Brand Blotters   By: William MacLeod Raine (1871-1954)

BRAND BLOTTERS

By

WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE

Author Of

Wyoming, Bucky O'Connor, Mavericks, A Texas Ranger, Ridgway Of Montana, Etc.

Illustrations By

CLARENCE ROWE

Grosset & Dunlap

Publishers New York

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1909, by J. B. Lippincott Co.

Copyright, 1911, by Street & Smith

Copyright, 1912, by G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

Brand Blotters

TO FRANK N. SPINDLER

In Memory of Certain Sunday Afternoon Tramps Long Ago, During Which We Solved the Problems of the Nation

CONTENTS

PART I

MELISSY OF THE BAR DOUBLE G

CHAPTER PAGE I A Crossed Trail 11 II Brand Blotting 18 III An Accusation 35 IV The Man with the Chihuahua Hat 49 V The Tenderfoot Takes up a Claim 61 VI "Hands Up" 75 VII Watering Sheep 98 VIII The Boone Bellamy Feud is Renewed 109 IX The Danger Line 121 X Jack Goes to the Head of the Class 141 XI A Conversation 156 XII The Tenderfoot Makes a Proposition 163 XIII Old Acquaintances 182 XIV Concerning the Boone Bellamy Yarnell Feud 191

PART II

DEAD MAN'S CACHE

CHAPTER PAGE I Kidnapped 199 II A Capture 209 III The Tables Turned 217 IV The Real Bucky and the False 231 V A Photograph 243 VI In Dead Man's Cache 255 VII "Trapped!" 266 VIII An Escape and a Capture 276 IX A Bargain 286 X The Price 301 XI Squire Latimer Takes a Hand 306 XII The Taking of the Cache 322 XIII Melissy Entertains 334 XIV Black MacQueen Cashes his Checks 340

PART I

MELISSY OF THE BAR DOUBLE G

CHAPTER I

A CROSSED TRAIL

The tenderfoot rose from the ledge upon which he had been lying and stretched himself stiffly. The chill of the long night had set him shivering. His bones ached from the pressure of his body upon the rock where he had slept and waked and dozed again with troubled dreams. The sharpness of his hunger made him light headed. Thirst tortured him. His throat was a lime kiln, his tongue swollen till it filled his mouth.

If the night had been bad, he knew the day would be a hundred times worse. Already a gray light was sifting into the hollow of the sky. The vague misty outlines of the mountains were growing sharper. Soon from a crotch of them would rise a red hot cannon ball to pour its heat into the parched desert.

He was headed for the Sonora line, for the hills where he had heard a man might drop out of sight of the civilization that had once known him. There were reasons why he had started in a hurry, without a horse or food or a canteen, and these same reasons held good why he could not follow beaten tracks. All yesterday he had traveled without sighting a ranch or meeting a human being. But he knew he must get to water soon if he were to reach it at all.