Rods of the Law

By Robert Welles Ritchie

This novel is set in the American outback. Seven riders are galloping through the night to surprise some other cattlemen in a place near Poison Spider. From their actions and conversation, it seems the surprise is not going to be a pleasant one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547055228

Book preview

Robert Welles Ritchie

Rods of the Law

EAN 8596547055228

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

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Cover

Titlepage

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FIVE riders in the dark came to the fork where the road from Kay Ess home ranch serpentines down through the bad lands to join the main-traveled thoroughfare. Two horsemen waited at the fork—rigid silhouettes in the starlight. Upon the approach of the five from the north these two moved their horses out to the middle of the road, but remained silent, awaiting a hail.

Kay Ess reps? came the query.

Yes.

One of you Ole Man Plummer? He who was spokesman for the five pressed his pony close to the Kay Ess representatives to peer under their shadowing hat-brims; they hastily backed away from too close scrutiny.

No call for to get too much acquainted, protested one. Ole Joe Plummer, he's taken his ante out o' this jackpot, so we come independent.

Hell's blazes! What's ole Joe backed up for? The voice in the dark was suddenly roughened. You, Pete; loft your rope over that telephone-wire and drag it down.

A horseman detached himself from the group and moved over to the side of the road, where a crooked twelve-foot pole supported an invisible wire. The Kay Ess recruit protested:

You're not scared of ole Joe's blabbing? What you want to cut him off from town for?

Shut up! Bring down that wire. A thin filament of shadow shot up against the star carpet, then dropped. The figure beneath gathered the double strands of his rope, gave them a turn about his saddle-horn, and spurred his horse. Down came the wire.

Now, commanded the leader, you two Kay-Esses fall in behind if you're so cooney 'bout being known. A good hour of hard riding and we're there.

Seven riders turned off the main road to the unfenced east. They put their tough cow-ponies to that long, velvety gallop which the saddle beast of the West knows how to sustain over an unbelievable number of miles. Smash through the night! No road, no sign-post nor landmark except that distant black line where stars stopped and the heavier black began—the crest of the Little Medicine range. The night was vacant as ocean; not a tree to stand alone against the stars; scrub sage-brush so low that it as formless. Under hoofs the invisible land billowed and rolled interminably.

Not more than a dozen words to a mile passed between the riders. Seven men galloping through the night, with rifles slung to their saddles, do not talk. Not in this High Country, where the law lags so slowly to adjudicate bitter conflicts of interests, and where the bullet travels so swiftly.

Finally they topped a rise and, far away, two red sparks burned dimly,