Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan «Outlaw» and Other Stories

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Barnes Will Croft. Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan «Outlaw» and Other Stories

SUNRISE ON THE DESERT

THE BLUE-ROAN "OUTLAW"

CAMPIN' OUT

POPGUN PLAYS SANTA CLAUS

"JUST REGULARS"

THE STAMPEDE ON THE TURKEY TRACK RANGE

THE NAVAJO TURQUOISE RING

AN ARIZONA ETUDE

STUTTERIN' ANDY

THE PASSING OF BILL JACKSON

THE TENDERFOOT FROM YALE

DUMMY

THE MUMMY FROM THE GRAND CAÑON

JUMPING AT CONCLUSIONS

LOST IN THE PETRIFIED FOREST

CAMEL HUNTIN'

THE TRINIDAD KID

PABLO

THE SHOOTING UP OF HORSE HEAD

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"Say, Bill, there's that old blue-roan, droop-horned cow that allus runs over on the Coyote wash. Reckon she ain't got a calf somers' hereabout?"

"Like as not," replied Bill, "an' I'll bet it's a blue-roan, too, for she's raised a blue calf reg'lar fer these last four or five years. There's a little hole of water clos't to where she's a-grazin' an' it's a sure shot the calf's hid away in that tall grass down there clos't to it."

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Soon after that the bunch was turned out to graze and, sick at heart, the calf crawled miserably under the shade of a small ironwood bush, while his mother went to water, leaving him alone in his wretchedness. From this time on, the blue-roan became a hater of men. The object on horseback was to him the source of all his suffering and pain – a thing to be avoided, and upon which to wreak vengeance some day, if possible.

The country in Arizona was very unlike the old range upon the staked plains in Texas, being rough and rocky, with none of those great grassy stretches they had been accustomed to back in their old home. There were trees here, too, a thing they had never known on their old range, and the cows buried themselves deep in the thickets of cedar and piñon. There they found many tanks or reservoirs of rain water, and unless the water gave out they seldom left their hiding places.

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