Page 7 (1/1)

With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office to the porch, where public opinion ont to for for the mail to be distributed Here twice a week it had sat for ment, condeht its aoods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted down to convictions Froossip of Cattleland was scattered far and wide

Weaver filled the doorhile he drew on his gauntlets He was the owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle coo, while still a boy of eighteen, he had begun in a small way The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his own ruthlessly by adroitSoht out; others he had driven away Those that survived were at a respectable distance from him Only the settlers in the hills reits social, business, and political activities

"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle

"That's the way Ji it, Mr Weaver Another nester ho tobacco with a noncoht smart settlement up near the headwaters of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder The cow business is getting to be a hty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly

The others laughed, but with small merrie riders whose living depended on the business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers Most of the ways But they did not usually tell him so On this particular subject, too, they joined hand with hiht, Mr Weaver It ce'tainly arette and lit it Like the rest he was in the coarb of the plains The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an untempered sun But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, reckless and yet wary