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Show H irBsi i 81 coil 2 , D. APPLETON -CENTURY CO. By H. C. WIRE WNL) SERVICE ' . ever it was that gripped these oth-' ers. He swung the knotted end of his halter rope and kept running one hand back to the throat of his horse. A grin of repressed excitement excite-ment looked almost foolish on his boyishly eager face. "I'd say we better . . ." he began. be-gan. "Never mind, Paul," Cameron stopped him gently. Walt Gandy had begun the making mak-ing of a cigarette. Now he flung the unfinished tube away. He faced Cameron, saying, "There's one thing I guess ought to be made known right now, before anybody starts to check up." Cash Cameron's white head pivoted. piv-oted. "I was on your place this afternoon," after-noon," said Gandy. It was Hollister's voice, snapped out in the dark: "Why didn't you tell me that!" Only Cash Cameron's features were visible from where Walt stood; the others were blotted in the night. But he could feel the quick stab of eyes toward him. He did not know yet who the cowpuncher was, mak- "J.I.J' )SJWR.R)W"Vwmi;Uaguiipiiiijivmw,L'iiyj)) f T r J - 1 "I've gone all through the house again, Dad." :lsW THE STORV THUS FAR l,IS V1' !, .mnned to the C C ranch in centrnl Sl'T SeVrMvise Walt Gandy is on e ,, iV lo help his old ranKe partner. m Hnllistcr. Walt is stopped short by a TTN -ho holds a rille in tiring position. knows him. tolls him how to get to "rV Si and tells him that they will r.5i5ie an w.(h)n g qual.(or of a mfe IC!, hi' destination. Walt is stopped SP.Tn Tliis time by a grotesque, mis-T.iVn mis-T.iVn man who tells htm to get out and It ll en tells him the C C crew is in Emt- nt the closest town, tor an inquest. ''Jme has been murdered. Riding to 1 , mciuest in Emigrant, Walt leaves ' 'l horse at the livery stable. Walt learns tho .7,1 rash Cameron, owner of the C C 1 ch is in trouble. A hard but honest aiB 1 Cash has many enemies. At the Or, "est Walt sees Hollister and the girl Gevho stopped him Chino Drake for-, for-, cook at the C C ranch, has been It t urdered and Sheriff Ed Battle is trying '0 nin the blame on Cash Cameron. L girl is called to the stand. She is S flen Cameron, Cash's daughter. She Parks -rningly faints and, as Gandy rushes to , aid slips something in his hand. It 'the bullet from Drake's body. Walt mis a post office box and leaves the 5'1Iet jn it. Leaving the post office he accosted by a dark, swarthy man fifVho offers him a job. He draws the man ,j'j.t finds that he wants to usurp Cam-t Cam-t -oil's public range land. Gandy then Mf Vns him down in biting fashion. The ,an leaps at Walt, who whips him after 15 hard battle. The man is Pete Kelso, Hareman of the 77 ranch, an outfit hostile ' Cameron. Gandy is called to the tbl' Griff's office, where he meets Hollister. visor- s. biii,. CHAPTER VI Continued ; the ta;' 4 to tt " Walt Gandy leaned over and stud-fJSd stud-fJSd the floor boards between his ?"oots. It came to him that this man """"bowed surprising intelligence after -11. If he would use it! il "Cash Cameron," Battle was say-ig, say-ig, "has represented the power in mj' -on'trol here. . With the example of !; big fellow like him holding the lid veitrewed on, and able to buy out any '"ian who wanted to quit, there asn't been much cause for trouble. fasn't no need for the little fel- 'Iflpws t0 jump his range rights nor S Viach other's. But if the C C crum-:t crum-:t les and its grass on public domain Sh-rid in the national forest is open ifior anyone to grab, there's going be hell." Battle roared suddenly, eBi,T won't have it!" Under his heavy brows Bill Hol- j( Ister was no longer smiling. e(j 'You're dead certain, are you," he v J.sked, "that the C C is going to e rumble?" Battle leaned forward over the lat top of his desk. "Yes." His eyes narrowed and glittered. SpPl''A man in Cameron's hoi right jyjjiow don't dare take up a gun irrii,!ven if his range is being crowded fund::" nn! houidB "The C C don't own title to five r'jf'housand acres of land. It's using ...n.-lose to a hundred thousand, ' all ;OMP0iublic. Every man who rode in to he inquest today is figuring on just hat. Get the C C tangled with the aw, get you people tied up in court 1 ind you might as well start raising "Lez'logs on your five thousand acres, lecause your power on the open cat- le range is gone, and nobody will Pe afraid to crowd you. Wait!" Bat-e Bat-e waved his cigar as Hollister tarled to speak. '"le power on this range has 'Appfeihifted from Cameron's hands now, ,CKU')ack into mine, where it belongs! FAST , , T, . And, I'm going to use it to the ad-Ryantage ad-Ryantage of everybody, big man and ittle man alike. You people can't tven chew what you've bit off out i there, let alone swaller it; I guess ved (Ranger Powell was beginning to see CiEhat himself when he announced the C allotment in the national forest ..s going to be cut next summer." JtJ Battle clamped his cigar righteous-DsBitf' righteous-DsBitf' sayi"g around the end, "Time for i le liKle fellw to have a show here, Mli?nd I m seeinS that he 6ets it!" "Little fellows," Bill Hollister's S,v3uiet voice asked, "like the 77?" J Battle stiffened. His smoking Ujjitopped. - Hollister uncrossed his knees, and the C C foreman and the sheriff of ,riEmigrant County traded long measuring meas-uring looks. "What do you mean by that?" "Ssked the sheriff evenly. gff ''This," Hollister stated. "Funny 0 JWng, isn't it, that every man, worn-igkpn worn-igkpn and child on the Emigrant Bench iiTlrom here north t0 Salt Flat and" LUst to the Barricades, came to the .Tearing today everyone except baflwose from the 77!" b; Stil sitting stiffly upright, Battle iniymade no reply (inn l' ,,v r J j i re right about what is fj. "g 'o happen here," Hollister went for Pn' "Tnis range is over-stocked. 1 of omeone has got to move out. There are I t enough land here of any sort. Activate, public or natiQnai fQrest tQ m tne flood of animals that has een poured onto the Bench lately. ( rllats too almighty true! But don't 3 jiU ''k t0 me about little fel" jjjows He eyed Ed Battle, took a ong breath and rocked his body forward for-ward in a lightly balanced motion. sh Cameron has played square h ,thom- He figured when he "ought a man's brand, taking his - ws; he bought range rights too. , custom. But no, these lit- , IelIws have hung on, getting a --,! ew more cows and only waiting to ,,, , imp hts grass at any chance. Lit-;S;!;'IUe Lit-;S;!;'IUe fellows!" ''it'h !' t00k BiU Hollister some time to warmed up. He was hot now. W at 'em out there on the street, 3 2 A Pack ot w'ves licking their "ops! E'eing each other to see A n."nog0ing t0 lead in a rush onto Ih Give them a leader and ho"1 r( w'" follow all right. And &THS ' Batue. you know who it'll be!" rtoi Ue seemed set against an- " "wering. ""Ktai1'51" flared" "Everyone came Wi2 , t0 see how the inquest was go ng fa"' t0 see Cameron was t the nn i06' prPerly t'ed up. Only didn't! Where's Stoddard? His 77 is the biggest contender for range rights that we control. But they aren't troubled about how this inquest in-quest will fall. The 77 knows!" "Meaning that I've been bought, huh?" Battle asked suddenly. "Meaning," said Hollister, "that someone who keeps his name off the records is part owner of the 77 brand." . . Visibly the tension went out of Sheriff Ed Battle. He relaxed, shaking shak-ing his head. "Nope. You guessed wrong that time. I own nary a cow in any size, shape or form, not on paper nor on the 77. If Jeff Stoddard Stod-dard and his bunch didn't come in today, they had their own reasons." He gave Hollister a placating grin. "But we're sort of wrangling ourselves our-selves off the track, aren't we? I called you in here to make a proposition propo-sition ... for the good of everybody. every-body. Want to listen?" With an abruptness of action not usual in him, Bill Hollister rose and his lank form towered. "Battle," he said, evenly, "you're a plain white-ribbed white-ribbed skunk! Your bait's good all right, but it stinks of next election's votes!" Color flooded hotly into the fleshy face of Sheriff Battle. He gripped his desk edge. Control over some quick and revealing retort camp only after a minute of struggle. When at last he got up onto his feet, the red flood of anger had drained away. He looked out with cold, hard eyes. "I said I had another an-other piece of evidence, Hollister: something I didn't bring up at the inquest." His ponderous figure came around to the open floor. Watching, Walt Gandy wondered-Battle's wondered-Battle's gaze went down, came back. "Hollister," he asked, "why did you have Paul Champion run water into that corn row where Chino Drake was lying dead?" At Ed Battle's questioning thrust, Hollister's jaw had sprung shut. Muscles bulged. He stood planted as if to take a blow, a fighting man, yet to Walt Gandy it seemed the dogged courage of someone plodding on grimly to an end, without with-out fire nor vital care for what would come after that end was reached. Whatever had happened to Bill Hollister had struck him at the roots. Battle had the knife in and he gouged with it. "Well? Want me to say why you had that corn row flooded? To cover some boot tracks! Some almighty big ones!" Again the sheriff's eyes went downward, and following them Walt Gandy's rested upon the black stitched boots that Bill Hollister wore. They were big: number elevens. elev-ens. These that he had on today were brand-new. "The trouble with that trick," said Battle, "was that you slipped up. One track didn't get flooded. My deputy ran cement into it and I've got the cast. Never mind about the pair of boots that left the track; we've probably got those too." CHAPTER VII SOMETHING was wrong at the CC. Riding abreast, but strangely strange-ly silent for a pair who had not seen each other for two years, Walt Gandy and Bill Hollister topped the last bench and looked ahead to the home buildings. Out upon the open flat they had ridden in waning daylight. day-light. Here under the mountain wall night had come, darkening the ranch basin and spreading a gray mist close to the ground. Hollister's long - legged black caught up beside the palomino. They loped through a lane between post corrals, passed the saddle sheds and reached an open yard. And then, almost before seeing them, they were upon three men standing motionless mo-tionless in front of a bunk house door. The door was open. No light showed inside. Hollister swung off. Gandy waited, wait-ed, then walked in close behind him. Cash Cameron turned his white head. The boy, Paul Champion, was on his left. The short figure on his right was one Walt could not recall having seen before. "Place has been searched, Bill," said Cameron. "All the buildings. Someone while we were gone." Until that moment Walt did not see a fourth figure which had remained re-mained crouched back on the dark doorstep. It rose as the ranch owner own-er spoke, came out with a scuffling limp, and the twisted body of the deformed de-formed man seemed at night more gruesome than ever. He dragged past within touching distance, slanted slant-ed his sunken eyes up in a direct stare into Gandy's, yet showed no recognition. Walt had thought this afternoon that the man was more than a little off; he changed the opinion now. Something with a worse twist than insanity looked out from those deep eye-pits. He caught the feeling feel-ing of a mind as warped as the body. "What about Bent?" Hollister asked, indicating the retreating figure fig-ure with a jerk of his chin. "He's been around all day. Hasn't he anything to tell?" "Says he knows nothing about it," Cameron answered. "Bent couldn't have heard anyone, and he was mending the south pasture fence this afternoon. So he couldn't have seen, either, if it was somebody who came in from any other direction." Only the youngest cowhand, Paul Champion, appeared free of what- other cowpuncher who had stood at Cash Cameron's right hand out there in the dark, emerged from a lean-to storage room with a gunny-sack gunny-sack full of potatoes balanced on his left shoulder. He walked on short legs, bandy enough to fit the roundest horse ever born. A calf could jump between them and not scrape his boots. His face was homely, good-natured, and now solemnly sol-emnly intent upon the job of carrying carry-ing potatoes. He put the sack down' on the floor. Cash Cameron said: "Horsethief, shake hands with our new cook., Gandy, this is Horsethief Fisher, and that name's no joke! But he has sort of weaned himself away from the habit the last ten, fifteen years." A humorous twinkle of some past experience lighted Cameron's blue eyes, banishing momentarily the strain that this day had put there, and Walt Gandy had a glimpse of a hugely likeable old man. Horsethief Fisher grinned and put out a knobby paw. "Glad to meet you, Gandy." Walt shook. Here, he knew at once, was a tough and loyal henchman hench-man of the C C. Horsethief took off his hat to hang it on a nail next the door, showing a head as bald as a hen's brown egg. Hired hands on the C C ate in a dining-room that opened through an archway directly off the kitchen. Cash Cameron took his accustomed chair at the table's end opposite the kitchen arch. Bill Hollister ranged around on his right, Walt Gandy next. On Cameron's left was an empty place, then Paul Champion, Cham-pion, Horsethief Fisher and Bent Lavic. No one spoke of the seat that remained re-mained unoccupied, but all through the meal Bill Hollister kept staring there, as if he could not keep his eyes from picturing the girl in it, and again that somber studious look was set upon his face. In the end he seemed to have thought something out. He pushed back his chair, saying: "I'm going to move down to the bunk house, Cash. If Gandy is going to cook, he ought to have my room here so he can roll out and get the fires built early." It sounded reasonable. Cameron nodded. But somehow the ease and forgetfulness that had been upon the room for a little while was gone. Gandy stood up when Hollister did. There before the men he said only: "I'll go down with you, Bill, and bring up my war bag." But outside when they had passed beyond earshot ear-shot of the house, he stopped short in his tracks. Hollister's lank form halted too, and turned in the dark. Walt wet his thumb to roll a cigarette. ciga-rette. "You know," he said, his words slow and dragging, "there's a lot of country between here and the border, mostly desert." Hollister dropped his head forward. for-ward. "Huh?" He sounded startled. "Most hot desert, too," Walt went on, "and the wild flowers weren't blooming, and there wasn't much moon, and one place they forgot to put up the trail signs. Did I make that ride for any purpose. Bill?" Closing up the short space that separated them, Hollister asked, "Are you crazy? Too much heat or something?" "Too much something," Walt admitted. ad-mitted. He put his next question flatly: "What am I here for, Bill? Am I needed now, or did I come in too late? A man has already been killed. Things point mighty straight to someone here on the C C. I'm not asking if it's so or not; I'm using my own head. But this business busi-ness of every last one of you appearing ap-pearing to have it all doped out and yet acting like you're afraid to tell, is making me itch. Is this ranch split against itself? Is that it? What's happened, anyway?" He paused, then as Hollister said nothing, finished, "Well, no, you don't need to go into details until you're ready. But I've got to know one thing do you need me or not?" It seemed to take Bill Hollister an unreasonably long time to form his answer, yet when it came, there was no room for the slightest doubt that he meant every word. "Walt," he said, "I need you now more than I've ever needed a partner part-ner in all my life! You've got to take that much and believe it. It's all I can tell you, because, boy, it's the only thing I know for certain!" A sudden grip on Walt's arm spilled tobacco from an unfinished cigarette. Hollister started to speak, the grip digging in, but then bit off the word and stood tight-mouthed, staring back toward the ranch house. Next moment he gave a strange short laugh. "Lord!" he said, with disgust. "Me getting the jumps. I'll be taking pot-shots at my own shadow shad-ow first thing you know!" "But what is it?" Gandy remained rooted, half turned around. ,In pine trees beyond where the long front gallery of the house ended end-ed against the hill slope, a white, shapeless patch was shifting back and forth, slowly, regularly once a man hanging by the neck had looked like that. It brought a cold creeping sensation up his spine. Then he, too, understood the apparition, appari-tion, recalling a child's swing there at the end of the ranch home. But who would be swinging? This time of night! (TO BE COTIMED) ing a squat shapeless form at the ranch-owner's right side. Cameron's Camer-on's mouth opened, closed. A hand came up and smoothed down the coarse hair of his gray mustache. "Say, look here!" Gandy blazed. But he felt that he was only throwing throw-ing words against a stone wall. The silence of these men was that thick. Battling a rise of impatient anger I he turned from them, pulling the tobacco sack from his shirt pocket. "No lights!" Cameron warned. "Listen!" Then almost at once: "It's all right. Go ahead." His daughter came abruptly around the bunk shack end. She reached Cash, and standing close up to his raw-boned size, seemed to Walt Gandy once again as she had this afternoon, a small and fragile girl in spite of the rough garb in which she clothed herself, and far too rare a person to be caught in the black war that was gathering around her. "I've gone all through the house again, Dad," she said, her voice low and controlled. "Whoever did. it wasn't trying to rob us." "No," said Cameron. "No, of course not." He asked no further, and it was1 Bill Hollister who spoke up: "Then there's nothing missing. Helen?" Slowly she turned and lifted her face to him, though in the dark she could not possibly read his features. fea-tures. "A rifle," she said, "and a pair of boots. Yours." All others stood fixed, but the effect ef-fect of her words upon Bill Hollister was sudden action, almost as if from relief. "Paul," he ordered rapidly, "put up the horses. Walt, throw your war bag down here. You can turn Sunspot in the end corral by himself him-self tonight and give him something extra. Bent Lavic will show you the lanterns and where the grain bins are." He turned away into the dark, alone. His voice came back over departing depart-ing shoulders: "I'll rustle firewood for whoever's going to cook." As Walt kicked straw across the stable floor for Sunspot's bedding, he looked at Bent Lavic's feet. They were big all out of proportion on that shrunken body. The boots he wore would be about size eleven. Cash Cameron was in the kitchen trying unfamiliarly to get together a meal in his own house, and as Walt Gandy entered, he asked, "You know anything about pot-busting, young fellow?" Behind Gandy, Bill Hollister came in just then with an armful of wood. "Sure he does," Bill said. "I suffered suf-fered his cooking for a couple of years and lived through. Guess we can stand it for a few days." Walt swung around from hanging his hat on a peg near the door. Hollister Hol-lister continued. "We're short on cooks, but I don't want to bring a new man out here now. I've got an idea that we'll talk about later. Go ahead, Walt. You take the job." As Gandy peeled out of his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, the |