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Show Wr?Vc ' HAFL0LDCHANNINGWIR.E i . 12ft '.1...... L . W.N.U.RELASE "-'iS'CM? I LEW BURNET has been engaged by TOM ARNOLD, owner of the Cross T , to act as trail boss on the drive from southern Texas to Ogallala in the spring of 1875. Tom, with his son and daughter, ETEVE and JOY, are moving to Wyo- CHAPTER X "Let him bark," Quarternight said. "It'll take more than that." But Clay's meaning was clear enough. With Tom Arnold gone Joy and Steve would be the Cross T owners. And since Steve wore the pants he could take charge. Clay could put the idea into his head. From the river bluff he saw the water had dropped a number of feet. It was still high, but the churning flood was gone. Long red sand bars were uncovered out in the middle. No matter what happened, the longhorns had to go on. He made an immediate plan for that. Then near camp he said, "You go in, John, and get tools from the cook's wagon. Don't be seen if you can help it. Go on back ahead of me." He pulled in and waited until Quarternight rode out of the trees with a canvas bundle under his arm. Only Steve was there -when he went in, squatted at the fire pit, drinking coffee. His head turned at the sound of the horse. His cheeks that never took much tan were smooth and rosy and he seemed all at once, in this moment, too young for what was coming. "Lew," he said, "where's the others?" . "Up the creek, Steve. Joy here?" ' "Asleep." "Then come on with me." The thing he had to tell him made him quietly gentle. Even Steve's quick, "Say, I've ridden enough! Can't you let a man rest?" didn't change that. He said again gently, "Come on. This isn't work. Something's happened." hap-pened." He saw the high color drain away and rush back. With no talk then Steve got up and walked to his horse. But out of the trees, looking straight ahead, he asked, "Dad?" "Yes. Steve " Lew put out his hand. There had been years when he and this boy were like brothers, and Tom Arnold had been a father to them both. It seemed to him that ming. Tom must deliver 3,000 longhorns by September 1 or lose a profitable contract. con-tract. Lew suspects Uiat the Indian Sup-Ply Sup-Ply Co. is trying to delay the Cross T so that their Open A herd can arrive first at Ogallala. Lew eacamps on the Red and threw all of his weight behind a blow of his right fist upward against the bearded jaw. It rocked the big head. But the man was solidly planted. He felt the gun's hammer rise in his palm and hooked his thumb around it. It snapped with no explosion and he hardly felt the metal's sharp cut in the flesh of his thumb. For the hatred dammed back in him so long had released something savage and cruel. He threw his fist again into a body blow. The gun came free into his hand with his thumb still blocking the hammer. He swung it, lashing across Splann's face. It half turned the man around and he brought the heavy weapon's barrel once more against the side of his head. That dropped him forward onto his knees. Standing back, he was aware then of the others who had come running run-ning up. He heard Quarternight' s voice: "What's he done?" He answered without turning. "Splann's quit. He's through." He released the gun's hammer and shook away the blood. Behind him Jim Hope blurted out as high and shrill as a girl, "Judas priest! Was he figuriri1 to kill you?" "Kid!" Quarternight said, "shut up." Splann bent over and wiped his face and got onto his legs unsteadily. unsteadi-ly. He held the back of one hand against his cheek. His hot eyes glared over it. "You've started something, Burnet. I warned you once to stay clear." "You've got a month's pay coming," com-ing," he said. "You can take the horse for that. Now get out!" The heated rush of anger was gone now in the way of a storm's tumult that has passed and left only a knowledge of the damage in its wake. This wasn't a clean end; a killer's savage blood was not in him. "When you go," he said, "stay away from camp. I'll throw your bedroll off. I'm letting you river. They hear gunfire, and the herd is stampeded. After a night of running, the herd is rounded up, but Tom Arnold has been thrown by his horse, and killed. CLAY MANNING teUs Lew: "This will make a big difference." stepped down from his saddle and walked toward her. She stood at the end of her wagon, wag-on, both arms rigidly down at her sides. Clay had just stepped back from her. He didn't locate Steve. She remained like that, motionless motion-less and dry-eyed until he was close; and then it was as if something some-thing violently released drove her against him. His arms were around her and he felt the silent, wracking way in which she let go. He bent his head and laid his cheek against her hair and let that moment's grief spend itself. He saw Clay start back toward them. She drew her head up and raised her eyes to his. "I'm all right." He seemed to look far down in them and see all of this girl's quiet courage and something else in their steady gaze, unreadable to him. Then Clay was at his side. His hand took her arm. "Honey, you'd better rest." His blue eyes turned with a hot stare. "That goes for the whole camp, I figure. Any objections. ob-jections. Lew?" He saw where Clay was leading. The challenge was thinly veiled. And that a man even with Clay's surly temper should force any issue is-sue now showed him how unex-plainably unex-plainably bitter the reasons must be. "We'll rest," he said, "beyond the river. We're going across as soon as we eat." "Not if I know it!" Clay jerked his glance to the girl. "Joy, this is up to us. You don't have to go on." "Clay!" She stared at him with a suddenly lost look. "What are you doing?" "Joy," Lew said, "never mind. We're all of us on edge. It'll be all right." He moved to Clay's side and put his hand on his arm, his body covering the hard grip of his fingers. He turned Clay and walked him, the grip digging in. They were beyond her hearing when the arm jerked free. He halted. - "Clay, damn your now, if at any time, the unexplain-able unexplain-able barrier between them ought to be down. His hand touched Steve's j arm. It jerked from him as if he had struck a blow. He did not finish what he wanted to say. It was no use. Inside him a desolate lonely feeling came crowding back. He held deliberately to a slow walk I up the creek, letting the men get i most of their work done. There was no need for the boy to look at the I trampled thing they had found. The -. grave on a little knoll close to the bank was already covered. They were mounding it over with rocks. I Afterward, with that finished, they : made a bareheaded circle waiting for someone who could talk. He couldn't. He didn't know the words. Religion of a church sort had never been in his life nor in the '- lives of any of these men. The words they used had never been in prayer, and yet, in their hushed si-'u si-'u lence and in their bowed heads, he felt a wordless kind of praying, deep , from their hearts. Tom, he thought, r, would want it like this. Quarternight, Brownstone, Joe Wheat and Moon- light Bailey, these were his friends of many years and this was Texas i. soil. It was all' he would have asked. ' Someone coughed and the little A group moved. No one had spoken. f l That brief moment was gone. j "Clay," he said, "you go in now. Let Joy know. You and Steve." I He had seen Ed Splann stay off ' with the horses apart from the lit- tie group around the grave, and it y seemed a kind of rank insult, the 1 way the big man stood there casual ly rolling a cigarette, watching them " and blowing out his gusty breaths of J smoke. '; As Steve and Clay got into their j saddles and started toward camp v Splann reached up for his own horn J:: to follow them. "; He called the man's name, walk- J 'ing toward him fast. Close, he j x said, "Not you. You stay here." The heavy arm came down from J the horn and hung loose. Splann turned himself around with a pons' pon-s' derous deliberation. "You talkin' ; to me?" His dusty fouled beard ' hid all expression. Then a quick S hard mockery glittered in his pale Neyes. "Maybe," he said, "I don't hear you any more. New owners make a new boss. You thought of that?" He knew a certain end was com-4 com-4 Ing, that he'd held back so far on '"j the trail. Quietly he said, "There'll Jji be no change. There's something here you've missed." The urge to-f to-f ward the end he wanted drove him on. "If you can't take it like that you can ride out." He saw the instant way the pale ift Eray eyes sharpened. Splann's I . voice dropped, low and oddly dron- v ing. "So you figure it's that easy?" p "I've done my figuring," he said. "There it is." A This big man was no hotheaded "ij amateur when a definite time came. ;A He could see the veiled coldness C behind the drooping lids and the jf slack readiness that slid over the J I huge body. Then some thought i loosened the bearded lips in a half '' grin. !'' "All right." Splann turned a lit- p tie from him. "You're smart. I've thought maybe you were only a damn fool." His right arm lifted si"'; again as if to reach the saddle ,,i horn. He understood this man's kind too A Well. He knew the move was false i:-.'r even as the arm rose and so was ready when that hand curved suddenly sud-denly downward to the holstered gun. His own holster flap was buckled. ' . In that fraction of a second he Wasted no time in trying to loosen " He grabbed left-handed at the M !1 steel of Splann's rising weapon soul." He could speak without anger an-ger now. His own life had been bitter and twisted enough at times so that he could know the hounding torment of another's mind. He had that understanding without knowing know-ing what was behind it. "This is plenty hard for her," he said. "You haven't made it any easier. What kind of a devil's driving you, Clay? I'll tell you one thing. You needn't .hide so much maybe. Splann's ' quit." "Quit?" Clay turned and was sud-' sud-' denly rigid and still. "You mean he pulled out himself?" "Well, no," he said. "I fired him. We had a run-in." He waited, watching that desperate, driven look set across Clay's big face. "Splann will go to the Open A. I know that. What does it mean?" There was no hot violence that he had expected in the answer. "It means," Clay said, "you've" played hell." He swung his broad shoulders shoul-ders and walked away. Lying there with the midafter-noon midafter-noon sun bright upon its surface and the green grass stretching away beyond the north shore, the Red looked as inviting as a man could want. But a trail boss never could be sure. He had learned that himself in the way all men had learned it, by grief. Yet he felt that now was the one time to cross. A man shouldn't wait for the high water to drop to normal level. Flood had scoured the river to its hardpan bottom. Later, when the current slowed completely, the silt would pile up. That made your quicksand, the dreaded deathtrap for cattle. It looked only like a smooth red lake half a mile wide and broken in the middle by a little island. There might be some deep channels. chan-nels. The cattle and horses could swim those if they had to. And they could make a Cottonwood raft for the wagons. He decided to try the horse herd first. Wheeling from the bank, he saw Clay in camp arguing with the men around him. But Quarternight was in there. Clay wouldn't get far with old Rebel John. Off on the flat the pooled longhorns had lain down, resting. Moonlight Bailey and Jim Hope were grazing the horses apart from them along the creek. He sailed a yell into camp and saw the men start toward him, all except Clay and Steve. And then, waiting for the riders to come out, and with that sign of Clay's growing rebellion so clear, his mind went to a thing he had not though! of before. Tom Arnold had said for him to look in an old account book that Joy's wagon carried if anything any-thing happened. A moment's speculation spec-ulation held him, but afterward in the rush of work he did not think oi it again. Riding on toward the horse herd, he could see the dead-tired heaviness heavi-ness of his crew. Yet there was no complaint and there would be none. "We'll get across and camp early," he promised. The horses had no fear of the river. Under pressure of the riders strung out behind them they raced to the water and plunged in, sending send-ing muddy geysers higher that their heads. He pulled off on the bank anc watched them closely, seeing tin flood touch their bellies but come nt farther than that. It was saff enough, he thought, to cross the wagons. When his wave brought them ou of camp he saw Clay on the sea with Joy, driving for her, his bi shape stiff and set. Without a war for help he turned down the slipperj bank. (TO BE CONTINUED) He threw his fist again into a body blow. out easy. I know . . . you'll head back to your Open A friends now and work from there." Splann dropped his arm. "You want to save that?" "How?" "Let me see Clay Manning." He shook his head. "You'll see no one." Splann turned. He was in the saddle when he said, "You're drag-gin' drag-gin' down more than you know. I'll see Clay. Tell him so. And there'll be two others when I do!" He pulled his horse around and jumped him into a lope. Quarternight growled, "Lew, you had him. Why didn't you finish. it?" U J "Not my way, I guess, he said. "Anyhow, Splann's only one. It wouldn't have settled anything." Enough time had passed, he felt, for Steve and Clay in camp. He moved back to his horse. , From the saddle, with the others up around him, he said, "I know we've all done enough riding in the past twenty-four hours, but I'm going to ask you to ride some more. We're lucky in getting ourselves bunched. That thunderstorm was bad and it must have given a stampede down at Doan's. Those herds were all camped too closs together. If they ran they mixed, and it'll take a week to get them untangled. This gives us a chance to trail ahead. So we'll go in and eat and then we'll cross." There was another reason also he had for moving now. Times like this work was better than anything else He didn't want Joy, or the men either, with an idleness to go back over what had happened. Now the shock still held them in a numb way. Throwing themselves into the job of crossing would ease the bad hours that were bound to come Riding toward the camp s smoke, he was not quite sure what he would find there. But instantly, entering en-tering the little open space, he knew he should have understood the girl better than that. There had been no outburst of grief here, no crying. With the men going past him to get their meal from the fire pit he |