Blue Kingdom by Max Brand

deed.
    Such acts gave him the right to rule as a king; the people accepted him, and if he was a robber by profession,none of his plunderings occurred in the mountains where he lived. Now and again, a band gathered somewhere in the valleys, and a dozen or a score of beautifully mounted men rode out into the foothills or the level, rich lands beyond. There they struck at a bank, a jeweler’s stock, a train, a stagecoach richly laden, and whirled back into the mountains to squander their loot. That squandering poured out more money into the laps of the mountaineers. So it worked for them in an eternal circle.
    The rule was by this time established. No sheriff or marshal, riding on the trail of Tankerton, could penetrate into the mountains with any success. The lips of all men were sealed, the ears of all men were deaf, there was no hospitality, no help, for the men of the law, but a screen of scouts and spies rose up before the posse and continually spread around them like waves from a dropped pebble in a pond. In a few days, the whole region of the mountains understood the nature of the posse, knew descriptions of the individuals, and well comprehended that, if any of these men should suddenly be missed from the ranks and found dead among the rocks or the trees, Tankerton would not be offended. In fact, the people of the mountains were his militia, and they had served him so extraordinarily well that the arm of the law no longer reached after him. It meant long and hard riding, bitter weather, hard trails, and in the end nothing but broken-down men and horses and an emptied pocketbook.
    These thoughts drifted through the mind of Tankerton as he rested his horse upon the summit of the hill and looked over his domain. He felt assured and fixedupon his throne, and he would not have traded his place for any scepter in the world. This was his own realm, the place he knew, the air with which he was familiar, where every road was traced in his memory and where hardly a sapling could fall without his knowledge. He had all that a sovereign could wish for in the fear, the obedience, and the love of his subjects. He had the additional joy of the gambler who plays a winning game against great odds.
    It was wearing toward the latter half of the afternoon, and, therefore, the light already was growing stained with blue in the bottoms of the valley—the cañon seemed deeper—the snow upon the mountains in the distance looked through the mist with a gleam like the glitter of swords. All was slowly being overcast with blue. The vapors ascended from the gorges, from the forests, and blew down with the melting of the snows, and, wherever the mountain mist appeared, it was blue of the sky, faintly breathed among the trees, or deeply pooled in the hollows, and the kingdom of Tankerton was the kingdom of the blue horizon.
    He filled his eye with the noble picture, and then he gave Gunfire his head again, and the black stallion swept down from the slope.
    Tankerton came to the rear of the hotel and saw a small boy coming up the trail beneath him. There he paused, with Gunfire turned into a black statue among the bushes and the poplars, until the youngster had come close enough to him to see the child’s face. It was a brown little mountaineer of twelve or fourteen years, wearing his father’s trousers, worn to shreds that hung halfway down the scratched calf of his leg, andwith a single strap passing over his shoulder by way of suspenders. He lugged a heavy shotgun of ancient make, and his face was dark with disappointment.
    However, as he came closer, it seemed to Tankerton that he could recognize the features. He could not be expected to know every man, woman, and child in his dominions, but he followed the example of Caesar as nearly as he could. He did not think he had seen this boy before, but he ventured that he knew his father. So he waited until the lad, coming within five or six steps, suddenly halted and looked with