THE EMANCIPATION OF JADY. 



HON. L. A. HUFFMAN. 



Lucky Smith, despite the flood of genial 

 February sunshine that poured into the 

 living room of his comfortable ranch home 

 on one of the reaches of the Yellowstone, 

 was waspish, unhappy and irritable. That 

 there was more than a hint of green visible 

 to his unwilling eyes in the sheltered 

 notches of the badland hills across the 

 river ought to have gladdened his sight. 

 That the lowering sky of the evening be- 

 fore had cleared and the blighting blizzard, 

 that he had for the tenth time predicted, 

 was not in evidence, brought from him no 

 expression of thankful satisfaction, though 

 his herds fared upon the open ranges and 

 the winter grazing was uncommonly short. 

 Accounts with which he was engaged lay 

 unfinished. An accumulation of letters, 

 heaped in confusion, gave mute testimony 

 by their dog-eared, soiled and worn con- 

 dition of the weeks he'd worn them against 

 to-morrow, to-morrow, when he'd answer 

 them. Ah, me! yesterday, to-morrow! 

 So seldom the To-day! 



The languor of spring was in the air. A 

 heavily loaded team was passing up the 

 trail. Lucky raised the window and 

 through his field glasses watched the 

 horses labor as the wheels cut deep in the 

 little used gumbo road, out of which the 

 frost was nearly come. The near horse 

 was gray and hooked back, lugging the 

 brunt of the load of rock, with a careless 

 driver perched on top. Why had they not 

 caught up a younger horse to lend a neigh- 

 bor for such work! Twenty younger, 

 heavier horses were idle in the hill pas- 

 ture. A horse was only a horse though, 

 and "Western branded" were grown so 

 cheap on the Eastern markets that the last 

 shipment had brought little more than 

 freight and expenses of handling. But 

 Jady! Little, flea-bitten J D! He had 



broken him 15 years ago and backed him 

 at many a roundup meet as the best 

 "owners up" thousand pounds of straight 

 grass, barefooted horseflesh on the spot. 

 It wasn't quite the fair thing to a game, 

 true, old saddle horse that had never 

 shirked. Lucky was touched, or he would 

 have been had he not been waspish, and 

 planning at the very moment the "firing of 

 the crowd," the placing of the accounts in 

 a lawyer's hands, shutting up the shack 

 and going back to live with the punchers 

 at the wagon and the mess house. 



The kitchen door stood open and from 

 it issued forth the heartsome smell of bak- 

 ing. Jennie and Mollie, housekeeper and 

 cook, chaffed the ranchman as he came 

 and went with a new team of "bronchs" 

 through the back lot, hauling the winter's 

 accumulation from stables and corrals. 

 Their cackling sallies and the chuckle of 

 the wagon were in the old man's ears, but 

 resentment was in his soul. He'd "seen 



and heard too much of wimmen 



'round a ranch." Only the day before he 

 had entertained a neighbor at dinner and 

 as the meal progressed one of those wom- 

 en piped up with, 



"Why, you told us the winter of 'yy was 

 the one when the Yellowstone broke in 

 February, but betwixt the Saturday night 

 following and a Monday morning it froze 

 over again so solid that 10 yoke oxteams 

 crossed safe at the Cantonment with loads 

 of your buffalo hides." 



Whereupon had not that Yankee ranch- 

 man who had struck the place — "the 

 fawm," he called it — late last fall, without 

 a bed roll, with only "two dolluz and thut- 

 ty cents" in coin, and an oilcloth war bag 

 containing little else than his scant ward- 

 robe, a well worn copy of Walden and 

 some shot gun ammunition — had he not 



THE BIG O. W, ON HANGING WOMAN. 



261 



PHOTO BY L A. HUFFMAN 



