle lay on a stump.

“Mawnin’, Dodge. Was you goin’ somewheres again?” he asked facetiously.

“Howdy, old-timer, guess I was,” replied Dodge with a laugh.

“Wal, this time you ain’t goin alone. Besides, I reckon I know about whar thet moonshine still is,” he said significantly. “We might as well make a call down thar on our way to wherever you was headin’.”

“Lead on, Uncle Bill. You caught me in the act so you lead the party.” Dodge laughed again. He had been with Texans before. They rode off together into the forest, munching a scant breakfast in the saddle.

The sun had not risen, though the black fringe of the Rim was changing to rose. Frost showed on stumps and peeled logs, and the purple maples, the red sumach, the bronze and green sycamores attested to the arrival of autumn.

They followed the stream trail down to lower country, where the pines failed and the richness of the forest ceased. Soon the stream entered a brush-walled gully, which grew gradually into the proportions of a canyon. Wild turkey and deer fled before the steady clip-clop of the horses.

“Here’s where we climb,” announced the Texan, pointing to a yellow wall opposite. They crossed the amber stream for the last time and took to a zigzag trail up a dusty oak-thicketed ridge, and climbed up into the sunshine, and higher, to a point where Dodge began to see the bold Bald Ridges. But soon that view was lost and Dodge had a long, hot ride up and down, and always walled in by scrub oak and manzanita and cactus. Then they mounted by a roundabout way to cedar and piñon groves, out of which they rode at last upon a rocky, scaly bare ridge that appeared to wind and slope for miles down into a blue void. Beyond this and above rose the bald faces of higher ridges that wound and sloped down from the opposite direction.

Dodge was riding into the country which from far above had struck him so forcibly. Next to the singular bare ridges what affected him most was the size of the country. These ridges were miles long, and the gorges between were wide and deep, and both sloped down into a dark, bronze-walled fastness.

Uncle Bill saw the country from a different point of view.

“Hell of a range fer stock, but jest look at the grass,” he remarked. “This here was Rock’s range till Hathaway got it.”

“Say, you could run ten thousand head of cattle here!” ejaculated Dodge, amazed.

“Shore. An’, Dodge, right here I’ll spring my idee on you. Let’s me an’ you throw in with the Lilleys. Steve an’ Nan will be strong fer it. I’ll go home an’ close out my cattle bizness. Come back an’ take root fer good.”

“Hits me right,” said Dodge heartily. “I’ve some money, enough to start in with a hundred head. Old-timer, it’s a great idea.

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