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Updated: June 19, 2025
Aleck's desk was always open. There was never anything there which he wanted to hide away. His account books and his business correspondence, such as it was, lay accessible to the curious. There was nothing intricate or secret about the running of the Lazy A ranch; nothing that should interest any one save the owner.
"You'll do what?" cried the big fellow, mockingly, as he tightened his grasp to a painful extent, when spank! Aleck's left fist flew out, striking the man full on the right cheek, not a heavy blow, but as hard as the boy could deliver, hampered as he was, being dragged close to his assailant's breast. "Why, you " roared the man.
It was noticeable that the porch was spotlessly clean and that none of the idlers profaned its cleanliness by so much as one expectoration of tobacco juice, though all were either smoking or chewing that weed. They had far too great respect for Janet, Aleck's wife, and for the labor that cleanliness meant in that waterless region.
Which do you choose: to ride with me to-night to the barracks and know why you are arrested, or go, unknowing, as I bid you, and keep your word with the girl?" Through Aleck's fevered brain, there ran the words of the song he sang before "Out from your vineland come Into the prairies wild; Here will we make our home, Father, mother, and child." He could have but one answer.
For in spite of Rossman, and Aleck's splendid reputation, and the meager evidence against him, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in Deer Lodge penitentiary. Rossman had made a great speech, and had made men in the jury blink back unshed tears.
It was Aleck's turn to feel slightly husky in the throat, but he turned away to the rough basket and began to hand out its contents, joining his companion in eating hungrily, both working away in silence for a time. Then the ex-prisoner opened the conversation, beginning to talk in a boisterous, careless way. "I say, Aleck, we shall have plenty of time before lying down to sleep.
McTurpin turned, his quarrel with Brown instantly forgotten. "Throw the little greaser out," he spoke with slow distinctness. "This is a white man's show." There was a startled silence. "He's drunk," Brown told them soothingly. "Aleck's drunk. Don't listen to him." "Drunk or not, I back my words." He waved the weapon threateningly. "Sit down there," he ordered Windham.
As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass. It wasn't a house to be hurried, that was plain.
Twenty points cold profit on the vast venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were shouting frantically by imaginary long-distance, "Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake SELL!" She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said, "Sell! sell oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth! sell, sell!"
She took Aleck's hand and shook it warmly, the full admiration in his handsome black eyes setting her blood tingling with that love of conquest that lies in every woman's heart. So she flung out her flag of war, and smiled back at him her sweetest. "You have a fine team, I hear," she said, as her aunt moved away to greet some of the other men, who were evidently waiting to get a word with her.
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