Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
The hamlet of Bostil's Ford had a singular situation, though, considering the wonderful nature of that desert country, it was not exceptional. It lay under the protecting red bluff that only Lucy Bostil cared to climb. A hard-trodden road wound down through rough breaks in the canyon wall to the river.
Slone had long ago solved the meaning of the Creeches' flight. They would use Lucy to ransom Bostil's horses, and more than likely they would not let her go back. That they had her was enough for Slone. He was grim and implacable. The eyes of the wild-horse hunter had not searched that basin long before they picked out a dot which was not a rock or a cedar, but a horse.
Something tight within Bostil's breast seemed to ease and lessen. "Why didn't I? ... Wal, Lucy, I reckon I wasn't in no hurry to oblige Creech. I'm sorry now." "It won't be so terrible if he doesn't lose the horses," murmured Lucy. "Where's young Joel Creech?" asked Bostil. "He stayed on this side last night," replied Van. "Fact is, Joel's the one who first knew the flood was on.
The meetings with Creech, the strange, sneaking actions of young Joel Creech, and especially the gossip of riders about the improvement in Creech's swift horse these things appeared to loom larger and larger and to augment in Bostil's mind the monstrous idea which he could not shake off. So he became brooding and gloomy.
Three wild-horse hunters made camp one night beside a little stream in the Sevier Valley, five hundred miles, as a crow flies, from Bostil's Ford. These hunters had a poor outfit, excepting, of course, their horses. They were young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed.
The girl's worried these days, Slone.... You see, you haven't been around, an' you don't know what's comin' off." "Brackton was here to-day an' he told me a good deal. I'm worried, too," said Slone, dejectedly. "Thet hoss of yours, Wildfire, he's enough to make you hated in Bostil's camp, even if you hadn't made a fool of yourself, which you sure have." Slone dropped his head as admission.
Bostil saw the leap of Slone's lasso the curling, snaky dart of the noose which flew up to snap around Sears. The rope sung taut. Sears was swept bodily clean from the saddle, to hit the ground in sodden impact. Almost swifter than Bostil's sight was the action of Slone flashing by in the air himself on the plunging horse. Sears shot once, twice.
Bostil's sister, that stern but lovable woman who had brought her up and taught her, would never persuade her to marry against her will. Lucy imagined herself like a wild horse free, proud, untamed, meant for the desert; and here she would live her life. The desert and her life seemed as one, yet in what did they resemble each other in what of this scene could she read the nature of her future?
"It's Sage King, Bostil's favorite," said Lucy. "Sage King! ... He looks it.... But never a wild horse?" "No." "A fine horse," replied the rider. "Of course he can run?" This last held a note of a rider's jealousy. Lucy laughed. "Run! ... The King is Bostil's favorite. He can run away from any horse in the uplands." "I'll bet you Wildfire can beat him," replied the rider, with a dark glance.
She was indeed Bostil's flesh and blood, and there was that in her dangerous to arouse. "Lin, the folks here are queer," she resumed, more calmly. "For long years Dad has ruled them. They see with his eyes and talk with his voice. Joel Creech swore you cut those cables. Swore he trailed you. Brackton believed him. Van believed him. They told my father.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking