FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117  
118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>   >|  
o, having gained three years by good behavior, Kit was released, after having served fourteen years. However Kit may still hanker for "a big, fat, four-year-old, long-horned bank roll," and whatever may be his curiosity to "do 'Frisco proper," it is not likely he will make any more history as a train robber, for at heart Kit was always a better "good man" than "bad man." CHAPTER VIII CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS Cowboys were seldom respecters of the feelings of their fellows. Few topics were so sacred or incidents so grave they were not made the subject of the rawest jests. Leading a life of such stirring adventure that few days passed without some more or less serious mishap, reckless of life, unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the smallest trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects of chaff and badinage till the next diverting occurrence. But to the Cross Canon outfit Mat Barlow's love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright worship, an all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a way, and all unknown to her, she became the nearest thing to a religion the Cross Canonites ever had. Eight years before Mat had come among them a green tenderfoot from a South Missouri village, picked up in Durango by Tom McTigh, the foreman, on a glint of the eye and set of the jaw that suggested workable material. Nor was McTigh mistaken. Mat took to range work like a duck to water. Within a year he could rope and tie a mossback with the best, and in scraps with Mancos Jim's Pah-Ute horse raiders had proved himself as careless a dare-devil as the oldest and toughest trigger-twitcher of the lot. But persuade and cajole as much as they liked, none of the outfit were ever able to induce Mat to pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the details incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old past-masters in the classics of cowboy town deportment, expert light shooters, monte players, dance-hall beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye riot-starters labored faithfully with Mat, but, all to no purpose. To town with them he went, but with them in their debauches he never joined; indeed as a rule he even refused to discuss such incidents with them academically. Thus he delicately but plainly made it known to the outfit that he proposed to keep his mind as clean as his conduct. Such a curiosity as Mat was naturally closely studied. The combined intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117  
118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

outfit

 

incidents

 

McTigh

 

cowboy

 

curiosity

 
naturally
 

trigger

 

toughest

 

Mancos

 
closely

twitcher

 
scraps
 

mossback

 

proved

 

careless

 

raiders

 

oldest

 

conduct

 

trained

 

suggested


workable

 

Durango

 

foreman

 

material

 

Within

 

mistaken

 

intelligence

 

combined

 

studied

 

cajole


players

 
shooters
 

refused

 

deportment

 

expert

 
crookers
 

joined

 

purpose

 

faithfully

 

starters


labored

 

classics

 

discuss

 

pursue

 

induce

 

education

 
proposed
 

debauches

 

persuade

 

details