American Agriculturist, September 20, 1924 
197 
The Girl 3t V3.C3.d3 —By J. Allan Dunn 
V ACAD A—the word means a drove of 
cows—was well named. The rail¬ 
road came streaking from the mountains 
that were so far and seemed so near, four 
parallel ribbons of steel stretching for 
mile after mile through a desolation of 
sage and alkali. Over it roared or rattled, 
according to speed and importance, 
freight, local, and limited; refrigerator 
cars packed with California fruit; stock 
cars filled with thirsty, lowing^ animals: 
box cars with mixed merchandise; pas¬ 
senger cars with mixed humanity; sleep¬ 
ing-cars and diners and observation cars 
occupied by lordly tourists gazing apa¬ 
thetically at the leagues of gray sage 
sea. 
At Vacada the depot was a shack beside 
a water-tank and freight shed, of far less 
commercial importance than the corrals 
and loading chutes that made the place a 
shipping point fairly well known to stock- 
yard dealers. Straggling out upon the 
plain were lowly buildings forming an 
irregular street: a general store, two black¬ 
smiths, a garage and gi^oline station. 
Four saloons, now fallen on evil days, two 
of them abandoned, the others selling 
soft drinks ostentatiously and fiery 
stimulants surreptitiously. A restau¬ 
rant. with a laundry tacked on to it as 
lean-to—cooking and cleansing both at¬ 
tended to by Chinese. A dozen un¬ 
painted edifices that might be called 
houses but never homes. Half as many 
Mexican hovels, picturesque and dirty. 
And a cemetery. 
The population of Vacada seldom 
varied; it was sufficient for the needs of 
the place, or vice versa, as you prefer it. 
The graveyard, with its sunbaked, 
cracking mounds and unpainted, splinter¬ 
ing headboards, grew slowly, the census 
of the dead gradually outstripping the 
roll of the living. Vacada, under the 
glare of the pitiless sun bv day, swept 
sometimes by dust storm and cloud- 
break, beneath the steely _ stars and 
burnished moon by night, siestaed and 
slumbered, awakening only when the 
ranch riders came charging in with pay- 
checks to cash and spend, or driving 
steers for shipment. 
Then the saloons took on temporary, 
fictitious gaiety. The whine of fiddles 
filtered through the walls; frowsy dance- 
hall girls appeared upon the floor of El 
Solaz, and Juan Mandigo openly sold his 
hooch at bootleg prices under the patron¬ 
age of “Bluff” Furniss, who also “en¬ 
tertained” at draw and stud poker upon 
such occasions. Furniss, of the hail- 
fellow-well-met variety, looked at from 
his own standpoint, had a nickname well 
bestowed. He was suspected of being 
interested in the sale of steers with un¬ 
certain brands and pedigrees, but the 
shafts of suspicion glanced from the 
shield of the star he wore below his 
suspender buckle, tribute of political 
chicanery, the badge of a deputy sheriff. 
T HERE was a group at the unfenced 
cemetery. The Bee Parson, gaunt 
with the sickness that had sent him. West 
too weak to assume a charge, seeking to 
make a living by the sale oi sage-honey, 
clad in faded khaki, the dignity of his 
relinquished calling apparent in voice and 
action. Bluff Furniss, present at every 
affair of public importance. A quartette 
of dance-hall girls, wearing their soberest 
attire, in a group by themselves. A 
score of listless spectators, they could 
not be called mourners, save for a sob or 
two from the Magdalens, prone to sur¬ 
face emotions. Four sweating coffin- 
bearers. A Mexican grave-digger. A 
girl, hardly a woman, certainly in her late 
teens, clad in makeshift black, sun- 
bonneted in black, her pale face framed 
in the frill like a cameo carved from onyx. 
She was as sweet and fair as the sand- 
lilies that bloom amid the sage, but the 
regular features were set, in a mask, less 
stamped for grief than for despair and 
utter loneliness. Back of the hideous 
sunbonnet a plait of pale gold hair 
reached to her waist, burnished by the 
sun. Upon her the beady bull eyes of 
Furniss were focused greedily. 
“I am the Resurrection and the Life—” 
The voice of the Bee Parson was 
husky but eloquent with promise. In 
his faded eyes burned the fire of belief. 
For the moment he was no longer the 
tender of insects but the minister and 
prophet of things everlasting. The words 
seemed to echo in the silence and the 
cloudless vault of the blue heavens. 
A bee or two boomed through the sage, 
hovering above the untended graves, 
darting off to more auspicious harvesting. 
At a distance prairie dogs squatted on 
their mounds, curious but alert. The 
sexton leaned heavily upon his shovel, the 
onlookers stood inert and apathetic. 
Only the voice of the Bee Parson, speak¬ 
ing of Death and Life Eternal, held any¬ 
thing of hope. 
A MILE away a man on horseback 
loped toward Vacada, short-cutting 
across the plain toward the windmills of 
the wells. The bay pony showed signs of 
travel—it had come thirty miles since 
much as urging her to wheel and approach 
the decapitated death, bringing her at 
'length, shuddering in every muscle tense 
for flight, to gaze and snuff at the terror. 
The man slid from the saddle, ground- 
anchoring the mare with the reins. 
“There, lady-hawss, trouble’s all over. 
Some trouble! Nine buttons to that 
rattler an’ a dandy new skin. I’m 
needin’ that skin, Nellie Bly, for a fancy 
hatband. Best I’ve seen yet. You take 
it easy a bit; you’ve sure got it cornin’ to 
11 
you. 
Squatting beside the snake, he trimmed 
the neck with his knife and stripped the 
skin from the firm, cream-colored flesh. 
The specimen was nearly five feet in full 
length and the skin showy with dark, 
greenish-black blotches vividly outlined 
with w r hite upon a pinkish ground, the 
tail chalky white and banded with jet. 
“Salt you down when we hit town,” he 
said as he arranged the skin for traveling 
and remounted. The mare, patently 
relieved to be able to leave the vicinity, 
broke into a lope. The prairie dogs, that 
had summoned courage and curiosity 
Our New Story, An Exciting Western Tale 
“T^HE Girl at Vacada,” which starts this week, is another 
A of the short serial stories which have proven so popular 
with American Agriculturist readers. It will be completed 
in three generous installments. Mr. Dunn sets his tale in 
the far southwest, still a primitive country where life is 
exciting and often dangerous, but full of color and romance. 
To all who like stories of adventure, as well as a clean love 
tale, we can heartily recommend “The Girl at Vacada.” 
sunrise—but there was a toss to its head 
and a springiness to its gait that bespoke 
spirit and gameness. The man rode as 
part of the beast. The lariat at his 
pommel was not needed to stamp him as 
a cowboy, a vaquero. Both were young, 
the bay mare rising six, the man midway 
between twenty and thirty; both seemed 
charged with a surplus vitality that 
defied the alkali dust clouding about 
them, the blaze of the sun and the dreary 
monotony of the scene. The mare 
curveted; the man sang in rollicking 
baritone : 
“Out of the sagebrush four cowboys came ridin’. 
Four buckaroos who rode for Camp Ten. 
An’ four better men never came out of hidin’. 
Bound for the An-nu-al Bust at Cheyenne.” 
Chaparejos were in his blanket-roll 
back of the saddle. He wore striped 
pants of gray above his high-heeled boots 
of soft leather, a vest of the same material 
as his shirt. His red and yellow bandanna 
was silk, his Stetson a costly broadrinx 
worn with a slight cock that matched the 
general air of dare-devil efficiency that 
the pair suggested. His hair did not 
show beneath the Stetson, but his eyes 
were gray, his nose aquiline, his shaven 
lips humorous above a firm chin. 
The two entered a prairie dog city and 
the fawn-colored inhabitants scuttled and 
dived for safety. The horse did not 
break pace and the rider trusted it to 
keep out of the burrows. 
‘There was Buck Jones from Texas an' 
Slim Wood from nowhere 
An’ young Sammy Wilder from Lake, Idaho; 
With Baldy Jim Harder who hailed from Nevada; 
No better vaqtieros e’er forked a broncho 
Their saddles . . 
T HE bay mare gave a sudden side- 
wise bound, ears back, eyes showing 
the rims, nostrils showing their crimson 
lining, muscles bunched. The man’s 
body swayed in graceful balance, his 
thighs welding to the leather. In mid¬ 
jump his arm moved; there was a blue 
glint from his gun; its muzzle spat pale 
yellow flame, and a headless rattlesnake, 
writhing on the dirt, attested his perfect 
coordination. Then he soothed the mare 
w ith word and neck-patting, coaxing as 
during the skinning, bolted once more for 
cover, 
« 
A S the Bee Parson turned away from 
the grave his thin face suddenly 
grayed; a spasm came over his features, 
and a fit of coughing racked his lean 
frame. Two men jumped for him as he 
swayed and eased him to the ground, 
where he sat with head bowed on knees. 
For the moment he was on the threshold 
of death, of his own tomb as well as that 
of the man over whose body he had just 
read the burial service. 
The idle crowd gathered and were dis¬ 
missed by one of the coffin-bearers w ith a 
demand to give him air. They obeyed, 
trailing back to the street from the low 
hillside while the two assistants helped 
the stricken Bee Parson away in the 
direction of his owix shack and apiary. 
The girl stood alone, one small fist set 
in the palm of her other hand, twisting 
and turning like a pestle in a mortar, her 
eyes vague, her attitude despairing. 
, Bluff Furniss saw the rest leave, followed 
them a little way and then came back to 
the girl, treading softly on the alkali soil. 
The Mexican sexton had already swiftly 
shoveled back the loose, fine dirt, patting 
down the little mound where the random 
breeze was already fingering the friable 
stuff. 
The sound of Furniss’ voice startled the 
girl and she w’hirled round, anger and 
something of fear—the fear of a trapped 
animal—in the eyes that blazed darkly 
within the hood of her sun-bonnet. 
“What you figuring on^doing now, 
Alice?” 
Contempt, blent with the fear and 
anger, forbade an answer. 
“ Like I told you before, I can place you 
down to Mandigo’s. He doix’t rightly 
need but four dancers, but he’ll do as I 
say.” He eyed her narrowly,’repressing 
a smile. 
“Yon know I’ll not do anything as 
common as that,” she answered. 
"He didn’t leave you anything. If it 
hadn’t been for me there wouldn’t have 
been a coffin, or a grave. Nor a thing to 
eat in the house, my girl, for fhe past 
many weeks. Yore uncle died of the 
high cost of whisky, Alice. He spoiled 
himself drinking too much when it was 
cheap but he had to have it to live.” 
“He was all I had. His wife was my 
real aunt and they did what they could 
for me.” 
“Too bad she ain’t alive.” The girl 
ignored the sneer as his eyes wandered to 
a weathered cross of poor carpentry, 
standing askew, on the arms the fading 
words: 
RUTH BOWMAN 
Beloved Wife Of 
HARVEY BOWMAN 
Died 19 ... . Age . . 
The figures were already obliterated. 
“There’s nothing else for you to do, my 
girl,” Furniss continued. “I run this 
town an’ you know it. I come near 
runnin’ the county. You head in where 
it's easy going or you’ll find yourself up 
against it.” 
She drew her slight form erect, quiver¬ 
ing under the insult of his manner, her 
tossed head throwing the sun-bonnet hood 
clear of her face. 
His face grew black with rage at her 
scorn. “You’ll do what I say,” he 
snarled. 
Catching her wrists in his powerful 
grip, he flung his free arm about her and 
forced her to him, struggling futilely, 
though she fought like a wildcat. Sud¬ 
denly she bent and set her teeth into the 
back of his hand. Cursing, he released 
her wrists and clutched at her. Spurred 
by fear, the girl eluded him and started to 
run through the little cemetery, sobbing 
as she went, Furniss in hot pursuit. 
Racing down the far side of the slope, 
the girl in her flight had set the hill 
between them and sight of Vacada. 
Panting with alarm, hindering her own 
best efforts, she crossed the swale and 
essayed the opposing ascent. Her foot 
touched the unstable side of a prairie 
dog’s burrow; the soft earth gave way; 
her ankle twisted and she went down with 
a little cry of pain and apprehension. 
Just as Bluff Furniss came up and stooped 
to jerk her to her feet the cowboy on the 
bay mare came loping over the crest of 
the slope. 
A touch to the flanks and the mare 
broke into her full stride, halting with 
word and rein in her tracks, ten feet from 
the pair. Furniss looked up, ugly at the 
interference. The girl tried to rise and 
sank back again. The cowboy slid out 
of his saddle and came on with a swinging 
gait, his young face suddenly stern, the 
gray eyes cold, the smiling lips set. 
“Looks like a l’il trouble,” he said. 
“That’s my middle name, getiin’ rid of 
", 11 
it, 
“There’ll be enough if you don’t 
vamose said Furniss. The cowboy 
laughed. 
“I reckon the prairie’s free. Any¬ 
thing I can do for you, miss? This 
hombre bin makin’ you cry?” His quick 
sight had taken in the black dress of the 
girl, crosses and headboards silhouetted 
on the hilltop. He was not quite sure of 
the situation. He had seen what he 
fancied was the end of a pursuit as he had 
topped the rise, and he did not like the 
looks of Furniss. He had known others 
of his pattern before and he was far from 
a tenderfoot. The girl’s tears might be 
those of grief, but . . . 
She looked up at him, testing him with 
woman’s instinct. She saw his stern 
young eyes soften, the lips relax for her. 
“I was running away from that brute,” 
she said simply. 
“Ah! ” The cowboy's exclamation was 
one of quiet satisfaction. “Got no right 
to hold you, has he?” 
“No.” 
Furniss started to bluster, but the other 
stopped him, 
“I shot one snake this mawnin’,” he 
said in a careless tone that Furniss, him¬ 
self judge of men, recognized as a screen 
for purpose. “1 skinned him. but he had 
(Continued on page 198) 
