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Show I ?,feAitory to any other "Tw outstanding ability INSTALLMENT I THE STORY AND THE AUTHOR detail. Unlike many metropolitan wrlten of western fiction, ha knowi that part of the country Intimately, and can set It on paper without losing much of the freshness and feeling of the plains and mountains. LeMay's "The Smoky Years" Is a Rowing, vividly written western ro- h nC9,Whl,ch con""n n the speed and colorful detaU that is making Mm Oont miss itl authority of the Secretary of the Interior In-terior and the President of the United States; namely certain lands . . ," He droned through his preamble perfunctorily; everyone in the crowd knew exactly what was involved. Something more than land was here changing hands. To hold the Crying Wolf would all but mean supremacy in the north. But this thing was bigger than that The two organizations organiza-tions which here clashed again were the great powers of the trails; behind be-hind each of them were whole counties coun-ties of Texas mesquite grass plains, great areas of the middle short-grass short-grass country, scores of outfits. The struggle between them had developed devel-oped with the Chlsholm trail itself a decade-long combat between men of diametrically opposed principles prin-ciples and methods. And now "This land," the deputy commissioner commis-sioner concluded, "is thrown into blocks. I think, gentlemen, you are already familiar with the placement of the lands. Block 1 includes, as previously agreed, an estimated one hundred sections, or sixty-four thousand thou-sand acres, known hereinafter as 'Block V; bounded on the north by-" Cleve Tanner leaned close to Ben Thorpe, whispered, and Thorpe nodded. nod-ded. "I shouldn't think," said the deputy depu-ty commissioner, "we need hear any bid of less than ten cents per year, per acre." There was a moment's silence, and the deputy commissioner got out s big silk handkerchief and mopped his head, as King now let a slow smile come to the surface of his impassive face. A curious rumble ran over the room, and the crowd seemed to sway. "I got a proposition," Dusty King said. "Nobody is bidding on this land but Just us two; nobody means to bid. Throw the whole thing in one pot and we'll bid on the works." "I'll agree to that," Thorpe de- CHAPTER I . crisis-the climax of 3o had fought a common f l long: Dusty King, who, !f If countless cattle, SH, G"at Plains Clothe short grass; young , ,bo had begun follow Wils with Dusty King be- ... big enough to hold a 4 1 old Lew Gordon. Texas ;se wild marketless herds i the roots of fortune. m and Lew Gordon con- Gordon, the famous that had developed with I, cattle trails; until now a, brands marked far-scat- beyond estimate. They because of tomorrow's land leases. Under the muld go the grazing rights ypnl Wolf Indian lands jei and miles of stirrup-iM stirrup-iM that King-Gordon want-iatBen want-iatBen Thorpe had to have, "carious that their long war fliorpe should have met its id here. The three In this ierstood that the outcome it upon what the two older M here. Possession of the joB meant dominance in ltd King-Gordon, or to Ben there was no longer going , m for both. run a crooked one, nor a square trick where he could play a mean one; it's a long time since he rode all night with his rifle in his hands, but Lew, if he isn't stopped there's plenty he can hire to do his dark-of-the-moon stuff now." "Dusty," Lew Gordon said, "we've blocked him every way we could." "That's why he'll get you, and me too, in the end." Again the silence closed, with behind be-hind it the perpetual bawling of the cattle, far off in the spring night Dusty King said casually, "Cleve Tanner's here." Bill Roper saw Lew Gordon's eyes flick up to look at Dusty King. "Cleve Tanner?" "Here In Ogallala." "What the devil's the meaning of that?" "Cleve and Walk Lasham are the only two of Ben Thorpe's men that raided the cross timbers with him in the old days; the only two he can really trust, now." "It's natural that Walk Lasham should be here," Lew Gordon conceded; con-ceded; "but Cleve Tanner, all the way up from the Big Bend" "Shows you," Dusty King said, "what store they set on the Crying Wolf lands. Ben Thorpe is sold mighty deep into next year's deliveries. deliv-eries. Already he's committed for more northern-fed cattle than he can his old soft hat, nor the cracking ring of the spurs he was believed to sleep in. The trail years had leathered his race, but they could not diminish his gay exuberance; Just as prosperity was unable to take from him the look of the trail. Whatever Dusty King wore, he always appeared to be wearing disreputable saddle clothes. Perhaps young Bill Roper had picked up a lot of Dusty King's characteristics char-acteristics in the course of an association asso-ciation that had lasted almost as long as Bill Roper's life. Everybody who knew King-Gordon at all knew the story of Bill Roper and Dusty King. Fifteen years ago. at the age of five, Bill Roper had been found hiding in the brush, like a little rabbit, beside a wrecked outfit on the old trail to Sedalia. It was Dusty King who had found him there; and it was Dusty King who had buried the bullet-shattered body of Bill's father beside that God-forsaken trail. In the fifteen years since then. Bill Roper had learned guns and horses and cattle, and the tricks of the trail as only Dusty King knew them. He had been able to read prairie signs before he could read print, and if it had not been for tomato can labels, perhaps would never have learned to read print at all. Everything he knew he had learned with Dusty King. There was every reason that he should have grown to look something like the great trail driver who had brought him up. Now, as they made their way down the muddy street, before the false-fronted wooden buildings, half the cowmen that thronged Ogallala hailed Dusty with comradeship and delight; so that his progress was that of a celebrated character, already al-ready famous. The other half they were Ben Thorpe men seemed not to see him at all. It was hard to tell which tickled Dusty King more the warmth of his many friends, or the bitterness of his Innumerable enemies. The bidding for the Crying Wolf lands was being held in a disused store, and here the sidewalk and half the street were filled with knotted knot-ted groups. Through this crowd Dusty King and Bill Roper waded, Dusty trying to look like something bewildered, from the tall country. Beside the door was posted a handbill hand-bill in black type, giving due legal notice of the auction of leases, and Dusty stopped to study this with a grave empty face, as if he had never heard of it before. "Mr. King," somebody said, "they've been waiting for you, fully an hour." Dusty looked blank. Then he clutched his hat to his head in a startled way, and rushed inside with a clownish representation of haste. Within, the crowd of plains-country men bronzed men, saddle-faced men, sometimes bearded men gave way as King, followed by Bill Roper, shouldered his way to the back. "Is this the place," King, asked, "where the feller is selling the horse?" i in old fight, Lew," Dusty :i "It goes back as far as I time you backed me with a d, to see if I could make it to Abilene. Don't hardly a we better draw back jsrdon stirred, swaying his i imperceptibly, like a stub-jr, stub-jr, "Credit's going to be art this coming year," he last King teemed to sprawl a re loosely; he was playing : i way of his own. Swag-easy-going, spendthrift he s i man who believed in-m in-m himself. isei Ben Thorpe in the road, be said. "He was looking prosperous. I bet he weighs Jred and twenty-five pounds 1 bit stomach pulled in." backing is terrible strong," rfon said, his eyes on the eknew better than Lew Gor-: Gor-: Dusty King, in tackling the :I( a hundred times, had a ' faes shown the way for t But Gordon remembered poveity of the cattle-poor ire an outlet was found for ieel To risk all they had singU slashing stroke at aemy, was almost more than could beat know whj Ben Thorpe's "Dusty King said. "And you w he got his start. We know that so ma ly Texas out-in out-in Ben Thorpe's name; Wmany different ways he's fe jump down on little lonely cowmen and leave them 'dead. And we know what's ! to many a little outfit that north, but never brought through, nor got home." 1 year," Dusty King said, e began driving up the big e've locked horns in one ""other with this one gang. 1 forgetting who started the stampede where Dave and "ry died under piled up cat-to cat-to Tularosa shootings, with ofmy boys dead. There's "J cowboys under the prai- "aid almost inaudibly, eould prove anything." lerds have grown faster than ''grown," Dusty King's ex-uess ex-uess voice droned on. "He's ? e are; he'll be bigger rom the Big Bend to the " owns more outfits than 'we names of. He's never "onest deal where he could elded. The biacK anger in his lace had submerged again, so that he was poker-eyed. The deputy commissioner was beginning be-ginning to look like a man who wished he were some place else. "If there are no objections" "Fifty cents," said Dusty King. Ben Thorpe's face had turned a curious color, not gray, certainly not bloodless; an odd congested color, col-or, like dark sand. "Fifty-five," he said. "Sixty." "Sixty-flve." "A dollar," said Dusty King. "A dollar, five." "Just in confidence between you and me," Dusty King said; "Mr. Thorpe can't pay that" "I think my name is good anywhere any-where in the cow country," Thorpe said to the commissioner." "It ain't good here," said King. The deputy commissioner slapped his pen down on the table. "Gentlemen," "Gentle-men," he said, "I'm sorry to do this; but in the interests of the government, govern-ment, and of the Indian Department which I represent, all further bids in this auction will be accepted only as representing American gold." "Cash on the nail?" King asked. "Immediate payment in Ogallala." Ogalla-la." There was no question now about the sweat that stood out on the Commissioner's forehead. "Seventy cents," said King. "I'm already bid a dollar, five!" "Sure; but we got different rules now. God knows Thorpe can't back a dollar, five in gold. What kind of shenanigan is this, anyway?" The eyes of the deputy commissioner commis-sioner went to Ben Thorpe's face again, but there was nothing to be read there. Thorpe seemed so lumpishly still that it was not apparent ap-parent that he breathed. "Seventy cents," said Dusty King again in the silence. "Whoop er up, boys I've only begun!" Silence again through the pack of those saddle-faced men; perspiring silence on the part of the deputy commissioner, dead lumpish silence si-lence on the part of Ben Thorpe. Cleve Tanner, his hands locked back of his neck, looked at the ceiling; i Walk Lasham sat motionless, his eyes on the face of his boss. "You" the deputy commissioner commission-er wavered, "you you can back this bid in gold?" "Immediate delivery by Wells Fargo," King said. "Right now, in Ogallala." "Mr. Thorpe," the commissioner wavered, "Mr. Thorpe, will you do you" They waited for what Ben Thorpe would say. His face was expressionless expres-sionless still, as he got up from his chair; but men stumbled over each other to get out of his way, as he walked down the length of that packed room, and out into the street The deputy commissioner seemed melted down, unrecognizable now as the crisp little man who had opened the bidding. His face was white and set and his eyes showed fear. "Well?" said King. ' "The Crying Wolf," the commissioner commis-sioner said huskily, "the Crying Wolf lands if if there are no other oth-er bids go to King-Gordon ..." Something like a sigh, a general release of tension, ran through that Jam of men. Close to Dusty King's ear Bill Roper Rop-er asked, out of the side of his mouth, "How high would we how high could we have gone?" The mask of Dusty King's face broke up; every muscle in his face came into action, every tooth showed ss he grinned. "Sevenly cents," King answeree him. t - v,, .. . i .1 "Maybe thirty-five cents sn acre." show unless he can get the Crying Wolf." Slowly Lew Gordon got a frayed tally book out of his back pocket. "The survey" Lew. Gordon's voice was curiously bewildered "it's hard to believe there's any land as good as this." Their private survey had been made by Bill Roper; it represented weeks of hard riding, and shrewd calculation of the strength and depth of the feed upon the surface of the broken land. "One place here reads fifty head to the section," Lew said wonder-ingly. wonder-ingly. "Fifty head of cattle grazing one section of land! It's past belief." be-lief." "This isn't Texas, Lew." "I figure we might pay as high as thirty cents to the acre," Gordon said, "by the year's lease." A flicker like that of heat lightning showed for a moment behind Dusty King's eyes; but his voice was low and monotonous as before. "Thirty cents be damned," he said. Lew Gordon looked at him for a long time. How deep you figure to go?" "Get the land," Dusty King said. "Ben Thorpe is liable to go crazy and bid his head off." "We're looking down his throat, King said for the second time. "The least the deputy commissioner can accept is drafts on Kansas City. Ben Thorpe hasn't realized the value of the land. We'll catch him short and force him off the board." "At what cost to ourselves . Gordon Gor-don demanded. "At all costs." Slowly Lew Gordon shook his head. "Maybe thirty-five cents an acre " Dustv King's voice rose explosive-,y explosive-,y for the first time. 'Thirty-five cents " he echoed-"or fifty cents, or sevenVfive. or a dollar! Get the w Gordon sighed, and he looked me a man who was weary and old. -you wthat land." Gordon said, j ""'It aVcosts." Dusty King said 8 Gordon looked his partner in the eyeS' A KMI" "Go in and bid! Swineing down the board walks of OgaUala to the cool spring sun hght The deputy commissioner iook nis feet off his table. "The sale was supposed to start at two o'clock." he complained. A little tribute, there. The com-missioner-perhaps already in Ben Thorpe's pay hardly dared start an important sale, without present this slouching, nondescript-looking representative repre-sentative of King-Gordon. "No word has come from your partner at all," the commissioner said. "He ain't coming." Three men who sat in chairs erouped around one end of the table looked at each other. They ignored King and Roper, as hostile dogs ignore ig-nore an enemy of whom they are not yet keenly aware. The big man in the light-colored hat was Ben Thorpe - the Ben Thorpe- whose far-scattered holdings hold-ings perhaps already exceeded those of King-Gordon. Thick-shouldered now. heavy-bodied, he was today more than ever a power feared in e cattle country-still unscrupulous, unscrupu-lous, still menacing, but now of a different sort-a power of wealth, of organization, and of bought-up law. Beside him. the tall man. lean and narrow-bodied as a slat, was Cleve Tanner; a hawk-faced man een-eyed een-eyed so cleanly shaven that the ticht skin of his jaws seemed to shine Cleve Tanner was manager f Ben Thorpe's Texas holdings the breeding grounds from which Thorpe's whole organizat.on drew its strength. The other, the man who seemed uncommonly dark, even among "hese sun-darkened men, was Walk Lasham. He was Ben Thorpe's man-ager man-ager in the north, now; under his Zr faced watchfulness lay Ben Sr pounds now necessary to any wide operation in the catue trade The deputy commissioner raised -Z '"This " he said, "is a fideLTauctio to place by public b S certain lands to e charg of the Indian Department by we |