THE DEAD-LINE

Jack Hartwell’s place was not of sufficient importance in Lo Lo Valley to be indicated by a brand name. It was a little four-room, rough-lumber and tar-paper shack, half buried in a clump of cottonwoods on the bank of Slow Elk Creek.

The house had been built several years before by a man named Morgan, who had the mistaken idea that a nester might be welcome on the Lo Lo range. He had moved in quietly, built his shack, and—then the riders from Marsh Hartwell’s Arrow outfit had seen his smoke.

Whether or not Marsh Hartwell legally owned the property made no difference; he claimed it. And few men cared to dispute Marsh Hartwell. At any rate, it was proved that a nester was not welcome on the Arrow.

It was an August afternoon. Only a slight breeze moved the dry leaves of the cottonwoods, and the air was resonant with the hum of insects. Molly Hartwell, Jack Hartwell’s wife, stood on the unshaded front steps of the house, looking down across the valley, which was hazy with the heat waves.

Mrs. Hartwell was possibly twenty years of age, tall, slender; a decided brunette of the Spanish type, although there was no Spanish blood in her ancestry. She was the kind of woman that women like to say mean things about; and try to make themselves believe them.

The married men of the Lo Lo mentally compared her with their women-folk; while the single men, most of them bashful, hard-riding cowpunchers, avoided her, and hoped she’d be at the next dance.

Jack Hartwell did not wave at her as he rode in out of the hills and dismounted at the little corral beside the creek. He unsaddled, turned his sweat-marked sorrel into the corral and hung his saddle on the fence.

Jack Hartwell was a few years older than his wife; a thin-waisted, thin-faced young man with an unruly mop of blond hair and a freckled nose. His wide, blue eyes were troubled, as he squinted toward the house and kicked off his chaps.

He could not see his wife, but he knew that she was waiting for him, waiting for the news that he was bringing to her. After a few moments of indecision he shrugged his shoulders and walked around the house to her.

She was sitting down in the doorway now, and he halted beside her, his thumbs hooked over the heavy cartridge belt around his waist.

“It’s hot,” he said wearily.

“Yes, it’s hot,” she said. “There hasn’t been much breeze today.”

“Water is gettin’ kinda low, Molly. Several of the springs ain’t runnin’ more than a trickle.”

“We need rain.”

Neither of them spoke now, as they looked down across the valley. Winged grasshoppers crackled about the duty yard, and several hornets buzzed up and down the side of the house, as if seeking an entrance. Finally the woman looked up at him and he moved uneasily.

“Yeah, it’s him—Eph King.”

There was bitterness in Jack Hartwell’s voice, which he did not try to conceal.

A flash of triumph came into the woman’s eyes, and she turned back to her contemplation of the hills. Her husband looked down at her, shaking his head slowly.

“Molly, it’s goin’ to mean —— in these hills.”

“Is it?”

She did not seem to mind.

“They’ve drawn a dead-line now,” he said slowly, “and there has been some shootin’. They’ve sent for the outfits down in the south end, and they’ll be here tonight.”

“Well, we won’t be in it,” she said flatly. “It means nothing to us.”

“Don’t it?”

Jack squinted hard at her, but she did not look up.

“No. The law has decided that a sheep has the same right as a cow. The cattlemen of the Lo Lo do not legally own all this valley.”

“Mebbe not—” Jack shook his head wearily—“but they hold it, Molly.”

“Well,” she laughed shortly, scornfully, “you are not a cattleman. You’ve got nothing to fight for.”

“No-o-o?”