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Show THE BULLETIN wm mm 11 mm m at i i m .m D. m .m By H. is the biggest contender for range rights that we control. But they aren't troubled about how this inquest 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 Summoned to tht C C ranch In central Walt Candy la on Nevada, desert-wishia way to help hia old range partner. Bill Hollliter. Walt ii atopped abort by a lirl who holda a rifle in firing position. She knows him, tella him how to get to the ranch, and telle him that they will meet again. Within a quarter of a mile from hli deitination. Walt la atopped again. This time by a grotesque, misshapen man who tella him to get out and then tella him the C C crew la In Emigrant, the closest town, for an inquest. bomeone haa been murdered. Riding to the inquest in Emigrant. Walt leaves hli horse at the livery stable. Walt learns that Cash Cameron, owner of the CC rancn, la in trouble. A hard but honest man. Cash haa many enemiea. At the inqupst Walt aeea Hulliater and the girl who had atopped him. Chino Drake, former cook at the CC ranch, haa been murdered and Sheriff Ed Battle la trying to pin the blame on Cash Cameron. The girl is called to the aland. She Helen Cameron, Cash's daughter. She seemingly faints and, aa Candy rushes to her aid. alipa something in hia hand. It la the bullet from Drake's body. Walt rents a post office box and leaves the bullet in it. Leaving the post office he is accosted by a dark, swarthy man who offers hiin a Job. He draws the man out, finds that he wanta to usurp Cameron's public range land. Candy then turns him down In biting fashion. The man leaps at Walt, who whipa him after a hard battle. The man is Pete Kelso, foreman of the 77 ranch, an outfit hostile to Cameron. Candy la called to the sheriff's office, where he meets Hulliater. e 1 Continued Walt Gandy leaned over and studied the floor boards between hli booti. It came to him that thii man showed surprising intelligence after all. If he would use itl "Cash Cameron," Battle was laying, "has represented the power In control here. With the example of a big fellow like him holding the lid screwed on, and able to buy out any man who wanted to quit, there hasn't been much cause for trouble. Wasn't no need for the little fellows to Jump his range rights nor each other's. But if the C C crumbles and its grass on public domain and In the national forest is open for anyone to grab, there's going to be hell." Battle roared suddenly, "I won't have it!" Under his heavy brows Bill Hot lister was no longer smiling. "You're dead certain, are you," he asked, "that the CC Is going to crumble?" Battle leaned forward over the flat top of his desk. "Yes." His eyes narrowed and glittered. "A man in Cameron's hole right now don't dare take up a gun-e- ven if his range is being crowded . In on! "The CC don't own title to five thousand acres of land. It's using close to a hundred thousand, all public. Every man who rode in to the inquest today is figuring on Just that. Get the C C tangled with the law, get you people tied up in court and you might as well start raising hogs on your five thousand acres, because your power on the open cattle range is gone, and nobody will be afraid to crowd you. Wait!" Battle waved his cigar . as Hollister started to speak. "The power on this range has shifted from Cameron's hands now, back into mine, where it belongs! And I'm going to use it to the advantage of everybody, big man and little man alike. You people can't even chew what you've bit off out there, let alone swaller it; I guess Ranger Powell was beginning to see that himself when he announced the C C allotment in the national forest is going to be cut next summer." Battle clamped his cigar righteously, saying around the end, "Time for the little fellow to have a show here, and I'm seeing that he gets it!" "Little fellows." Bill Hollister's quiet voice asked, "like the 77?" His smoking Battle stiffened. stopped. Hollister uncrossed his knees, and the C C foreman and the sheriff of Emigrant County traded long meas- uring looks. "What do you mean by that?" asked the sheriff evenly. "This." Hollister stated. "Funny thing, isn't it, that every man, woman and child on the Emigrant Bench from here north to Salt Flat and west to the Barricades, came to the everyone except hearing today those from the 77!" Still sitting stiffly upright. Battle made no reply. "You're right about what Is going to happen here." Hollister went on. "This range is Someone has got to move out. There Isn't enough land here of any sort, private, public or national forest to hold the flood of animals that has been poured onto the Bench lately. That's too almighty true! But don't you talk to me about the little fellows." He eyed Ed Battle, took a long breath and rocked his body forward in a lightly balanced motion. "Cash Cameron has played square with them. He figured when he bought a man's brand, taking his cows, he bought range rights too. That's custom. But no, these little fellows have hung on. getting a few more cows and only waiting to jump his grass at any chance. Little fellows!" It took Bill Hollister some time to get warmed up. He was hot now. "Look at m out there un the street, sure! A pack of wolves licking their chops! Eyeing each other to see who is going to lead in a rush onto the CC. Give them a leader and the rest will follow all right. And you, Battle, you know who it'll be!" Ed Battle seemed set against over-stocke- CO, APPLETON-CENTUR- THE STORY THUS FAB CHAPTER VI m jm d. Ilnllistpr flared. "Everyone came In today to see how the inquest was going to fall, to see if Cameron was going to get properly tied up. Only the 77 didn't! Where's Stoddard? His 77 brand." Visibly the tension went out of Sheriff Ed Battle. He relaxed, shaking 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 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 off the track, aren't we? I called you in here to make a proposition for the good of everybody. 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-ribbe- d skunk! Your bait's good all right, but it stinks of next election's ... votes!" C WIRE WNU SERVICE ever it was that gripped these 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 looked almost foolish on his boyishly eager face. "I'd say we better . . ." he beoth- gan. "Never mind, Paul" Cameron stopped him gently. Walt Gandy had begun the making 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. "I was on your place this afternoon," 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- - Color flooded hotly into the fleshy face of Sheriff Battle. He gripped his desk edge. Control over some quick and revealing retort came 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 piece of evidence, Hollister; something I didn't bring up at the CIIAPTEB VII I've gone all through the bouse again. Dad." ing a squat shapeless form at the right side. Cameron'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 words against a stone walL The silence of these men was that thick. Battling a rise of impatient anger 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 d close up to his 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 was Bill Hollister who spoke ranch-owner- 's raw-bone- SOMETHING was wrong at the abreast but strangely 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 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 in front of a bunk house door. The door was open. No light showed inside. Hollister swung off. Gandy waited, 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 crouched back on the dark doorstep. It rose as the ranch owner spoke, came out with a scuffling limp, and the twisted body of the deformed man seemed at night more gruesome than ever. He dragged past within touching distance, slanted 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 He caught the feeldeep eye-piting of a mind as warped as the s. body. "What about Bent?" Hollister asked, indicating the retreating figure 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 I teen, either, if it was somebody who came in from any uthcr direction." Only the youngest cowhand. Paul Champion, appeared free of what- - WZ-V&- other cowpuncher who had stood at Cameron's right hand out there in the dark, emerged from a lean-t- o storage room with a gunny-sacfull 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 and now solhomely, emnly intent upon the Job of carry- If not thoroughly dried after Brass fixtures will not tarnish each using, shower curtains will if given a thin coat of lacquer. mildew. A rubber band, wrapped several Time can be saved in cooking times around a stubborn screw-to- p d if a large salt shaker is filled a lid, grip. provides jar with mixed spices and kept on a To remove cream stains from shelf near the mixing table. Mix garments or linens rub the stained spices in this proportion: Four area with cold water and soap and tablespoons cinnamon to two tathen rinse it thoroughly in cold blespoons each of cloves, nutmeg, water. ginger and mace. 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 A tablespoon or two of tomato soup in gravies give them delicious flavor. Or you might simmer slices of cold roast beef in a can of condensed tomato soup or pour it over a pot roast in the last hour of cooking. Cash k non-ski- good-nature- d, Keep plenty of cleaning tissue in the bathroom. It will save much wear and tear on the towels especially when the men folks learn to use it for wiping off razors and the women for removing lipstick. 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 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 CC ate in a dining-roothat 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, Horsethief Fisher and Bent Lavic. No one spoke of the seat that remained 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." m inquest" His ponderous figure came around to the open floor. Watching, Walt Gandy 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, 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 elev ens. These mat ne nad on today were brand-ne"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." Items of Interest to the Housewife AROUND th. HOUSE up: "Then Helen?" there's nothing missing. Slowly she turned and lifted her face to him, though in the dark she could not possibly read his features. "A rifle," she said, "and a pair of boots. Yours " All others stood fixed, but the effect 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 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 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 Lsvic'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 young fellow?" Behind Gandy, Bill Hollister came in just then with an armful of wood. "Sure he does." Bill said. "I suffered 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 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 g, to I COR W a SWITCH Fl" to something YOU'LL UKEI jgg5 y Copr. l40bXaccsCo-g- -- ySXXsB CP CHBSB0Q It sounded reasonable. Cameron nodded. But somehow the ease and forgetfulness that had been upon the room for a little while wai 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 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. "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. "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 g Ilfjjk J"l,"'rt.. cK) QGIT13B Qina Immortal Thoughts Strong Regard There is never jealousy where Memories, images and precious thoughts that shall not die, and there is not strong regard. Washcannot be destroyed. Wadsworth. ington Irving. r you THAT CAN TELL CAMEL SLOWER WAY CIGARETTES OF BURNING ARE MEANS EXTRA SLOWER-BURNIN-G, SMOKING, TOO. THEY'RE CAMELS ARE MILDER AND THE BEST COOLER BU7 something?" "Too much something," Walt ad 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 CC. I'm not asking if it's so or not; I'm using my own head. But this business of every last one of you appearing 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 mitted. In recent laboratory slower-burnin- tests, burned 25 slower thai the average of the IS other af the largest-sellin- g brands tested slower than any of them. That means, on the average, a smoking CAMELS have confirmed SCIENTIFIC tests tell just by smoking Camels that they are You'll find Camels free from the excess beat and irritating qualities of too-faburning. ..extra mild and extra cooL You'll find a full, rich flavor that only Camel's matchless blend and slower way of burning can give. And on top of the extra pleasurt, you'll find Camels also give txtnt mokmg (see right). g. plus equal to st 5 EXTRA SMOKES PER PACK! FOR EXTRA MILDNESS, EXTRA COOLNESS, EXTRA FLAVO- R- more than I've ever needed a partner 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 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 at my own shadow 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 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, recalling a child's swing there st the end of the ranch home. But who would be swinging? 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