SMOKE OF THE .45

September had come and gone, leaving the desert brown and somber against the graying sage. The first of the cold rains had fallen. Round-up time was past. The cattle left in the hills were moving down to lower pastures. Unerringly they sensed the brief Indian summer yet to come, which would turn the grasses green for a few brief days before the cold, snow-bringing winds of late October were upon them.

There was that in the air on the range which said the year's work was over.... The world was waiting. But in the little towns plumped down beside the shining rails of the Espee and the Western Pacific, all was activity and bustle. The steer shipping was on and the held-over wool clip was going aboard the cars. It was the harvest time of the mountain desertthe pay day of the range.

Pockets were well lined. There had been faminedays on end of hard work, of no spending. Now was the time of plenty, of satisfied appetites. Winnemucca, Golconda, Elko, Halleck, Standing Rock, in the heart of Ruby Valleythey were all alikeboisterous, turbulent, prosperous; save that Standing Rock, newer than its sister towns, was more boisterous, more continuously turbulent, and less concerned with its future prosperity.

And yet there was one who entered its hospitable gates this late afternoon who seemed untouched by its gayety. His eyes, screwed into the perpetual squint of the true desert breed, viewed Standing Rock's activities with apparent unconcern. It was an old story to him. He knew the desert's little ways!

His coming caused no comment. And this, despite the fact that his clothes were of an almost forgotten cut, popular in the days when Dodge City reaped its harvest from the great northward trek of the longhorns.

The Big Trek is a thing of the past; the trail itself lost, forgotten. Dodge City has long since settled down to most proper respectability. And those hard-fisted, quick-shooting men who squandered their wealth and lives, there, along the way from Santa Fe, have departed to that limbo from which none return.

But a practiced eye would have said that the man who rode into Standing Rock this day was of that crew. His face was a fighting face, withal he was on in years, gray hair closely snugged to his head. In other days he had been a rugged man; but there was a sadness upon him now, a wistfulness in the eyes, that softened his boldly chiseled features.

That he moved unnoticed is proof again that our one cosmopolitan zone has ever been the great West. Spurs, bridle, saddlebags, reata, even the big, high-stepping stallion which he rode were foreign to northern Nevada. That they were Spanish or Mexicanthe difference is slight in the Westno one cared a hoot. The desert is wide. Men have a habit of coming long distances, and from strange places. And bestfar best of alla man's business was his own business!

The two trunk lines paralleled each other in passing through the town. In the short half mile between them, Standing Rock took form; half finished, half painteda one-street town of one story buildings making a brave show with their Cripple Creek fronts.

Dettagli