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Show I gALAM It MAY V.N.U. Release lZLvJ J INSTALLMENT 15 1 THE 8TORY SO FAR: ....Cordon had built 'ranches. King was JS unscrupulous 'Iwne Bill RPer-' RPer-' 'determined to TrR XX-C0",lnued . har8tlohrekj ' , The slab door re-5hW re-5hW ice of the sill; ft open 8 nolsy ped in with a sidewise ; fonce made room for -d brought Roper within i! of Posfle .hot i him in the dark, nybody move!" -tain nd flickering light I tit seemed to fill the vapM light, compared rt darkness without. A I upon by the . up, his clawed hand ut to gunbcIt lay ude table; but the reach-sj reach-sj empty In a continuous He man put up his hand. e bunks ranged along the From the first of these, earest the Are. a man nth his bands up; one of ;a! heavily bandaged, and notion carried Its sling tlon of nil iweetheart, Jody Gordon, and her father. After breaking Thorpe In Texas, Roper conducted a great raid upon Thorpe'i vast herds In Montana. Unable to reconcile her father with Roper, Rop-er, Jody set out with Shoshone Wilce to After that a full minute passed and stretched to a minute and a half. Evidently the outposts had been farther away from the cabin than Shoshone had calculated; but Roper heard none of them fire. He thought, "If I can keep them interested in-terested Just ten minutes more" Now a furiously ridden horse was coming up. Roper flattened himself him-self against the wall beside the open door, and waited until he heard Die man drop from his pony Just outside. out-side. He stepped to the door, fired once; and a man crashed face downward down-ward upon the door sill itself to lie utterly motionless. With his boot Roper pushed the inert heap off the door sill, so that the door might be closed at need. Because there were only two more shots in his gun, he picked up one of the weapons he had collected, and checked its loading. "I'd stand real still if I was you," he warned the two who stood with their hands up. He fired one more shot between them, for purposes of general discipline. "I ought to kill you; maybe I will in a minute haven't decided yet." Now another horse was coming in fast; in another second or two it And him. Tu.? were attacked by ome of Thorpe'i men aiding In Roper1 ahack. Wilce esc.iwd. but Jody was captured. Roper was looking for Jody when he ac- I cidentally met W Ve. Together they pre- ! ; pared to rescue her. j ' ' utes passed. Shoshone Wilce kept his pony moving slowly up and down to prevent its stiffening up by too rapid a doling after its run. and Jody followed his example. i "Listen here," Shoshone Wilce ' i said at hst. He dropped his voice, I and s;.f motionless. For a moment or tw, there was no sound there excert the rhythmic breathing of the hard-run ponies. "I want to tell you something," Shoshone resumed, his voice low, husky, and strangely unsteady. "It looks like I run away and left you when your pony was ; shot down. I see now it looks like that. But I want you to know I didn't go to do nothing like that, 1 Miss Gordon." ' "I know," she said, "it was the only" "I shouldn't have done It," Shoshone Sho-shone said. "I wouldn't do it if I was doing it again. I figured I'd be more use to you if I could keep my horse on its feet. I figured I could best handle it like an Indian would pick 'em off one at a time, and make sure. But I'd do different If I had It to do again." "What else could you have possibly possi-bly done? There wasn't any chance for anything else." "I should have stood and fought," Shoshone said. "Like he would have done." "It was better this way." Jody told him. "Don't you worry about it, Shoshone." Shoshone said vaguely, "I want you to tell him about it I want you to tell him I'd do different if I had it to do again." "Why don't you, tell him yourself?" your-self?" "Maybe I wilL But if anything comes up so's I don't get the chance" "Of course I'll tell him." They fell silent, and after that a long time passed. Shoshone stopped walking his horse, and sat perfectly motionless close to the wall of the brush corral. The grey light increased, in-creased, while they waited for what seemed an interminable time. It seemed to Jody that in a few minutes more they would have to admit that daylight was upon them; it seemed to her that an hour, two hours, had passed, instead of the half hour which Shoshone had dc cided they could wait But still Bill Roper did not come. "Do you suppose he could have ridden past?" Jody asked. :shone, whose heel had door shut behind him as a, made a headlong dive .cond of the three bunks, ttant the thing happened most dreaded, so that in ;lit fraction of a second :i were Irrevocably hurt one Wilce sprang, a gun t from within the shad-Tie shad-Tie blast of its explo-:agnified explo-:agnified in the close quar-rg quar-rg the ears ringing in the itunned silence that fol- :el of Shoshone's .45 had :onthe skull of the man in almost in the same in-the in-the shot was fired. A d, gripping a six-gun, ;jt over the side of the ixed slowly, and the six- i the floor from long, dan-rs. dan-rs. Shoshone Wilce held motionless for a moment iched. then straightened r.e-you hit?" y-" Shoshone began. His ghastly and his voice qua-jt qua-jt when he had fully ed it steadied again into dead flatness as before, -i kind of scratch along Tin all right." Jody, is it you?" irdon had been curled up raer of deepest shadows, up now, white-faced, her ii uncertain. Then sud-firelight sud-firelight caught the glint :stant tears which over-her over-her eyes. thought they'd kill you!" her arms about his neck he swift impulse of a child, i mouth. o nearest the table made movement toward the hol-' hol-' that lay there; Bill Roper a shot into the wall beside the man jerked backward. :;ne, can you ride?" as a curious strain in the :t Shoshone's voice. "I'm 11 you." per caught up a sheepskin ; his free hand, and flung Judy's shoulders. "Get "I'd stand real still if I was you." would string into view around the corner of the cabin. Roper cast a quick glance to see that his capuves were where he thought they were. They had not moved. He dropped to one knee beside the door and fired twice quickly as a shape, dark on darkness, dark-ness, whirled around the corner of the cabin. That was all-the end of the one-man one-man war he had started to cover the retreat of Shoshone. He never remembered the shock of the blow that downed him. All consciousness conscious-ness ended at once, as sharply as if cut off with a knife. He never knew which of the two men behind him sprang forward to smash him down; but he knew as soon as he knew anything at all. that a long time had passed-more time than he could afford to lose. "No," Shoshone said, very low In his throat. When she could stand the suspense no more, Jody Gordon dismounted; the inaction and the cold was stiffening stiff-ening her in the saddle, and now she led her pony while she stamped and swung her arms. She thought 'T" lead my pony five times around the outside of the corral. He'll be here by then; he must be here by then." She wondered, as she slowly led her pony around the circle marked by the walls of brush, what she would do if Roper did not come if he never came. Perhaps go on? Perhaps go back ... Jody Gordon was fighting back an overwhelming, impossible panic. She knew the cool, hard sufficiency of the men against whom Roper had pitted himself. From the standpoint of her father, who had turned against him she knew the unassuageable bitterness, the vast sinister malevolence male-volence which Roper had raised against himself by the miracles of the Texas Rustlers' War. If he were caught now in the grip of that malevolence malev-olence IttookaU herwill power to restrain herself from breaking into a run, or from mounting her pony and racing himwhere? Any place, if only her Eigh-strung nerves could find expression expres-sion in action. But she forced her- her Dony slowly, meas- snapped. "Shoot free the ie-ropes, and ride like hell! this!" He thrust the gun- the tabl into Jody!s un-!r'ds. un-!r'ds. "I'll see you where said Shoshone, "if'it's the Wu, I'd rather hold them you ride with her." Me, I said! You" 1 'ell you, I -" Per bellowed at him, "You die?" " Shoshone said, in that riined, lifeless tone. He 's wrist, tore open the the hand that still held his ' as gone into the dark. were gone Bill Roper !!ening. Outside two shots foment apart, as Shoshone :'ed ponies free; then sound-crackle sound-crackle of the ice crust ir hoofs as two horses gal-wn-valley, and Roper knew one and Jody Gordon were 'Per estimated that he had :Cnds left Unhurriedly, al-!surely. al-!surely. he picked up the ;?Ped by the man in the !i thrust it in his own belt. l3t he collected three or four iaPns in a brief search that perfunctory, yet was effec-:Use effec-:Use of his own practiced of where a range rider is J his gun. Xhese he kjcked lttle heap beside the door, would know where they wi'h the wouuaed arm ,;''y- "You'll never get out J've" he told Roper. ildn'ti, . ... . CHAPTER XXI Nobody but an old range rider could have located in the dark the brush corral where Shoshone Wilce and Jody Gordon were supposed to wait for Bill Roper. What would have been a simple problem by daylight day-light in darkness became a test ol scouting ability and cowman s instinct. in-stinct. Yet somehow, by the throw of the land, and by his deep knowl-edge knowl-edge o f the habits of thought of cow. men. Shoshone Wilce nosed out hat circular corral of brush, in a dark-ness dark-ness so thick that he was uncertain he had found the landmark until he had touched it with h.s hands A faint line of grey was already bearing on the rim of the world, lP,e whisky-jack was calling rauc LVsomfwVere in the scrub pine It's almost daylight already," Jody Gordon said, fcarinhervo.ee "If he doesn't come soon-if he doesn't come " said "We'll wait half an hour. "And then?" We've got to go on. , !,(! Not if he doesn't come. "I can t! Not u We'll have to go bacK. we t0"Hes'aid go on. We have to d hp said" Shoshone's vo.ee to a curious fierce whisper, dropped to a cunou ember "Whatever happens yu ' uring her strides while the daylight increased. Then as she completed the circuit cir-cuit of' the corral, and came again to where Shoshone's pony stood, she saw that Shoshone Wilce no longer Srthe saddle. At first she thought hat he had tied his pony and walked awlyTbut as she came nearer she saw hat the little man was down in the snow, huddled against the ough brush of the corral barrier Jody sprang forward, calling out hiSheaXrang forward, calling out his name, and there was a meaningless meaning-less nightmarish quarter of (0 while her pony reared backward and had to be qu.eted before she Ie ,.Xt bright trickle of red triced a line from the corner Shifmouth. crookedly across hi. chin. ifthfugly panic that swept her ? many seconds before she iS'tS comprehend that Sh, f ,u , wlu uper. p" 1 orry about that, was I KPer said. He slammed f ormless shot over the I head, interestingly close L n alp. He needed a b rt'Und of action at toe JLk outposts in, so fa.!"' and Jody Gordon j eir chance to get clear. |