



Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









Transcriber's Note: As originally printed, there are two cattle brands
represented by pictographs. A pictograph of two stars side by side is
represented in this text by "[double star]" and a pictograph of a
diamond is represented by "[diamond]."




[Illustration: "There's a great big God--just such a God as you and I
have knelt to when we were bits of kiddies."]




THE ONE-WAY TRAIL

A Story of the Cattle Country

By Ridgwell Cullum

Author of "The Watchers of the Plains," "The Sheriff of <DW18> Hole,"
"The Trail of the Axe," etc.

"... And the One-Way Trail is just the trail of Life. It's chock full of
pitfalls and stumbling blocks that make us cuss like mad. But it's good
for us to walk over it. There are no turnings or bye-paths, and no
turning back. And maybe when we get to the end something will have been
achieved in His scheme of things that our silly brains can't grasp...."

PHILADELPHIA

GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS




Copyright, 1911, by George W. Jacobs and Company




CONTENTS

        I. A GENTLEMAN RANKER                                        7
       II. A SHOOTING MATCH                                         18
      III. IN BARNRIFF                                              28
       IV. JIM PROPOSES                                             36
        V. TO THE RED, DANCING DEVIL                                53
       VI. EVE AND WILL                                             71
      VII. THE CHICKEN-KILLING                                      78
     VIII. THE "BOYS" OF THE VILLAGE                                86
       IX. A WOMAN'S CARE                                          101
        X. AN EVIL NIGHT                                           113
       XI. A WEDDING-DAY IN BARNRIFF                               119
      XII. THE QUEST OF PETER BLUNT                                135
     XIII. AFTER ONE YEAR                                          146
      XIV. THE BREAKING POINT                                      153
       XV. A "PARTY CALL"                                          161
      XVI. DEVIL DRIVEN                                            173
     XVII. THE WORKING OF THE PUBLIC MIND                          187
    XVIII. A WOMAN'S INSTINCT                                      195
      XIX. BRANDED                                                 206
       XX. APPROACHING THE TRIBUNAL                                221
      XXI. INSPIRATION                                             226
     XXII. THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE                                 238
    XXIII. TERROR                                                  252
     XXIV. FOR A WOMAN                                             265
      XXV. THE TRAIL OF THE RUSTLERS                               275
     XXVI. ON THE LITTLE BLUFF RIVER                               286
    XXVII. ANNIE                                                   303
   XXVIII. WILL                                                    312
     XXIX. JIM                                                     324
      XXX. WILL HENDERSON REACHES THE END                          333
     XXXI. THE DISCOMFITURE OF SMALLBONES                          345
    XXXII. THE TRIUMPH OF SMALLBONES                               355
   XXXIII. AFTER THE VERDICT                                       364
    XXXIV. THE TRUTH                                               369
     XXXV. IN THE SHADOW OF THE GALLOWS TREE                       383
    XXXVI. THE PASSING OF ELIA                                     393
   XXXVII. GOLD                                                    401
  XXXVIII. ON, OVER THE ONE-WAY TRAIL                              406




ILLUSTRATIONS

  "There's a great big God--just such a God as you and
      I have knelt to when we were bits of kiddies."    _Frontispiece_
  He sat glaring at the table, the smoke of his pipe
      clouding the still air of the neat kitchen.                  156
  Also he was gripping a heavy revolver in his hand.               288
  "We've just come over to say that we, too, are going
      to hit the trail."                                           410




THE ONE-WAY TRAIL

CHAPTER I

A GENTLEMAN RANKER


Dan McLagan shifted his cigar, and his face lit with a grin of
satisfaction.

"Seventy-five per cent. of calves," he murmured, glancing out at the
sunlit yards. "Say, it's been an elegant round-up." Then his
enthusiasm rose and found expression. "It's the finest, luckiest ranch
in Montana--in the country. Guess I'd be within my rights if I said
'in the world.' I can't say more."

"No."

The quiet monosyllable brought the rancher down to earth. He looked
round at his companion with an inquiring glance.

"Eh?"

But Jim Thorpe had no further comment to offer.

The two were sitting in the foreman's cabin, a small but roughly
comfortable split-log hut, where elegance and tidiness had place only
in the more delicate moments of its occupant's retrospective
imagination. Its furnishing belonged to the fashion of the prevailing
industry, and had in its manufacture the utilitarian methods of the
Western plains, rather than the more skilled workmanship of the
furniture used in civilization. Thus, the bed was a stretcher
supported on two packing-cases, the table had four solid legs that had
once formed the sides of a third packing-case, while the cupboard,
full of cattle medicines, was the reconstructed portions of a fourth
packing-case.

The collected art on the walls consisted of two rareties. One was a
torn print of a woman's figure, classically indecent with regard to
apparel; and the other was a fly-disfigured portrait of a sweet-faced
old lady, whose refinement and dignity of expression suggested
surroundings of a far more delicate nature than those in which she now
found herself. Besides these, a brace of ivory-butted revolvers served
to ornament the wall at the head of the bed. And a stack of five or
six repeating rifles littered an adjacent corner.

It was a man's abode, and the very simplicity of it, the lack of cheap
ornamentation, the carelessness of self in it, suggested a great deal
of the occupant's character. Jim Thorpe cared as little for creature
comforts as only a healthy-minded, healthy-bodied man, who has tasted
of the best and passed the dish--or has had it snatched from him--will
sometimes care. His thoughts were of the moment. He dared not look
behind him; and ahead?--well, as yet, he had no desire to think too
far ahead.

The ranch owner was sitting on the side of the stretcher, and Jim
Thorpe, his foreman, stood leaning against the table. McLagan's Irish
face, his squat figure and powerful head were a combination suggesting
tremendous energy and determination, rather than any great mental
power, and in this he strongly contrasted with the refined, thoughtful
face of his foreman.

But then, in almost every characteristic the Irishman differed from
his employee. While Jim's word was never questioned even by the
veriest sceptic of the plains, McLagan was notoriously the greatest,
most optimistic liar in the state of Montana. A reputation that
required some niceness of proficiency to retain.

McLagan's ranch was known as the "AZ's." It was a brand selected to
illuminate his opinion of his own undertakings. He said that his ranch
must be the beginning and end of all things in the cattle world, and
he was proud of the ingenuity in his selection of a brand. The less
cultured folk, who, perhaps, had more humor than respect for the
Irishman, found his brand tripped much more easily off the tongue by
replacing the Z with an S, and invariably using the plural.

"Say, Jim," the rancher went on, buoyed with his own enthusiasm, "it's
been a great round-up. Seventy-five per cent. Bully! I'll open out my
scheme. Listen. Ther's Donagh's land buttin' on us. Thirty sections.
They got stations for 10,000 head of stock. We'll buy 'em right out of
business. See? I'm goin' to turn those stations into double. That
slice of land will carry me backing right up into the foot-hills,
which means shelter for my stock in winter. See? Then I'll rent off a
dozen or more homesteads for a supply of grain and hay. You know I
hate to blow hot air around, but I say right here I'm going to help
myself to a mighty big cinch on Montana, and then--why, I'll lay right
on the heels of Congress."

He looked for approval into the bronzed face of his companion. But
Thorpe hesitated, while a shadowy smile lurked in his clear, dark
eyes.

"That's so," he observed, with a suspicious quietness.

"Sure," added the other, to clinch what he believed to be his
companion's approval.

"And then?"

The rancher stirred uneasily. The tone of Thorpe's inquiry suggested
doubt.

"And then?" McLagan repeated uncertainly.

"Why, when you've got all this, and you're the biggest producer in the
country, the beef folk in Chicago 'll beat you down to their price,
and the automobile folk will cut the ground clear from under your
horses' feet. You won't hit Congress, because you won't have the
dollars to buy your graft with. Then, when you're left with nothing to
round-up but a bunch of gophers, the government will come along and
have you seen to."

The Irishman's face grew scarlet, and he began to splutter, but Jim
Thorpe went on mercilessly.

"Cut it out, boss. We're cattlemen, both of us. You've grown up to
cattle, and I--well, I've acquired the habit, I guess. But cut it out,
and put your change into automobiles. They aren't things to breed
with, I guess. But I'd say they'd raise a dust there's more dollars in
than there's beans in our supper hash."

The rancher's swift anger had gone. He shook his head, and his hard,
blue eyes stared out through the doorway at the busy life beyond. He
could see the lines of buildings packed close together, as though
huddling up for companionship in that wide, lonesome world of grass.
He could see the acres and acres of corrals, outlying, a rampart to
the ranch buildings. Then, beyond that, the barbed wire fencing, miles
and miles of it. He could see horsemen moving about, engaged upon
their day's work. He could hear the lowing of the cattle in the
corrals. As Thorpe had said, he had grown up to cattle. Cattle and
horses were his life.

He was rich now. This was all his. He was growing richer every year,
and--Thorpe was prophesying the slump, the end. He couldn't believe
it, or rather he wouldn't believe it. And he turned with a fierce
expression of blind loyalty to his calling.

"To h---- with automobiles! It's cattle for me. Cattle or bust!"

Thorpe shook his head.

"There's no alternative, boss. I can see it all coming. Everybody can--if
they look. There's nothing between grain farming and--automobiles. The
land here is too rich to waste on cattle. There's plenty other land
elsewhere that'll feed stock, but wouldn't raise a carrot. Psha! There
won't be need for horses to plough, or even haul grain; and you've got
15,000 head. It'll be all automobiles!"

"I'd'scrap' the lot!" added the Irishman, briefly and feelingly. Then
he glanced at his companion out of the tail of his eye. "I s'pose it's
your education, boy. That's what's wrong with you. Your head's running
wheels. You come into cattle too late. You've got city doings down
your backbone, and I guess you need weeding bad. Say, you're a West
Point man, ain't you?"

Thorpe seemed to shrink at the question. He turned aside, and his eyes
rested for a moment on the portrait nailed upon his wall. It was only
for a moment his dark eyes encountered the tender old eyes that looked
out at him from the faded picture. Then he looked again at the owner
of the "AZ's," and gave him a smiling nod.

"Sure, boss. I intended to go into the engineers."

"Ah--wheels."

"You see, we've all been soldiers, since way back when my folks came
over with the first lot from England. Guess I'm the first--backslider."

"Nope. You ain't a backslider, Jim Thorpe. I sure wouldn't say that.
Not on my life. Guess you're the victim of a cow-headed government
that reckons to make soldiers by arithmetic, an' wastin' ink makin'
fool answers to a sight more fool questions. Gee, when I hit Congress,
I'll make some one holler 'help.'"

The foreman's smile broadened.

"'Twasn't exams, boss," he said quietly. "I'd got a cinch on them, and
they were mostly past cutting any