THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX by B. M. Bower


CHAPTER I. WHEN GREEN GRASS COMES

Old Applehead Furrman, jogging home across the mesa from Albuquerque, sniffed
the soft breeze that came from opal-tinted distances and felt poignantly that
spring was indeed here. The grass, thick and green in the sheltered places,
was fast painting all the higher ridges and foot-hill slopes, and with the
green grass came the lank-bodied, big-kneed calves; which meant that. roundup
time was at hand. Applehead did not own more than a thousand head of cattle,
counting every hoof that walked under his brand. And with the incipient
lethargy of old age creeping into his habits of life, roundup time was not
with him the important season it once had been; for several years he had been
content to hire a couple of men to represent him in the roundups of the larger
outfits--men whom he could trust to watch fairly well his interests. By that
method he avoided much trouble and hurry and hard work--and escaped also the
cares which come with wealth.

But this spring was not as other springs had been. Something--whether an
awakened ambition or an access of sentiment regarding range matters, he did
not know--was stirring the blood in Applehead's veins. Never, since the days
when he had been a cowpuncher, had the wide spaces called to him so
alluringly; never had his mind dwelt so insistently upon the approach of
spring roundup. Perhaps it was because he heard so much range talk at the
ranch, where the boys of the Flying U were foregathered in uneasy idleness,
their fingers itching for the feel of lariat ropes and branding irons while
they gazed out over the wide spaces of the mesa.