Savage Range Read Online Free PDF Page A

coldly. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this man. “Word’s about in San Jon that when you blow in somethin’ is goin’ to happen.”
    Again Jim nodded.
    â€œWell, it ain’t,” the sheriff announced flatly.
    Jim’s mouth started to turn up at the corners, and then a change came over his face. It became perfectly sober, respectful, but there were small dancing lights in his eyes.
    â€œI wish I’d known that,” Jim drawled, his voice rueful.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat a man like you was sheriff,” Jim said. “They told me there was a rat-eaten old fool for sheriff here. Somebody lied to me.”
    â€œWho told you that?” the sheriff demanded hotly.
    â€œA lady.”
    â€œA lady? Couldn’t of been. Know her name?”
    â€œWhy, I thought she said it was Mrs. Link Haynes,” Jim murmured. “Maybe I’m wrong.”
    Color crept into the sheriff’s face, and he opened his mouth to speak, then shut it in a grim line. He glared at Jim’s perfectly innocent face.
    â€œI’ve heard about you,” he announced. “They tell me you got a reputation in Dodge and the other trail towns for bein’ the gent that always leads the hardcases in treein’ the town. That right?”
    Jim looked shyly at the sheriff and made a coy half circle with his boot sole in the dust. “I was young then, sir,” he said modestly.
    The yellow in the sheriff’s face was flushed out by the red. He was about to get really angry.
    â€œLet me tell you somethin’, Wade,” he said angrily. “This was a good country up till now. It’ll be a damn sight better when you’re out of it. And I aim to run you out.”
    Jim’s tone changed immediately. “Do you, now?” he drawled.
    â€œI do. First time you step over the line in any way, the first time I have a complaint agin you, you better ride. North or south, it don’t matter which.”
    â€œOr you’ll be chasin’ me?” Jim murmured.
    â€œI will.”
    Jim said quietly, “I heard you. Now you want a little advice?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou’ll get some, anyway,” Jim went on. “In the first place, my old pappy told me never to make a brag unless I could make it stick. You’ve made a brag that won’t stick, Sheriff, because you or your ten twins couldn’t run me out of this county. You couldn’t run me out of anything, not even tobacco.”
    The sheriff just stared.
    â€œIn the second place,” Jim went on, “I don’t like the way you do business. Why, you’re the very gent that brought me here.”
    â€œThat’s a lie!” Sheriff Haynes said.
    â€œThink,” Jim reminded him. “If you’d been any kind of a lawman at all, you’d know a few elementary laws you got to enforce. One of ’em is protection of private property. The Ulibarri grant is private property, but it’s bein’ trespassed on. The owners don’t like it. If you was a decent sheriff with any sand in your craw, you’d run the squatters off. Instead of that, you try to run the owners off. Is that right?”
    â€œThey got here first!”
    â€œDid they ever pay any lease money?”
    â€œNobody ever paid any lease money,” Sheriff Haynes said emphatically. “Why, even when Mr. Buckner—he was the last of the Ulibarri blood that lived here—was here nobody paid any lease money. He never ranched, but he never gave a hang if other people did. This was open range then, and I aim to keep it so.”
    â€œIt don’t matter to you that it’s been bought by this outfit?”
    Link Haynes sneered. “Nobody but a renegade cowman likes a company outfit. They make a livin’ by hoggin’ range from honest men who need it!”
    â€œAnd you’ll help these—honest men?”
    â€œAs far as I can,” Haynes said