When A Mans A Man

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When A Man's A Man

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Title: When A Man's A Man
Author: Harold Bell Wright
Release Date: December 16, 2004 [EBook #14367]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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WHEN A MAN'S A MAN
BY HAROLD BELL WRIGHT

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK By arrangement
with D. Appleton-Century Co.
1916

TO MY SONS GILBERT AND PAUL NORMAN THIS STORY OF
MANHOOD IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THEIR
FATHER

Acknowledgment
It is fitting that I should here express my indebtedness to those
Williamson Valley friends who in the kindness of their hearts made this
story possible.
To Mr. George A. Carter, who so generously introduced me to the
scenes described in these pages, and who, on the Pot-Hook-S ranch,
gave to my family one of the most delightful summers we have ever
enjoyed; to Mr. J.H. Stephens and his family, who so cordially
welcomed me at rodeo time; to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Contreras, for their
kindly hospitality; to Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Stewart, who, while this story
was first in the making, made me so much at home in the
Cross-Triangle home-ranch; to Mr. J.W. Cook, my constant companion,
helpful guide, patient teacher and tactful sponsor, who, with his
charming wife, made his home mine; to Mr. and Mrs. Herbert N. Cook,
and to the many other cattlemen and cowboys, with whom, on the
range, in the rodeos, in the wild horse chase about Toohey, after outlaw
cattle in Granite Basin, in the corrals and pastures, I rode and worked
and lived, my gratitude is more than I can put in words. Truer friends or
better companions than these great-hearted, outspoken, hardy riders, no
man could have. If my story in any degree wins the approval of these,
my comrades of ranch and range. I shall be proud and happy. H.B.W.
"CAMP HOLE-IN-THE-MOUNTAIN" NEAR TUCSON, ARIZONA
APRIL 29, 1916

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AFTER THE CELEBRATION 11 II. ON THE DIVIDE 23 III. IN
THE BIG PASTURE 35 IV. AT THE CORRAL 47 V. A BIT OF THE
PAST 81 VI. THE DRIFT FENCE 91 VII. THINGS THAT ENDURE
115 VIII. CONCERNING BRANDS 133 IX. THE TAILHOLT
MOUNTAIN OUTFIT 159 X. THE RODEO 181 XI. AFTER THE
RODEO 197 XII. FRONTIER DAY 239 XIII. IN GRANITE BASIN
261 XIV. AT MINT SPRING 281 XV. ON CEDAR RIDGE 297 XVI.
THE SKY LINE 323
[Illustration: WHEN A MAN'S A MAN]
CHAPTER I.
AFTER THE CELEBRATION.
There is a land where a man, to live, must be a man. It is a land of
granite and marble and porphyry and gold--and a man's strength must
be as the strength of the primeval hills. It is a land of oaks and cedars
and pines--and a man's mental grace must be as the grace of the
untamed trees. It is a land of far-arched and unstained skies, where the
wind sweeps free and untainted, and the atmosphere is the atmosphere
of those places that remain as God made them--and a man's soul must
be as the unstained skies, the unburdened wind, and the untainted
atmosphere. It is a land of wide mesas, of wild, rolling pastures and
broad, untilled, valley meadows--and a man's freedom must be that
freedom which is not bounded by the fences of a too weak and timid
conventionalism.
In this land every man is--by divine right--his own king; he is his own
jury, his own counsel, his own judge, and--if it must be--his own
executioner. And in this land where a man, to live, must be a man, a
woman, if she be not a woman, must surely perish.

This is the story of a man who regained that which in his youth had
been lost to him; and of how, even when he had recovered that which
had been taken from him, he still paid the price of his loss. It is the
story of a woman who was saved from herself; and of how she was led
to hold fast to those things, the loss of which cost the man so great a
price.
The story, as I have put it down here, begins at Prescott, Arizona, on
the day following the annual Fourth-of-July celebration in one of those
far-western