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Show i THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH, UTAH oesht mm &ROLLIN BROWN v. Deputy sheriff Jim Doane is called In by sheriff Sam Flick to tack down a jane of train robbers. The sheriff tells Jim that he believes the gang is led by a girl, the daughter of Pio Alvaro, a former rancher. Star La Rue, a cattleman who has bought Alvaros ranch, reports to the sheriff that rustlers have stolen more than half his herd. He accuses the Alvaro girl. Sheriff Flick arranged for a special train to take Jim to the point in the desert in San Loreto county where the holdup took place. Jim knows Miss Alvaro, and doubts that she is the leader, or even a member of the gang. He trails the robbers by the hoofprints until his horse dies. Then he begins walking. Heat and thirst plague him. CHAPTER it. ' Uh-hu- h, o my The vivid, desert sunset faded. Night spread shadow over a ghost-lan-d of barren, grotesque forms; weird buttes and rock heaps, fantastic ridges and gullies hn'd it spread darkness over a man who lay in the dust' where he had fallen, his lips II agreed Flick; Thats sort thats genrl idea, Just keep it in mind. anyhow. But one thing Im stakin my hat This train job was on, Doane. hatched from inside the Sand Wells country, not outside. Im bettin youll be able to pick up a nice fresh trail of shod hoofs withn half a mile of where them four fellers left the train. That trail will then hit for tiie nastiest, toughest-ridi- n spots which is to be found in that end o the county. An thats sayin somethin. See if Im right. ,And sheriff Sam Flick was right. indus-putab- W.N-- pressed against the dry covering of a canteen. The heat of the day was suddenly gone and it was chill. . . . A shivering body brought Doane to consciousness. For a time his brain was clear again. He coolly measured his chances. Fifteen or eighteen miles now would see him to Sand Wells. He told himself that he could make it. It was possible. He had to make it! Steeled in mind, he got to his feet. He carefully fixed his direction from the stars. Step by step, he began to move on. He walked a long way now before he tripped and fell. He pushed up and went on. . . . This was repeated countless times. His hands and knees were bloody. His clothing was ripped to shreds on the knees and legs. Finalvoice ly an unknown, seemingly began to call to him: You cant do it! No man could do it! Give up! Once you give up, death comes more easily! far-aw- ay ly But Doanes trouble had not come from rough country, or a hard ride. He went through that like a bullet goes through paper. As the sheriff had prophesied, there was a fresh hoof trail within a few hundred yards of where the train had stopped. One of the band had evidently managed the horses. The trail turned straight north into the desert country, avoiding what scant habitation existed in the neighborhood of Sand Wells Junction. Doane followed fast and light, with the quart canteen of water and a pocketful of dried jerky for food. He intended to hit the fresh trail for perhaps a day, to make certain of its general description, unless there was a luckier break. If the trail continued northward, or turned into the foothills of the Sierra Nueva, as he suspected, a man hunt might be outfitted with greater swiftness and ease fiun 'the ' sheriffs office in San Loreto, with riders coming down on the scene rather than working up from Sand Wells. Hours later he noticed that the animal had begun to limp. Glancing down, he saw that the right foreleg was badly swollen; he slid out of his saddle and looked at the leg. Snakebite! Thats why the horse had flinched; a rattler had struck him and Doane hadnt even known it! Maybe the rattler had lost his rattles. Anyway, there it was. He cut the swelling and applied a tourniquet. Hed made a bad mistake in riding the animal so long; hed given the poison a good start. But he told himself it wasnt serious; rattlers bite doesnt often kill stock. But the animals foreleg continued to swell, with a rapidity that hurled Doane into a momentary panic. An hour later he took mercy on the beast and shot it. He looked to his canteen. Less than a pint of water left! He made some calculations. He would go on to the waterhole, rest there through part of the night, drink until his system was saturated with moisture, then head back for Sand Wells with a brimming canteen to see him through. It was the only sensible thing to do. The riders he followed had also been making track for the waterhole, and that lured him on, to see what general course they would take in leaving. The waterhole proved to be farther than five miles . . . twice that. But the outlaw trail didnt trouble to turn into it. The waterhole was dry. A big shot of dynamite had been exploded in it, cracking the And in Doanes lower structure. d canteen were just two drinks; his throat was already parched. man-size- Doane had fallen. When he pulled the canteen from under "him the damage was done. The fall had dented the metal side of the canteen and a soldered seam had cracked. Not a drop left inside. The fall had come within five .yards of the mark he had set for himself, the spot where he would finally sink down, rest and drink. Driven muscles had weakened with eagerness He was cheated now beyond any human measure. He knew only despair. But his warped mind was no longer concerned with the despair of death; only with the measure of his loss that pitiful quantity of stale water that was gone! He cracked. He would gladly have traded his life for just one drink of water. He sobbed futilely, hoafsely, gaspingly. FEATURES man who never fails has failed. According to what I heard, he left Sand Wells three mornings ago, alone. Here is the wav h returns! How old is the track? Ten hours twelve. But it is still a long way from here to Sand Wells. This man was already weak. He had no water. So! I think he must have discovered how the Senor La Rue put dynamite in the north water-holto check cattle from disappearing in that direction." A single rider reined his mount away, moving slowly along the i When game is on the menu, avoid handling before cooking by flouring this way: Put a small amount of flour in a paper sack, pour in the pieces of meat and shake the bag until each piece is One meat ball will go just a well coated with flour. bit farther if you will only remember to add a little cooked macaTo soften patty for removal from roni to the meat mixture when window panes, draw a hot solder- In "wilding a casement window in the kitchen remember that it should open out, ,not in. And the base should be at least a foot above the sink. serving with tomato sauce. ing iron over the material, being careful to keep the heat away from The oyster shell is good for some- the glass. Most putty, however, thing. Put it in the bottom of the when it needs to be replaced, can tea kettle and it will prevent for- be removed with a small scale. trail of uneven footprints. He rode mation of hard-wata hundred yards, halted and returned to the group. He nodded his NEEDLECRAFT, PATTERNS head in agreement with the spokesman. The saddlemen had dark, vigilant eyes. Even now one scanned the horizons, straight in the saddle with Use rug cotton or old stockings for this a certain tenseness in the poise. The durable knitted rug. Pattern 7274 has for it and for a matching directions man who read the scant sign of the footprints so intuitively was known Due to an unusually large demand and current conditions, slightly more time is as Pedro Salvador; but his required m filling orders for a few of the features showed a herimost popular pattern numbers. tage that was more Indian than Send your order to: e, er Luxurious Nat Cable Stitch in seat-cove- r. stolid-appeari- ng Mexican. His age was indeterminable, except that there was gray in the coarse, straight hair that showed under the dusty brim of his sombrero. Two others were middle-age- d men, the fourth a youth. The fifth rider, at a distance of fifty yards, would have been taken for a man, her sex unrecognizable under the garb she wore. She was young, and clothed like the men in worn chaps, boots, a mans fadSteted shirt, and a son. Her fine, black hair was cut in a bob that was shorter than Pedro Salvadors grayed locks. But at closer distance the delicate mold of her profile, or the curve of her lips, the throat, the fine dark eyes spoke for themselves. Nearby, the n working clothes of the cowman served only to accentuate the feminine daintiness by harsh wide-brimm- Sewing Circle Needlecraft Dept. Box 3217 San Francisco 6, Calif. Enclose 20 cents for Pattern. No Kama Address ed 'Get O'Sullivan SOUS ab well as Heels next time you have your shoes repaired. hard-bitte- contrast The cool Pedro! she called. of the night will have kept this man alive. His track will wander. But he wont be dead this morning. soon! But corrected Pedro. La Rue would be equally behind his coming here. Let them look after themselves, bury their own dead! The girl seemed to .consider this for a long while. I suppose, she admitted. But well have to find him. The tall vaquero his He would have gladly traded his amazement. With a expressed railroad posse life for just one drink of water. now riding out of Sand Wells? With sheriff and deputy and He every Doane fought that voice. settler sitting on the cursed and screamed at it. But no with We watching ridges, articulate sound actually came from do this for the enemy, glasses? so he wont n those lips of his. There fail next time? were long periods of time when he Weve got Yes, said the girl. did forget. There were times when to. out! The track will cirSpread visions gave him water, a world cle after a while. filled with water, cool and sweet; Experienced in desert ways, the and he bathed lustfully in it, drank riders At the end of an to his fill of it. Other times when he hour separated. trailed down a man they nakedly fought the fires of hell and who looked scarcely human. His died a hundred deaths by torture. mad, burning eyes were fixed on the There were long periods of time far peaks. He crawled inch by inch when he lay quietly where he fell. forward across the vast floor of the Times when he slept. But always morning-ho- t desert on bare hands he staggered on. babbled to himself He knees. and Shortly after dawn his delirium-fevere- d in swollen-lippe- d words. There was mind cleared again for a sane in his eyes or in his nothing few seconds. And this disclosed the mind, but within him there was still grimmest joke of all. The coming that mighty, fundamental spirit sun rose in the wrong quarter of of the man and this it was that . the compass. He was moving in the had kept him fighting on. wrong direction! He had turned, d himself wandering, Jim Doane, deputy sheriff, opened those curiously sane threw Sunrise eyes for the first time some floating, far peaks of the Sierra three days later. He looked with Nueva into view. They had not amazement at the room in which changed. No farther away; no he lay, at the ceiling over his head. closer. Cool, distant, magical. A In his mind roared the fragments down-count- ry MORE MUEAGE ITS EASY to do cable stitch. not make this rug so luxurious yet inexpensive. Use it Why either in the bedroom or the 1 Manhunt Cost Half Million And Ended After 3 Years 35H3 1 hard-swolle- The holdup of a mail train in Oregon in 1923 by the three De Autremont brothers resulted in the most intensive man hunt in history, says Colliers. Before they Buy U. S. Savings Bonds! ' were captured, three years later, by detectives of the U. S. Post Office Department, more than $500,000 had been expended on the search. Circulars in a hundred languages were mailed to police departments throughout the world, and descriptions of their teeth, eyeglasses and watches were sent o thousands of dentists, oculists md jewelers in the United States. fapOVMDl 'po 6 FLAVORS -- AT CO 0 GROCERS back-tracke- grotesque caricature of a man threw up one hand toward the mountains which a crazed mind still somehow knew to be real. A smile that couldnt move the stiff, swollen lips lighted in the bloodshot eyes. He could hear again the laugh and gurgle of water in the granite creek-bedThe music of it. He could see the sparkling, clear, sweet streams of water in the canyons and ravines. On his hands and knees Doane crept forward, toward the ranges that lay distant two days march, for a strong man with food and water. Aqui sta! Por Dios, some man is lost afoot! There is his canteen! n mounts and a Five pack animal that carried water tins came to rein in a compact group. The canteen lay on the ground before them, half tilted against a rock. It had a dented, caved side. There were other things to be seen in the dust. A mans body had laid there. Struggled. The marks where the man had tried to get to his feet and again lay still. There were the marks of his raw knees. And to the south went the wavering track where he had disappeared. What do you think? I think a lean, straight1 old vanquero smiled that a certain ' s. hard-ridde- a thousand fantastic dreams. water water! Each of Water those dreams devolved upon water in one form or another. There were deep pools fringed with lush meadow grass and tules; there were broad, brimming rivers; there were mountains, like the high country of the Sierra Nueva, where little creeks laughed and brawled down countless walled canyons and ravines. There were cold blue lakes, walled in with snow and ice. There were also gigantic, ghastly, red infernos, and landscapes of smoking hot rock; but even in these there had been water only Doane could never quite reach it. He was a man who fought all the tortures of hell, and lived through by a miracle. He lay back on his bed for a long while now, looking at the ceiling and the walls. Then terror caught at him again. This was another false dream! He raised himself on his elbow, on the point of screaming: Water! WaterJ For Gods sake . . . water! 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