Fight for Powder Valley! Read Free Page B

the floor of the valley.”
    Pat’s face grew hard. He struck a match and held it to the tip of his soggy half-smoked cigarette. He drew a puff of smoke into his lungs and let it roll out of his nostrils, then queried quietly, “You mean on beyond north of the Bar X too?”
    The surveyor drew a folded map from his pocket and spread it out on the ground. He squatted down and squinted at the black lines. He nodded. “I go a mile beyond the Bar X line … take in one section from … uh … the Lazy Mare ranch.”
    Pat slid out of the saddle and dropped his reins to the ground. “I’d be obliged for a look at that map,” he said gruffly. “My name’s Pat Stevens.”
    â€œCertainly, Mr. Stevens. My name is Ross Culver.” The surveyor stood up and extended his hand. Pat took it and received a firm handclasp.
    Culver squatted again, moving aside so Pat could lean over and see the map. “All this shaded area is company property,” the surveyor explained. “See, we own a solid block on both sides of the creek up and down the valley. A mighty fine and promising project,” he went on enthusiastically. “As soon as we get our irrigation system in, we’ll transform all this wasteland into a really productive tract.”
    Pat was staring down at the map with slitted eyes. “Where’s the line between the Bar X and the Lazy Mare?” he demanded.
    Culver promptly put the tip of his finger on the map. “Right there. And about here is where we are now.” He moved his finger down the edge of the shaded area a quarter of an inch.
    â€œThere’s something wrong,” Pat told him quietly. “You’d better check up on your deeds before you do any more surveying.”
    â€œThat’s impossible,” Culver smiled. “I checked the records in the land office at Denver before coming out.”
    â€œAll the same, there’s some mistake. The Lazy Mare is my ranch. I haven’t sold a foot of it to any irrigation company for farmers.”
    Ross Culver continued to smile amiably. “There isn’t any mistake, Mr. Stevens. I don’t make mistakes.”
    Pat settled back on his haunches. His slitted gray eyes bored into the surveyor’s face. “There’s something wrong,” he repeated emphatically. “Do you think I or any of the other ranchers in the valley would be fools enough to sell our creek land to some company to settle farmers on? Why, they’d be putting up fences, blocking our stock off from water, putting a plow to that grass land …”
    â€œI’m starting a fencing crew tomorrow,” Culver told him quietly. “This is progress, Mr. Stevens. You ranchers can’t impede the westward march of civilization. Why, a hundred families can live off one section where you graze a few head of cattle in the winter.”
    Pat Stevens compressed his lips. “That’s plumb foolish talk. This is range land, not farmin’ country. You can’t raise crops here. Growin’ season is too short. An’ what would a farmer do with crops if he could raise ’em? It’s hundreds of miles to market.”
    Culver shrugged his shoulders and began to roll up his map. “I’m not an agricultural expert,” he confessed. “I’m an engineer and I’ve been employed to do a job in Powder Valley. When we get our dam built at the source of the creek, and the spring floods impounded in a reservoir …”
    Pat interrupted him fiercely. “Dam? Reservoir?” He choked over the words. “By God, no! Not as long as there’s a gun left in Powder Valley and a man to trigger it.”
    Ross Culver smiled pityingly. “I’m afraid you’re living in the past, Mr. Stevens. Before I came West I heard a lot about the two-gun desperados I was likely to meet, but I notice the ranchers hereabout seem a peaceful law-abiding lot. None of