Over on the Dry Side Read Online Free Page A

time. That somebody could see our ranch right easy. It was miles away but the air was mountain clear, and you could see the ranch plain as day.
    By now I was three miles or more from where I’d come up against the two trouble-hunters, and I’d followed no trail to get here. Yet I knew there must be a trail. Maybe more than one.
    I scouted around the place, around the clearing. Now nobody ever said I couldn’t read sign, and by the time I’d finished and set down on that bench I knowed a thing or two.
    It was a girl or woman who come here, and she didn’t come often, but when she did she set awhile. I found no tracks but hers…not even horse tracks.
    She must have come by horse. She’d likely left it back in the brush somewheres. This was a deserted, lonely place, and it looked to me like the girl who come here liked to be alone.
    Was it the selfsame girl who’d been to Chantry’s place? I had me a feelin’ it was. From here she could see the Chantry place clear.
    Maybe, when she came here, she watched and got curious to see who was living on the Chantry place.
    Maybe.
    Whoever built this cabin had known what he was doin’, anyway. The land sloped gently away in front of the cabin for a hundred yards, and where the grass ended against the trees there were some tall old pines that make it unlikely anybody could see the cabin from way down below, even with powerful glasses.
    There was water. And beyond the pines the mountain fell clean away down through timber where no horse could go, nor a man climb up without a good struggle. Behind, there was forest that swelled up into the mountain. A trail could lead off somewhere right or left of that swell.
    Suddenly I had me a idea. That woman had cleared up this place and left flowers. She liked the place and she liked it neat. I figgered to let her know somebody was about who liked what she had done. Who liked what she liked.
    Under one eave of the house I found a small Indian pot. I taken it, rinsed it good, and half-filled it with water. Then I went down the slope and picked some flowers and put them in the water. This I left on the table where she’d be sure to see it.
    Then I scouted for a trail to go back down and found one. It was a faint trail, but it had seen some use, time to time. First off, I looked for sign. Whatever there was seemed to be maybe a week old. I followed along, studying tracks. It was a horse that weighed no more than eight hundred pound, but with a nice, even pace. And the woman who rode that horse was small, ’cause I saw the hoof tracks when the horse was unmounted and after, and her weight didn’t make hardly a single bit of difference.
    Now I knew that trail led somewhere, and I had me a idea it led right to where those two men had come from, who braced me on the trail. So once I spotted the direction the trail taken, I moved into the timber and hightailed it for the Chantry place. To home.
    Pa was out near the barn and he looked up when I come in. “First time you ever come home without meat, boy. What’s the matter? Didn’t you see nothin’?”
    â€œNever got a good shot,” I said. “Next time it’ll be different.”
    â€œWe got to have meat, son. I’ll take a walk down the meadow, come sundown. Sometimes there’s a deer feedin’ down thataway.”
    Chantry come out on the steps. He threw me a quick, hard look. He’d dusted off his black suit and polished his boots with a rag. He stood there on the steps, looking toward the mountains while I filled a bucket of water for the house. We all kept busy for a while, even Chantry, with his thoughts.
    It was coming up to sundown now, and when Pa took his rifle and started off, Chantry just stood there watching him go. “He’s a good man, your father is,” he said. “A real good man.”
    â€œYessir. We’ve had us some hard luck.”
    â€œThis is rough country,” Chantry