FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>   >|  
call no fairer picture than the scene before her. Her eyes had looked out only on the western lands since she could remember. "Well, Jim, don't you think it would be a good scheme for us to look up this court record?" Jack inquired more hopefully. "Mr. Norton couldn't say it was false." "Look here, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim answered more gruffly than he had ever spoken to her before. "Do you think that you are the only member of Rainbow Ranch who has any business head? What have I been doing these last few days but looking up that very record of the sale of Rainbow Ranch to John Ralston, Esq.? But I have wasted my time. It wasn't any use. The court record is gone, same as our own deed." "But that isn't possible, Jim," Jack argued faintly, feeling the world begin to spin round faster and faster, so she could hardly sit on her horse. "I thought nobody ever dared touch anything that belonged to a court of law." "Jack," Jim demanded severely, "will you kindly remember that we are living in the State of Wyoming and that we haven't been a State but a powerful few years? When your father first came to Wyoming, this country was pretty well filled up with wild beasts, wild Indians and some pretty wild white men. There weren't but a few towns and they weren't slow towns either. Things used to go on in them that a girl don't need to know about. One of the tricks the bad men used to play was to change the county seat over night, just for their own convenience. A band of men would ride up to the courthouse, gather up the court records, the law books and anything else that came in handy, and carry them off to a new town. Next morning when folks woke up, they would find the county seat moved and maybe a new judge and a new sheriff. In one of these here little midnight excursions, they must have carried off the court records which showed your father bought our old ranch fair and true. The book must have been lost, for the record has disappeared, same as our own title to the place. You can kind of see that old man Norton has got us in a tight place, can't you, Jack?" Jim ended gloomily. "We don't have to tell Jean and Frieda yet, do we, Jim?" Jack pleaded wistfully. "It won't do any good to make them miserable so long as we can keep the news from them." Jim shook his head. "No sense in your bearing the whole burden alone, Jack. You ain't much older than Jean, you know. Besides, maybe little Frieda will be the very one of us to
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

record

 

Frieda

 

faster

 
county
 
pretty
 

records

 
father
 

Wyoming

 

Ralston

 

Norton


remember
 

Rainbow

 

sheriff

 

looked

 

carried

 
excursions
 

midnight

 

gather

 

showed

 
morning

courthouse

 
western
 

convenience

 

miserable

 

pleaded

 

wistfully

 

Besides

 
burden
 

bearing

 

disappeared


picture

 

fairer

 

gloomily

 

bought

 

faintly

 

feeling

 

argued

 

answered

 

thought

 

Jacqueline


gruffly

 

member

 

business

 

spoken

 

wasted

 

Things

 
scheme
 

beasts

 

Indians

 

change