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18 - Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up by Clarence Edward Mulford · Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up

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  Speaker 1: Hop Along Cassidyes, Rustler, round Up or Bar twenty by
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  Speaker 1: Clarence Edward Mulford, Chapter eighteen. The search begins as the
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  Speaker 1: sun arose. It revealed three punchers riding away from civilization.
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  Speaker 1: On all sides, stretching to the evil appearing horizon, lay
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  Speaker 1: vast blotches of dirty white and faded yellow alkali and sand. Occasionally,
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  Speaker 1: a dwarfed miskeat raised its prickly leaves and rustled mournfully.
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  Speaker 1: With the exception of the riders and an occasional heelo monster,
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  Speaker 1: no life was discernible. Cactive of all shapes and sizes,
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  Speaker 1: reared aloft their forbidding spines, or spread out along the sand.
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  Speaker 1: All was dead, ghastly. All was oppressive, startlingly, repellent in
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  Speaker 1: its sinister promise. All was the vastness of desolation. Along
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  Speaker 1: knew this portion of the desert for ten miles inward.
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  Speaker 1: He had rescued strained cattle along its southern rim, but
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  Speaker 1: once beyond that limit, they would have to trust their
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  Speaker 1: chants and their own abilities. There were water holes on
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  Speaker 1: this skillet, but nine out of ten were death traps,
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  Speaker 1: breaking with mineral poisons colored in alkaline. The two mentioned
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  Speaker 1: by Buck could not be depended on, for they came
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  Speaker 1: and went, and more than one luckless wanderer had depended
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  Speaker 1: on them to allay his thirst, and had died for
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  Speaker 1: his trust. So the scouts rode on in silence, noting
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  Speaker 1: the half buried skeletons of cattle which were strewn plentifully
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  Speaker 1: on all sides. Nearly three percent of the cattle belonging
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  Speaker 1: to the Double Arrow yearly found death on this table land,
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  Speaker 1: and the herds of that ranch numbered many thousand heads.
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  Speaker 1: It was this which made the Double Arrow the poorest
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  Speaker 1: of the ranches, and it was this which allowed insufficient
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  Speaker 1: centuries in its line houses. The skeletons were not all
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  Speaker 1: of cattle, for at rare intervals lay the sand worn
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  Speaker 1: frames of men. On the morning of the second day,
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  Speaker 1: the oppression increased with the wind, and Red heaved a
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  Speaker 1: sigh of restlessness. Sand began to skip across the plain
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  Speaker 1: in grains at first and hardly noticeable. Hove along, turned
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  Speaker 1: in his saddle and regarded the desert with apprehension. As
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  Speaker 1: he looked, he saw that where grains had shifted, handfuls
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  Speaker 1: were now moving His mounted in signs of uneasiness and
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  Speaker 1: was hard to control. A gust of wind stronger than
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  Speaker 1: the others pricked his face, and grains of sand rolled
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  Speaker 1: down his neck. The leather of his saddle amid its
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  Speaker 1: strange noises, as if a fairy tattoo was being beaten
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  Speaker 1: upon it, And he raised his hand and pointed off
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  Speaker 1: toward the east. The others looked and saw what had
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  Speaker 1: appeared to be a fog rise out of the desert
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  Speaker 1: and intervened between them and the sun. As far as
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  Speaker 1: eye could reach, small whirlwinds formed and broke, and once
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  Speaker 1: swept down and covered them with stinging sand. The day
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  Speaker 1: became darkened, and their horses whinnied in terror, and the
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  Speaker 1: clumps of mesquite twisted and turned to the gusts. Each
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  Speaker 1: man knew what was to come upon them, and they dismounted,
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  Speaker 1: hobble their horses, and threw them bodily to the earth,
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  Speaker 1: wrapping a blanket around the head of each A rustling
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  Speaker 1: as of paper rubbing together became noticeable, and they threw
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  Speaker 1: themselves flat upon the earth, their heads wrapped in their
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  Speaker 1: coats and buried in the necks of their mounts. For
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  Speaker 1: an hour they endured the torches of hell, and then
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  Speaker 1: when the storm had passed, raised their heads and cursed creation.
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  Speaker 1: Their bodies burned as though they had been shot with
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  Speaker 1: fine needles, and their clothes were meshes where once was
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  Speaker 1: tough cloth. Even their shoes were perforated, and the throat
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  Speaker 1: of each ached with thirst. Hop Along fumbled at the
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  Speaker 1: canteen resting on his hip, and gargled his mouth and throat,
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  Speaker 1: washing down the sand which wouldn't come up. His friends
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  Speaker 1: did likewise, and then looked around. After some time had elapsed,
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  Speaker 1: the loss of their pack horse was noticed, and they
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  Speaker 1: swore again. Hop Along took the lead in getting his
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  Speaker 1: horse ready for service, and then rode round in a
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  Speaker 1: circle half a mile in diameter, but returned empty handed.
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  Speaker 1: The horse was gone, and with it their main supply
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  Speaker 1: of food and drink French. He scowled at the shadow
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  Speaker 1: of a cactus and slowly rowed toward the northeast, followed
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  Speaker 1: closely by his friends. His hand reached for his depleted canteen,
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  Speaker 1: but refrained. Water was to be saved until the last minute.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to build a shack out here and live
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  Speaker 1: in it, I am exploded, hop Along and withering irony
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  Speaker 1: as he dug the sand out of his ears, and
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  Speaker 1: also from his six shooter. I just naturally dotes on this,
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  Speaker 1: I do. The others are too miserable to even grunt,
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  Speaker 1: and he neatly severed the head of a heela monster
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  Speaker 1: from its scaly body as it opened its venomous jaws
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  Speaker 1: and rage at this invasion of its territory, lovely place,
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  Speaker 1: he sneered, you better save them cartridges. Hoppy interposed red
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  Speaker 1: as his companion fired again, feeling that he he must
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  Speaker 1: say something, and what for? Blazed his friend to plug sandstorms.
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  Speaker 1: Anybody what we find on this god forsaken layout won't
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  Speaker 1: have to be shot. They will commit suicide and think
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  Speaker 1: it's fun. Tell you what, if them rustlers hangs out
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  Speaker 1: on this sand range, they're better men that I reckons
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  Speaker 1: they are. Anybody what hides up here shore earns all
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  Speaker 1: he steals hop along grumbled from force of habit and
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  Speaker 1: because no one else would. His companions understood this and
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  Speaker 1: paid no attention to him, which increased his disgust. What
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  Speaker 1: are we up here for, he asked, belligerently. Why, Because
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  Speaker 1: them double arrow idiots can't even watch a desert. We
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  Speaker 1: have to do their work for them, and they hangs
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  Speaker 1: around home and get slaughtered. Yes, sir, he shouted. They
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  Speaker 1: can't then take care of themselves when they're in linehouses.
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  Speaker 1: What are forts? Why that time we cleaned out them
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  Speaker 1: and the C eighty over at Buckskin, they couldn't help
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  Speaker 1: running into singing lead. Yes, drolled Red, whose recollection of
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  Speaker 1: that fight was vivid. Yes, and why, he asked, and
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  Speaker 1: then replied to his own question, because she sat up
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  Speaker 1: in a barn behind them. Buck played his gun on
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  Speaker 1: the side window. Pete and Skinny lay behind a rock
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  Speaker 1: to one side a Buck, Me and Lanky was across
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  Speaker 1: the street in front of them, and Billy and Johnny
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  Speaker 1: was in the Royal on the other side. Cowan laid
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  Speaker 1: on his stomach on the roof of his place with
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  Speaker 1: a buffalo gun, and the whole blame town was again them.
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  Speaker 1: There wasn't five seconds past that lead wasn't ripping through
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  Speaker 1: the walls of their shack. Houston house wasn't made for
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  Speaker 1: no fort. And besides, they weren't like the gang that's
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  Speaker 1: punching now. That's why hop Along became cheerful again, for
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  Speaker 1: here was a chance to differ from his friend. The
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  Speaker 1: two loved each other the better the more they squabbled, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: responded hop Along with sarcasm. Yes, he reiterated, drawlling it out.
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  Speaker 1: He was in front of them, and with what when
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  Speaker 1: a old white haired interfere in Winchester, That's what me
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  Speaker 1: and my sharps, You and your sharps exploded. Red whose
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  Speaker 1: dislike for that rifle was very pronounced, you and your sharps,
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  Speaker 1: Me and my sharps, as I was plavern before being interrupted,
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  Speaker 1: continued hop along, did more damage, and five men says
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  Speaker 1: you snapped red with heat. All you and your sharps
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  Speaker 1: could do was to cut your initials in the back
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  Speaker 1: door of their shack, and did more damage in five minutes,
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  Speaker 1: continued Hopolong. Then all the blasted Winchesters in the whole
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  Speaker 1: damned town, why and then they was cut? Blame poor
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  Speaker 1: every time that cannon of yorn exploded. I sure thought
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  Speaker 1: the why Cowen and his buffalo did more damage. Cowen
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  Speaker 1: was reputed to be of a very poor shot. Then
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  Speaker 1: you and I thought the artillery was coming into the disturbance.
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  Speaker 1: I could see your red head, my red head, exclaimed Hopolong,
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  Speaker 1: sizing up the crimson warlock of his companion. My red
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  Speaker 1: head he repeated, and then turned to Frenchie. Hey, Frenchie,
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  Speaker 1: who's got the reddest hair? Me? Or red? Frenchie slowly
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  Speaker 1: turned in his saddle and gravely scrutinized them. Being strictly
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  Speaker 1: impartial and truthful, he gave up the effort of differentiating
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  Speaker 1: and smile. Why at the tops of your heads were
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  Speaker 1: poked through two holes in a board, and I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know which was which. I'd sure make a mistake if
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  Speaker 1: I tried to name them. But Red had the last word. Anyhow.
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  Speaker 1: You didn't have a sharp's in that fight. You had
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  Speaker 1: a forty five seventy Winchester, just like mine. Thereupon the
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  Speaker 1: discussion was directed at the judge, and the forenoon passed
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  Speaker 1: very pleasantly, Frenchy even smiling in his misery. End of
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen, recording by John Brandon