The Flockmaster of Poison Creek   By: George W. Ogden (1871-1966)

THE FLOCKMASTER OF POISON CREEK

BY

G. W. OGDEN

AUTHOR OF

THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE, THE LAND OF LAST CHANCE, Etc.

FRONTISPIECE BY P. V. E. IVORY

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright

A. C. McClurg & Co.

1921

Published March, 1921

Copyrighted in Great Britain

CONTENTS

I The Sheep Country 1 II Swan Carlson 15 III The Fight 27 IV Keeper of the Flock 34 V Tim Sullivan 49 VI Eyes in the Firelight 57 VII The Easiest Lesson 67 VIII The Sheep Killer 76 IX A Two Gun Man 87 X Wild Riders of the Range 97 XI Hector Hall Sets a Beacon 111 XII One Comes to Serve 127 XIII A Fight Almost Lost 136 XIV The Lonesomeness 149 XV Only One Jacob 160 XVI Reid Begins His Play 173 XVII Hertha Carlson 181 XVIII Swan Carlson's Day 195 XIX Not Cut out for a Sheepman 207 XX A Million Gallops Off 212 XXI Tim Sullivan Breaks a Contract 222 XXII Phantoms of Fever 233 XXIII Concerning Mary 239 XXIV More About Mary 252 XXV One Man's Joke 262 XXVI Payment on Account 270 XXVII A Summons in the Night 287 XXVIII Swan Carlson Laughs 296 XXIX Sheepman And More 308

THE FLOCKMASTER OF POISON CREEK

CHAPTER I

THE SHEEP COUNTRY

So John Mackenzie had put his foot upon the road. This after he had reasoned it out as a mathematical problem, considering it as a matter of quantities alone. There was nothing in school teaching at sixty dollars a month when men who had to carry a rubber stamp to sign their names to their checks were making fortunes all around him in sheep.

That was the way it looked to John Mackenzie the morning he set out for Poison Creek to hunt up Tim Sullivan and strike him for a job. Against the conventions of the country, he had struck out on foot. That also had been reasoned out in a cool and calculative way. A sheepherder had no use for a horse, in the first place. Secondly and finally, the money a horse would represent would buy at least twelve head of ewes. With questioning eyes upon him when he left Jasper, and contemptuous eyes upon him when he met riders in his dusty journey, John Mackenzie had pushed on, his pack on his back.