Page:Patches (1928).pdf/32

 The Black Killer was a devilish outlaw mustang who had killed more than one man and several domestic horses on the ranches. He was only an occasional visitor to the Crooked Creek ranch, but even so he was a menace to both man and beast. There is among the wild horses one out of a thousand, or perhaps ten thousand, known as a killer. They are the most dangerous animal upon the western ranges, more cunning than any bear or wolf and much more to be feared.

Such a horse will often permit himself to be caught along with a score of other wild horses, and never show the killing tendency until he gets his prey at his mercy and then he strikes like lightning. The cow-puncher's mount is much quicker to sense the presence of a killer than is his rider, so when a horse begins to champ his bit nervously and to drool with excitement and fear and draw away from an unseen danger, the cow-puncher always reaches for his trusty six shooter.

Hank had told Mr. Morgan that it was like looking for a needle in a haymow to try to find the mare on the range of several hundred thousand acres and as for the Black Killer he was more wary than a grizzly, but Mr. Morgan had insisted and Hank had gone on this "wild goose chase" as he styled it.

Obedience is one of the ranch's first laws and Hank, as the head cow-puncher, had to obey. So, for the