The Dead-Line

Excerpt: 'Jack Hartwell’s place was not of sufficient importance in Lo Lo Valley to be indicated by a brand name. It was a little four-room, rough-lumber and tar-paper shack, half buried in a clump of cottonwoods on the bank of Slow Elk Creek. The house had been built several years before by a man named Morgan, who had the mistaken idea that a nester might be welcome on the Lo Lo range. He had moved in quietly, built his shack, and—then the riders from Marsh Hartwell’s Arrow outfit had seen his smoke. Whether or not Marsh Hartwell legally owned the property made no difference; he claimed it. And few men cared to dispute Marsh Hartwell. At any rate, it was proved that a nester was not welcome on the Arrow. It was an August afternoon. Only a slight breeze moved the dry leaves of the cottonwoods, and the air was resonant with the hum of insects. Molly Hartwell, Jack Hartwell’s wife, stood on the unshaded front steps of the house, looking down across the valley, which was hazy with the heat waves. Mrs. Hartwell was possibly twenty years of age, tall, slender; a decided brunette of the Spanish type, although there was no Spanish blood in her ancestry. She was the kind of woman that women like to say mean things about; and try to make themselves believe them. The married men of the Lo Lo mentally compared her with their women-folk; while the single men, most of them bashful, hard-riding cowpunchers, avoided her, and hoped she’d be at the next dance.'