Wayward Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B

new thing for him, and he was still somewhat leery of the stranger; but he was of the
     opinion that you could measure a man’s worth by the way he treated his horse or his dog. The horse was a sorrel with a light
     mane and tail. It was deep chested, had strong legs and powerful haunches. Cooper prided himself on being knowledgeable about
     horse flesh, and he realized that this was a damn good horse. But what would a squatter be doing with such a valuable animal?
     They usually rode broken-down old cayuses.
    With his bedroll tied on behind his saddle, Cooper mounted and rode out without a backward glance. Ordinarily he didn’t turn
     his back on a stranger, but he was sure the man was without a weapon. He heard the creak of saddle leather and the soft thud
     of hooves on the dry grass and knew Griffin was following.
    Cooper rode cautiously along the dim trail at the edge of the timber. It was rugged, lonely country where the spruce and pine
     clung to the hillside that sloped to the river. He’d been across the mountains into Utah Territory, bought a few horses, and
     sold all of them, except for a beautiful little mare, to a Mormon heading for the Salt Lake. He’d gotten a damn good price
     and was satisfied with the profit he’d made, which was as much or more than he’d have made if he’d driven them to Junction
     City. The mare, whom he’d put to his stallion, Roscoe, would produce fine colts.
    He still couldn’t understand how he could have been so careless as to let the mare be taken right out from under his nose.
     He’d staked her out in a small meadow to graze while he and Roscoe went down to the riverbank to catch a fish. He’d been on
     the trail two weeks. The mare, who was in foal, was growing gaunt, and he was getting mighty tired of rabbit and deer meat.
     When he went to look for her after he had eaten his fill of river trout and had had a leisurely nap, she was gone. The rope
     and the halter lay where he’d left her.
    When he couldn’t find a print other than that of the mare, he was sure she had been stolen by a lone Indian. It had taken
     him the rest of the day and part of the next to pick up the mare’s trail after he lost it in the river. Whoever had taken
     her had been cagey. The riders had left marks on the rocks when they left the river, traveled up into the hills, then doubled
     back and jumped the horse back into the water. Of course it had taken Cooper several hours to figure this out. By the time
     he’d discovered where they had emerged from the river again, it was almost dark and he was forced to stop for the night.
    Cooper didn’t stop until after he had worked his way upward among the pines for several miles. He had come out from under
     the trees and now he turned to survey the area. He was backed to several large craggy boulders set among the trees, and there
     was an open space in front of him. It was unlikely anyone could sneak up on them, especially if Roscoe was close by. Mountain
     bred, with strong survival instincts, the horse would let him know if as much as a rabbit came near. Cooper dismounted and
     began to remove Roscoe’s saddle.
    Griffin pulled up a dozen yards away, sat his mount and waited. He made no move to get off his horse and Cooper’s lips quirked
     in a grin. The man was trail wise. He was waiting for an invitation to share the camp, observing the strict etiquette of the
     trail that proclaimed a man’s camp was his home.
    “Get down, Griffin. We should be able to catch a few winks of sleep here without anybody slipping up on us. I doubt Dunbar
     and his bunch will come back before morning. He’ll not want to make the trip down that trail alone. And I don’t think his
     men had much of a stomach for the hanging.”
    Holding his shoulders and neck stiffly erect, Griffin slid from the saddle, removed it and threw it on the ground. “A man
     feels naked out here without a gun,” he commented uneasily.
    “I understand the feeling. You’re