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Show i Gordon were fL v,it King-Gordon IThfd from Texas to f 'Suy xl to fight INSTALLMENT IV THE STORY SO FAR: valed King-Gordon In power and wealth but he bad gained hli position through wholesale cattle rustling and gunplay King outbid Thorpe In an auction oJ valuable grasslands; the same afternoon be was killed. Bill R0per King's adopt- ed son, found out Uiat v-.j u Preuy Judy Cordon, about his nt.. ana the southwest outpost of the old Bar-Circle. I want two of the border camps; Willow Crick will do for one, and the Dry Saddle Cross-ing Cross-ing will do for the other. I want the new Bull Wagon camp, and the K-G horse ranch at Stillwater." "The brands are going to be terrible ter-rible mixed up," Gordon said. "I'm only taking such cattle as are running under odd brands; all our regular brands stay with you. I've placed my camps so that your stock can be worked as before. Except maybe the Pot Hook, and we'll come to some special deal" Gordon threw his pencil down. "You're not getting anything out of this that anybody can use," he declared. de-clared. "I think I'll know how to use it. Later on I'll send you a list of the northern camps I want; they'll amount to about the same as the ones I want In Texas." "It sure sounds to me like you're wanting me to buy you out in cash," Gordon said. "And if that's what's seen h Pt"e than he had ver face m,rf 1nd P8ssivity her again k like liU!e w di2T !"y'" he sald' "toat I Di?-f 8et 'IS7 good-by to yu- around emLkeyouwere ay place Jm" 8eCOnd or two tte fam'" twinkle seemed about to come into Kd?"68" "id yU hUnt real ''Well-maybe I didn't I guess kind of seemed like we'd already a d everything there was to be said. ''Maybe." she said slowly. "I didnt say everything I ought to haves,aid- want you to know this: 'When you ride out of my life there isn't going to be anything left In it.' " "Jody," he said, "are you trying to turn me back now?" Her only answer was a little hope-less hope-less motion of her hands. "Your father and I put in four hours last night, roughing out the terms of my split from King-Gordon. Think back yourself did you U v-Contlnned L.tJody,ndher star- ; Hre. He laced his $ Mop their shaktog 3 hjou father what I m My idea i to give medicine, and force . he', finished; . M ourowft tougher Iban H loTmen that hate him id j." to Munter-raid, and what u back! Until his lip aod nil varmints drop kirn, and he's Just one pother man can walk ; jjfl, a six-gun, and , that's done he's fln- J crazy? You can't- i bleak; It could hard-;T hard-;T hi w" looking at his k (n talked too many it couldn't be done, or ( Bnr. Dusty's out there that atone pile and u be done. I reckon : to ride, now." tii outfits his sheriffs, A as be breaks. I'm Sere Tanner first, in the tad when I'm through J iorpe won't be able to 'I is herd on the trail. ) ujiam, in the north, e already hurt for lack jfolf-until-" rere monotoned, but i, bred and born to the i plains, knew what a in, and what it meant Beo Thorpe by his own "And-what about us?" J di hoping I was hop- rinj with me." ij li there for me to ) tout" j i lake i long time; but ;t forever. Some day teloudi will be cleared . -i you could see it my you'd let me come back ' ned to be no breath in , . Tm tupposed to wait ever see me turned back from something some-thing I figured I ought to do?" She shook her head, and her face had even less color than before. "What did you say to my father?" "What did he tell you I said?" "That I quit you." "Well didn't you?" "Don't you know," she said craz-ily, craz-ily, "I wouldn't ever do that?" He was silent, his eyes on his buckskin gloves as he adjusted his rope, the buckle of his rifle boot. "I don't care anything about King-Gordon," King-Gordon," Jody said. "I don't care whether you stay in King-Gordon, or get out, or where you go, or what you do. I'd go with you If you wanted me to go; and if you don't know that you don't know anything at all" "Jody you mean that?" "In King-Gordon you were on the way to big things. But I don't care anything about that. Let the break-up with my father go through. Quit King-Gordon without two bits to your name. Take the least outpost out-post camp there is under the brand, I iink well of you, while ; the wild bunch in a si feud that you can't atain light of the fire ejes could not be seen; i mask painted by the bund nothing that be Jody flared up. Her eyes her hair streamed back f ! she sat up, as if lie wind. - you can't! I won't -I't lair, nor right, nor lhave to do." d as if she had been arte spoke again her and even, and so 'kt he would not have it "The brands are going to be terrible ter-rible mixed up," Gordon said. in your mind I can't do It, Bill There just ain't the money." "There won't be any trouble aboui that In Texas I may need up tc fifty thousand dollars; but I don'i have to have it all at once. It'I work out easy enough, Lew." Even the rough provisional terms that they were noting here provided innumerable complications. In the next few hours, as they worked it out, many a consideration came up that Bill Roper hadn't thought of. It was near morning before Roper left to seek out Dry Camp Pierce to complete his plans. CHAPTER VI and let him have the rest I'll go with you, and stay with you; and I'll help you in every way I can to build something of our own." He wanted to say something, any-t any-t thing; but he found he could not ) speak at all. t Jody said, almost hysterically, "Aren't you ever going to say anything?" any-thing?" ( Bill Roper mumbled to his saddle I horn, "Didn't know you felt that way . . . Wouldn't ever be any call ; any reason for you to let go all holts like that." She was leaning toward him now, her wice gentle, coaxing, very tender. ten-der. "Our own little old outfit any outfit, any place don't you see what a happy place we could make that be? A place where we could plant trees near the water, and watch them grow into big trees; and we'd be there together" Roper shot a quick glance at Jody, Jo-dy, and immediately sent his eyes away again, as far as they could reach. If he had looked at her again, perhaps he would have kicked his pony stirrup to stirrup with hers and picked her out of the saddle and kissed her mouth, and kept her close ,,to him then, and forever. But he sat motionless on his waiting pony. "Look," he said at last "Look if you mean that, come with me. Come with me, now." He could hardly hear her as she said, "Don't you think you ought to tell me where you're going?" "Dry Camp Pierce is on his way, by a quicker way than mine is. it , ,wt fall down there'll be the ve you. I think towelling to-welling me that all But if you do mean it "i nd do as you say "ill are through, and I lee you again, or we. We-we had ev- Wre throwing it all taught the glint of her f turned away, head a of her hair so that hid her face from anything. He had Und he stared into Tesently, as he watched "Win a rift of brush, jf boy hid like a rab-"V rab-"V Pinning face, that grinning now. He .Camp's story: ! "a o never fall . . ! tttly, and went ouse. i si!" pIaying Utaire ! Sot back to the loading pens. .uihat' tossed " a well figure up the Jody say?" y me. Lew." e can you ex- n2U g 00 With " to draw up the 31? .an be done in !( mining. My 'details any way '(L e much with !C B"1 the are Flrst thin- 1 th table' fidgeted with it. Bill Roper headed south shortly after sunrise. Today Dry Camp would be going east by railroad, beginning the long roundabout way which would bring him to Texas long before Bill. With his camps as a secure base, Pierce was to begin the missionary work which would lay the foundations for Bill Roper's wild bunch. Lew Gordon had shaken hands with him gravely at his departure; an uncomfortable job for Bill, which he was glad to get over with. But Jody Gordon he had not seen her again at all. He was thinking of her now as she had flared up at him the night before, warlike as a little eagle, ea-gle, but very lovely still, with the fire in her eyes. Watchful always, he knew when, two miles off, a horseman dropped from a lookout just at the crest of a rise; and he knew that the rider had seen him and was moving to intercept in-tercept his trail- He did not have so long to wait as he had thought. No more than ten minutes had passed when the unknown rider came dusting around the shoulder of a sand hill and headed head-ed toward him at the dead run. Roper Rop-er turned his horse broadside to the approach and waited. The rider was Jody Gordon. She appeared to have taken to the saddle in a hurry, for she wasn t wearing chaps, or anything else she should have been riding in. What distance she had come she had come fast, for her pony's flnnks were heaving. . "You sure punish that horse, he Said- him "I've got no call to save him. I'm not going any place." There was a little silence, avowant avo-want for Bill Roper, as she sat and looked at him. The lower lids of, her eyos were violet, so that he knew she had not slept; but be could not read her faintly smoky eyes. start of a wild bunch waiting for me when I land in the Big Bend Country Coun-try I figure to take that bunch, and build to it. and add on. After that -well, you know what comes after thst " And now, you're asking me to swing with that?" "Jody, I've already told you what I've got to do." The silence stretched out until you could have hung a saddle on it, and this time Bill's eyes were on Jody. and hers were on the saddle horn. Slowly she shook her head. Alter a minute he said, "I guess that settles it, doesn't it?" "I guess it does." Her face seemed blind, and she like a ghost of Jody Gordon. KdlS BiS Roper knew that if he 3 d not take the trail he had chosen now. he would never take t "Vyw sure, Jody? You woa't 'Tain she shook her head. A long, loose end of Bill's rope n his hand, though he never ""embJ ed taking it down. Hardly remembtrea fc knTinto the buckskin pony. The S nf the rope's end knocked a fly-Sut fly-Sut o X from the rump of the MgI oack mule, and they were or t tra 1-the long trail, the dry h -i Ae trail of a hopeless war. |