until their
tracks were old. Added to that was the fact that this Grass Valley
country was covered with horse tracks and cattle tracks. The rustlers,
whoever they were, had long been at the game, and now that there was
reason for them to show their cunning they did it.
Early in July the hot weather came. Down on the red ridges of the
Tonto it was hot desert. The nights were cool, the early mornings were
pleasant, but the day was something to endure. When the white cumulus
clouds rolled up out of the southwest, growing larger and thicker and
darker, here and there coalescing into a black thundercloud, Jean
welcomed them. He liked to see the gray streamers of rain hanging down
from a canopy of black, and the roar of rain on the trees as it
approached like a trampling army was always welcome. The grassy flats,
the red ridges, the rocky slopes, the thickets of manzanita and scrub
oak and cactus were dusty, glaring, throat-parching places under the
hot summer sun. Jean longed for the cool heights of the Rim, the shady
pines, the dark sweet verdure under the silver spruces, the tinkle and
murmur of the clear rills. He often had another longing, too, which he
bitterly stifled.
Jean's ally, the keen-nosed shepherd clog, had disappeared one day, and
had never returned. Among men at the ranch there was a difference of
opinion as to what had happened to Shepp. The old rancher thought he
had been poisoned or shot; Bill and Guy Isbel believed he had been
stolen by sheep herders, who were always stealing dogs; and Jean
inclined to the conviction that Shepp had gone off with the timber
wolves. The fact was that Shepp did not return, and Jean missed him.
One morning at dawn Jean heard the cattle bellowing and trampling out
in the valley; and upon hurrying to a vantage point he was amazed to
see upward of five hundred steers chasing a lone wolf. Jean's father
had seen such a spectacle as this, but it was a new one for Jean. The
wolf was a big gray and black fellow, rangy and powerful, and until he
got the steers all behind him he was rather hard put to it to keep out
of their way. Probably he had dogged the herd, trying to sneak in and
pull down a yearling, and finally the steers had charged him. Jean kept
along the edge of the valley in the hope they would chase him within
range of a rifle. But the wary wolf saw Jean and sheered off,
gradually drawing away from his pursuers.
Jean returned to the house for his bre
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