Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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Dalton Mountain is an attraction for patrons of a large Dude Ranch close by, in the Kings river area—something to talk about only. No dude could ride a horse up that mountain—particularly none of the thirty New York “dude” girls who rode the canyon trails thereabout for several weeks, recently.

Also, I recall the time when Jim Dalton, after killing Sheriff Charley Batterson and escaping from the Marysville jail, was captured by a posse led by Constable Charley Andrews, near the Buening school, eight miles southwest of Wetmore—my home town. After serving time, it was said, Jim Dalton went to Los Angeles and made an honorable “killing” in the manufacture of ovens for bakeries. I do not know if he was a member of the old gang. Probably not. But it has often been considered that he was.

But we were not riding via a series of switchbacks to the top of Dalton Mountain especially to view that historic spot. From the saddle-back, looking to the north down a tree-studded canyon, and looking back over the trail we had traveled, we could see at a glance much of Sam’s 1480 acres, of mountain pasture land, trees and rocks. And from this lookout we could locate nearly all of his ninety-eight head of cattle that had wintered there during the worst winter drought that California has had in eighty years, while other valley ranchmen were feeding $40 hay to $100 cattle, or shipping their stock to pastures in other states—some to the wheat fields of Western Kansas. The north slope of Dalton mountain, shielded from the burning sun, is what saved the day for Sam. Campbell mountain, almost in Sam’s dooryard, was picked bare. Sam bought fifteen of the cattle taken off that range. In his pasture, those newly purchased cattle did not graze with the other stock. And this is where the trained McNabb shepherd dog, Spike, comes in. I shall give Spike a line, later.