United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This was soon done, and sure of him now old Bates was about to loose the ropes, but on a sudden thought he stopped. He had quite forgotten, and had come unprepared for something of importance. In Western law the Mustang was the property of the first man to mark him with his brand; how was this to be done with the nearest branding-iron twenty miles away?
Oh, if I needed to send you to sleep, I would tell you about one of the most frightful pleasures of my life, one of those pleasures with fangs that bury themselves in the heart as the branding-iron enters the convict's shoulder. I was at a ball at the house of the Duc de Navarreins, my father's cousin.
The burly cowboy aimed a blow at Fred's head with the branding-iron, but Fred reached up and caught him by the wrist, while the dog ran around and attacked him in the rear. The fellow evidently thought that it would be an easy matter to jerk loose from Fred's grip, but to his amazement he found that his grip was like that of a steel vise, and to save his life he couldn't pull loose from him.
Then this man stood up, a black man, a little while before a slave, the great muscles swollen and gnarled with unpaid toil, the marks of the lash and the branding-iron yet plain upon his person, the shadows of a lifetime of wrongs and sufferings looking out of his eyes.
Frequently he stopped to rest in spite of Roy's protests. Late in the afternoon they came to a little mountain ranch owned by a nester who had punched cattle for Dave in the old days. Now he was doing a profitable business himself in other men's calves. He had started with a branding-iron and a flexible conscience.
Anderson's cheeks flushed, but he returned the bag and its contents without comment and walked out, heedless of the laughter of the six reporters. The injustice of their ridicule burnt him like a branding-iron, for his only offense lay in trying the impossible. These fellows had done their best and had failed, yet they jeered at him because he had tackled a forlorn hope.
Looking closer he saw that it was caused by the branding-iron, one corner of which rested on the end of a board where the rough flooring came in contact with the square of hard-packed earth beneath the stove. Bud Jessup saw it, too, and without comment he stepped over and moved the iron to a safer position. Still without words, the two left the bunk-house.
Now, what has to be done is simply this to seize him, throw him to the ground on his side, then to impress the branding-iron on his flank, and dismiss him to make way for another. Of course nothing would be easier with properly contrived appliances and means than to accomplish this with promptitude, safety to man and beast, without struggle and without glory.
"Where shall we brand the wretch, your Honor?" was the next question History heard. The poor pygmy was too much frightened to move, and he almost fainted when he heard the first Crow answer gruffly: "Thrust the branding-iron right down the back of his neck, and give him a good long mark that shall last him the rest of his life."
Around him ran a stream of water, while the lightning issuing in never-ceasing flashes from his eyes revealed that his features were rugged and his ears pierced with many holes from which the wind whistled until the sound resembled the shrieks of ten thousand tortured ones under the branding-iron.
Word Of The Day