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Show g-fgSPS By EUGENE CUNNINGHAM JSS T II EUGENE CUNNINGHAM W.N.U. RELEASE 2T -JT THE STORY SO FAR: To save his life after he quarrels with the hosi of Wild Horse, Asa Brock, Con Cameron hltj the trail, leaving his pal, Caramba Vear, behind. On the trail he meets the Ranlers and rides with them until he learns they are wanted for robbery and murder. Discovering that Nevil Lowe, whose life he had saved shortly before, has a ranch near Tlvan, Con goes there, only to be seized as a murder and rob. bery suspect. Because of his association associa-tion with the Raniers, he Is believed to be "Comanche Linn." Lowe has been made marshal, but will not release him. So he and Jeff Allmon break out of Jail and Join Dud Paramore's gang. Par-amore Par-amore hates Lowe and tries to avenge the death of some of his men killed by Lowe's posse by kidnaping Lowe's sister, sis-ter, Janet. In spite of Lowe's treatment of him, Con helps Janet escape. Then he foils Dud's attempt to rob the Tivan bank. When he finds Jeff Allmon. killed by Dud, he leaves a note by Jeff's body telling what happened. Caramba Vear catches up with him after looking for him all this time, and persuades him to stay In the neighborhood. If he is not seen with the Paramore gang he may not be recognized. If he runs he is almost certain cer-tain to be caught. Calling himself "Twenty "Twen-ty Johnson," Con goes with Caramba to a saloon where they meet Gale Goree, foreman of the Broken Wheel ranch. Now continue with the story. j K "I want a detective, but I'll take two." CHAPTER XI Con and Caramba ate in a place the bartender recommended, a clean house called only "Carmelita's Joint" where the cooking was wholly Mexican. Con talked of Slash Ox-weld Ox-weld and speculated concerning the gunman's next movements. Caramba nodded agreement with Con's measure of Gale Goree. "The real quill! Yes, sir! Much of a man. Reckon we measure up to Busted Wheel size? We might hit up Goree for jobs, huh? I wonder how-come they call this Tenison outfit out-fit the Broken Wheel . . . Wagon Wheel I have heard of, lots of times. But a busted one " Back in the cantina, explanation of the brand came from the nervous bartender. "That was the Wheel, up to twenty-thirty year back. Seems old To-peka To-peka had him a partner in some liT mine and they fell out and this partner figured Topeka'd skinned him. Which, maybe, Topeka done. Anyhow, Emory was awful mad and a hard man himself. He grabbed up the Tenison boy that was six or seven and he run. Nobody's seen the kid from that day to this either Emory killed him or maybe he's got kids of his own, by now. But Topeka come back from the last of his trailings and he knocked a chunk out of his brand changed it to the Broken Wheel." "You know, I'll bet my uncle knew something about all this," Con'said thoughtfully. "He never was much to talk, but he did use around Tivan and on over, in his young days, before be-fore my aunt knocked his horns off. I've heard him tell a thing or two and he must've been something extra ex-tra with a gun. He " "Slash Oxweld!" the bartender Interrupted, In-terrupted, his voice almost a groan. "He's got everybody plumb cat-eyed, cat-eyed, since Goree and the Wheelers pulled out. Slash is poison. As soon kill you back or front without a bobble. He just aims to get the killing kill-ing done. Now, he's plenty fast aster'n Goree, I bet you. But somehow some-how he just can't get the glue out of his holster around that Texas man. If he could, he would kill him, I bet you anything. But" There was a poker game going in a corner of the big room. Presently Con and Caramba drifted over to watch. A cowboy got up, professing himself empty of both money and liquor. Con slid into the seat and began to play against three cowboys and two nondescript townsmen. Caramba Ca-ramba looked on. Con had poor cards for several hands and lost a few dollars. Then, as he picked up high, squealing scream. He ran, still squealing, to the door. The cowboy cow-boy whom Caramba had shot followed, fol-lowed, still on hands and knees? The fat man plunged out. Caramba sent a slug into the floor just behind the cowboy and he fell Hat and began to roll to the door. In the cantina there was sudden quiet, then a buzz of voices. "Stick 'em up, you-all!" a nervous voice commanded from the shadows around the back door. "I'm the constable. And I got you covered with two barrels full of buck " He was a lank and fidgety and uncertain-seeming man, this officer. But the short double-barreled gun in his hands was trained upon them and Con shrugged and lifted both hands to his ears as the constable moved slowly toward them. "You don't mean that you'd arrest ar-rest a man for trying to save his life!" he said irritably. "Oxweld has been on the prod ever since Goree Go-ree showed him up and you know it!" "Maybe so. But there's law that has got to be followed. I Ah, Judge!" A tall man, long of face and narrow nar-row of dark eyes, pushed through the growing crowd and waved the constable's shotgun down impatiently. impa-tiently. He said in almost a confidential confi-dential tone to Con: "Put your hardware away. I can hold an inquest right here, right now. Some of you men! Up you come for a jury. Those who didn't see it, by preference. If you did, forget it. We've got plenty of witnesses." wit-nesses." The formalities were very sUght. When three witnesses from the players play-ers at the poker table had testified, promptly the jury called Oxweld's death justifiable. The justice looked at Con. "That was fast work. But it was more it was thoughtful. I take it that you didn't think yourself faster, fast-er, just because of the way Goree treated Oxweld." "No. No, I didn't," Con answered slowly, frowning. "All I thought was that somebody would have to kill Oxweld or he'd be killing him a man. When he shoved himself into our poker game in a way that not only wasn't necessary, but would make almost anything on two legs fit The clean, comfortably untidy kitchen and bedroom had no place that would have hidden a man. Wiley gave them chairs in the bedroom, by a table that held whisky and cigars under a shaded reading-lamp. When they sat with glasses and cigars, Wiley shifted his lean length in the old leather chair opposite. "I think you two shape up as the answers to a question," he said calmly, swirling the liquor in his glass. "Before we go any deeper into our business discussions, let me make it plain that who you really may be, or what you may have done, is nothing at all to me. I want a detective, but I'll take two, since you boys seem to be siding each other. Will you pass your words not to mention anything I'm going to say, without my permission, whether wheth-er or not you go to work for me?" "Why, I think we can do that," Con said, after an inquiring glance at Caramba. "I promise!" "I trot with you," Caramba agreed. "No talk." "Bueno! I'm not only a justice, but I own half the Walking X. Sometimes Some-times my partner and I have said we own half thieves own the other half and collect a damn' sight more income in-come than we can. Well, most of the outfits in the Territory are in our fix. Some months ago we organized or-ganized a private association. Anyway, Any-way, there's more and more expensive expen-sive stealing going on than we've had for a long time. And a detective's detec-tive's job is more dangerous." "I want you to take on with the Broken Wheel if Tenison will hire you." "Well, then," Con said slowly', "as I see the layout, you want us to work for Tenison in two ways as hands and as detectives. But he's not to know that we're anything but hands and we keep our eyes skinned to see if the rustlers have got help on the Broken Wheel. Suppose we uncover something?" '.'You'll have to use your own judgment." judg-ment." "Well, it sounds all right to me," Con told him. . "How about you, Caramba? Want to give the proposition proposi-tion a whirl?" Caramba shrugged. But his eyes were twinkling. "I'm a scary man, Judge," Caramba Ca-ramba said whimsically. "But if this smoke-stomping, fire-breathing ter his cards on the sixth or seventn deal and found three jacks, he leaned back a little and swore with artful amazement. "Throw 'em away before they land you in trouble and let a man set down and show these tinhorns how to play!" Slash Oxweld snarled at his shoulder. "Three jacks is nothing!" Con put his cards down without so much as turning his head. A man who had been looking on from the other side of the table edged away and began to walk fast toward the door, looking back. Con stood and pivoted deliberately to meet Ox-weld's Ox-weld's grinning stare. "You asked for it!" Oxweld said in a high, flat voice. "You just asked for it!" He grinned. His thumb had been hooked in the. belt just over his tied-down holster. Now his hand twisted flashingly. Left-handed, he slapped down and outward, just as he would have blocked a boxer's punch, to knock Oxweld's hand away from the Colt butt His own gun was inside his shirt comfortably snuggled in his waist-band. As he struck, he drew and let the hammer drop as the muzzle bore upon Oxweld, thumbed the hammer back and fired his second sec-ond shot. Oxweld staggered with each impact of lead. The flaming powder at this pointblank range set his shirt afire. He spur, with a groan and lurched one step away Srom the table, then fell flat. Oxweld sprawled without moving. Caramba's shot was like an echo to the report of that other man s gun. A cowboy came in sight beside be-side a table with lifted Colt and Caramba Ca-ramba shot again and puffed dust from the man's shirt. He dropped heunand went scrambling toward me door on hands and knees. Ahead S him, a fat little man jumped up from under another table with a to tie exposing a decent hand I figured that he'd picked me to kill. He wasn't in a poker humor; he didn't want my place. I just looked the tender young pilgrim to him. So. before I stood up I knew it was Oxweld Ox-weld or me!" "And knew what you intended to do to make it Oxweld," the justice said, still studying him shrewdly. "I thought so. Are you and your friend working?" "No. We thought about hitting up the Wheel. If Tenison hasn't got jobs, we'll go 'on to see Lit Taylor. I rode for him a while and he told me to come back when I wanted to." "The Wheel," the justice said softly. soft-ly. "Why, you couldn't peel 'em for a better outfit. Are you Vear, or Twenty Johnson?" "Twenty Johnson. But Oh, I remember: re-member: I told the bartender our names. Does the justice here check on every saddle lobo?" He looked with open curiosity at the tall man. Caramba was watching watch-ing him, also, with blank face and narrowed eyes. "Not every saddle lobo, no. , Not as justice, either. My name is Wiley. Wi-ley. Suppose we have a talk. You wait five or ten minutes, then drift Go past Carmelita's, swing, right around the next house, walk straight ahead until you bump into a little corral. I'll be there." Nobody seemed interested in their movements when they got their horses and rode through damp darkness dark-ness up to the corral Wiley had indicated. indi-cated. Beyond was a small adobe house and one shaded window was a yellow square. They put Pancho and Caramba's black Jeb Stuart under a ramada and went cautiously to knock at the house door. Wiley's calm voice answered and Con gave his alias. The door opened and Wiley Wi-ley stepped back to let them in. ror of the prairies, here, he'll g'ar-antee g'ar-antee to protect me, I'm your gosling. gos-ling. We'll hang and rattle for you if the pay's right." "Two hundred a month. You can split it to suit yourselves. And here's something for each of you . . ." He got up and crossed to a battered bat-tered desk, fumbled in a drawer and turned, holding up two dull brazen disks. "English pennies. I'll scratch my initials on each one: W.W. A word goes with them: Eye. Any member of our association will recognize the penny, the initials, and the word, as identifying a detective. Suppose a detective working for us joined a sticky looping gang and was caught with the rustlers. He'd say he was just a passer-by. "Search me!" he'd yell. Our member in the necktie party would do that, very promptly. Sight of the penny would be almost enough to tell him the truth. The word would make him sure. So he would arrange for our man to get off, without ever exposing himself if possible." "Does Nevil Lowe belong to the association?" Con asked. "Oh, yes! In fact, he's an original member. Don't worry at all about him!" They drank a little, played a little stud poker, and turned in at midnight mid-night in the livery corral near their horses, without excitement. They ate at Carmelita's in the early morning and drifted about Onopa, returning to the cantina to sit talking to loafers like themselves. Near midday Wiley appeared and looked at them as at the merest acquaintances. ac-quaintances. "Didn't you men say you're job-hunting? job-hunting? Well, Topeka Tenison of the Broken Wheel is down at the rooming house. I don't know but he might have a place for you." (TO BE CONTINUED) |