Savage Range Read Online Free PDF Page B

back the sneer on his face when Jim approached.
    â€œI dunno what I’ll do with him when I win him,” he announced to Jim.
    Jim grinned secretly and said, “You give the word.”
    They lined up even, and at Ben Beauchamp’s shout they started off. Sleepy, sensing a race but not quite sure of it, watched the blue shoot off like a skyrocket. Then he got it into his head what it was all about and stretched out. At the halfway mark, he pulled abreast of the blue, and it was then that Jim touched his heels to him. Sleepy was sure then. He settled lower, stretched longer, and was gone, and when they came to the gate he was leading by an easy thirty yards.
    Jim pulled up and waited for Ben to come through the gate. He did, scowling. “Hit a dog hole,” he growled. “Lucky I didn’t break my neck.”
    â€œYou don’t think it was a fair race?”
    â€œOh, I’ll stick by my word,” Ben said.
    â€œGive me that lane and we’ll race back,” Jim suggested.
    Ben agreed and they changed sides. The race back was more uneven than the first. Sleepy was in one of his rare competitive moods, and then apparently decided to run just for the hell of it. He beat the blue by fifty yards this time.
    When Ben rode up alongside Jim, he nodded and said, “He’s better, all right.” He paused, and Jim could see the reluctance in his manner. “Well, that leaves me afoot, don’t it?”
    â€œI reckon,” Jim said.
    â€œLoan me a horse, will you?”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œI’m headin’ back for San Jon.”
    â€œDon’t want the job?”
    Ben looked around the place with a deliberate manner. “I don’t like the outfit so much.”
    â€œWell, so long,” Jim said, reaching out for the blue’s bridle.
    Ben whipped around to regard Jim with surprise. He said, after a pause, “But I got to have a horse. Will you loan me one?”
    â€œNo.”
    Ben stared at him. “Why not?”
    â€œNeed ’em. Besides, you should have thought before you bet.”
    Anger flooded the kid’s face, but he was shrewd, too. All his life he had been the kind of a kid who yelled names at the bigger kids then ducked in the house. It was still his instinct, and he carried it into barrooms or wherever he went. But the look on the face of this tall, gray-eyed Texan halted him. The memory of last night’s beating was a little too fresh.
    He said cautiously, “Suppose I take the job. Will you mount me?”
    Jim nodded.
    â€œAll right. When do I start, then?”
    Jim stifled a smile. “Right now. You’re ridin’ with me. We’re makin’ a five-day ride with ten pounds of jerky for grub.” He pointed. “We head that way, toward the Star 88.”
    This was Ben Beauchamp’s introduction to Jim Wade, and, if Jim was any judge, there would be something on that kid’s face beside a sneer when they got home again.
    To make doubly certain of this, he added, “And I’ll take a bill of sale for that blue, too.”

Chapter Four: CALL ME MASTER
    A man can see a lot of country in five days, and the Ulibarri grant took in a lot of country. Roughly, it was eighty miles long, sixty miles wide, a grant dispensed by a Spanish king who had never seen it, but who hoped the gift of it would serve to keep one of his most bothersome courtiers across the sea.
    By traveling fast and keeping to the ridges, Jim Wade and Ben Beauchamp saw a lot of it. It was an upended country rising to mountains in the north, but if there were rocky mesas, gaunt and boulder-strewn and serving only to make a man ride around them, there were also long sweeps of grassy valleys that ended in timber. It had taken its character from the weather, as all country does, so it was one of violent colors washed by driving rains, hard snows, and pushing winds. Nights, even in late spring, were cold, and it was no pleasure to