THRILLING
STORIES
TEX BROWN PAUL S. POWERS STEPHEN PAYNE JOE ARCHIBALD THELMA KNOLES
a
OneMore RIVER
A Novelet of the Oklahoma Land Rush
. By NORRELL
, _ GREGORY
‘FIVE MINUTES AND A NEW LIFE’
Some twenty years
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TWURILING 9 U™~"stomizs ~ U ONE MORE RIVER
By NORRELL GREGORY
When Jef Dorey, from Kentucky, races a girl a dead heat in an Oklahoma Land Rush, their joint stake comes to mean much more to them
Two Other Full-Length Novelets
THE CIRCLE 4 STRANGER...... BT ate Bee Stephen Payne 44 When Lafe Gordon hits Red Forks with his trail- Berd, Connie McGuire is torn between growing fondness for him—and the suspicion ‘that he is a killer!
HANGNOOSE FOR A PRODIGAL...............Paul S. Powers 58
Clint Coleman returns to Storm Wee after three years in the penitentiary—ready to pit guns and fists against his ruthless rangeland enemies!
Five Short Stories SKELETON TRAIL. .......5.5.... wceeweeeeeeee ee bom, Parsons. 33
Jim Burnett takes a hand when a stagecoach is eerily held up
A MENNO GUN acess RAR Te Don 3
Jimmy Farling sides a struggling farmer against a crooked range manager
PLL MARRY YOU MANANA.................. Thelma Knoles 78 It seemed to Lucinda Garett as though Tomorrow would never come =
GENERAL DELIVERY...... AEA SE Pe cee ak 3 Norman W. Hay 88 Sometimes a postmaster s curiosity can come in right handy
THE MARRY WIDOW...... Aa r RA .Joe Archibald — 91
When Hattie Pringle's groom proves a wolf she is almost the. goat
Special Features
AROUND THE BRANDING- FIRE, Aii srnu i a riari n A Department 6 1 WANT A WIFE (Branding Fire sor E e r a A EON: DEON a THE ENEMY 1S HERE. (A-Message).... o.. na on ren e tins .....Kate Smith 113 .
THRILLING panoe STORIES published every other month by Standard Magazines, Inc., at a East 40th Street, New York 16, N. N. L. Pines, President, Entire contents copyrighted, 1947, by Standard Magazj Inc. Subscription (12 issues), $1. bo: “single copies, $.15; foreign postage extra, Entered as second-class matter Nove! ae 9, geat at the Post
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A Department for Readers Conducted by TEX BROWN
planted hisself firmly in the path o’ the on- comin’ mob. He leveled his pistol and shot the man in the lead through his head, then hit two others as fast as he could fire his gun, stoppin’ the mob. He was one o’ the crack shots o’ the age.
O YOU’VE been stayin’ on a ranch out o`- Tucson, Arizona, eh, Gertrude? Well, girl, you’ve sure had yore eyes
dears open, and you’ve learned a powerful
t © early Arizona hist’ry! ;
Looks like you’ve been spendin’ some time jon the corral fence with one o’ them gabby told Arizona “old-timers” ‘stead o°’ flutterin’ [yore pretty lashes at jest the handsome young rannies on the ranch. For a girl o ‘sweet sixteen that’s plumb unusual.
It sure tickles my old heart a heap to have you send me a snapshot o’ yoreself settin’ astride that high-steppin’ calico pony. A durned pretty photo o’ rider and hoss. Thank you kindly, Gertrude Mann!
U. S. Marshal Duffield
Yep’ United States Marshal Duffield was sure a character, like you heard. He wasn’t no U. S. Marshal when he lived in Tucson and took his meals at the old Shoo Fly res- taurant, though, Gertrude. That’s a mistake. His official title at that time was Mail Inspec- tor, though he’d been a U. S. Marshal prior to his Tucson residence.
Not much actual information is to be had about Duffield before he came to Arizona, but there’s one story o’ his life in New York which has been pretty much accepted for fact.
Accordin’ to the yarn, Duffield was a dis- covery o’ President Abraham Lincoln, and was appointed marshal because o’ the out- standin’ courage he displayed in a New York riot durin’ the Civil War. Seems Duffield was passin’ along a street in which the rioters were havin’ their own way, when he saw a Negro man runnin’ for his life jest ahead o’ some drunken pursuers who were bent on hangin’ him to the nearest lamppost.
Duffield allowed the man to pass him, then
He Wore a Plug Hat
Duffield was outstandin’ amongst men, in appearance and in his manner—a unusual character. He wore clothes to suit his own fancy, regardless o the Western custom. It took a brave man to step out on the streets o’ early Tucson in a plug hat, but Duffield wore his and made ’em like it.
Folks hated them black silk tile hats, and it was the custom to shoot ’em off the heads o’ the wearers on sight, but nobody bothered the plug hat o’ Duffield, nor offered any criti- cism.
The man was a bearcat in strength. He was six-foot three in height, had extremely broad shoulders, powerful muscles, and re- markable big fists. His. complexion was dark, his hair black, and his eyes were keen as a briar and the color o’ jet.
No man ever questioned his bravery. He was a amiable hombre, made lots © strong friends and admirers, but at times he was disputatious and somewhat quarrelsome.
Fit No Pattern
Everything about Duffield was sort 0’ out- standin’ and different; he wouldn’t quite fit
‘into any reg’lar pattern. Even the way he
discharged his duties as Postal Inspector—in those days a dangerous job—was different and amusin’, though it was entirely com- mendable.
He inspected a post office in one o’ the dis-.
(Continued on page 8)
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AROUND THE BRANDING FIRE (Continued from page 6)
tricts in his jurisdiction one day, then said to the postmaster:
“You see, the postmaster-general is growl- in’ at me because there’s so much thievin’ goin’ on along the line, so that I’m gittin’ kind o’ tired and must git the whole biz off me mind. And as I’ve looked into the whole thing and feel satisfied you’re the thief, you’d better git pilin’ out o’ here without any more nonsense.”
The postmaster was gone within twelve hours, and there was no more thievin’ in Duffield’s. district. Maybe the thievin’ amongst some postmasters could be ex- plained, in a way. They were paid the sum 0’ twelve dollars a year!
They Never Drew Guns
This Postal Inspector was one 0’ that school o’ gun-experts that never took the trouble to draw a gun, but simply shot right out © their pockets.
The practice wasn’t unusual. There was lots o’ men in the early days o’ the West who regarded drawin’ a gun as a waste o’ time.
From the pocket was how Duffield shot the famous bad-man, “Waco Bill.” Now this here Waco Bill, a Texan, was a bad man, and tough as they come. Mostly he was full o’ bad liquor, locally called “coffin varnish.” And it was said o’ him that he “wore crepe on his hat in memory o’ his departed virtues.”
A Challenge
Waco Bill got jealous o’ all the admiration and respect accorded Duffield for his strength and shootin’ ability. Primin’ his nerves with coffin varnish, he strode about the village o’ Tucson one day demandin’ to know “Whar’s Duffer? I want Duffer; he’s my meat.” ;
Now Duffield was standin’ in one o’ the groups that Waco so addressed. The boastin’ words had hardly left the hiccoughin’ brag- gart’s lips before that big fist what could fell a ox shot from Duffield’s shoulder. Down went Waco Bill, sprawlin’ on the earth.
He’d no sooner touched the ground than his hand was seen to reach for his gun. He
had it only halfway drawn from his holster
when Duffield fired from his pocket, sendin’ a bullet plowin’ into Waco Bill’s groin. That (Continued on page 10)
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AROUND THE BRANDING FIRE
(Continued from page 8)
took the fight out o’ the Texas badman.
Calmly, without showin’ a trace 0’ anger in voice or manner, Duffield walked over to the cursin’ Texan and made him a Chester- fieldian bow.
“My name’s Duffield, sir,” he said, “and them there’s me visitin’ card.”
Concealed Weapons
Every man wore firearms in them days, and if a order was issued forbiddin’ the wearin’ o’ guns in certain places, the average man concealed his weapons on his person some place and went ahead as usual.
There was a certain judge in Tucson, name o’ Titus, who disliked Duffield intensely, it’s. said. It was through Duffield’s wearin’ con- cealed weapons to a baile where every man was supposed to go on a “peace footin’” (all guns left at home) that the Judge found ex- cuse to prefer charges against him and hail him into court. Judge Titus claimed Duffield had partly drawn a pistol on him, though the charge was for wearin’ concealed weap- ons.
Lemme say right here that Duffield was actually a sort o’ walkin’ arsenal. He had guns concealed all over his person habitually —in the arm-holes o’ his waistcoat, in his bootlegs, his hip-pockets, and even at the back o’ his neck. It’s said as many as eleven guns were concealed on him at times.
Well, when Duffield was brought to trial the courtroom was sure packed with inter- ested spectators. Court opened and pro- ceeded in a impressive and judicious style until the first witness for the state was called.
Six-gun Testimony
This witness, name o’ Charles Brown, took the stand and, under oath, was told to show the judge and jury jest how the prisoner Duffield had drawn his revolver at the baile.
Whereupon the witness cleared his throat and proceeded.
“Yuh see, Jedge,” he said, “the way he drawed was jest this way ...” And at that he drew a six-shooter, fully cocked, from the holster on his hip.
The courtroom burst into loud laughter, and the trial was nolle prossed. The judge
(Continued on page 103)
10
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>) RADIO FROM THE ‘OLD MAN” 7 HIMSELF, HE WANTS THIS CREW SENT TO HIS YACHT PRONTO! /
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GILLETTE RAZOR EXACTLY, TOO, THUS eam PROTECTING YOUR FACE FROM thoy HE SCRAPE AND IRRITATION OF
ONE MORE RIVER
A novelet by
NORRELL GREGORY
When Jett Dorey, from Kentucky, races a girl a dead heat in an Oklahoma Land Rush, their joint stake comes to mean more than they ever expect!
CHAPTER I: Night Riders
course a few miles above the Okla-
homa line where the April grass was good and there was wood for a fire. They were the Dorey boys, from Kentucky—Jeff twenty-six, and Sam only fourteen.
4 ie CAMPED along a small water-
By a prearranged schedule Jeff took care of the cooking while Sam wrangled the wagon mules and took care of the fine thoroughbred mare they had brought to use in ethe Run. Sam, in particular, expected great things of that mare.
After supper, while Jeff was poring over ‘one of the “Blackstone Commentaries”—he had ambitions to study law—Sam thought
‘it had been his sole obsession. He had asked his elder brother a hundred thousand ques- tions as to just how it would be conducted.
Jeff closed the law book—it was getting too dark to read—and attempted to make some things clear to this kid brother of his who was far older than his years indicated.
“On the seventeenth of April everybody will line up at the Jump-off. A cannon will be fired at Fort Reno, and the man with the fastest horse gets the best piece of land in Oklahoma—maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?” Sam said crossly. “We got the fastest horse, ain’t we?”
Jeff smiled. Sam had always been that way—opinionated.
“There'll be plenty of fast horses there, Sam,” he explained, “and there’s other things to consider. Sooners, for example.”
“What’s them?”
“People that slip in ahead of time and hide out till opening day. Then all they got to do is drive their stake and rub soapsuds on their horse to make him look like he’s lathered up.”
“Low-down sneaks!” said Sam. “I’d know how to handle them.” His eyes went to the old Baker shotgun leaning against a wagon wheel. ‘
“Sam, you’re a heathen,” Jeff said mildly.
“And you’re my brother,” retorted Sam.
The fire burned out and dusk came. Sam got drowsy and crawled under the wagon where their blankets were spread, taking with him the old Baker. =
Jeff shook his head. The old Baker was double-barreled, full choke and kicked like a tormented mule, but Sam had taken it to bed with him every single night since they had left Kentucky, fully expecting to have use for it before morning. He never had, yet not for a single night had he ever relaxed his vigilance.
T WAS NOT amusing to Jeff, because he knew it reflected Sam’s up-bringing. It was the old feudist blood that ran in both their veins, and Jeff was not proud of it. He knew that it had been born of ignorance and seeded in decadence. This long trip had revealed, as nothing else, the extreme narrowness of their up- bringing. Sam was too young to understand
bout the Run. Throughout the entire trip-
THRILLING RANCH STORIES
it. Sam had been far too young even to remember the soul-searing tragedy that had left them parentless.
Now as the full moon sailed up over the Kansas flatness Jeff thought of their past, and speculated on their future. Before them was a land that was lusty and new, un- touched, he hoped, by those old and debasing things which he hoped they had left behind forever. And yet he understood that it was a gamble. If he failed in the Run, how could he expect to make a home for Sam?
Down Caldwell way a cow bawled long’ and lonesomely. Along the timber-fringed stream whippoorwills were calling. Jeff Dorey could hear the mules and the mare cropping grass. He could hear Sam’s even and deep breathing under the wagon. All the small night noises that usually went un- noticed seemed suddenly magnified a thous- and times. A vague unrest, an unexplainable tension, took hold of him.
He stood up, a tall and gangling young man with a dark and somewhat ragged crop of hair. In the moonlight the features of his face were sharply etched. There was both a vague maturity and a nobility stamped there, for there was good blood back along the Dorey line. Far back.
The little night wind died and he was conscious of a faint pulsing sound beating up against the moon. Down by the watercourse his mare suddenly threw up her head and stood motionless, the moon glistening on her round barrel. She had, he knew, also caught the sound.
It seemed to flow through the earth, and it increased quickly in volume. Then he knew what it was—the pulse-stirring beat`of a horse’s hoofs, coming all out.
Across the creek to the south the ribbon of road led over a small knoll. He saw the animal as it glanced over this knoll, just a speeding black splotch, with the saddle either empty or the rider very low in: the kak
The speeding horse glanced down into the shadows of the timber-fringed watercourse, and Jeff heard it hit the crossing a bucket- ing slap. Then the mount went off for the roadway, his long legs spanning prodigious distances. .
The horse came out of the shadows, picking up speed again. Jeff was in the roadway ahead of it, his arms thrown high. Sense- less, the animal came on, grunting, blind with panic.
“Caught him, did you?” said the spokesman. “Just hand up those reins!” 15 :
16 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
“Ho, boy!” Jeff shouted.
The horse reared straight up, a high and black: pillar against the moon. Jeff leaped for the bridle, caught it, and was dragged a full rod before he could stop the insensate animal.
Panting, trembling in every muscle, the horse stood, now tractable. Under the moon- light the empty saddle held a-wetly black sheen. Jeff’s exploring hand came away touched with stickiness.
Up near the wagon his mare neighed ring- ingly, and he saw that her head pointed, not toward him, but southward again.
He stood motionless, listening, the reins lax in his hand. First, only the rhythmic panting of the horse, the little squeal of leather from the saddle, then sound again flowed through the earth. Swiftly the sound resolved into the strike of not one, but of several horses, coming with a controlled velocity.
He led the horse toward the wagon.
“Sam!” he called. “Roll out!” __
Clutching the Baker, out from beneath the wagon came Sam. He cocked an atten- tive ear toward the sound of those coming riders, cast a look at the riderless horse Jeff was leading, then faded behind the wagon.
Over the rise came four riders, a close- packed and speeding black knot. They plunged down into the shadows of the timber and Jeff-heard them hit the water a swoosh- ing strike.
Out they came on the near side of the stream, still a close-packed knot, and were at the point of hurtling by the encampment when one of them must have caught the sheen of the moon on the white wagon top. An up-tossed hand brought the whole group to a sliding, grinding stop.
From behind the wagon came Sam’s laconic voice.
“Want for me to mow into ” ’em, Jeff?”
“No!”
S THE GROUP consulted out there,
their voices made a subdued and ominous murmur. Then, as one, they turned towards the wagon, spreading a little and keeping, Jeff noticed, their backs to the moon.
It was a disquieting maneuver, but even though their faces could not be seen as‘ they approached, their personalities were dis- tinctly individual. One was a tall figure with sharply cut and high shoulders, and he wore
his hat at a rakish angle; another was a massive and postlike man, another slender, moving pliantly to every motion of his horse. The fourth was so slight and small as to appear almost boyish.
Tall-hat acted as a spokesman and his voice matched his person—chipped, sharp, almost insolent. z
“Caught him, did you? Just hand up those reins and we'll be moving along.”
“This horse is a mare, mister,” Jeff said.
A little silence, then Tall-hat laughed, a jarring brittle note.
“Mare, then,” he said. “The reins, friend.”
“Mister,” Jeff said, “did you know this saddle was covered with blood?”
Paralysis hit the four of them. Then Tall- hat’s hand dropped from the saddle-horn and he leaned a little forward. His voice now held a low and wicked cadence:
“Hand up those ‘reins!”
Jeff then realized that he had mistaken the true kidney of these men, saw that they were armed, and that there was that about them which signified they “were entirely indifferent as to how they used their arms. He knew that Sam would shoot if he gave the sign, but he knew also that at that dis- tance the old Baker scattered not at all. Sam could, and probably would, make a mess of two of them, but he couldn’t get them all. Jeff was suddenly assailed with a fear that Sam would shoot.
“Don’t shoot, Sam!” he said quickly.
He was at the point of handing up the reins when Sam acted on his own initiative. Never had Jeff heard the sound of a gun lock sound so loud and sinister as it did now.
Again paralysis hit these four men. Then Tall-hat’s head moved toward the wagon and Jeff knew he was calculating their chances. Behind the wagon, Sam eared back the second hammer on the Baker, and that tipped the scales.
Those men were wise enough to know that there was but one gun with a double lock— a shotgun.
Tall-hat laughed, the same jarring note, “Have it your own way,” he said carelessly. “I see the horse is a mare, after all. Keep her and the devil with you!”
Without touching a rein he kneed his horse about, rode away south, followed by the other three. Not once did they look back. Jeff drew a deep breath of relief and Sam eame from behind the wagon, the Baker still at full cock.
ONE MORE RIVER aoe 17
“Sam, that was nice work, but awful risky.”
“Huh!” said Sam disdainfully. “Think I could miss four of ’em at that distance with a ten-gauge?”
“You had only two shots, Sam. What would have happened after the shotgun was empty.”
“They'd all be dead,” Sam said.
“Including,” Jeff said drily, “ourselves.”
Sam wouldn’t argue the point. “What you reckon become of the rider, Jeff?”
“I think,” replied Jeff, “that he must have fallen off when the horse hit the crossing. Let’s find out.”
LANTERN was needed in the heavy
shadows of the crossing, and by its light Jeff and Sam found the rider, lying in two feet of water. Jeff knew that even if the man hadn’t been dead when he fell off his horse, he was now, because his face had been completely submerged.
He carried him back to the wagon and laid him on the ground, face up. In the moon- light his face assumed a peculiar transpar- ency, as if all the passions and hates and desires of life had been suddenly washed away, returning him to the undefiled state
belonging only to childhood. Young, tran-.
quil and handsome.
“They laid for him, looks like,” soberly, “and got him cold.”
Sam knelt down and examined him more . closely.
“Four bullets in him,” he said. “These cowboys out here ain’t such a much. In Kentucky we wouldn’t needed but one.”
“You’re a heathen, Sam,” Jeff repeated, without heat.
He dropped on one knee and went through the dead man’s clothing. The pockets yielded little enough. A pack of playing cards, a small amount of money, a watch, and among other lesser things, a few old and water- soaked letters. Jeff pored over them some time, Sam waiting patiently.
“His name,” Jeff said, “seems to have been Bob McAllister. And from these letters, I judge he one time amounted to something.”
Jeff said
“What'd they kill him for?” Sam wanted to know.
Jeff shook his head. “Not money, anyway. Maybe he knew something they were afraid he would tell. Or maybe it was a girl. You can never tell.” He stood up. “I expect I'd better ride in to town and report this tonight?”
“Why?” said Sam. “He’s dead and he'll still be dead in the morning. We know we didn’t do it.”
“We do,” Jeff admitted, “but other people don’t. We’re strangers, Sam, and it wouldn’t look. well for us to go into town with a dead man in our wagon, leading his horse, would it?”
“Save a trip,” said practical Sam.
“Saddle our mare,” ordered Jeff.
Sam knew better than to argue when Jeff: used that tone. Jeff had raised him since he was four years old and, while an indulgent brother, could also be firm. Now as Sam clubbed after the mare, Jeff climbed into the wagon to spruce up a little.
e put on his best suit, a black broad- cloth, a white shirt and a low-crowned dark hat. He didn’t look unlike a young preacher, thus attired, but the heavy pistol he buttoned under his coat was hardly appropriate for the ministry.
Sam brought up the mare, dancing and snorting dew from her nostrils. She blew a blast of distaste at the still figure on the ground, but she was too well trained to shy. With one foot in the stirrup, Jeff paused.
“PII be back by daylight, Sam,” he said. “You'll be all right here.”
“I ain’t worried about myself,” Sam re- torted, “but suppose you don’t get back?”
“TIL get back,” Jeff assured, and hit the
~ saddle.
Gravel from the blooded mare’s driving hoofs spanked the wagon box. She was so full of run that, after crossing the stream, Jeff let her have her way, welcoming the strong push of the night air against his face.
Serene and high sailed the moon, and the mare’s flying hoofs quickened and quickened. Long before entering the town of Cald- well, Jeff encountered the gigantic encamp- ment of people waiting there for the Jump- off. The sea of tents and wagon-tops, white under the moon, stretched all the way around that small Border town, and far beyond.
People not yet asleep glanced at this tall
young man, astride a shimmering mare, as he rode through, but no one spoke to him or
18 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
made any attempt to stop him.
It was a staggering accumulation of people, and Jeff felt a humbleness and an awe. It made him realize, as nothing else ever had, the vastness and strength of his country. Proud, too, to be a citizen of a nation big enough to put enough people in one place, like this, to populate an entire state, and yet never miss them from the places they had left. 7
Caldwell, when he reached it, was a seething, surging caldron. Saloons, dance- halls, gambling dives, other places were all doing a round-the-clock business and he knew that even these, accenting the more sordid side, were also the sign of a virile people.
EFF turned the mare into the dark maw
of a barn and when she threshed
thunderous hoofs on the boarded entry, a
nighthawk, lantern in the crook of his arm, appeared and reached for her bridle.
Jeff dismounted. “Put her in a box stall,” he directed. _
“Yes, sir,” said the nighthawk, and led the mare clacking toward the back of the barn.
Jeff turned and stood in the board entry, facing the surging elements of this small Border town, hitherto unknown to him as well as thousands of others. Now it held the spotlight of the nation, and probably of the world.
As he stood there he heard wild rumors . bruited about, all pertaining to this fabulous land gift. He heard that Texans on the south, tired of waiting for opening day, were coming into the Territory in spite of troops, Hades or high water; that beaten cattlemen had hired gun-hands to Sooner their old and now void leases; that Boomers had been hiding out in plum thickets for years, waiting for this opening day. These and many more rumors were all stimulating, he thought, but probably false.
The nighthawk came clacking back up to the entry and stood beside him, dwarfed by Jeff’s rangy height.
“Here for the Run?” the man said engag- ingly.
Jeff nodded. It was always the first ques- tion, and entirely needless.
“Ts there a sheriff in town?” he asked. *
The barn man pointed. “Marshal's office is right over there.”
Jeff nodded his thanks and stepped into the street where cowboys, perhaps conscious
of a last chance to kick up their heels, flung wild-eyed cow ponies through the streets, shooting and shouting. Their day was about done.
In a small office sandwiched between a dance-hall and a hotel he found a gaunt, graying man tipped~back in a chair with his eyes closed. A law badge gleamed on the lapel of his unbuttoned vest, and a heavy six-shooter sagged at his waist.
When the man opened his eyes Jeff saw that he was not drowsy, but bone tired. .
“What is it, son?” he asked, not unkindly.
“Do you know anyone by the name of Bob McAllister?”
The sheriff’s heavy eyelids fluttered. “Yes, I know Bob. Why?”
“I found him in a creek a few miles north of town.” :
The chair legs struck the floor. “Drowned?”
“Shot.”
The sheriff’s gray eyes probed deep.
“Stranger in these parts?” he asked.
Jeff told him who he was and where he was from. The sheriff nodded.
“Any idea who done it?” he asked.
Jeff described the four men, and a gleam shot through the sheriff’s eyes. He stood up, reaching well over the six-foot mark, and turned to the window where he could look upon the surging, animated street.
“Son,” he said, “you, like them thousands out there, are here for the Run. You’re overjoyed because Oklahoma is at last opened for settlement. I wonder how many of you ever think of the other side.”
“The cattlemen’s side?” said Jeff.
“Them,” said the sheriff, “but in particular the men that used to work for them. Boys like Bob. He had a good job in Oklahoma, and a bright future. He could have married his boss’ girl. But when the Government voided them leases it broke every cattleman in Oklahoma, and it put a lot of young fellows to the bad. They went wild. Think of that, some time.”
“I have, Sheriff,” replied Jeff.
“If you have,” replied the lawman, “you’re one in a thousand. Where is your camp?”
Jeff told him.
“TII be out,” said the sheriff. “Think you would know them four if you was to see them again.”
“I think I would. ?
“Take a look around town before you go back to camp. Let me know if you see them.”
ONE MORE RIVER
Out on the boardwalk, Jeff stood a while thinking of what the sheriff had told him. The sheriff was not only a strange man, but what was more rare, apparently an intelli- gent one.
He entered the crowded lobby of a hotel where a harassed clerk was telling people there were no more rooms. To the left of the stairway was an opening labeled, “Sample Room.”
He knew that was only a polite term for a bar, and went in. People three deep lined the bar, and back, a short stair led to a low balcony, where there were chairs and tables for more discriminating customers. Bar girls in short skirts and demurely high- necked blouses ran up and down these stairs, serving these tables.
The balcony was well populated, and even before Jeff found an empty table he saw the four men who had paid his camp the noc- turnal visit. They were seated at a table near the back wall. He knew he could not be mistaken. There was the tall man, the heavy one, the thin, and the little one. The latter was no bigger than Sam, but there was nothing boyish about his face. It was too hard and too wicked.
EFF found an unoccupied table and sat
down. A bar girl appeared instantly. She was young and she was disturbingly pretty.
“What for you, sir?” she said.
Jeff gave an order because he knew it was required here. As she turned down the stairs she gave him a quick and measuring look, and Jeff found himself wondering what par- ticular piece of bad luck had put her here.
A chain scraped the floor and boot falls crossed the floor. Tall-hat spun a chair with his boot toe, straddled it, and sat down faoc- ing Jeff across the table. He was a magnifi- cently built man and there was an insolent look in his dark eyes.
“Where,” he asked, “have I seen you before?”
ff knew the man was dead ecause his face was sub- merged
19
20 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
Jeff shrugged, wishing he had his pistol in a more accessible position.
“Your guess is as good as mine, stranger. Ever been in Kentucky?”
“Kentucky?” Tall-hat laughed, the same jarring note Jeff had heard earlier that evening. “Never. My mistake, stranger.”
He arose, threw a look toward the other three and went indolently down the stairs. At the foot he paused to say something to the girl bringing Jeff’s order, then moved on through the barroom. The other three arose and moved after him.
The bar girl put Jeff’s order on the table. She was full-bodied and deft. Close up, he could see faint shadows of weariness under her eyes.
“Why don’t you sit down and rest a little?” he said.
She gave him that quick and enigmatic look again, then she sat down opposite him, her arms on the table, round and smooth and firm. Her eyes, clear and direct, studied him with a frank wonder.
“Do you work here because you like it or because you have to?” he said.
She resented the question. “Why?” she asked coolly.
He smiled faintly. “I was just thinking that “you were out of place.”
“And I was just thinking the same thing about you,” she retorted. She started to rise.
‘Don’t go yet, please,” he said quickly. “Who was the tall man who spoke to you as you came up the stairs?”
She hesitated, then said, “That was Grat Morelock.”
“And those other three with him?”
A different light came into her eyes, wis- dom and a hardness. “Mister, have you got a badge hid somewhere? If you have, show it,”
‘Tm no badge toter,” Jeff said earnestly. “Just a plain country boy from the Kentucky mountains, The name is Dorey—Jeff Dorey.”
Her eyes softened instantly. “Kentucky!” she said. “I thought you sounded like a Kentuckian. I used to—” she caught her- self. “What interest have you in Grat More- lock?”
Jeff hesitated himself. Then ie said, “Do you know anybody by the name of Bob McAllister?”
She nodded, watching him closely. “Bob used to be a nice boy before—before he hit hard luck. Why?”
“When did you see him last?”
“This evening. Why all these questions?”
“Bob a friend of yours?”
She froze up. “Mister,” she said, “I know the Goyernment has hundreds of deputies around here who keep their badges in their pockets. You'll not get any more information out of me.”
“Bob,” said Jeff, “is dead.”
That hit her hard. She paled and caught her lower lip in her teeth, stared at him a moment, then rose and left the balcony. She did not return, and after waiting some time Jeff paid one of the other girls and left the hotel.
HE SHERIFF'S office was closed, so he
got his mare from,the barn and headed northward, pondering deeply. Things just didn’t add up, he thought. He wondered if’ Bob McAllister had keen killed over that girl, and he wondered what stroke of bad luck had put her down to serving tables at a bar. She was, he believed, a little thorough- bred; if he knew anything about either horses or women.
He was through the camp and the mare was moving along at a cradlelike rack in the open country when shadows on either side of the road swam into motion. Four horses, effectively blocking the road, jerked him rudely out of his brown reverie.
“Where to, stranger?”
It was the mocking voice of Grat Morelock, and in the failing light of the blood-red moon, Jeff could see those high-cut shoulders, that rakishly tilted hat. He had the sickening realization that he had ridden stupidly into a trap that even Sam would have been alert against.
He did not reply at once, because he guessed that in the now indifferent light they were not entirely certain of his identity.
- They were waiting to hear his voice—then he
would get it, just as Bob McAllister had got it.
The Kentucky-bred mare was trained and she was almost as fast as a bullet. She would start, full speed, at a touch, turn on a dime and whirl at another. He knew his chance of whirling and getting back to town was negli- gible; also his chance of getting his buttoned- down gun into action. These men were set for such moves. His only chance was straight ahead, through them, depending on the speed of Itis mare.
Morelock’s horse was ahead, almost broad- side. From a dead stop the mare went into
ONE MORE RIVER a:
his horse like a thousand-pound projectile. Shoulder smote shoulder and Morelock’s horse was spun like a top and went down at the side of the road.
Through the opening with hardly a check rushed the mare. Flat along her neck Jeff ran through a furious but wild fusillade. Lead sang over his head.
Then he was in the open and the mare settled to a full racing stride. He expected instant pursuit and welcomed it. Let them try to run him down now!
Pursuit did not come. Instead, a man’s harsh command was shouted, then came the spiteful crack of a rifle. Lead winged over him and the mare ducked her head and leaped sideward.
One of them had seen the futility of trying to run down the mare and had cleared the road behind him, pulled a saddle gun and cracked down. That head work, Jeff guessed, came from Grat Morelock.
A second shot came almost instantly, a third and a fourth. The mare squealed and broke stride badly. Instantly Jeff swung bolt upright. Better to give them a high target than to have the mare hit. If she came down, they would have him.
Behind, the rifle cracked with a steady and devilish deliberation. He counted the shots— four, five, six. How many did the magazine hold? -All high—seven—then a sledge-ham- mer blow slammed him forward along the mare’s neck and he felt the reins slip through his fingers.
‘The mare slowed, but she did not break stride. Lying along her neck with his arms hanging like ropes Jeff felt the last vestige of strength drain out of him.
He sagged to the left, falling, and the mare
suddenly veered, seemed to dip and come up”
under him, throwing him back. He sagged to the right, and again she veered and dipped, coming up under him again. He knew what she was doing, but he was powerless to help her.
The lethal spang of the rifle had ceased, or else the growing roar in his head had obscured it. The mare was floating. Floating on a cloud. No effort, no strain, just float-
T CAMP, Sam had neither slept.nor let
the old Baker out of his hands for a moment. It had been a trying vigil, even inured as he was to the harder aspects of life. For himself he had no worry, but he
e
was deeply worried about Jeft. Jeff, he thought, was too unsuspicious of others.
He saw the moon setting, blood-red, and that added to his premonitions. He was full of such things, and Jeffs efforts to purge them from his mind had not been entirely successful, So when a little later he heard the first wild burst of gunfire to the south, he was mightily perturbed, but not surprised. Then when that first wild outburst of shoot- ing was followed by the deadly, dropping fire of a rifle he knew positively that Jeff had run into a trap.
He stood by the wagon in the growing dawn, expecting at any moment to hear the furious roll of horses’ hoofs. When they did not materialize, he anticipated the worst.
Dawn at the ford where the shadows were still deep he heard a horse neigh. His heart jumped and his grip tightened on the Baker. Then, as steathily as any Indian, he moved toward the ford, the Baker at full cock. Day was close now.
When he reached the sharp lift out of the water he saw the mare standing at the edge, directly below him. Jeff was stretched full length along her neck, his arms hanging like ropes.
Sam was pretty tough-minded, but now the Baker escaped from his hands, and being cocked, went off when it hit the ground. The double charge cut down a sapling as large as a.man’s arm. Sam let the gun lay and went down the bank at a frantic crablike scramble.
‘He saw the bloody mass that was Jeff's shock of hair and he seized Jeff by the shoulders and held him while the mare scrambled up the bank.
CHAPTER IV
The Border
OLDING Jeff in the saddle, as he walked along, Sam saw the long bullet burn on the mare’s neck and his face went bleak as he envisaged the leaden hail through which she and Jeff had passed. At the wagon Sam pulled Jeff from the saddle and was carried down by the plunge of Jeff's dead weight. Jeff was heavier than he looked. ; Sam found that his brother’s head wound was the only one that Jeff had suffered and,
22 THRILLING RANCH STORIES -
schooled in such matters, knew it was not necessarily seriouse The bullet had struck near the top of Jeff’s head, at the back, gone under the scalp and come out just above the hairline in front.
Sam dashed to the creek for water which he flung over Jeffs head, then washed it carefully. The wound was still oozing blood, so he bound Jeff’s head with some muslin, then got the jug of pure Kentucky corn from the wagon. He was trying to spill some down Jeff’s throat when Jeff came to.
Jeff pushed the jug away with petulant “weakness.
“Never try to pour whisky down an un- conscious man, Sam,” he said weakly. “Might strangle him.”
Sam grinned a little. “Guess you ain’t so bad off,” he said. “You can still lecture.”
Jeff pulled himself to a sitting position and propped his back against the wagon. He looked at his mare a long time.
“Sam, I found out something. Horses can think.”
“Huh!” said Bann scornfully. “That ain’t no discovery. I’ve knowed that all my life. That mare, when she come to the bank down
_ there, knowed you would fall off in the water if she tried to climb it, so she just stood and nickered for me.”
Jeff nodded. “After what happened tonight, I can believe even that, Sam. She kept me in the saddle when I couldn’t lift a finger.”
“Who was it got you? Them same four?”
Jeff nodded. He didn’t want to discuss it, ` because he knew he should have been more
alert. Should have known that Morelock had recognized him in the Sample Room.
- “Sheriff been here?” he asked.
“Nobody’s been here. Jeff, what do you in- tend to do about it?”
“Report it to the sheriff when he comes. It’s his job to take care of such things. not ours, Sam.” :
Sam looked thoroughly disgusted, but he said nothing at first. Then he blurted:
“That ain’t the way they handle such things ‘in Kentucky!”
“This is not Kentucky,” Jeff reminded.
“No,” gl retorted Sam, “but it’s a durned sight worse.”
Jeff was silent. He was beginning to think that he had made’a mistake in coming West. This country was worse than Kentucky—for Sam.
The sheriff appeared soon after sunrise, driving a spring wagon. He had some blan-
kets in the wagon and after he had climbed out he stood a long time looking down into the face of the dead man. Almost, Jeff thought, he shed a tear.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s Bob.”
He gathered the dead man up in his arms, placed him gently in the spring wagon and covered him decently. Jeff could see that the lawman was hit hard.
“Sheriff,” Jeff said, “we’ve got a jug of Kentucky corn here, if you would like a
` drink.”
“I could use some of that,” said the sheriff.
After he had taken a pull at the jug he put his back against a wagon wheel and his face looked grayer in the full light of morning.
“I don’t know,” he said, “what will become of all these young cowhands now. There’s no other range for them. The range is gone. All they know is how -to ride and rope and shoot a little, and they’re too proud to beg. It looks like Oklahoma is going to aren a new crop— a crop of outlaws.”
“Oklahoma is going to beve something else, too. Sheriff,” Jeff said. “The law.”
The sheriff spoke without bitterness. “I represent the law, and yet I know it was the same law that opened Oklahoma to settle- ment that is making outlaws.”
“The same law will hang them some day, Sheriff.” Jeff said, “because the law is coming to this country.”
Te sheriff looked at him with a direct bitterness. He seemed to notice Jeffs bandaged head for the first time.
“Run into them in town last night?” `
“No,” said Jeff. “They laid for me on my way back to camp. One of them is named Morelock. I don’t know the names of the others, but I imagine I could find out.”
“I know their names and I know their records. And this”—the sheriff spoke with grim fatality—“will be one case where the law will take care of them. But I doubt if they hang.”
Struck by his apparent bitterness, Jeff said, “You must have known Bob McAllister pretty well, Sheriff.”
“I should,” replied the sheriff. “He was my son.”
He tied his son’s horse to the wagon, climbed heavily into the seat and drove away.
“Pd sure hate to have that old man gunning for me!” Sam said.
Jeff put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
ONE MORE RIVER 23
“Sam, you was too young to understand what happened to our parents, but here is something mighty close to it. The only differ- ence is that the sheriff happens to be a law officer, and our father wasn’t. The main rea- son I decided to leave Kentucky was to get you away from inherited feuds before you got old enough to know about them and take them up.”
“I can’t see that this country is much different from Kentucky,” replied Sam. “Only difference is back there four men would never lay for just one. It would be the other way around.”
“Oh, Sam, you don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you! Of course there’s killing and violence everywhere, especially in a country like this. But we don’t have to be- come a part of it, like we were in Kentucky. We can start clean here. We won’t have years and years of old hates and feuds back ef us. Can’t you understand that? I wanted to get.you away from those things before you got old enough to take them up.”
“You think I would?” said Sam scornfully.
“Sam, I know you would. You’ve got more of that old blood in you than I have.”
“No,” said Sam, “I don’t reckon I have, Jeff. Were full brothers. I reckon you’ve just got more head on you. I see kinda what you mean, now, but I don’t reckon I ever would have if this hadn’t happened.” Then he looked at Jeff and said anxiously, “Jeff, you reckon you'll be able to ride in the Run?”
His concern was a little overdone. Jeff grinned.
“Sam, I believe you’d be willing to see me get my head shot half off if you thought it would give you a chance to ride the mare in the Run.”
“Well, you did get a dirty lick, Jeff,” Sam
FOR QUALITY!
said sheepishly. “Yow’ll have to be careful . with that head.”
“PII be all right in a day or so, Sam. Just a lick on the head was all it amounts to.”
It was near sundown when they hit the big encampment encircling Caldwell. Sam stared with disbelieving eyes.
“All these people out for land?” he blurted.
“Most of them, at least.”
Sam spoke in an awed voice. “Jeff we ain’t got a chance!”
“I wouldn’t say that,” replied Jeff, as they rolled into Caldwell.
People stopped to watch the mare follow- ing the wagon. Sam grinned.
“Look at her dance and show off!” he said.
Jeff nodded. “She knows when people are looking at her. Just like a woman.” Š
South of town they were obliged to drive some distance before they could find an open camping spot. And close by the spot where they did stop was an ancient wagon which looked as if it had crossed the plains in ’Forty-nine. A family was getting supper around a campfire and a gaunt, bewhiskered man was feeding a road-weary team and an extra horse, behind the wagon.
On this wagon’s weathered chalked the inscription:
side was
MALARIAD IN ARKANSAW, BALD-NOBBED IN MISSOURY, CYCLONED IN NEBRASKY, PRO- HIBITED IN KANSAS—OKLAHOMY OR BUST!
Jeff called Sam’s attention to the inscrip- tion. s “There, Sam,” he said, “is something. I’ve read whole books of history that told me less. You remember it.” [Turn page]
24 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
EFF and Sam were eating supper when
this same gaunt giant came over to their wagon. The yellow tinge of too long a stay in the swampland was stamped on his be- whiskered face, and his patched blue-jeans were stuffed into the tops of tall cowhide boots. A great toe had burst the confines of one of these. His eyes were bright and amiable.
“Hiya, neighbors,” he said affably. “Where ye from and what’s yore handle?” :
“Dorey,” said Jeff. “That’s my brother, Sam. I’m Jeff: We’re from Kentucky.”
“Kentucky!” exclaimed the giant. “Why, boy, I used to know some Doreys back in Kentucky before I left there. Any relation to Judge Dorey?”
“We don’t claim no relation to that old devil,” Sam said sourly, “He wanted to put me in a home.”
“The Judge is our uncle,” Jeff said.
“Well, shake hands! My name is Sowre— Deck Sowre. Reckon I left Kentucky before that boy there was borned. You ain’t,” he said hopefully, “got a jug of that good old Kentucky corn in your waggin, have you?”
“Sam, get the gentleman the jug,” Jeff directed.
With none too good grace Sam produced the jug and Deck Sowre took it almost reverently. He sampled the contents, nodded, and held up a long forefinger. Then cradling the jug in the crook of his arm, he tipped back his head and his prominent Adam’s apple made a veritable race track out of his long neck.
He lowered -the jug. “Boys,” he said huskily, “that was worth waiting ten years for. Anything I can do for you, name it.”
Over at his wagon a thin woman cupped her hands and called shrilly:
‘Deck! Decker Sowre! It you want any vittles, you better git to gittin’ over here!”
Deck Sowre winked comically, “That,” he said, quite unnecessarily, “is my ole woman. See you later, boys.”
After he had gone Sam grumbled, “Old wind-bag. Few trips and we might as well throw that jug away—empty.” .
“Sam, you’re wrong. Deck is no windbag. On the contrary, he’s been around and I ex- pect he can tell us where to look for a good piece of land in Oklahoma. And how to get there by the shortest route.”
“Just a big wind-bag,” reasserted Sam. “He'll be back, long as there’s anything in that jug.”
“Even if he drinks it all,” replied Jeff, “9 think we will be well repaid.”
ECK SOWRE was back, shortly before dusk.
“Anything left in that jug, boys?” was his first question.”
“Get the gentleman the jug, Sam,” Jeff said,
Sam did, but again reluctantly.
Deck Sowre took another long pull, sighed and handed the jug back to Sam.
“Thanky, bud,” he said. Then he gave the mare a long look. “Peart lookin’ mare you got there, Jeff. Fast?” >
“Fairly fast,” admitted Jeff.
“No faster ever eome out of the Blue- grass!” Sam exclaimed.
Deck nodded. “Believe it,” he said, then he squatted down and began drawing lines on the ground with a stick. “Ever been in Oklahomy, Jeff?”
“Never have.”
“Well, sir, I’m going to tell you boys some- thing. You may have the fastest mare in the Run, but she won’t get you nowhere unless you know the ropes. You could run her tongue out and wind up findin’ a low-down bunch of Sooners on the land you aimed for.”
“We sort of figured you could put us on to something, Deck,” Jeff replied.
“You figured right. I know Oklahomy as well as that.” Deck held out a great palm.
“Were you a Boomer, Deck?”
“Yes sir, a Boomer, and proud of it. I’ve been run out of Oklahomy more times than a Walker hound has got fleas. We started goin’ in there more than ten year ago. Then cattle- men tried to run us out with their tough cow- hands. They couldn’t cut her, so they sicked the troops on us.”
“Troops!” said Jeff. “How could they do that?” . AA
“Politics, dirty politics, Jeff. They run us out and back we bounced. They run us out agin, and back we come, stronger than ever. Tve been led by the neck with a rope tied to the end gate of a wagon many a mile with a Johnnie-bluecoat ridin’ right on my tail. I had to walk or drag. I fought for my country
ONE MORE KIVER 25
in the Rebellion, but that happened right here in these United States of Americy. You
won't ever find it in the history books, but it `
happened sure enough, and us with the law on our side.”
Sam grinned at Jeff and old Deck, begin- ning to feel the effects of the powerful liquor went on:
“You don’t know what us old Boomers went through to open Oklahomy, but we hung and rattled until we cracked her. We made the big-bugs up in Washington set up and take notice of us. Cattlemen even let us put out crops, then they put the troops on us, run us out and fattened their cattle on our crops. Laughed and bragged about it. They ain’t laughing now, are they, Jeff?”
Jeff thought of young Bob McAllister— dead. “No, Deck. They’re not laughing now.”
Deck put his attention on the lines he had drawn on the ground.
“When the Jump-off comes, you take this here line right here. It’s a part of the old Reno Trail. Further down it’s the old Chis- holm Trail—feller by that name used to drive cattle up from Texas over that trail—cross the Big Canadian right here, and foller the old Chisholm trail across to the Little Ca- nadian to the eld Chisholm crossing right here. Cross and drive your stake right here, and you'll not only have the best piece of land in Oklahomy, but a set of buildings as well.”
“Buildings!” exclaimed Sam who listened, open-mouthed.
“I wouldn’t fool you boys. I know what I’m talkin’ about. That’s the old Circle S Ranch lease. Cattleman put them buildings up. Had a long lease on that ground. Thought he was fixed for life. Set the troops on us. Who’s laughin’ now?”
“Deck,” said Jeff, “why don’t you try for that land and buildings?”
“Aim too,” replied Deck. “Lots of other old Boomers aim to, too.”
“There can’t be buildings enough for all of us, Deck.” i
Deck Sowre grinned. “You got a head, Jeff. I can see that. You’re wonderin’ why I told you about it, ain’t you?”
“I am,” Jeff admitted.
“I could say I like you and tell the truth, but that ain’t the real reason, Jeff. Lot of the tough cowhands have gone bad. They know all this country, and they know they can slip in and Sooner a good piece of land, sell it quick for a good stake and get out.”
had
EFF shook his head, a little bewil- dered.
“I still don’t understand,” he confessed.
“How fast is that mare—fast enough to beat any cow horse in there from the Jump-off?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “I know she can do that.”
“Well, Jeff, it’s going to be durned hard to prove a Sooner is a Sooner. You can see that, can’t you?”
“T can see that, Deck.”
“I figure that mare of yours can tell.”
Jeff smiled. “Deck, she can do a lot of ~ things, but she can’t talk.”
“In this case I think she can, cause if there is anybody ahead of you at the Circle S, we'll know they’re Sooners, and we’ll know how to handle the skunks.”
“Deck,” said Jeff, “you’re not so dumb, yoursel?: Any. cow horse that beats me in ` there can be safely considered a Sooner. Now, how long do we stay here?”
Deck Sowre arose and stretched. “Move-up has already been announced. Start in the mornin’.” He looked toward the wagon. “Reckon there’s anything left in that—”
He didn’t have time to complete the sen- tence. Sam was in the wagon in an instant and handing out the jug.
“Help yourself, Mr. Sowre,” he said.
Deck drank and handed the jug back.
‘Well, boys, better be gettin’ back to the waggin. Got to git up early to check over things before that bugle blows.” :
He went toward his wagon on decidedly unsteady legs.
_“That old road-runner did know some- thing!” Sam exclaimed. “Jeff, if we can get a set of buildings with our land, we'll be all set! What did he mean about Move-up?”
“The land to be opened,” Jeff explained, “is down in the dead center of the Territory. Good many miles from here to the north boundary. People have to have time to get to the boundary, where the Jump-off will start.”
Sam crawled under the wagon and began to spread their blankets. Off to their right a group struck up a song. Group after group took it up and the cadence ran up to and be- yond Caldwell, the refrain coming back like a vast echo. Jeff had heard the old song a thousand times back home in Kentucky an‘
‘so had Sam. It was, “One More River to
Cross.”
“Feel a durn safer here than where we ws last night,” Sam said soberly. “Don’t you, Jeff.”
“Yes,” said Jeff, but noticed that Sam had
26 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
turned in cuddling the Old Baker.
Jeff did not sleep at once, There were so many things to think about. These people had crossed a good many rivers and the old song was surely prophetic. They were com- ing at last into their own. But on the other side was Bob McAllister ee had certainly crossed his last river.
“Jeff,” Sam said sleepily, you reckon that old sheriff will ever come up with them fellers?”
“T expect he will, Sam.”
-It comforted him to know that, at last, Sam was thinking for himself. Even if they failed in the Run it would be worth a lot to get Sam started right ....
HE camp was alive early next morning.
People everywhere were checking wagons, harness and other equipment to guard against break-downs. Everybody knew that whoever was not on the line when the cannon was fired would be out of luck.
Shortly before the advance bugle blew Sheriff McAllister rode up, He motioned Jeff aside and talked from the saddle.
“You making the ride too, Sheriff?” Jeff asked.
‘Pm riding,” said the sheriff, “but not for land.” ;
“Think they might be in this crowd?”
“No. I know they’re not in this crowd.” His old eyes remained fixed on the distance for a time. “I just wanted to sort of explain things to you—about Bob.”
“We have our troubles in Kentucky too, Sheriff,” Jeff said quickly. “The main reason I came out here was not for the Run, but to get my kid brother away from some things that could be—”
The sheriff nodded. “Bob was bitter. He got running with the wrong crowd. Them four didn’t go bad—they was borned bad. But Bob was man enough to draw the line. They wanted to Sooner a piece of land and sell it for a stake. It happened to be the old - lease of Bob’s boss and he knew somebody else was figuring on making the ride for a part of it. So he told them no. They killed him. I thought you would like to know how it was.”
The sheriff then rode on and soon after that the advance bugle blew.
Sam, who had watched the talk, said with a subdued excitement:
“He’s on the hunt for them, ain’t he, Jeff?”
“You don’t have to hunt for anything that
isn’t lost, Sam,” Jefi said soberly.
“You think he knows where they’re hid out?”
“I’m sure he does.”
“T sure wouldn’t like to be in their shoes,” Sam said forebodingly.
The camp moved. Looking back from a vantage point Jeff could see the long line ex- tending to and through Caldwell, with late ` arrivals whipping up with might and main to avoid being left. He was feeling stronger today, and his head ached but little.
“Think you can make the Run, Jeff?” Sam asked.
Jeff smiled. “I think I can, Sam.”
“Durn it!” Sam said.
CHAPTER VI
Move-up Day
IDERS, both men and women, began to
drift by, seeking the cleaner air of the front as dust arose in stifling clouds. Jeff saw a girl on a sorrel flit by, riding light as a bird.
“That looked like the mare Bob McAllister was riding when he got shot!” Sam ex- claimed.
“Tt was,” replied Jeff, but he didn’t tell Sam that the girl riding the sorrel was a girl he had met in the bar of the hotel—and remem-
~*bered.
For mid-April the day was murderously- hot, and the soldiers escorting the land seekers set a stiff pace. Thin and overbur- dened teams began to fail. Wagons dropped out and the entire line stretched enormously.
The Doreys’.tall Kentucky mules, well-fed and expertly handled by Sam, began to move up. By noon their light-running Studebaker was at the head of the wagon line.
Only riders and the escorting troopers were ahead. The blue uniforms lent a splash of color'to the van, and Jeff saw the girl on the sorrel again, riding beside an officer.
“There’s that sorrel again, Jeff,” Sam said. “Looks like she might be purty fast, too.”
Jeff said nothing.
At the noon halt, Deck Sowre came up to their wagon.
“Old captain knows he’s cut it too durned fine, now,” he complained, not even thinking to inquire as to the contents of the jug.
“Should have started move-up day or two ago. Lot of these teams are too pore and weak to stand this gait.”
“It’s possible,” said Jeff, “that he had his orders, Deck.”
Deck could see no good in troopers of any sort.
“Yeah,” he agreed Pies “from some whippersnapper that never done nothin’ but polish a chair with the seat of his britches, a good thousand mile from here.”
He went back to his wagon and the march was resumed. Eventually they came to the banks of the Salt. |
There was an ominous bank of clouds back in the Sand Hills region and although the vanguard reached the river long before night, stragglers were still coming in when the sun sank behind those boiling clouds.
Deck Sowre came to the Dorey wagon. There was no humor about the old Boomer now. He was deadly serious.
“Jeff,” he said directly, “we got to make this crossing tonight. Tomorrow noon is Jump-off, and if we have a regular toad- strangler of a rain tonight, morning will find us setting on the wrong side of a river that can’t be crossed.”
Jeff nodded. “We’d better cross tonight.”
“That hard-headed captain says no. I tried to reason with him, but whoever seen a durned bluecoat with any reason? But we’ve fought ’em before and we can agin if we have to. Let’s get organized and get the crossing started before that storm hits. If them soldiers try to stop us, we’ll fight ’°em. After all we’ve gone through we won’t stand for losing out on this Run.”
“Deck,” said Jeff, “before we try anything, let me have a talk with the captain.”
“Waste of time,” ahead, but make it fast. I'll wait here at the waggin.”
Jeff found the escort tents pitched down at the water’s edge, guarding the ford. The captain was both young and stiff-necked. He took both his responsibility and his authority seriously.
“Captain,” Jeff said, “these people think it is advisable to make the crossing tonight.”
“Out of the question!” snapped the officer. “This is a mean crossing even at daylight. I had hoped to cross today, but the line couldn’t hold up, and since I’m responsible for the lives of these people I won’t even consider a night crossing.” ;
“Captain, we can build fires on either side,
declared Deck. “Go `
ONE MORE RIVER ~ l 27-
stretch a rope to mark the lower side of the ford and cross at night, even during a storm.” “You’re wasting your breath. I will not consider a night crossing.” “Captain, you’ve only got a company of men. Do you think they could stop these people if they decided to cross?”
HE officer’s lip curled. “I wouldn’t recommend that they try it!” he said shortly.
“If that storm back there hits us, they will try it, Captain. You couldn’t stop them with a thousand men. A lot of them may drown. Why not face the issue squarely, and get ready now? You say you're responsible for their safety, but by refusing to let them cross now you’re actually jeopardizing it. They wont stand for missing out on this Run now. Get the fires built, and a line of wagons across the ford before the storm hits, and they will cross. Most of these people have crossed a thousand worse rivers. than this and they’re river wise.”
The officer studied him a moment. “You talk like a blasted lawyer,” he said drily.
Jeff smiled. “I’m working on it, Captain.”
When the captain smiled. Jeff knew he had won.
“Pass the word to get the fire started on this side,” ordered the officer. “Have them pick a good team to take a bunch across to start another fire on the other side.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Jeff said, and walked away.
At the wagon Jeff found Deck Sowre and Sam engaged in talk, Deck with the’ now empty jug in his hand. Jeff told the old Boomer that the captain had agreed to the crossing.
“Jeff, you’ve missed your calling—you ought to have studied law,” Deck exclaimed, and off he went to spread the word.
The camp sprang into activity. Axes rang and soon a great fire was roaring on the bank, lighting the river halfway across. Then Deck Sowre again approached Jeff with an apolo- getic manner.
“We hate to work a good horse to death,” he said, “but the truth is we need them big mules of yours and that light Studebaker to take the bunch across to start the fire over there. Can we have ’em?”
“Of course,” replied Jeff. “But you’d better let Sam handle the reins. They’re mules, you-know, and they’re used to Sam. He’s a top driver. I’ll feel out the ford on my mare.”
28 : THRILLING RANCH STORIES
“That is Kentucky talkin’!” exclaimed Deck.
By the time the Studebaker was ready it was full dark and lightning flashes were sheeting the horizon, thunder rumbling in the distance. Old Deck was in a lather for fear the captain would change his mind and call the crossing off.
“Jeff,” he said earnestly,” whatever you do, don’t miss that ford! We got to get this line across before that storm hits us!”
Jeff mounted the mare and paused beside Sam on the wagon seat.
“Keep a rod or two behind me, Sam,” he directed. “If I should happéfi to get off the ford, stop and wait until I get back. We can’t fail on this one.”
“Give that mare her “head.” Sam said laconically. “She can feel out any crossing.”
Jeff rode into the river and Sam followed him at the prescribed distance. The light from the fire did not reach much more than half the distance across the river and as soon as Jeff found himself out of it’s radius he had nothing to guide him save the occasional glimpses of the far bank when lightning flashed. ~_ It was a ticklish business, like riding into a dark void, and he realized that Sam’s advice was sound. The mare would have to feel out the last half of the distance, so he let the reins hang lax. Behind him came the mules, the lines taut and steady in Sam’s sure hands, but after they left the circle of fire- light, Sam closed the gap. He had to, to keep Jeff in sight.
Jeff felt the water rise to his calves, his knees, and boil about the mare’s barrel. He felt her angle shrewdly to counteract its thrust and forge on, knowing now that if she lost the ford, the mules would follow her off the ford. And if that happened Jeff knew that the night crossing would most certainly be called off.
The mare did not lose the ford. Jeff felt the water lower, then by a lightning flash saw the bank before him. Out the mare scram- bled, followed closely by the mules.
XES in hand, men were leaping from
the wagon even before it shored. A
rope which had been played out as the wagon
crossed was tightened and secured. Flames from the fire beat back the night.
Jeff saw the first wagon on the opposite
side start, and he knew it was going to be a
race between it and the storm. Lightning was
now ripping the heavens apart and thunder was shaking the earth.
Slowly, so slowly the wagon came on, drawing after it the long line of others. It shored and the line was complete just as the storm whooped down on the crossing.
Rain came down in hissing, blinding sheets, lightning was so vivid it left both man and beast blind, and riding over it was the vast and unceasing cannonade of the thunder.
Jeff knew it was too late for the captain to
-call off the crossing now. Now it was solely a
race against time. He dismounted and went down to the water’s edge, set a stake and watched it for fifteen minutes while the wagons rolled up the bank in a never ceasing line. In fifteen minutes the river rose four inches.
There was no need to press the drivers. They were river-wise, most of them, and they were slamming teams across as fast as wagon stock could be lashed. Riders, too, were coming, sheeted forms in the lashing rain. They were passing wagons, spurring hard.
Jeff saw one such attempt to pass a huge and lumbering wagon on the wrong, the lower side. The wagon swerved and this rider was crowded into the guide rope. The horse became entangled in the rope, pan- icked, and went down over it, fighting furi- ously.
From mid-river someone shouted, “That horse has got a foot caught in a rein!”
Jeff rushed up the bank and leaped on the mare’s back. He headed her for the river and let her feel a touch of the spur. She left the steep bank below the ford with a soaring leap, struck swimming. and went completely under. And she eame up swimming like a great, sleek otter.
They were quickly out of the circle of fire- light and he would never have located the panicked animal had it not been for the lightning. But he saw the animal, still fight- ing wildly, part of the time up and part of the time under, the rider still in saddle.
His mare brought him alongside and risk- ing a disabling blow from the drowning ani- mal’s threshing hoofs, he leaned far over and felt for the reins. He found them, taut as iron, and knew that one forefoot was hooked over them and that they were looped over the saddle-horn with such tension that the rider could not release them.
He set himself and gave a powerful tug. Under the additional pressure the strap broke and instantly the horse began to swim
ONE MORE RIVER
naturally. He pulled the unbroken rein up and, using his mare as a tow, made for the bank. But he could tell that she was tiring when she made it. He was obliged literally to drag the rescued animal up the steep bank.
CHAPTER VII The Fateful Cannon
HE first wild fury of the storm had
passed. But rain still fell and thunder still rolled. Lightning still sheeted, and it was by this light that Jeff Dorey saw he had rescued a girl—the girl he had found serving bar in the hotel Sample Room.
“You’ve changed jobs, haven’t you?” he said.
— Her voice came out of the darkness with a startled note. “Who are you? Where have you ever seen me before?”
“Waiting bar in a Caldwell hotel,” he re- plied.
“I remember!” she exclaimed. “You're Jeff Dorey, from Kentucky. How did you know about Bob?”
“I saw it happen,” he said soberly.
“Do you know who killed Bob?”
“I know,” he replied simply. Then he added, “Bob must have meant a great deal to you.”
She did not reply at once, and the thunder went rumbling down the river. By a light- ning flash he saw her face, white, strained.
“Bob was nice to me,” she said. “He seemed to understand that a girl could wait on tables in a Sample Room and still be respectable. Especially when there was noth- ing else she could do.”
“I imagine he was like that,” he said. you come from Kentucky?”
“My folks come from Indiana, but I know how Kentuckians talk. My folks got run out of Oklahoma and went back home. I stayed.”
“What is your name,” he asked.
“Enid Summers.”
“How do you happen to be riding Bob McAllister’s horse?”
“Is it any of your business?” he asked shortly.
“None whatever.”
Her voice softened. “Bob intended to ride this horse in the Run. His father, the sheriff, gave her to me, after Bob was killed, and I’m
“Did
29
going to try for the same land that Bob had picked out.”
‘Tve got my piece picked out too,” Jeff said, with a laugh. “Maybe we’d better check up to avoid interference.”
“Tt’s the old lease that Bob used to ride for, the Circle §, down. on the Little Canadian,” Enid said.
“The Circle s” .he exclaimed, then to cover his surprise, said, “We'd better get up to the ford.”
“T haven’t thanked you for pulling me out,” she said gravely. “Little as my life may be worth, I’d hate to lose it.”
“Most of us would,” he agreed gravely... .
A smiling sun rose on a river gone mad. Deck Sowre appeared, his face wreathed with smiles.
“Jeff.” he said, “we owe you a medal or something. That was nip and tuck. Look at that old river now!”
“I can’t-claim any credit, Deck,” Jeff said quietly.
“You get it, just the same,” “Now before we start on this last two-hour march, let’s get everything straight. You got that location fixed in your mind?”
Jeff hesitated. “Deck, I’ve decided not to try for that particular piece of land.”
Deck’s jaw fell. “Why?” he blurted.
“Little too much competition, I’m afraid,” Jeff said evasively.
“Jeff,” Deck said earnesty, “don’t do this to us! We need you and that mare bad. We got to know what’s what. We don’t ask you to fight whoever may happen to be in there— just mark ’em. We'll take care of them when we get in, and you'll get first pick of that land. Don’t throw out on us, Jeff.”
Jeff remained firm, and in the end Deck gave him up. “You ain’t the kind of feller I though you was,” Deck said, and stalked away.
Sam had listened to the argument.
“Jeff let me ride the mare,” he said eagerly. “Im not afraid. of any durned old Sooners!”
“Sam, do you think I’m afraid?”
“It looks like it!” blurted Sam.
OON after, the advance bugle blew and the last leg of the memorable march began. It was fittingly difficult. Wagons mired in the soft ground. Single-trees popped and weakened teams seesawed futilely, some lying down and quitting. Drivers abandoned such teams, jumped on a lead horse reserved for the Run, and
replied Deck.
+
4
30 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
pushed on, leaving their families to bring up the wagons when thè ground dried.
The Doreys’ light Studebaker, drawn by the powerful mules, was the first wagon to wheel into position at the Line. There, blue- coated troopers, who had been on duty for weeks, held the line. East and west as far as the eye could reach it stretched, and the ten- sion, already high, mounted. The soldiers had difficulty in holding the people back.
“We might as well stayed in Kentucky!” Sam said miserably. “Wish we had!”
Jeff had had time to think things over.
“Sam,” he said, “I’ve decided to go ahead and make the ride. But don’t count on a set of buildings.”
“Why? Deck said we’d get first choice if you was first in.”
“Don’t count on them. But tell Deck I’ve decided to make the ride.”
Sam hustled off to find Deck Sowre, not a small task in the ever-growing mass of people. Jeff soberly began to prepare the mare for the Run. He stripped down to the barest essentials, knowing that in a long run such as this, every pound would count. But he did include several pounds of dead weight on which he had not figured—the heavy old Army pistol.
“Sam, I’m making this ride against every conviction I ever had,” he said, when Sam came back. “I want you to promise me that whatever happens, you wont make it a per- sonal affair.”
“I don’t know what you're driving at, Jeff.”
“T’ll explain it to you. This land is the old Circle S—you heard Deck tell me that. Now that’s the ranch that Bob McAllister used to ride for. I think those other four rode for the same outfit. Bob McAllister was killed because he wouldn’t agree to go in with them to Sooner that land. Does that mean any- thing to you?”
Sam was an intelligent boy. “You mean,” he said, “you think the Sooners you'll find there will be them four devils?”
“Those four and nobody knows how many others that have gone wild. I’m as certain of it as I am of anything.”
“Why not tell them soldiers?” Sam sug- gested.
Jeff shook his head. “They have their orders, and they’ve got their hands full hold- ing this line. Most of them have been on duty for weeks, and their horses are in no shape to make such a run in time. The cannon will go
off in a few minutes.” “Jeff,” Sam said swiftly, “I didn’t mean to
call you a coward. I—I was just mad. Let it
go! We can surely get something.”
Jeff shook his head. “I’ve got other reasons for making the ride, Sam, and I'll make it if you will promise what I asked.”
“I promise, Jeff,” said Sam humbly, aiid disappeared.
He did not return at once, and Jeff was obliged to take his place in the line without giving his brother parting instructions.
A bugle’s note cut the air and the long line became rigid, poised. A mounted officer, facing the line, took out his watch and held his disengaged hand high.
He counted the seconds.
“Fifteen ...ten... five.
His uplifted hand whinned down, sae in the distance the fateful cannon roared!
The ensuing rush was a stupendous, stag- gering thing. People on horses, mules, in wagons, carts, buggies, every conveyance known, broke and went storming southward.
Starting sensibly, Jeff saw some bizarre and amusing, not to say tragic, things. Close‘ beside him a lumbering high-wheeled wagon leaped and bounced. In the seat a woman in long skirts held with both hands to the seat. On the footboard stood her man, lashing the plunging team to wilder efforts.
=
MAN in black broadcloth and gleam-
ing white shirt lanced by on a race horse. He was immaculate, cool, amused. Over there a lumbering ox team, heads down, tongues out, tails up, shook the earth with their tremendous galloping. A man on a high-wheeled velocipede came to grief before he had traveled two rods. A girl on a sorrel horse, riding light and easy skimmed by. Jeff saw the quick glance she gave him, and he saluted her with a wave of his hand. It was Enid Summers.
He gave the mare plenty of time to warm up, and when she was well warmed she began to move. The press thinned out and fell behind, and then they were out in front with the mare racing southward as sweet and true as a perfect machine. Only the sorrel remained in front and out of sight.
Following the route that Deck Sowre had mapped for him, Jeff crossed first the Big Canadian, and went up the stiff climb on the south side with the mare pulled to a walk. He knew that Enid Summers would not necessarily follow the same route as himself,
ONE MORE RIVER 31
but he also knew that the two would even- tually meet. at an intersection. — Certainly at the crossing of the Little Canadian, if not sooner.
When their routes did intersect he intended to pull up with Enid and warn her what to expect at the old Circle S. He wanted to disclaim any intention of trying to beat her out of what, he felt, she should have. He hoped her sorrel would be fast enough to take her in ahead of the rush. Deck Sowre might not feel the same benev- olence as himself, toward her.
Crossing the wide expanse of ground between the two Canadians the mare began to chafe against the moderate restraint he put on her. Usually a most tractable animal, her behavior puzzled Jeff until he caught a glimpse of the sorrel ahead, disappearing over a raise.
Then he understood the mare’s impatience. She had known for some time that the sorrel was ahead, and she didn’t like it. Under lessened restraint, she sprang forward.
CHAPTER VIII The Race
UICKLY Jeff closed the gap and Enid Summers, looking back, saw him. He saw something akin to dismay, coupled with resentment, in the girl’s face, then she was about in the saddle and the sorrel really began to move. Not until then did Jeff sus- pect that he had a job ahead of him. The sorrel was both fast and game. She was ridden by a girl many pounds lighter
than Jeff, and one who knew how fo get the utmost out of her mount. Twice Jeff tried to shout an appeal for her to hold up, but if she heard, the girl gave no sign. If anything, she rode more determinedly.
They swept across the wide stretch of land between the two. rivers, skirting plum thickets, leaping gullies, sliding down drifts. Jeffs mare became a creamy white with lather, and he began to wonder if he would have to break her wind to run down this stubbornly tenacious” girl. Her horse, he imagined, meant nothing to her. She would willingly ruin the sorrel to beat him in.
He saw the sorrel’s hindquarters flourish in the air as the animal dipped over into a descent. When the mare topped the descent he saw, below, the winding ribbon of the Little Canadian and a cluster of buildings which must be the old Circle S. He had to take the sorrel before crossing the river!
The sorrel was still going, but Jeff could see that the game animal was almost done. She was laboring, being carried onward mostly now by momentum. She might fall at any moment.
Evidently Enid Summers knew it, too, for he saw her shake her feet loose from the stirrups and shoot a quick look back. There was desperation, almost hatred there, and he knew she thought he had tricked her into revealing her destination.
Her horse hit the flat ground giving to the ford and almost came down. Straightened up, held by the girl’s sure hand, the sorrel dropped over the steep bank to the ford. Jeff’s mare closed with a sudden, fierce rush.
The sorrel never reached the ford. Half- way down the bank she seemed just to fold her forelegs and dive: The girl was thrown
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32 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
high, struck the ground at the water’s edge, and lay still.
With all four feet set the mare plowed down the bank and stopped, almost strad- dling the sorrel. Jeff leaped off and ran to the water’s edge, pulled the girl back from the water. After a quick examination, he decided she was only stunned. She had taken the spill like a skilled rider.
He was dipping water with his hat when he heard his mare snort, then the driving rush of her hoofs. Caught entirely by sur- prise he had barely time to leap aside before his mare, savagely spurred, rushed past and hit the water a tremendous strike.
The mare almost went down, recovered, and feeling those punishing spurs, went lunging across the ford, hurling spray high.
“Enid!” Jeff shouted. “Stop! Stop, I tell you!”
She didn’t stop and in a fury of despera- tion he wrenched out his pistol and levelled down for a disabling shot, not at Enid Sum- mers, but at his beloved mare. But he lowered the pistol unfired. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do it.
The sorrel had come to her feet, but Jeff knew she was done. She could never cross the ford, bearing his weight. -He crossed afoot, and went upriver at-a run.
Rounding a sharp bend in the river he came suddenly upon the Circle S buildings. Over the deserted corrals he could see the top of the ranchhouse. Nobody was in sight.
He rounded the corrals and saw before the ranchhouse his own lathered, panting mare and five other horses, all saddled. The front door of the ranchhouse yawned open and as he moved quietly toward the house, gun in hand, he knew that this was it. All his fine dreams for a clean start in Oklahoma were nothing but that—dreams.
S HE stepped softly up on the porch he was struck by the unearthly quiet of the house. Within, no one spoke or moved. He reached the -door and when his look reached the interior of that big room he saw Enid Summers standing just inside the door- way, motionless as a graven image. He could not see her face but her small ears, half covered by her disheveled hair, were as colorless as those of the dead. His step brought him past her and she never stirred. Then he saw what it was. ` Four men, no, five. Four lay on one side of the room and one on the opposite. The
four were the same four that had ridden up to his wagon that beautiful moonlight night seemingly so long ago, and the fifth, lying alone, was the sheriff.
Jeff said in a clear voice, “Thank you, Sheriff,” and, turning, he caught Enid Sum- mers by the arm and Jed her outside. She looked at him with those hunted eyes.
“Why did you say that?” she asked.
“I don’t know, he replied. “I just felt like saying it.”
‘Did you know they would be here—and the sheriff?”
“Not the sheriff,’ he told her. knew the others would be here.”
‘Ts that why—was that the reason—”
= nodded and she turned away.
en the rush hit the place. Deck Sowre, riding a gaunt buckskin, flung off before the ranchhouse. Jeff moved to meet him.
“Where are they?” he exclaimed. “Where are the skunks, Jeff?”
“In the house, Deck,” Jeff said queeyky, “but they won’t cause anybody any more trouble—ever.”
Deck’s eyes went to the big pistol Jeff still held in his hand.
“Jeff, I never forgot that you come from Kentucky. But you needn’t have hogged | the whole shootin’ match.”
Jeff stopped him with a motion of his hand. “This gun, Deck, has not fired a shot since I left Kentucky. I hone it never will have to fire one, in anger. The law has al- ready come to Oklahoma.”
Deck nodded, not grasping what Jeff was trying to tell him.
“You staked out yet? Well, get it drove, Jeff, before the rest of the gang gets here. You rate first choice.”
“No, Jeff. That girl there beat me in here.”
“Don’t believe it!” retorted Deck.
“Ask her.”
Deck strode up to Enid Summers and spoke to her briefly. He drew a reply, then turned. “Hey, Jeff!” he called. “She says your mare was first in. Now}who in thunder am I to believe?”
Neither said anything, but Enid Summers stole a quick look at Jeff, and Deck Sowre suddenly grinned.
“Tell you what,” he said genially, “why not stake out a joint claim?”
Color hit Enid’s face and Jeff said, “Deck, have you staked out yet?”
“Thunder, no!” exclaimed Deck, and forth- with departed.
“But I
Sally saw the man leap from the. cliff to the top of the coach
Si eton Jit
By TOM PARSONS
When a stagecoach is held up and a pretty girl threatened by an eerie highwayman, Jim Burnett decides to take a. hand!
T WAS Sally Janson’s first night stage || ride and it was a thrilling experience.
The big Concord, rocking on its leather springs, rolled down the road and plunged into a dark and gloomy canyon where the rocky walls threw back the thunder of the horses’ hoofs and the grind of steel tires.
Leaning out the open window, she watched the walls flash by and smiled to herself as she thought of the comments when she had introduced herself to Jim Burnett, the young stage driver and“6ld Ike Adams, his shot- gun guard.
“Sally Janson!” old Ike had gasped, nearly swallowing his eating tobacco. “Shucks, I'd never believe it! Why, you’ve growed, gal!”
“That’s usual, isn’t it?” Sally had laughed.
“And purty!” old Ike marveled. “’Scuse my sayin’ so, Sally, but I reckon you don’t take much after Sam Janson. He’d have
33
made a mud fence look right handsome.”
Jim Burnett had said nothing, but his eyes had showed admiration. Only as he helped the girl inside, he said low-voiced: .
“Don’t be nervous if you get a fast ride tonight, Miss Sally. We’ve got a shipment of gold from the Ten Strike mine aboard, and I’m a mite nervous about it.”
“Pour leather to them, Jim,” the girl said smiling. “Just because I’ve been away doesn’t mean I’m a tenderfoot.”
She was thinking of that now as the stage rumbled through the rocky pass. And with the thought came the sudden blast of a Win- chester from the driver’s seat. Sally leaned far out to see what was ahead. And what she saw was so incredible, so shocking that in spite of herself, a scream of fright was wrenched from her throat.
A human skeleton stood in the middle of
34 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
the road, one bony arm upraised to stop the stage!
Even as she saw it, old Ike’s rifle roared again. The skeleton jerked as though hit, but remained in its gruesome position. The horses decided they wanted no part of this and tried to run through and away from the horrible white object in the road.
As they bolted, a gun roared from some- where. Old Ike gasped, dropped his Win- chester and crumpled in his seat. The stage roared through and past the skeleton. Then Jim Burnett cried out as his sombrero flew from his head and he clapped both hands to his forehead. He reeled drunkenly for a moment atop the swaying stage and then, to the girl’s horror, pitched over the side and was gone!
HE was alone in a runway coach. But
not for long. To her surprise, the springs creaked and lurched to a sudden weight. A big man swung up. to the driver’s seat and gripped the reins. In his. powerful hands the horses felt mastery and they grad- ually slowed and came to a halt. The big man swung down and approached the door, gun in fist.
“Come out of there!” he ordered.
Sally stepped out. j
“Jest a gal, eh?. Wal, PII leave you and the old codger somewhere’s after I get the gold out of the boot. He ain’t hit bad.”
“What is this—a hold-up?” Sally gasped.
“You guessed it, ma’am. Slickest piece of work you ever see too, single-handed. I’m powerful proud of myself. Get back in there.”
Since there was nothing else to do, she got back into the coach. It started rolling again and presently began to climb the switchbacks and hairpin turns of the cliff to the top. Her heart like lead, Sally stared at the walls through the windows and wondered about old Ike and Jim Burnett. Ike, the bandit had said, was not badly wounded. But Burnett? It looked as though he had been shot in the head.
The top of the cliff was near and the driver was urging the horses on with voice and whip. Looking out, she could see the edge and the lighter sky above it. And suddenly, there was a man silhouetted on the cliff top!
Only for a second, she saw him. Then he leaped off the edge, straight down on top of the coach as it passed under him. Sally heard and felt the thump of his landing. There was a startled curse from the bandit and the short, sharp scuffle of a fight. The coach meanwhile creaked up on the flat and the horses stopped by themselves for a breather.
The victor of the fight above, dropped off and the door on Sally’s right opened. Jim Burnett, face bloody, stood there panting for breath.
“Jim! Oh, thank heaven! How did you get here?”
Even as she asked, Sally was busy, digging into her bag for a spare petticoat to be ripped into bandages. .
“Came straight up the cliff,” Jim panted. “Knew I could beat him up here with all the switchbacks he had to make.”
“Old Ike?”
“He’s not too bad. We'll get him to a doctor. And the bandit has only a lump on his head from my Colt.”
Sally approached him with a bandage. “Where are you shot?”
“Shot? I’m not shot, Miss Sally. Know what that hombre did? He stretched a wire across the road and hung the skeleton from it. That’s why the skeleton didn’t fall when Ike shot it. But when we went under that wire it like to scalped me. Reckon I lost a _mite of skin and hair, but my sombrero kept it from bein’ worse.”
With the bandage on his head he looked like a wild and disheveled Arab.
“Now, Miss Sally, if you'll get back into
> your chariot, lIl deliver you to your uncle,
the gold to the depot, old Ike to the doctor, the bandit to jail—and me—after this I reckon I'll go to bed!”
FEATURED NEXT ISSUE °
THE WATER IS MINE
A Dramatic Novelet of the Rangeland — By ALLAN VAUGHAN’ ELSTON
A Helping ;
an
By TOM CURRY
A flaming gun showdown is in the offing when Jimmy Farling sides a struggling farmer against a crooked range manager!
STAIN of smoke in the clear west A Texas sky drew Jimmy Farling’s keen blue eyes.
“Who’s runnin’ a fire at Kling’s old shack?” he murmured to Pedro, his chestnut gelding. “Lawson will have fits if another farmer’s there.”
The NI was a cattle outfit but they used enough mustangs to keep Farling busy. He loved horses, loved working with them. Old Man Naylor Ince, owner of the spread, spent most of his time on his huge ranch in the’ Big Bend country. The NI was only a side show and was run by a manager, Ed Lawson.
“Go on, get goin’!’ ordered
Farling harshly
36 | THRILLING RANCH STORIES
Farling had strong limbs and a lean, healthy aspect. He wore leather, and a curved Stetson canted on his dark-haired head. He had been working on a blind to trap a bunch of wild horses and was on his way back to the ranch. But to check up on the smoke -he turned down a steep slope and reached the beaten trail, a back route that led from the NI country through the mountains and thence to New Mexico.
The smoke came from Kling’s weather- beaten shack. It rose from a cookfire where two women were busy. In the yard stood a large red wagon and several pieces of furni- ture which had been unloaded from it along with boxes and bales of supplies.
As Farling rounded the square barn and took this in at a glance, the women saw him. They seemed startled and he heard one say, “Why, it’s'a cowboy!” She was middle-aged and stoutish.
The second was a slim girl whose hair rivaled the sunlight. For a time she re- turned Farling’s steady look, and the color came into her rounded cheeks.
“Oh, Dad!” she sang out.
A heavy man of around fifty in levis and a straw hat came from the cabin. He had a worried gleam in his eyes.
“What are yuh doin’ here, mister?” asked Farling, not unkindly.
“Doin’? Why, I’m Sam Tate. I own this farm. Bought it in Flyville last week from a man named Vernon Kling. I must say it ain’t up to the glowin’ description he gave me,”
ARLING cocked a leg to his horn and began rolling a quirly. “Yuh bought yoreself a peck of trouble, Tate. The NI won't let yuh stay here.” . Tate reddened. “Oh, they won’t, huh? We'll see about that. My title’s iron-clad. I checked it in Flyville.”
“The title’s filed and all. I know that, but if Kling charged yuh any money he cheated yuh, Yuh may actually own this quarter section but a lot of good that will do yuh.”
“That’s good water, in the lake.” Tate mo- tioned toward the wide, spreading pond be- low the little knoll on which the shack and rickety barn stood. The knoll was to the west of the buildings and had been fenced in, along with several fields. The posts had been pulled from the loose soil, however, and the rusting wire lay as it had coiled when Ed Lawson had brought his riders to smash
the barrier. “TIl irrigate the fields and grow fine crops,” went on Sam Tate stoutly. “See if I don’t.”
Jimmy Farling patien tried to explain. “Lawson—he’s the manager at the NI—won’t let yuh. He scared Kling out. Besides, when it don’t snow in the mountains enough that pond dries up. Every few years it happens.”
Tate gulped. He knew he had been cheated by the former owner but he had been trying to make the best of it.
“I used all my savin’s to buy this,” he growled. “And I went into debt for supplies.”
The woman, and the girl, who was around eighteen, had listened in silence. But when she heard about the water the wife said sharply, “Sam, we told you to look at the place before you paid that man the money.” .
It was nothing to Jimmy Farling, but he felt a streak of sympathy for Tate and his family. They had been taken in by Vernon Kling, the former tenant, who had been run off by Lawson’s strong-arm tactics. Kling had known the lake went dry some seasons.
The girl’s name was Barbara. She was pleasant to look upon and did not object to Farling’s company. He stayed around, and she fetched him a dipper of water. They passed the time of day before he left to go back to the NI.
Farling was troubled. He was sure Ed Lawson would intimidate the Tates just as he had Kling.
At sundown Farling rode into the NI yard and dropped off Pedro. Ed Lawson, the manager, was leaning on the fence and he ` bugged his black eyes Farling’s way. Law- son was a wide, thick-legged man with a rooster neck and a raw manner of speech. He had a high opinion of himself and a suspi- cious nature and he liked to make sure everybody knew he was boss.
“Yuh’re late, Farling. Anything up?”
“Nothin’. I’m still on that trap for the bunch runnin’ the west sections.” Farling turned and began rubbing down Pedro. He would not mention the Tates. Let Lawson find out for himself.
But evidently Lawson already knew. “Looks like there’s another dirt-rooter at Kling’s,” he said. “Yuh wouldn’t savvy any- thing about it, I s’pose?”
Farling jumped inw . He knew sar- casm when he heard it and shot a look at Lawson, who blinked.
“What were yuh doin’, spyin’ on me this afternoon?” Farling inquired softly. He fig-
A HELPING GUN 37
ured at once that the manager must have been watching him. Lawson had a pair of fine field glasses and perhaps had followed him out to make sure he was working and not killing NI time.
“Keep yore shirt on. I was just takin’ a routine look-see, that’s all. I seen the smoke. What’s their name?”
“Tate. There’s a woman and a girl. No rough stuff like yuh used on Kling, savvy?”
The manager’s creased neck turned a shade redder and his crisp black mustache bristled. “Wait a jiffy! Who’s runnin’ this spread, me or’ you?”
“You are. From now on I ain’t even help- in’. I want my time. I’m pullin’ out in the mornin’.”
“Suit yoreself.” It took the wind out of Lawson’s sail. The manager shrugged and watched Farling finish rubbing down his gelding.
The NI ranchhouse was of one story, con- structed of whitewashed adobe bricks and native spruce. It had a large main room, two bedrooms and a roomy kitchen. Ed Lawson had a nice home there and Old Man Ince had furnished the place well. A woman’s hand would have improved it, with curtains and such touches, but Lawson was a bachelor as were his cowboys.
Farling suspected that Lawson was feath- ering his own pockets at the expense of the absentee owner. It was an axiom in the land that a man ran his ranch himself or put some- one he could trust in charge. Otherwise he lost, Naylor Ince had important interests elsewhere and could not give much time to the NI.
Ince had sent Farling over to catch wild horses for the outfit. His arrival in the spring had not pleased Ed Lawson. Farling won- dered if the manager believed he might be a spy, planted there to check up. Lawson had weeded out his riders until he had a crew of rather sober, oldish men who preferred peace to war.
There were plenty of ways a man in a manager’s position could cheat. Non-existent hands might be carried on the books. Cows could be “lost,” and the recorded tally writ- ten in as lower than the actual one.
As Farling turned toward the bunkhouse Lawson said, “T’ll have yore pay ready for yuh.”
FTER supper Lawson leaned out the side window and called to Farling,
asking him to come in. The manager was waiting in the living room. He waved at the whisky bottle and glasses on the round table.
“Have a drink, Farling,” the manager in- vited. “I’ve liked yore work and I’m sorry to see yuh quit. If yuh wish to change yore mind, yuh have the right. Anything here that don’t suit yuh?”
“Nope, I just want my time.” Farling was cool. Lawson must fear him to backtrack this way. It was not like the manager to try to be decent. “A bug in yore ear, Lawson. Don’t bother the Tates, savvy? I’m goin’ to
-stop there and tell ’em to keep a loaded
shotgun handy.” He was not afraid of Law- son or anybody else and he believed in speaking out.
Lawson’s suaye manner dropped from him like the cloak it was. “All right, cuss yuh. I’ve held out my hand and yuh’ve slapped it down. I'll put a flea in yore ear. Keep shut. I’m a good-hearted hombre but—” He broke off, allowing the tone of his voice to give the threat force.
“Yuh sizzle when it rains,” finished Far- ling. He could guess what Lawson was wor- ried about. Jimmy Farling had come from the Ince home ranch. The bronce buster might blab to the owner.
Farling liked Naylor Ince but he had only suspicions about Lawson. At the moment he had the Tates on his mind. He did not want to see them hurt, and Lawson would surely go for them. He turned to leave the room.
“Wait a minute. I ain’t through with yuh yet!” shouted Lawson.
He made the mistake of grasping Farling’s arm and yanking him around. Farling hit him, driving the mustached lip into Law- son’s teeth. The manager staggered. His hand flexed, itching to whip the Colt at his burly hip -but he knew too well Farling’s speed with guns. In the tin-can puncturing contests with pistol and rifle, held behind the bunkhouse.on Sunday afternoons, Far- ling usually won the pot.
“Get out!” said Lawson thickly, folding his arms and attempting to maintain some’ shred of dignity.
Farling laughed and went to the bunk- house. In the morning he rose with the boys
‘and said so long. He did not see Lawson
around but after breakfast Hank Worth, who acted as segundo, came up and handed Far- ling an envelope with his pay in it.
“Lawson went to town early, Farling,” ex- plained Worth. “He said to give yuh this.
THRILLING RANCH STORIES
Luck to yuh and sorry yuh’re movin’ on.”
“Obliged, Hank.”
Farling saddled Pedro and with his few fbelongings rolled in his slicker or stuffed in his leather bags, he took the west trail. This would pass Tates and eventually connect with a road that went through the mountain passes and into New Mexico. Flyville, to which Ed Lawson had gone, lay in the other direction, about fifteen miles southeast of the NI.
Farling had taken his time pulling out, and the sun was warm and yellow as-he rode along. The morning was half gone when he
reached a high spot and from it sighted
Tate’s buildings and the pond gleaming in the light. There had been little rain. What really counted, as far as that lake went, was the amount of snowfall in the mountains the previous winter, The melt fed through un- derground runs to the shallow pond basin.
He turned his head to watch a big red- headed woodpecker at work on a dead tree stump. At that instant something tore a chunk from Farling’s left ear. It was a painful, jolting shock, and in that confused instant Farling thought perhaps one of those fabulous South American hornets, whose sting is said to mean sure death, had made the long drive up and landed on him to prove it.
“Zing, zou-oup!” Farling caught the voice of the heavy rifle and the echoing “flap- crack,”
Someone was trying for him from the narrow ridge that paralleled the trail a quar- ter of a mile south, someone hidden in the brush fringing the crest.
It was instinct to pull his rein and whirl Pedro off to the right. A second bullet missed Farling by a yard and plugged into the dirt beyond before he reached a red rock up- thrust which offered hasty cover. His heart was pounding and his breath came fast. Blood poured from his torn ear, soaking his bandanna and running inside his shirt collar.
Farling pulled himself together. He took his carbine from the leather socket and peeked over the rocks. But the carbine was not a long-range weapon.
“That was Lawson’s rifle,” he muttered, wiping blood from his jaw. “I’d know its voice anywhere! He should have had a new bolt put in like I told him.” Farling had fired the manager’s fine weapon on several occasions. There was a flaw in the bolt, so the special slap was distinctive.
Farling could see nothing on the ridge. He decided that Lawson, after telling his segundo he was heading for Flyville, had come out at dawn to get into position before Farling came along. On the other side of the crest Lawson’s horse would be waiting, and he could scoot down and. be off without showing himself to Farling. ;
The minutes dragged as Farling waited. He tried to draw Lawson.by firing at the ridge with his light-whipping carbine, but no answer came.
There was no way of knowing whether Ed Lawson was still lying there, waiting for a better shot, or had moved off after his first misses. The safest course was to behave as though the manager still lurked in the bushes. ”
Protected by rock, Farling squatted down and looked around for a route by which he might retreat. He picked a high spot he could reach by rushing. There were several more which would help and a running target would not be easy to hit from the ridge. Pedro would follow him.
“Come on, Pedro.” Farling jumped up and dashed for the next point, twenty yards west. No more shots came after him, and he finally swung into saddle and continued along the trail.
HE sun was high and hot when he rode up to Tate’s and dismounted in the shade of the rickety barn. The torn ear might not be a serious wound but it was a very painful one, and he had been unable to stop ` the bleeding. His whole side seemed to be wet and his head was beginning to feel light. On the far side of the pond a bunch of NI cows were drinking, standing knee deep in the churned water. Barbara and her mother were in the yard but keeping close to the open door so they could run inside and slam it if trouble came. Sam Tate, with a hammer and a can of rusty staples, was hastily re- ~ setting the posts knocked down and repair- ing the wire cut by Ed Lawson when the manager had scared Vernon Kling out of there. The fields in which Kling had tried to grow corn, vegetables and hay for tame stock had been fenced, and Lawson had laid these low as well. It was the old conflict, A farmer had to protect his crops from rav- aging steers drawn to the water, while fences drove cowmen to maddened lengths. “T wonder why Lawson didn’t burn down the buildin’s while he was at it,” mused Jim-
_
A HELPING GUN 39
my Farling. He sang out, “Howdy!”
The women had been looking the other way, fearful of the longhorns. And they were right because range cattle hated anybody afoot, and skirts were especially likely to enrage them. Hearing Farling, Barbara and her mother ventured around to the side of the shack.
“Oh, Mother! Look at his face. He’s hurt.” Barbara was really distressed, and Farling was surprised at the comfort he took in this.
“Its nothin’ much,” he said. “But Pd like a basin of water and a clean cloth if yuh can
e ’em.”
“Your shirt’s ruined!” exclaimed Mrs. Tate. “Babs, go and get one of father’s. He can put it on while I wash and dry this one.”
“T got a spare shirt with me, ma’am. Yuh’re mighty good.”
It was years since Jimmy Farling had had any babying such as women offered a man. Barbara and her mother astonished him when they went to work on him. They were gentle but firm and in no time had cleansed his wound, bandaged it, and had a fresh shirt on him.
He felt better after Barbara brought him a long drink of coolish water with lemon juice and sugar in it. “We brought a whole dozen lemons from town,” the girl announced proudly.
A couple of longhorns came mooching slowly around the lower end of the lake. Mrs. Tate screamed, “Here they come at us!” and started for the shack.
“Tll run ’em off,” offered Farling. He mounted Pedro, and the trained cowpony shooed away the steers from the vicinity with no trouble at all.
It was pleasant to bask in feminine admi- ration, and Farling’s eyes followed Barbara as she moved about the place. She wore a fresh blue dress, and her golden hair was banded by a wide blue ribbon. She looked prettier than ever, thought Farling, and he was honest enough with himself to admit he had returned to the Tates’ chiefly because of Barbara.
But idyllic as the spot seemed with the young woman near, Farling was sure that Ed Lawson would not permit the Tates to remain any more than he had the previous owner. Lawson had shown his willingness to kill in the attempt to drygulch Farling. Again and again Farling caught himself glancing toward the NI, but Lawson failed to show that day.
The Tates took Farling to their hearts and would not let him move on even had he so desired. After the shock of finding them- selves mulcted in the deal, they ws mak- ing the best of it. ;
“TIl repair the fences,” declared Nain: as they rested after supper. “Then TI put in some corn and other stuff. One bumper crop will get us out of debt for the tools and sup- plies we charged in Flyville.”
Farling hated to throw cold water on such enthusiasm but he did caution the older man again. “Ed Lawson will try to run yuh out. Better keep yore shotgun handy.”
“Shucks. I never gunned any man and don’t intend to. I got a legal right here and I can fence my fields and pond.”
It was no use talking. The cowman did not understand the farmer, and the farmer did not understand the cowman. The NI did not really need that lake, which disappeared when there was not enough snow in the mountains during the winter. But it was handy for a watering spot on the back range. Ince had filed on a river and big springs which were his main water supply. He had not bothered to gain title to the land around the shallow lake because it did go dry now and then. The next thing the NI had known, Kling had appeared.and after being run out, had sold to Tate.
“You must rest yourself, Jimmy,” advised Mrs. Tate, with a proprietary air which se- cretly amused Farling. “Stay right here with us until that wound heals.”
“Well, mebbe I can earn my keep. I can string fence mighty fast if need be.” Far- ling had a knack for that because in con- structing traps for wild horses you had to run long lines of hidden, converging barriers to spook the scary mustangs into the pens. And he thought, “IIl hang around and when Lawson comes I'll throw a jolt into the hound.” He was still angry at the manager.
Farling slept in the barn. He turned Pedro loose, for his gelding was a trained animal which would come to him whenever he whis- _ tled. Pedro would graze off but always cir- cled back.
D LAWSON showed up early the next
morning. Farling had slept later than usual, and was still inside the barn when the NI manager rode into the yard. He had three of the boys along, fellows who would obey his orders. Most cowboys hated farmers, anyway.
40 = THRILLING RANCH STORIES
“Hey, in there!” roared Lawson, pulling up his black in front of Tate’s front door. “Come out!”
Farling waited. He stood in the barn and through a crack in the shrunken boards watched his enemy as Lawson made himself unpleasant. That was not a hard job for Lawson, thought Farling. The heavy rifle, the very one with which the manager had tried to pick him off, rode in a leather socket under Lawson’s cocked leg.
Sam Tate emerged, blinking in the bright- ening light. He looked up at the red-faced Lawson, who reminded Farling of a horned toad swelling itself to scare a foe.
“Good mornin’,” said Tate politely.
“What’s good about it?” snarled Lawson. “With a fool hoeman like you in the picture it’s danged unpleasant. Yuh cussed squatter, what yuh doin’ around here? Who’s raisin’ them fences?”
“I am. And I’m no squatter,” answered Tate stoutly. He had a stubborn streak, and Farling had to admire the way he stood up to the armed Lawson. “I got title to a quar- ter section includin’ the lake and buildin’. I bought ’em in Flyville from Vernon Kling and the deed’s all recorded.”
“That’s the truth,” cried Mrs. Tate, who had come to the open doorway, with Barbara behind her.
“Call me a liar, will yuh!” shouted Lawson. He touched his black with a spur point. The mustang lunged toward Sam Tate and as Tate hastily jumped back out of the way, Lawson slashed him across the cheek with his quirt. “Yuh pull out in forty-eight hours! If yuh’re here next time I come through yuh’ll eat dirt!”
The stinging quirt had caught Tate un- awares, and he stumbled and went down on one knee. Mrs. Tate and Barbara screamed, Jimmy Farling thought it was time to show himself and stepped outside.
“Lawson!” he called.
The manager jumped in his saddle and his attention left Tate and focused on the brone buster. He was not glad to see Farling. —
“What are yuh doin’ here?” he demanded.
Farling rolled slowly across the side yard toward the manager. Lawson would have liked to go for his Colt but he showed little courage when up against an expert gun- fighter such as Jimmy Farling. The NI men, silent in the background, made no move.
“Yuh sidewinder,” said Farling contemptu- ously. “Hittin’ an unarmed hombre is yore
speed. Why not try it on me, face to face?” He brought up not far from Lawson and stuck out his jaw. His hands hung easily, and at one slim hip rode the heavy Colt in an open-work holster. He could shade Law- son any time on a draw, and the manager knew it.
Lawson glowered. Farling went on, “Yuh missed everything but my ear yesterday, Here’s for that and for Tate.” He was tall and he reached up with his left hand and seizing Lawson’s arm, pulled the manager over and slapped him again and again in the face. Lawson fought him in sheer despera- tion until Farling suddenly let go and stepped back. The straining Lawson fell off in the dirt. .
Still the NI men made no move. They might have interfered if it had been a fight ` between the boss and a stranger but they figured this was a matter to he settled by Lawson and Farling,
Lawson began picking himself up, his teeth grinding as he dusted himself off.
“Go on, get goin’,” ordered Farling harsh- ly. “If yuh bother Tate again yuh won't get off so easy.”
Farling was prepared to go into a gunfight, but this was not in the cards. Ed Lawson feared him. The manager was scarlet with gury, sputtering with futile abuse. He climbed on his black and spurred off at full speed, hitting the trail back to the NI. His three men started after him and Hal Uhl, bringing up the rear, turned to wink and grin at Farling. Nobody loved Lawson, not even his trained seals.
When he had watched the manager’s di- minishing dust for a few seconds, Farling swung back to the Tates. Barbara’s eyes were shining like stars, and there were roses in her fresh young cheeks. Her full red lips were parted and when she looked at Jimmy Farling, it made him catch his breath,
“You're wonderful!” she cried.
“Nothin’ to that,” deprecated Farling. “Not if yuh don’t turn yore back.”
The high admiration of the Tates surprised him. The red welt on Sam Tate’s cheek stood out but the farmer did not care. He kept chuckling and slapping his thigh in high good humor. -
“Yuh gave him what-for!” he said.
“That ain’t the end, yuh savvy,” warned Farling. “Lawson won’t let up till yuh’re out of here. He has other tricks in his basket.”
The manager's high-powered rifle could
~
A HELPING GUN at
pick off a standing target at long distance. Luck and a turn of the head, plus the fact he had been moving, had saved Farling on the trail.
Farling did not want to leave. It had been . his intention, or so he had believed, to move on to other parts after warning the Tates. Beside his sincere interest in assisting the settlers, there was Barbara to hold him.
He worked around that day, helping Tate on the fences and running off bunches of in- quisitive longhorns that came near and wor- ried the women. He also kept a sober eye peeled for signs of Lawson. He did not think an attack would be so direct next time, but he might catch the glint of the sun on a gun barrel or some such telltale.
NIGHT passed and another day. Far-
ling and the Tates were fast friends. “Why don’t yuh stay and I'll go fifty-fifty with yuh?” suggested Sam Tate.
But Farling shook his head. “Farmin’ ain’t my style. Horses are my specialty and I don’t mean tame ones like pull yore wagon.”
It was hard to make it clear to the settler that grubbing dirt held not the slightest thrill. Tate had a passionate interest in grow- ing things.
Farling was waiting for Lawson’s next play. He had a straw bed in the barn and, covered by a blanket, slept with his head on his saddle.
The moon was coming up a few nights later when Farling roused. He listened. Except for the usual night sounds—the quiet stamp of Tate’s work horses in the stalls, peepers at the pond, the faint sigh of the wind—all seemed to be normal, and Farling shut his eyes again. But he came to with a start just as he was dozing off.
He sat up. His bandaged ear must have interfered a bit with his hearing. But after a moment the beat of hoofs from the west told him that riders were approaching.
Farling got up. He had his gun at hand
in the darkness and he kept still. His idea ,was that Lawson was coming under cover of the darkness, coming to deal with Tate and with him. He tiptoed to a wide crack and peeked out.
He could see the shack against the silver sky, with the moon nearly round and giving a pure light over the yard.
As he waited three dark shapes hove into his range of vision. They came around the lake and from the back trail through the
mountains from the direction of New Mexico,
Farling put his thumb on the hammer spur of his pistol as the trio, silhouetted against the sky, swung toward the house. They pulled up in the side yard and dismounted. One held the horses while the other two stalked to the cabin. The man nearest Far- ling was tall and slimmer than his com-
panion.
“Don’t look like he’s here, Devlin,” said the shorter.
“What did yuh expect, Mark?” replied the tall man with some asperity. “Were two days early. This is the fourth. We’re s’posed to meet him the sixth. In the mornin’ we'll sneak up and signal him.”
“Lawson. ain’t the kind to miss a trick,” agreed Mark. “Say, what’s that wagon doin’ in the yard!” *
They stopped short. “It looks sour,” growled Devlin, who was apparently the leader. He wore two Colts, and Farling saw the movement of his hands as they dropped to the stocks.
“Now what do yuh reckon—” began Mark in a normally loud tone.
“Quiet,” snapped Devlin. “Somebody’s in there but it ain’t Lawson. We'll sashay. Come back when he said to.” :
They turned and hurried to their mus- tangs, mounted and rode off around the pond. >
“Tate sleeps like a log,” thought Farling, as he watched them fade away. “What chance has he against Lawson?”
He squatted in the barn door, thinking it over. The visitors had sounded tough from what he had been able to make out. They had come in the night to meet Ed Lawson, not the way honest men would keep a ren- dezvous, but silently and on the alert. 3
By ten o’elock next morning Farling had the Tates’ belongings packed in the wagon. He had convinced Sam Tate, and his friends were ready to pull out. There was a faint trail south which eventually reached the Fly- ville pike. This was the way the Tates had come. It avoided the NI which lay well to the east.
The slow wagon and Farling, riding beside it and talking to Barbara, who sat on the wide seat by her mother and father, would be visible for miles. The dust should attract Lawson’s attention and the manager had fine field glasses.
Farling saw them safely to the main road. He had to reach a telegraph station as soon as possible. He had only two days in which
42 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
to work and was not sure he could bring off his plan in that short time. ...
NLY. twenty minutes remained of the sixth day of the summer month. At midnight the new cycle would begin.
Farling stood back in the shadow in Tate’s barn. “Here they come!” he whispered. -
A horseman rode quietly in from the east, the direction of the NI. He scouted the shack and with a grunt got down and dropped his reins. A match flared, and Ed Lawson lighted a quirly, which glowed red each time he drew on it.
After a°short wait three more riders ap- peared from the west trail. They'were the same fellows Farling had seen.
“Devlin!” nervous ring to the manager’s voice.
The tall man dismounted, followed by the shorter, stouter Mark. The third held the reins bunched in one hand and fixed himself a smoke with the other. Such customers al- ways kept their mounts ready for an instant getaway.
“We were here two nights ago but pulled out pronto when we saw there was somebody around,” explained the tall Devlin. “Did yuh scare ’em off, Lawson?”
“Yuh were here? Our date wasn’t till to- night,” growled the manager. He was shaky.
“Well, we done no harm. Rode off without wakin’ anybody.”
Lawson swore. “I don’t like it. We’ll have to lay off a while. I got the creeps. Td feel better if Pd downed Jimmy Farling.”
“Farling?” repeated Mark.
“A fool that Old Man Ince sent over, a spy, I believe. And Ince’s last letter asked a lot of questioris about how come the ranch took such a loss last roundup. We'll quit till it all blows over.”
Devlin’s voice was cold and hard as he answered. “Yuh’re losin’ yore nerve, Law- son, and it won’t do. Not with me. It’s worked mighty slick for two years, ain’t it? And I need cash, savvy? Had bad luck at the poker tables. We’ll pick up a thousand head ‘and run ’em through. Yuh’ll cover it.”
“T tell yuh Ince is leery!” whined Lawson.
“We'll hide here the next couple days while we make up the herd,” Devlin said in the same metallic tone.
There was a faint pause. agreed Lawson feebly.
“All right,”
“That’s better. Here, take a slug and cheer
» .
up
called Lawson. There was a,
Jimmy Farling sighed with relief. He had figured it out pretty well for himself but had not been sure that he could prove it to Old Man Naylor Ince, who stood on the other side of the barn doorway, listening to the perfidy of his ranch manager. Farling had wired Ince who had caught the first- train west and met Farling in Flyville. They had brought out the Flyville marshal and half a dozen hastily sworn deputies. This force waited behind Farling and Ince. They had come up after dark had fallen and hidden themselves and their mounts in the barn.
“Pve heard enough,” whispered Naylor Ince angrily. “Let’s go after ’em, Tooker.”
Marshal Tooker, an oldish man with a walrus mustache, was at Ince’s elbow. “I be- lieve that’s Blackjack Devlin and a couple of his boys,” he breathed. “A tough bunch - of outlaws!”
Devlin had been working with Lawson. Farling understood now why the manager had let the buildings stand. The shack and barn made a handy depot for the thieves and provided an excellent spot where Lawson could meet his confederates without the NI being aware of it. They could collect the beefs they wanted at their leisure and hook through the back way to New Mexico with- out being seen. It was simple for Ed Lawson, boss at the NI, to keep his riders busy well to the east while his accomplices were oper- ating. It was simple for the manager to cover the losses on his books and was a safe way to make money at Ince’s expense.
Because the shack commanded the trail a settler in there wrecked the game, and so far Lawson had been able to keep the place clear for his own purpose.
Farling, Old Man Ince, his white beard bristling, Marshal Tooker and his deputies, surged out, Farling and Ince taking the lead.
“Throw down!” roared Ince, his Frontier Model Colt up and cocked.
Farling had his pistol ready. The deputies carried revolvers, too, but Marshal Tooker gripped a sawed-off shotgun.
Lawson yelped in terror. Devlin and Mark whirled and went for their guns. The outlaw with the horses dashed down his cigarette and turned. He tried to make a draw but the startled mustangs reared and kept him busy for a moment.
GUN flamed, and the slug whistled be- tween Farling and Ince. The ranch
-owner, furious at Lawson for cheating him,
A HELPING GUN 43
fired his Colt. Tooker’s shotgun belched flame, and the buck spread. The marshal let go the second barrel on the heels of the first.
The burning lead slashed Devlin, Mark
and Lawson as it fanned out in a deadly arc. ©
The deputies dashed in, locking horns with the startled, wounded outlaws. Lawson fell, groveling, begging for mercy. Devlin kept trying but his shoulder had been laid open by a chunk of metal and he was on one knee when he was bowled over and pinned by two of Tooker’s sides.
Jimmy Farling seized Mark from behind and held his arms while Ince took the ban- dit’s guns. Somebody saw to the man with the horses, and the fight was over.
They tied the four captives and left them under guard in the barn. Lighting a lantern, Farling, Ince and Tooker conferred, smoking as they talked over the scrap. “Lawson will break rock for ten years,” swore Ince.
He was a huge Texan, mighty of frame and, although gray with age, still powerful and going strong. “Yuh done right to send for me, Farling. The NI’s been losin’ money but I had nothin’ to pin on Lawson till yuh showed up the cuss for me.”
Jimmy Farling shrugged. “I’d quit the NI and was on my way when Lawson tried to kill me. I stopped here with the Tates, like I told yuh. Kling sold Tate this farm sight unseen and it’s all Tate has in the world. Doesn’t do the ranch any harm. That pond dries up some years and the cows can drink at the river.”
Ince stared at him. “I might drop dead hearin’ yuh put in a good word for a farmer! However, from now on the Tates are yore problem, providin’ yuh’ll take the job as
. NI manager. I been thinkin’ Pd run more
horses here to supply my Big Bend ranch.” The NI was small potatoes to Ince, but no man likes to be robbed.
“What do yuh say?” pressed Ince, as Far- ling was silent. “Will yuh take the job? Speak up.” :
“I will,” agreed Farling. “That is if I can have my wife live with me.”
“Why not? But I never savvied yuh were hitched.” :
“Pm not, yet, Boss. But I hope to be soon. And if it don’t snow in the mountains next winter I reckon TIl have her father and mother livin’ with me, too.”
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i.
The
Cub 4 Stranger
A Novelet
By STEPHEN PAYNE
CHAPTER I
“Make Yourself at Home” `
HEN Connie McGuire returned
WY ix: to the Circ 4 ranch, from
a trip to Red Forks, she was
amazed to find that the meadow was filled with cattle.
After she had ridden down the bluff, and
through the dense willows bordering the
ereek which flowed from north to south
\ Ż
through Circle 4’s acres, she saw that these cattle carried a brand strange to her— Triangle V.
A half dozen saddle ponies had been turned loose near the buildings, and supplies from a pack-horse outfit—bed-rolls, panniers, ax, shovel, small tent and pack saddle—had been unloaded in the dooryard. Smoke was climb- ing from the stove pipe of the three-room log eabin, jingling spurs made music inside the kitchen, and smells of cooking food wafted through the open door.
nd Pokey Joe returned, lead-
Squint Rangilo s chunky old brown
ing a
horse, the saddle empty
When Lafe Gordon hits Red Forks with his trail herd, girl
rancher Connie McGuire is torn between growing fondness
for him — and the suspicion
“Yo-ho in there!” Connie called. “Who’re you?”
A man stepped outside, stopped dead and stared at the girl with the ash-blond hair who was riding a bay pony. A stranger, he was tall, slender. and blond, with regular features and tawny hair and twinkling gray- green eyes. He was probably not over about twenty-four, a cowhand who was a bit on the devil-may-care side, yet sure of himself.
“Who’re you?” Connie repeated.
“Lady,” he said quickly, “please excuse
45
that he is a thieving killer!
me for staring. I wasn’t expecting to see— Let it go for now. I’m Lafe Gordon. I’ve got a couple of men with me, but I sent them to ride the fence around this place. We'd be honored if you’d have supper with us, miss.”
Connie’s eyes and features reflected be- wilderment.
“Have supper with you? Well, har not, since this is my home? I’m Connie McGuire. My mother and I own this ranch.”
Lafe Gordon tipped his head to one side and regarded Connie more closely.
46
‘Tm mighty happy to meet you, Miss McGuire. You—you own this ranch? I thought that old stage driver was sort of hiding a grin behind his hand.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked sharply.
_ The tall man laughed. “It now seems that Sam Weedhawk, the stage driver between
- your town of Red Forks and Deep Wells on the plains, played a joke on me. You're acquainted with the old pirate, of course? I mean, he looks like pictures of villainous old pirates.”
Connie nodded, and laughed.
“I never thought of Sam as a bloodthirsty old pirate. though he does love to spill long windies and play school-kid pranks. But I still don’t see what he put over on you, Mr. Gordon.”
AFE wheeled into the kitchen to attend
_4 to something which was sizzling on the stove, then returned to the door.
‘Tve been on the trail eight days with my cattle,” he said, with a chuckle, “coming from a place beyond Deep Wells, and for the past four or five days I have seen this stage driver occasionally and made talk with him.”
“Yes?” said Connie.
“Asked him if I could buy hay and pasture up in this mountain neck of the woods. He reckoned I sure enough could. Told me about the Circle Four, and how to get to it. He told me—” a grin spread across Lafe’s lean, sun-bronzed features and lighted the twinkle in his eyes— “ ‘It’s a woman-run spread. You'll find Miss McGuire a scrawny, hook- nosed ol’ battle-axe with the disposition of a~ buzz-saw in action.’ His idea of a joke, you see.” -
Color flooded Connie’s throat and face.
“Did the old rascal mention my mother? I hope he was more complimentary.”
Lafe sobered. “He made no reference to your mother. But he did say, ‘For a hired man this woman’s got a red-headed rooster dumb as an Ret
“Red Rangle,” said Connie. “Have you met him?”
_“Uh-huh. He’s choring in the barn. Oh, yonder he comes. But won’t you step down and stay a while, Miss Connie?”
Lafe stepped eagerly forward to help the girl dismount, but her feet touched ground before he could reach her. “Red” Rangle, solid and flat-featured, waddled up.
“This feller wanted to buy your hay,
He’s really quite harmless, `
THRILLING RANCH STORIES
ma’am,” he said. “I knowed you wanted to sell it, so I let him turn his cows in. Told him to make hisself to home. All right?”
“Speaking of hay,” Lafe put in quickly, “how many tons? And how much per ton? Pasture thrown in, of course?”
Connie drew a deep breath. She fully realized what the sale of this year’s crop of hay meant to her and her mother. It was their only real source of income. Although the value of the hay in dollars would not begin to meet all of the McGuires’ bills and debts, the sale would give them a breathing spell and revived hope of making a go of the ranch.
“I can’t expect more than the going price for hay,” she said. “Five dollars a ton, and we have two hundred tons. You'll want to. measure the stacks?”
“No, I'll take your word for it,” the cow- man said, and fished a wallet from one of his hip pockets. “Red, witness this deal. I am paying Miss Connie McGuire one thousand dollars in cash for two hundred tons of hay, including the customary privileges of a hay buyer.”
He took worn and faded greenbacks from his wallet, and scrutinized each one as he counted it into Connie’s hand. He seemed to guess that for her this was a momentous occasion; the money almost a fortune.
“There you are,” he said, turning the wal- let wrongside out to show it was empty, and smiling a bit ruefully. “One thousand bucks. T’ve been a long, long time rounding up that wad. Carried some of those old bills a couple of years. But I surely am happy to make a deal with the nicest young lady I ever—”
“Oh, stop it,” commanded Connie, laugh- ing. “Of course you tell those things to all the girls. I'll give you a bill of sale in a minute. Red, I’m too tired to ride to town tonight, but we must turn this money over to the banker at once. I'll wrap it up, and you're to take it straight to Albert Lasher.”
“Sure, ma’am,” said Red, and shuffled to the stable to get his horse.
Lafe followed her as she ran into the | kitchen, wrapped the precious currency in ` a piece of newspaper. He went on about his neglected cooking chore.
‘Tve got regular cowboy chuck, Miss Con- nie,” he said. “Fried spuds, venison steaks, hot biscuits. You like ’em?”
“Yes. You'll find stewed prunes and cookies in that cupboard, cowboy.” Connie laughed again, and he wondered if maybe it wasn’t
THE CIRCLE 4 STRANGER
because she was feeling a bit lightheaded. She seemed a lot happier than she had when he had first seen her outside riding the pony.
Maybe she had needed that money—badly. He was glad he had been able to give it to her if it made her this happy.
HE shadow of Red Rangle’s old brown
horse darkened the open door. Lafe watched Connie go out, hand the stolid hired man the package, and watched him tuck it away under his belt.
“By the way, Red,” she remarked, “Mother didn’t send for me. She didn’t know anything about that message I found on the kitchen table this morning.”
Lafe Gordon stopped rolling out biscuit dough and turn his tawny head as if listen- ing with the closest attention.
“That’s funny,” said Red. “Did you find out who writ the note, ma’am?”
“No. But it would seem, Red, as if some- body wanted me to be gone from the ranch most of today. I can’t imagine why.”
“Neither can I. Soon as I get this job took care of, I’ll be back.”
As the hired man rode away in the after- noon sunlight of a late October day, Lafe saw Connie gazing down the valley wherein lay the small Circle 4 ranch. It was as if she thought it good to see the meadow haystack- dotted, Better still to see it now spotted with grazing cattle. At the right, the dense jungle of willows along the stream met a sage brush bluff, and far away across interminable reaches of sage flats and unseen valleys, rugged foothills met blue-green mountains whose massive shoulders seemed to hold up the sky.
“Nice view,” called Lafe. “Wonder what’s holding up my cowboys? Must have found holes in the fence.”
“More than likely,” Connie affirmed. “This place has been on the skids for some years. I can’t $ee to all the work, and I’ve been concentrating on raising hay.”
“Sure,” said Lafe. His spurs jingled as he came out and stood beside her. “Improve- ments cost money—hay brings in money. Too bad you haven’t got-cattle. Where’s your mother?”
“Staying at the hotel in Red Forks, while she has a lot of dental work done.”
“So? Did I hear something about a message that took you to town this morning, Miss Connie?”
“Yes. A note was on the kitchen table
w when I got up. Of course the doors are never locked and I thought some neighbor had left it. The handwriting was strange and there was no signature. It said: ‘Mrs. McGuire is feeling much worse and wants you to spend the day with her. Sure? But Mother hadn’t sent any such word. She is enjoying herself, although she isn’t having a very pleasant time with her teeth. Mother loves to be an invalid, though, and now she seems to have won Dr. Payson’s sympathy. He’s the dentist, a widower about her age.
“But why am I te you such trifling things, Mr.—er— I’m going to say ‘Lafe’ You call me ‘Connie. There’s no reason for being so formal.”
“Not a bit,” said Lafe. “Especially with a cowboy who is a bachelor about your age, Connie.” ;
ONNIE made a face at Lafe as she said, “It’s time Red Rangle topped out on yonder bluff.” She pointéd west. “Shade your eyes against the sun and see if you see him anywhere.”
“I don’t see any sign of Red at all,” said Lafe, after a minute. “But here come my cowboys.”
Two men broke out of the willows a bit farther down the valley and loped up to the house. One rider was tall, rawboned and grizzled, stamped with the brand of the range. Lafe introduced him as “Pokey Joe” Bliss.
The other, small-framed, wiry, pinched of . face and with squinting eyes, was called “Squint” Sydney.
Both men looked Connie over, not rudely, but with marked approval.
“Fence is all fixed up now, Lafe,” Pokey reported. “Supper ready?”
“Ready,” said Lafe. “Connie, stop strain- ing your eyes and let’s go ahead and put on the nose bag.”
“Lafe,” she said worriedly, “Red would be in sight for a quarter mile on the ridge. He’s had more than enough time-to get to the bluff, and I’d surely have seen him, if he had. Tm going out to look for him,”
The cowman clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“You’re imagining things,” he said. “But if it will ease your mind—Pokey, you and Squint head into the willows on that trail to town and cut for sign of the red-headed jigger.”
48 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
CHAPTER I
Robbery—and Death
OKEY JOE and Squint nodded and
turned their horses. Lafe took Connie’s arm, led her into the kitchen and seated her at the table. He brought her coffee and a plate of food he had cooked, filled a cup and a plate for himself. Then, seated across from her, he kept up a line of light chatter. He told her all about himself.
Through the years while he had worked for wages, Lafe had been accumulating a herd of cattle. At first he had run the ani- mals with those of the big cow outfit for which he had worked, until at length the herd increased to where he had leased a small ranch to take care of them. This fall, his lease had run out, the owner had refused to renew it, and Lafe had decided to move to the mountains near Red Forks to estab- lish himself as a cowman. He had just ar- rived, with his cows.
The sun had gone and twilight’s hush had settled over the world. Twilight, the magic period when the world seems to pause in its busy rush, and then goes slowly and quietly to sleep. This hour Lafe had always enjoyed more than any other of the day; because he found it soothing. So had Con- nie—she told him so. They already seemed to understand each other, too, though they had met less.than an hour ago. Lafe knew he wanted this girl to like him, as he liked her, wondered if she did. But he was unaceount- ably uneasy. There were other things—
He had jumped up and was at the door looking out.
“You haven’t told me anything about your- self,” he complained. She hurried to join him as she heard his sharp intake of breath.
Squint and Pokey Joe were returning, leading Red Rangle’s chunky old brown horse, the saddle empty. Under the tan, their faces were white and their eyes grim and shocked. As they came up Pokey Joe spoke with his characteristic deliberation.
“Took us quite a spell to run down the sign on that feller, boss. He never got out of them willers. We found him, maybe fifty yards off the trail, his hoss tied close by. He’d been conked on the noodle. He’s stone dead.”
Lafe felt Connie tremble. She seized his arm to steady herself as if her knees had turned to rubber.
“Dead?” Lafe echoed. “The money?”
“Missin’,” rapped Squint Sydney. “Sure, we cut for sign on who killed Red. But all we can say is we’re stumped. Not a dog- goned thing we can get a bite of and sink our teeth into. What do we do now?”
“Boys, that killer must have left some sign,” Lafe protested. “Where’d he come from, and where’d he go?”
The two men shook their heads. know,” grunted Pokey Joe.
Lafe looked down at Connie’s head so close to his shoulder.
“This has hit you hard,” he said. “It hits me too! Somebody’s pulled a fast and tricky play and has got away with it. Any idea of ` who it can be, Connie?”
“I can’t think, Lafe. But there have been a number of robberies lately. No one has the least idea of who is guilty.”
“Boys, go back and cover Red’s body with a tarp and leave it and everything else for the sheriff to see,” Lafe ordered. “At day- break, you can begin eutting again for sign of the killer. Connie, try to compose your- self and get a night’s rest. I’m going to Red Forks.”
“Rest?” she said. “I’d toss all night and have horrible nightmares. I’m going with you, Lafe.”
She turned into her bedroom to get a jacket, but mentioned nothing about also getting the savings which she had been accumulating slowly and painfully for the past year to help with the expenses. Nor did she mention that she should have taken the two hundred dollars to town this morn- ing. But worry over her mother’s condition had driven other thoughts from her mind.
Like most women, Connie had considered that the safest place to hide money was un- der the mattress on her bed. Now, as her hand groped under the mattress, a sudden icy chill swept her and made her as cold as if she were actually frozen. The small sack containing her savings was not there!
a
RANTICALLY she tore the bed to pieces
and turned the mattress bottom side up. It was no good. In frenzied desperation she searched the room, though realizing that this was both useless and silly. Either last night while she slept, or today while she had been absent, someone had stolen her savings.
THE CIRCLE 4 STRANGER 49
This, on top of the greater loss of the money Lafe had paid her for this year’s hay crop and the shock of Red Rangle’s murder, seemed more than she should be asked to bear.
Unless the money was recovered, she was at the end of her rope, completely licked after fighting so hard to rhake a go of the Circle 4.
This fight had begun before her father’s death. Once he had made a good living for his wife and daughter on the small ranch, but then he had taken up with the wrong crowd in town and had begun to slip, drink- ing, gambling, letting the outfit go to ruin.
Connie, entirely on her own initiative, had managed to get a fair education and at eighteen she had taken a job as a country schoolteacher, sending her salary home to help Dad and Mother. She had been twenty when a wire from her mother told of Dad McGuire’s sudden death. It closed with:
You must come home to take care of the place and me.
Two years had passed since the bitterly remembered day when Connie McGuire re- turned home to hear such thoughtless and cruel remarks as:
“McGuire was a likable cuss, but I reckon you women'll be better off without him.”
“Sure didn’t leave you much, Connie. Sold every cow and horse off the place, and all the equipment as wasn’t mortgaged, too.”
“Ranch never was much, but now it’s plumb gone to the dogs. Reckon you'll sell it for what you can get, uh, Connie? If old Money Bags Albert Lasher, the banker, don’t grab it.”
Connie had talked sale to Mother, who had thrown up her hands in rebellious protest. She loved the old ranch and was sure re- sourceful Connie could make a go of Circle 4.
One crop only could the McGuires raise on their land. Hay. Last year Connie had sold one hundred tons at five dollars a ton, to provide their sole income. She had also accumulated a few horses and three milk cows, none fully paid for yet.
This year she had managed to double the hay crop. But interest on the mortgage, taxes, store bills, hited help and incidentals ran into far more money than the value of that crop. And to cap the climax, this fall Mrs. McGuire had required a vast amount of dental work. And Dr. Payson, the dentist, ~ as kindly as he was, had told Connie, “The
least I can do this work for is two hundred dollars.”
Two hundred dollars on top of all the rest! Connie had displayed something of her own bitter discouragement when she had asked, “Where’ll we get the money?”
“H’m’m,” Mrs. McGuire had said, “you can always get married. Why you keep put- ting off that nice Alexander Frade is quite beyond me. Is it pride because we're poor and he’s well-to-do?”
Alex was a personable young man, but he certainly did not work for a living—just one of several things which had stopped cau- tious Connie from accepting him. When she asked bluntly where he got his money, he spoke largely of “investments in the East.” Big business which a woman could not un- derstand.
These high points of her struggle passed swiftly through the girl’s mind in review and brought her up to this morning when she had found the mysterious note on the kitchen table. x
Worrying about her mother she had rid- den to Red Forks, and had found Mrs. McGuire in great form. She’d had something to talk about—how she had suffered while Dr. Payson had drilled and hammered.
“Just imagine, he says my teeth are much more sensitive and much, much harder to pull than anybody’s. But, Connie, he’s a wonderful man.”
“Mother, did you send for me?” Connie had interrupted.
“Oh, no, my dear. Not that I didn’t want you, but you seem to have so little time.”
“Mother, who could have left this note at the ranch last night?”
Mother was sure she didn’t know. Not that it mattered.
N THE lobby, Connie had encountered the storekeeper, Abner Jones. Jones, bald and horse-faced and lanky, had greeted her warmly. Then he had gone on to say he hated to bring this up, but he was now car- rying the Circle 4 for two hundred and eighty dollars. He simply didn’t see how he could supply a winter’s bill of grub on tick.
Connie had got away at length and gone to the bank, looking, as she walked, for a familiar face and figure. Where was Alexan- der Frade? As a usual thing Alex spotted her the minute she rode Wicket along Main Street. Perhaps he had slept late. Or per- haps, though not likely, Alex was helping Sheriff Pratt hunt for “a dad-blamed, two- bit bandit.”
50 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
As Connie had told Lafe Gordon, several persons had been stuck up at night by a lone masked bandit and relieved of their cash. But not until Jed Ivers had been vic- timized and had howled his head off had the lazy sheriff got busy.
“Money Bags,” as the cowmen called Al- bert Lasher, had been at work in his bank when Connie hesifatingly walked in and asked for an interview.
The banker was short and rotund and pink-cheeked. He had beamed when Con- nie said she had one thousand dollars worth of hay to sell. But he had frozen up tight when she had gone on:
“I know we owe you more than that for overdue interest, but I must have five hun- dred dollars to tide us over.”
Lasher had been frightfully sorry, but surely Connie understood his position. He had been lenient when he could have fore- closed on the ranch, but,now he must ask for every cent of the money she hoped to get for the hay!
CHAPTER II Gambler’s Chance
ONNIE had left the bank, not knowing
which way to turn unless to Alex Frade. Head up, and with a set smile on her lips, she passed the Wild Cat Saloon and came abreast of the Club Bar. Here, loung- ing at the door, had been Griff McDougal, the proprietor, looking better fed than a hog ready for the butcher’s block, and reminding Connie of a lazy hog.
“Tf it ain’t Miss Connie McGuire! Man, but ye look sweet to these old eyes of mine.”
“Have you seen Alex today?” Connie had asked him.
“Aha, the young man has gone bandit hunting. I see it surprises you as much as it surprised me. But yesterday evening, so Alex said, he was held up and robbed by the pesky unknown thief. So furious was Alex that at once he had Sheriff Pratt deputize him. Then he saddled his horse and hit out for the hills.”
“Alex robbed!” Connie had been non- plused. “How much did he lose? Did he say, Griff?”
“Ne spoke of five or six hundred dollars
which he had just received from his invest- ments in the East. I rec’lect this, because when Alex shouted the news in my saloon of having been stuck up, a half dozen barflies and others showed such great interest, one might say they ganged up on him.”
“Ganged up on him?” Connie asked. “Meaning—”
The genial saloonkeeper had hesitated, studying her rather shrewdly and rather un- easily before he blurted:
“Tt seemed Alex had been stalling off these boys on payment of I O U’s he had been passing out right free, promisin’ payment when some cash rolled in from his invest- ments. Now he had lost that cash, you can imagine the concern of these tinhorns.”
“Tinhorns? I O U’s?” Connie’s thoughts had been sent spinning. “I don’t under- stand, Griff. Alex néver had any dealings with—” Z :
“Sure, I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth and put my foot in it,’ the man in- terrupted contritely. “I—uh—the town knows of course that ye and Alex are— Ex- cuse me, Connie.” The uncomfortable Griff had slipped away from her and vanished inside his drink emporium.
But he had done far greater damage than he realized. His words had disturbed Con- nie even more than her mother’s troubles and her own great burdens. But—well, she had thought at least Alex was man enough to resent being robbed, and had bestirred himself to try to nab the thief.
Mother had insisted that Connie accom- pany her on her forenoon visit to the dentist and then stay for lunch. Afterward, Connie had helped her mother get settled for her afternoon nap, reading to her for an hour or so to quiet her nerves.
Altogether, Mrs. McGuire had managed to hold Connie in town until after three o’clock, and when she had reached home she had met Lafe Gordon. Then for a little while—such a short time—she had forgotten her burdens. But now her world had crashed all about her.
Alone now in her room, she heard Lafe calling to her: “Ready and waiting, Connie.”
She did not answer. Wasn’t it possible, even probable, that this stranger cowman had planned the whole wicked tragedy? Connie must not let her swift liking for him warp her judgment. Lafe could have left his herd and have scouted this ranch, yesterday, or even earlier. He could have been here last
THE CIRCLE 4 STRANGER 51
night to plant the note, and while she was in town, he could have searched the house. It was even possible that Lafe’s cowboys had murdered Red Rangle, to rob him and to return to their boss the cash he had paid Connie for the hay. One or both of the cow- boys could have been in the willows and have seen the money change hands. And who ex- cept Lafe or his men could possibly have known Red Rangle was carrying money?
UTSIDE, Lafe was getting a little im-
patient. He called Connie again, won- dering what could have delayed her. He didn’t even hear the comments of his two cowboys who were in the kitchen, rattling the lids on the stove as they fed it fresh fuel; rattling the dishes as they set out food for themselves. He glanced anxiously at Connie’s door, with no faintest idea that at the moment he was the subject of her thoughts.
“TIl act as if I trusted Lafe, and when I get to town PII talk to Sheriff Pratt and to Alex,” she was whispering to herself. “To Jed Ivers, too, if he’s in town. Jed will help me.”
Jed Ivers had bought the Circle 4 hay last - year. He was a salty old cowman who was conceded also to be the salt of the earth.
“Coming, Lafe,” Connie called.
She put on a jacket, adjusted her hat, drew on her gloves and walked outside. Lafe’s questioning eyes were on her as she went with steady steps to her horse. .. .
It was not a long ride, and when they reached town apparently there was nothing much going on in Red Forks on this un- seasonably warm late October night. Lighted windows shone in the residence district. Along Main Street, barber shops, drug stores, pool halls and saloons were all open.
During the ride, Lafe first by gay talk and then by singing, had attempted to lift Con- nie’s gloom. When he’d had no success he also had lapsed into silence. Women were beyond him.
They were entering the town when he said: “We may be here for some time. Let’s stable our ponies. I never did like to leave a horse standing at a hitchrail for hours on end.”
Connied nodded. A man considerate of horses would surely be considerate in other things.
As the two rode into the lantern-lighted entryway of the big stable, a tall man, about to swing to saddle on his own mount, turned to face them.
“Hi, Connie!” he greeted. “Who’s this with you?”
‘Pm awfully glad to see you, Jed Ivers,” she said quickly. “Mr. Ivers, this is Lafe Gordon. We’ve got quite a story to tell you.”
The youthful stable hostler became a still figure in the background. Lafe, tall and agile, stepped easily from his saddle and shook hands with Ivers. He sized up the white-haired, weatherbeaten cowman with marked respect. Also, with genuine pleasure. The two men exchanged casual questions and answers for a moment, then Lafe helped Connie dismount and motioned to the hostler to take all three of the saddle horses back into the barn.
“Let’s go in the office where we'll be more private,” Connie suggested. “I want to, avoid publicity as much as possible. Though as soon as the news about what has happened gets out—” Her voice trailed off, and Jed Ivers gave her a shrewd and penetrating look.
“What the devil’s wrong, Connie? Can I help?”
Jed Ivers was like that, a true friend.
Ten minutes later Lafe Gordon had told the old-timer all about the strange.and tragic situation which had developed on Circle 4. He told all he knew, but of course he knew nothing about the theft of Connie’s small savings, and he said nothing about it—yet.
Old Jed Ivers’ eyes flashed. “Of all the doggoned sneaking, crooked work I ever heard tell, this takes the biscuit!” he ex- claimed. “Got anything to add to what this danged fine young cowpuncher has told me, Connie?”
“Yes.” Connie produced the note she had found early this morning. While both men were scanning it, she explained, as she had earlier to Lafe, “Mother had not. sent for me. But someone took this means of getting me off the ranch.”
“But why?” snapped Ivers. “Connie, PI keep this bit of paper. Maybe I can find out who wrote it. It would seem as if the murder of Red Rangle was cleverly planned, eh, Lafe?” :
“Yes,” Lafe agreed. “I’d say the killer- thief was hiding on Circle Four. Probably in the willows where he saw me hand the
» payment for the hay to Connie. After Red
got the money, he went into action. Any ideas, old-timer?”
“Meanin’ any idea of who’s back of it? Dog the luck, no! Reckon Connie told you I was held up and robbed? Nigh onto a month
52 THRILLING RANCH STORIES
ago. But the coyote who done it hasn’t given himself away yet. The bank here’d be easy pickings for a band of renegades. Long time se I got cleaned out in a bank robbery an ee
“Were getting off the track,” Lafe put in crisply. “Do they have open gambling in this town, Jed?”
“Sure. What’s on your mind?”
HE tall man shrugged.
“Thought maybe I might make a
stake at poker, and buy Connie’s hay all over again. Who’s the king-pin of your local tinhorns?” -
“Uh?” gasped Ivers, as if the talk had taken an unexpected turn. “ ‘Tinhorns?’” He grinned a bit wryly. “Well, I’ve lost some triflin’ stakes to Stand Pat Parker. Reckon he’s Red Forks’ top gambler.” `
Connie felt sick. She was no prude, and she understood that most cowmen enjoyed drinking and gambling, which they called “fun.” But shè never had forgotten that her own father’s weakness for liquor and games of chance had wrecked him and the Circle 4. “Stand Pat” Parker had been largely to blame, and for that smooth and silky gam- bler, Connie held deep personal dislike.
“Does Parker always win?” Lafe was asking.
“Nope. Just a couple-three nights ago, when I was settin’ in a little game, ol’ Stand Pat wanted to use a bunch of Alex—”
As if he’d suddenly swallowed his tobacco quid, Ivers stopped and threw a sort of fur- tive glance at Connie McGuire.
“Say it, Jed,” she told him. “Don’t mind me. Griff McDougal’s told me that Alex had passed out some I O U’s.”
“Griff and his big mouth—” grunted Iv- ers. “I was saying, Lafe, Stand Pat wanted to use a bunch of I O U’s for cash. I wouldn’t stand for it. The rest of the boys wouldn’t neither.”
Lafe had been glancing from Connie to the old cowman. “Whose I O U’s?” he pressed.
“You started to say Alexander Frade’s, Jed,” said Connie.
“Uh-huh, I did. You maybe heard, Con- nie, that yesterday evenin’ Alex was robbed of a stake he got from his ’vestments and he hit the trail after the thief.”
Connie nodded. “Jed, don’t leave town be- fore I see you again. Lafe, I think we should talk to Sheriff Pratt.”
“All right, Connie. Pilot me to his wickiup.
And stick around, Jed. Something may break tonight.” .
As Lafe crossed Main Street with Con- nie and then along one of the back streets, he tried to take her hand. He was quickly hurt when she drew away with marked cold- ness, but decided that her thoughts must be troubled once again. He could tell that the talk with Jed Ivers had not helped to clarify the situation. It had however helped in another way, because he had seen that the girl considered the grizzled old cowman a genuine and sincere friend. Just speaking with him had boosted her morale.
Lafe Gordon could not guess that part of her troubled thoughts were because she had gathered that he was entirely too much in- terested in gambling with the Red Forks’ tinhorns. :
They were nearing Sheriff Pratt’s lighted cottage when Lafe finally did get hold of her hand.
“Why so gloomy and upset?” he asked. “Try to cheer up. Even though I did pay you for the hay and have a bill of sale for it, I want you to know I feel responsible for that thousand dollars. As for Red Rangle— well, you can’t do him any good now, griev-
“It’s not that, Lafe. It’s— Oh, I’m not going to tell you all my troubles.”
“Get ’em off your chest,” he coaxed. “Do us both lots of good. I’m right deeply con- cerned and sympathetic, Connie, and—and say, were you ever in love?”
“What a funny question.”
“Not to me.” They were in front of Sher- iff Pratt’s cottage now, but he kept her from stepping up to the door. “Not to me,” he re- peated. “And—and—Connie, I’ve got to know something right now. I never was one to do any waiting when I knew what I wanted. I just—”
Suddenly and unexpectedly, his arms closed around her, He pulled her to him, his head bent down toward hers as she tipped her chin down to avoid a kiss.
“Listen to me, honey!” he whispered. “Do you know that I fell in love with you at sight? Do you? They say a woman always does know such things. Connie, look at me!”
A light abruptly blazed in his eyes as she lifted her face. His lips came against hers, hard yet gentle—and all-compelling. He hoped with a deep yearning that in that brief moment she too had awakened to something as big and grand as he was experiencing.
THE CIRCLE 4 STRANGER 53
CHAPTER IV Bandit Hunter
UDDENLY, Lafe saw Connie’s eyes wid-
en, as she looked over his shoulder. Be-
hind them the door opened and in a stream
of light funneling into the night, he saw a man saying good-night to Sheriff Pratt.
“Alex Frade!” whispered Connie, startled, and drew back.
But already the light had revealed her in Lafe Gordon’s arms. Frade’s head jerked up, and his feet seemed to freeze to the doorstep.
“Connie!” he exclaimed shrilly. “Is that you, Connie?”
With one arm still around Connie’s waist, Lafe turned and looked at the two men standing open-mouthed in the doorway.
“Which one of you’s the sheriff?” he calm- ly inquired.
“Connie, who’s this?” Alex snapped, glow- ering at the tall cowman. “What right has he to—to—kiss you?”
Lafe could tell that she was embarrassed, but he was sure he could trust to her wom- an’s wit to handle the incident. So he made no comment,
“Cool off, Alex,” Connie said coolly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Oh doesn’t it?” thought Lafe. “Connie McGuire, my kiss proved I love you, and something happened deep inside you or I miss my guess.” :
Stocky, well-fed Sheriff Pratt stalked out.
“Im the sheriff,” he said to Lafe. “You want to see me?”
Lafe said, “Yes.” Walking into the office- like room, he seated Connie and when Pratt and Alex Frade followed, he shut the door.
“My name’s Lafe Gordon,” he said. “I’m—
“I think we’ve got something to discuss, you and I,” Alex Frade said stiffly, staring at Connie reproachfully.
“Did you find the thief, Alex?” Connie in- terrupted quickly. And it was plain that she didn’t want to have two men fighting over her. “We heard you were bandit hunting.”
“No,” growled the sheriff. “Alex just now came in to report to me. He’s a deputy now, Connie.”
“Yes,” Alex affirmed importantly. He was ‘a big fellow with a wide, somewhat moon- like face set off by dark brown eyes and
erisp black hair brushed down slick. And he now wore proudly a cartridge belt with hol- stered Colt .45.
“When that masked bandit stuck me up last - night,” he said, “I was sure he headed his horse in a westerly direction. So when night fell I rode over to the west side of the basin. I began cutting for sign at daybreak and was at it all day long. No good.”
Lafe had fixed his full attention on Alex, but he offered no comment. Morover, he seemed unaware of Alex’s bitter resentment and open hostility.
“So you’re Lafe Gordon, hey?” the sheriff asked. “Didn’t I hear a feller of that name was moving a bunch of cattle to our neck of the woods?”
“Where’d you hear it, Sheriff?” Lafe’s question was sharp and eager.
“Uh? Stage driver, I guess. Sam Weed- hawk.”
“Is Sam in town tonight?” asked Lafe and, as Pratt nodded, “Where’ll I find him?”
“Club saloon, more’n likely. Playin’ seven up with two-three cronies.”
Lafe turned to Connie. “You can tell the lawman and his deputy here everything that I can about the situation on the Circle Four. Perhaps more. Excuse me now, but don’t go home without me, please.”
He opened the door and went out abruptly.
Connie didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that Lafe was gone. But at least she could now tell Alex and Pratt of the loss of her savings, still keeping it a secret from Lafe Gordon. She had an idea that if Lafe was responsible for her loss he might by chance give himself away.
It was upwards of an hour later when, her story finished and theories advanced and hashed and rehashed by the sheriff and Alex and Connie herself, she wearily said:
“We aren’t getting anywhere. It’s up to you, the lawmen, to find both the thief and the man who killed Red Rangle. Get busy and do something. I’m tired and I’m going home.”
HE PAUSED, thinking if her mother
knew she was in town she would want to see her. But somehow she shrank from telling her mother of the double tragedy on the Circle Four. It might be better to wait.
“I still insist that this confounded Lafe Gordon could have planned and carried out ~ the whole business!” Alex insisted.
Connie cut in crisply: “Prove it if you can, Alex. Now, one of you hunt up Lafe and
Í
54 aei THRILLING RANCH STORIES
send him to the livery stable. I’ll be waiting there,”
“PII go with you!” Alex shouted as she walked out.
But the sheriff called him back and she went on alone. She was tired and sick at heart. She wondered what Lafe might hope to learn from the stage driver, Saw Weed- hawk. She hoped Lafe would be waiting for her at the livery. But when she stepped into the little office, where a lamp was turned low, and sat down wearily on the hostler’s cot, neither Lafe nor the hostler was in evi- dence.
Boots clumped on the plank sidewalk and in barged old Jed Ivers.
“Hi, Connie! I sighted you headin’ this way. Nothin’ on this note. I can’t get a lead on whose writin’ it is. What was it you wanted to talk to me ’bout?”
She drew a deep breath. “Either last night or early today somebody stole the savings Tve been slowly accumulating—about two hundred dollars.”
The old cowman jerked as if a bullet had hit him.
“Was that after Lafe Gordon and his men had come to your place?”
“I didn’t miss the money until after rd seen Lafe and his cowboys on the ranch, if that’s what you mean.”
“You didn’t search Red Rangle’s body yourself?”
“Oh, no. I didn’t see it. I couldn’t bear to see it.”
Ivers vigorously rubbed the stubble on his hollow cheeks and his jutting chin.
“Ws a plenty snakish deal. Did Red know you had that little wad tucked away?”
“I think he did. But you know I trusted him.”
“Course you’ve told Pratt, that danged lazy fathead, and Alex everything?”
“Yes, but they’re no help. Jed, do you know what Lafe’s doing?”
The old cowman grimaced. “These old eyes see plenty, Connie. I seen you kinder liked that feller heaps, though you was all up in the air about him, too. And at first look at him, mind you, my idea was that he’d do to ride the river with. I ain’t so sure now. I ain’t so sure.”
“What do you mean, Jed?” cried Connie. “He wanted to see Sam Weedhawk. Do you know if he did, and what came of it?”
“Well, I’ve been on the prowl,” said Ivers. “Lafe had a right private medicine talk with
ol’ Sam, though I sure don’t know what oe or what came of it. Connie, I hate to do it, but I'd just as well tell you what’s got me all bumfoozled about that Lafe feller. Better for you to get wise to him now than later.”
Ivers shook his grizzled head and then went on as if talking to himself: “I was hopin’ kinder big hopes about him and a cer- tain sweet li'l gal I know. I never did think much of Alex Frade. Personable cuss and all that, but me, I like to see a young sprout who works his way up and makes good with his two calloused hands.”
“What about Lafe Gordon?” Connie.
“Now hang tight to somethin’, Connie. He’s been hittin’ the red-eye, and he’s up to his danged fool neck in a poker game with Stand Pat Parker and some other sharpers in the Club Saloon.”
“Where'd he get money to play poker?” Connie asked dully. “After he paid me for the hay, his wallet was empty.”
“TIl be doggoned!” Ivers blustered. “Well, somehow he got him a stake for poker. Con- nie, let’s you and me go watch that game. It might just prove plumb interestin’.”
Connie was stunned. “Go with you to watch a poker game—in a saloon? Me?”
“Sure. Why not? PI be with you, won’t Ir”
“Can’t you see that I’ll never have any- thing more to do with Lafe if he’s drinking and gambling. Oh, darn it, Jed. You were right. I did like Lafe Gordon, But now—”
demanded
HE OLD cowman lifted her to her feet. His eyes were unnaturally bright. In them was a suspicious trace of moisture, too.
“Connie,” he said, “I like you as much as if you was my own daughter. But bad as it looks for Lafe, I got a whalin’ big hunch he’s playin’ some deep game and knows just what he’s about, whether he’s drinkin’ or not. Won’t hurt none to look on for_a spell. TIl take care of you.”
The Club saloon, brightly lighted by two large and ornate lamps suspended from the ceiling, reeked of stale beer and tobacco smoke. The long bar was deserted, all the men present being huddled in a group close to a green-topped round table in the far corner of the room.
It seemed as if the table had been so placed that onlookers could not wedge back of it into the corner, and someone had thought-
THE CIRCLE 4 STRANGER 55
fully opened a window nearby to freshen the foul air. Around that table sat five men—one named Osa Dawson, whose back was to the window, Lafe Gordon at Osa’s right, and beyond Lafe, Stand Pat Parker, sleek and well-dressed. The other two men were strangers.
Lafe Gordon’s hat was pushed far back and, hair tousled, he was slouching in his chair. Apparently he had not even noticed Connie and Ivers. His eyes stared vacantly and when he asked for cards or muttered, “Tm stayin’,” his voice was blurred and un- certain.
“The jigger’s a poker player, anyhow,” whispered Jed Ivers to the embarrassed girl, excitement glinting in his faded gray eyes. “Jus’ lookit the stack of dinero he’s raked in!” ;
Gold, silver and greenbacks were in the stack in front of Lafe. The audience watching