The Lawless West Read Online Free Page A

Mister Frank Owens?” he queried sharply.
    “I…shore…ain’t,” gasped Tex.
    Springer asked each of the other boys the samequestion and received the same maudlin but negative answers. Then he turned again to the girl.
    “Miss Stacey, I regret to say that you are indeed the victim of a low-down cowboy trick,” he said. “I’d apologize for such heathen if I knew how. All I can say is I’m sorry.”
    “Then…then there isn’t any school to teach…any place for me…out here?” she asked, and there were tears in her eyes.
    “That’s another matter,” he replied with a winning smile. “Of course there’s a place for you. I’ve wanted a schoolteacher for a long time. Some of the men out at the ranch have kids an’ they sure need a teacher.”
    “Oh, I’m…so glad,” she murmured in great relief. “I was afraid I’d have to go…all the way back. You see, I’m not so strong as I used to be…and my doctor advised a change of climate…dry Western air.”
    “You don’t look sick,” he said with his keen eyes on her. “You look very well to me.”
    “Oh, indeed, I’m not very strong,” she returned quickly. “But I must confess I wasn’t altogether truthful about my age.”
    “I was wondering about that,” he said gravely. There seemed just a glint of a twinkle in his eye. “Not over forty!”
    Again she blushed and this time with confusion.
    “It wasn’t altogether a lie. I was afraid to mention I was only…so young. And I wanted to get the position so much…I’m a good…a competent teacher, unless the scholars are too grown-up.”
    “The scholars you’ll have at my ranch are children,” he replied. “Well, we’d better be starting if we are to get there before dark. It’s a long ride. Is this all your baggage?”
    Springer led her over to the buckboard and helped her in, then stowed the valise under the back seat.
    “Here, let me put this robe over you,” he said. “It’ll be dusty. And when we get up on the ridge, it’s cold.”
    At this juncture Tex came to life and he started forward. But Andy and Nevada and Panhandle stood motionlessly, staring at the fresh and now flushed face of the young schoolteacher. Tex untied the halter of the spirited team and they began to prance. He gathered up the reins as if about to mount the buckboard.
    “I’ve got all the supplies an’ the mail, Mister Springer,” he said cheerfully. “An’ I can be startin’ at once.”
    “I’ll drive Miss Stacey,” replied Springer dryly.
    Tex looked blank for a moment. Then Miss Stacey’s clear gray eyes seemed to embarrass him. A tinge of red came into his tanned cheek.
    “Tex, you can ride my horse home,” said the rancher.
    “That wild stallion of yours!” expostulated the cowboy. “Now, Mister Springer, I shore am afraid of him.”
    This from the best horseman on the whole range!
    Apparently the rancher took Tex seriously. “He sure is wild, Tex, and I know you’re a poor hand with a horse. If he throws you, why, you’ll have your own horse.”
    Miss Stacey turned away her eyes. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. Springer got in beside her, and, taking the reins without another glance at his discomfited cowboys, he drove away.

Chapter 2
    A few weeks altered many things at Springer’s Ranch. There was a marvelous change in the dress and deportment of cowboys off duty. There were some clean and happy and interested children. There was a rather taciturn and lonely young rancher who was given to thoughtful dreams and whose keen eyes watched the little adobe schoolhouse under the cottonwoods. And in Jane Stacey’s face a rich bloom and tan had begun to warm out the paleness.
    It was not often that Jane left the schoolhouse without meeting one of Springer’s cowboys. She met Tex most frequently, and according to Andy that fact was because Tex was foreman and could send the boys off to the ends of the range.
    And this afternoon Jane encountered the foreman. He was