Even the cowmen he employed, the old hands he and Bess had
both known for years, avoided him obviously, stubbornly. After the
execution of the will he had built them another ranch house at a
distance on the range, and there they congregated and clung. They
accepted his money and obeyed his orders unquestioningly; but further
than that--they were white and he was red. Howard, the one man with
whom he had been friendly, had grown restless and drifted on--whither no
one knew. Save for the Irish overseer and one other cowboy, the old
Buffalo Butte ranch was deserted. Locally, there neither was nor had
been any outward manifestation of hostility, nor even gossip. But the
olden times when the hospitable ranch house of Colonel William Landor
was the meeting point of ranchers within a radius of fifty miles were
gone. They did not persecute the new master or his white wife; they did
a subtler, crueller thing: they ignored them. To the Indian's face, when
by infrequent chance they met, they were affable, obliging. His
reputation had spread too far for them to appear otherwise; but, again,
they were white and he was red--and between them the chasm yawned.
Thus passed the months. Winter, dead and relentless, held its sway. It
was a normal winter; but ever in this unprotected land the period was
one of inevitable decimation, of a weeding out of the unfit. Here and
there upon the range, dark against the now background of universal
white, stared forth the carcass of a weakling.
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