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Vachell, Horace Annesley, 1861-1955

"Bunch Grass A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch"


"Dennis!"
"Yes, my name's Dennis, right enough. That's the trouble. I hav'n't
the nerve to kill Barker, and you hav'n't the nerve to skip off with
me. Were two of a kind, Mamie, scairt to death of what comes after
death. And you know it. So long!"
She caught at his arm.
"You ain't a-goin' to leave the inlet?"
"It's a mighty big country, this," Dennis replied austerely; "but I've
a notion it ain't quite big enough for Barker an' me. So long!"
"I'm comin' up to-morrer, Dennis, to see 'em run the last rapid. Mebbe
you was fullish to leave the range?"
He marked the interrogation in her tone, and answered, for him, almost
roughly--
"Mebbe I was, but not so fullish as you by a long sight!"
With that he returned to the bunk-house.
* * * * *
Not half a mile from the inlet the Coho gathers itself together for
its last wild rush to salt water. And here there is a huge pool where
logs lie peacefully as alligators in the sun. At the end of the pool
the river flows gently in a channel free from rocks and snags. Then
the channel narrows, and a little farther on you behold the head of
the rapid, and half-way down the Coho Falls thunder everlastingly.


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