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Show Nameless River r By Vingie E. Ros Copyrlrht br the McCall Company WNU Service. THE SORCERESS SYNOPSIS. Kate Cathrew, "Cattle "Cat-tle Kate," owner of the Sky Lino ranch., on her way to McKane'a tore at Cordova, Beemlntly Infuriated Infuri-ated by the sight of a girl plowing In a valley below, places a ritle bullet near the horses' feet. The clrl takes no notice. Kate goes on to town, where her presence brings on a fight between McKane, the trader, and Sheriff Selwood. Nance Allison, the girl on whom Kate Cathrew had vented her spite. Is with her widowed mother and crippled crip-pled brother Bud farming land taken up by her father, killed a short time before In a mysterious accident. Bud Is the victim of a deliberate scheme to maim or kill him. Kate Cathrew wants the farm for pasture land, and is trying try-ing to frighten the Allisons Into leaving. Big Basford, Sky Line rider, desperately In love with Kate, picks a quarrel with a fellow rider. Rod Stone. Kate, to part them, lashes Basford across the face with a quirt. Nance discovers hi a cave a fine collie dog, evidently evident-ly guarding a child. She goes home mystified. Next day Nance returns to- the cave with food and makes friends wUh the dog and the Bmall boy, Sonny. CHAPTER V Continued 5 "Brand's got one, too," said the child, "only Diamond ain't a pony he's a horse. He's a big horse. Brand has got to swing me pretty high to get me up. When we ride " But again some Inner warning stopped him, some stern habit closed his mouth. Nance held out a hand. And so it was that after a while Blue Btone canyon saw the miracle of friendship grow like a magic flower In Its pale light, for the girl talked low and sweetly to the child In her lap and strangest of all, the savage collie sat gravely on his plumy tall beside the two, accepting the turn of fate. When Nance made ready to go away at noon she knew that Brand was coming com-ing at night, that these two had always al-ways ridden on Diamond, and that they would ride again some day, while Dirk, the collie, would run beside them. She knew that Brand was always gone In daylight, and that the cave by the rock below was home. But that was all she did know, or could find out, except that the child's name was Sonny and that he was seven. Perhaps It was due to the fact that she had inadvertently called him that, that she owed the success of the hour. Be that is it may, the yearning pity which she felt made Nance use the last and greatest of feminine wiles to win him to her. "I'm going away now," she said smiling smil-ing Into the grave brown eyes in the little face, "but If you'll kiss me and won't tell Brand a thing about me, I'll come again tomorrow and I'll bring you some more goodies. How about it?" The promise, the kiss these completed com-pleted the downfall of the lonely waif, and Nance's heart ached anew at the pathetic grip of the weazened arms about her neck. From the far bend she looked back and this time It was to see the two strange denizens of Blue Stone canyon watching her in the habitual repression and silence of their unnatural lives, but withal so huugrily that the mist swam In her eyes again. "What'd you find, Nnnce7" Bud queried when she rode In at home. "I found a mystery I'm going to unravel," un-ravel," she answered grimly, "or my nume's not Nance Allison and I made love to a half-starved little kid and got all chewed up by a dog and I heard of a man who's going to get a piece of my mind some day now, mark me !" "Land sake!" said Mrs. Allison In the doorway, "what are they campers?" camp-ers?" "No and It looks mighty mysterious to me. Mammy. As soon's Bud puts Buckskin away I'll tell you all about It." CHAPTER VI Shadow In the Sheriffs Glass. The sheriff went back to the store at Cordova and looked the proprietor In the eye. "McKane." he said, "Is there anything any-thing you want to say to me?" McKane looked at him sullenly. "Don't know's there Is," he answered frankly, "you're able to answer It If I have, 1 find. I didn't wake up for two hours after you left that day." "I'm sorry," said Price Selwood earnestly, earn-estly, "but you know you run against my fist yourself. I'd never mess up with a friend if I didn't have to. You'd ought to know me well enough to know that." "I guess I do bnt that d d sneering sneer-ing threat of yours. Price It Just set me to seeing red. You don't seem to know a woman from a man, somehow." There was petulant complaint In his voice. "Not when the woman's Kate Cath-r,w." Cath-r,w." said the sheriff grimly, "I don't." "You re a pood sheriff. Price, and n food man, but you're stupid as h I somethnfs. To hold Miss Cathrew under un-der yevsr two-bit magnifying glass of suspicion as von do Is driveling twld-Ale twld-Ale silly child's play. True, she lives an out-of-thr-ordinHry life " I "I'll sny she does," Interrupted Sel- wona. "bv what power does she hold I together the worst set of off-scourings this country ever saw? Why do they obey her lightest word, st'tp lively when she speaks In that hlgh-and-mlghty tone of hers? Tell me that. It ain't natural not by a long shot. And here's another thing a good two-thirds two-thirds of them ain't cattlemen. Never were. I know that every new one, as he has come In from time to time during dur-ing these past three or four years, has had to be taught the cattle business. Caldwell, her foreman, Is a cowhand he came from Texas and so is that long black devil they call Sud Provlne, and one or two others, but the rest are city products, or I'm a liar and why does she want that kind? And she keeps a heavy force for the amount of cattle she runs." McKane spread his hands in eloquent elo-quent resignation. "You two-bit officers!" he said, "you make me sick." "Make you sick because you're already al-ready sick for Kate Cathrew who wouldn't wipe her boots on you, and you know it" "Sure, I know It. But that don't prevent me taking up for a woman, anywhere, any time." Uncertain of morals and dealings as the trader was, there was a simple dignity In his words which demanded respect, and they struck Selwood so. "I'm sorry I can't see Cattle Kate in the proper light, McKane," he said, "and that we've come to words and From the Far Bend She Looked Back, and This Time It Was to See the Two Strange Denizens of Blue Canyon Can-yon Watching Her. blows over her. Maybe I lack something some-thing fine which you possess but she's under my glass, all right, and I'm as sure as I stand here that some day its rays will show her up." "As what?" "I'm not saying." "Men have died In their boots for less than that." "True but I won't." "Maybe not." "Look here, McKane don't mess Into Kate Cathrew's affairs. I'm giving giv-ing you my hunch that the man who does is due for tragedy sooner or later and you have no reason, for Kate don't care for you." "No nor for any other man." ' "Wrong," said the sheriff succinctly. "Eh?" "Don't forget the man who comes In once a year and he's due before so very long ngain the man who sends her that regular letter from New York and who comes across the continent to see her?" "Mr. Lawrence Arnold? Why, he's her business partner owns a full half-interest half-interest In Sky Line." "Well? You watch Kate's face when you see them together again this summer." sum-mer." "H 1!" said McKane again In that resigned voice, "how'd you ever get elected with those reasoning powers of yours?" "Oh all right. But stay clear of Cattle Kate's fringes for some day there's going to be the prettiest blowup blow-up ever seen In the cattle country of the Deep Heart hills and Kate's going go-ing mile high on the explosion." "If you're so d d bright as a sheriff why don't you busy yourself with trying try-ing to find out who stole that I a si bunch of steers from Conlan a month ago? The old man's half crazy with the loss. Yes and that ninety head from Bosslnk and the ones run off Jermyn's ranse last year? It looks like there's plenty he-man stuff around Nameless to Interest your keen powers pow-ers of perception without picking on a woman." The sheriff was tying his sack of purchases on behind his saddle and didn't look round. "I'll never find those cattle McKane nor will anyone else this side of cow-heaven." he said as he mounted, "but they, and their manner of disappearance, disap-pearance, along with a few other things are all under that magnifying glass of mine. I think their ghosts will he In at that blow-up." "That's rustler talk. Price," said the trader shortly. "Sure," returned Selwood as he rode away. That talk set going In the sheriff's mind a train of thought which was re-I re-I current with him, which was forever I traveling with him somewhere In his I consciousness. Sometimes one thing set it folng, sometimes another. In the two years already passed of his term of office It had been a matter of deep annoyance to him that he had not been able to put his bands on the mysterious mysteri-ous rustlers who from time to time got away with stock up and down Nameless Name-less river. This unseen, baleful agency was baffling baf-fling as smoke. It struck here and there with a decisive clean stroke like the head of a killing hawk, and there was nothing to show the how and wherefore. Cattle Cat-tle disappeared from the range with a smooth magic which was maddening. They left no trace, nothing. It seemed ridiculous that ninety head of steers could be driven out of the country leaving no trail, but such had been the case. Selwood himself, with a picked posse, had trailed them Into the river, and there they must have taken to themselves wings, for they had apparently appar-ently never come out. To be sure Kate Cathrew was driving out her fall beef at the time, and the trampling band had crossed the river a bit below where the ninety head had entered the stream. That trampled crossing was the only spot for miles each way where a cattle-brute could have left the water, for Selwood searched every foot with eagle eyes. The coincidence of time stayed with the sheriff doggedly, dogged-ly, even though the Cathrew cattle, honestly branded, went boldly through Cordova and down the Strip, as the narrow valley beside Nameless was called, and thence out to the railroad, three long days' drive away. And the smaller thefts old man Conlon's bunch and those of Jermyn all lifted light as a feather. These had left not even a hoofmark. It was smooth stuff and It galled the sheriff, was a secret source of humiliation. He had heard a good many remarks about his own Inaction, though nearly all of the ranchers In the country were his friends. But deep Inside himself he laid a spiritual finger on the handsome, frowning-eyed woman at Sky Line and held It there. . Sooner, or later, he told himself, as he had told McKane, the steady rays of his searching glass would reveal In her the thing he knew was there. This was not logic, It was instinct a poor thing for a sheriff to base his actions on, apparently, but Price Selwood Sel-wood based his thereon In unwavering confidence. And If he could have looked into the living room at Sky Line that day he would have jotted In his mental notebook note-book as correct, one premise for the mistress sat again at her dark, wood desk and read a letter, and her face was well worth watching. . The letter bore a New York postmark, post-mark, and Its terms were sharp and decisive, almost legal, leaving no doubt of their meaning. Thus they carried to her consciousness conscious-ness a clear presentment of satisfaction satisfac-tion concerning the last shipment of cattle, and Just as clear an avowal of affection. Kate Cathrew's sharp face was suffused suf-fused with a light not meant for any eyes at Sky Line as she read and reread re-read the sheets in her hands. At their concluding words "and so think I shall be with you at the usual time" her lips parted over her teeth in a slow smile which was the visible embodiment of passion, while her dark eyes became for a moment slumbrous with the same surging force. There was a man this woman loved, if ever a face spoke truth, nnd he was the writer of the letter. Though the scattered denizens of the outside world of Nameless knew nothing noth-ing of this, it was covertly known at Sky Line. Every one of the hard-eyed band of riders knew It, with varying feelings. Minnie Pine knew It and old Josefa. Big Basford knew it and his red-rimmed red-rimmed eyes glowed with the light of murder when he watched Kate sit on the veranda with Lawrence Arnold in the long summer day while the llglv drowsed down from the high nine vault and Itainbow clilT sent down irs prismatic pris-matic colors shining afar over the slopes of Mystery. There was a look In the woman's dusky eyes that was plain as print the hot. unsmiling, Inflammable In-flammable look of untempered passion Now she folded the letter, slipped It back in Its envelope and put It away In a drawer of the desk which she locked securely with a key on a ring that she took from a pocket in her neat outing skirt. The act was indicative of Kate Cathrew's mode of "life in her high domain. do-main. All things were ordered, filed and locked, so to speak, and she alone was the master. A little later she went out on the hrowd veranda and snt down In the deep willow chair which rocked there, stirred fantastically by the stiff breeze which swept in across the great blue gulf of space betweeu the peaks. Her eyes dropped down and d"n the wooded slopes of Mystery slanting beneath be-neath her to the long green flats on Nameless, the equally long brown spaces of Nance Allison's tilled field. Sight of that field was a harh in her consciousness. It never failed to stir her to slow and resurgent anger. It was an affront to her arrogant autocracy, autoc-racy, a challenge and taunt. She who hewed to her mark with such brilliant finesse, who had not so far failed to get what slip wanted from life, haa Hilled to get those flat the host feeding ground fur cuttle In a hundred miles of nm'e. Cattle Kate Cathrew frowned as she regarded the tiny brown scar on the green bowl so fir below and tapped her slim muscular finders on file peeled arm of the hand-made rocker. For half an hour she sat so, her chin on her hand, thinking. Then at last she straightened and called Minnie 1'Ine from the inner regions. re-gions. "Send me Caldwell." she said brleCj. When presently the roremsn came from the corrals and stood before her, his hat In his hand, his attitude one of strict ftttentlMi. she spoke swiftly with a certain satisfaction. When she bad finished, he said, "Sure. It's a pretty long trick, but It can be dotifv" "Then do It," said Kate Cathrew, "when I give the word. We'll wait a little, nowever until the corn shows green rtom here. The better It looks one day tVie greater -vlll be the contrast con-trast next. That's all." "The devils are working In the Boss' head again," said Minnie Pine, who had listened behind the window, speaking to old Josefa In their polyglot poly-glot Spanish and Pomo, "and h l's going to pop for the sun-woman on Nameless." "How do you know?" asked the ancient dame, weaving a basket In dim green grasses. "Because I heard what she said to Caldwell." "You hear too much. An overloaded basket breaks." "Huh," grunted the half-breed, "the orjen eye sees game for its owner's fattening." "What are you two talkln' about?" asked the slim boy whom Big Basford Bas-ford had so nearly murdered that day on the porch, "always talkln' In that d d native tongue. Why don't you learn white man's talk, Minnie?" The girl wheeled to him where he leaned In the kitchen door, and her comely dark face flushed with pleasure. pleas-ure. "Would you like me any better?" "Sure," he said, "make you seem a little whiter anyway." There was cruelty In the careless speech, and It did not miss Its mark, though Minnie Pine's dark eyes gave no sign. "The young-green-tree-with-the-rtslng-sun-behind-It may want to talk the white man's tongue," said old Josefa grimly, "but she's a fool. All half-breeds half-breeds are. They reap sorrow." The boy laughed arid his face came the nearest to wholesome youth of any at Sky Line. It still held something some-thing of softness, of humorous tolerance toler-ance and good temper, as If not all Its heritage of good Intent had been warped away to wickedness. His blue eyes regarded the big girl with approval, passing over her sleek black hair that shone like a crow's wing, her placid brow and unwavering dark eyes, her high cheeks and repressed re-pressed thin lips. "I'll give you a kiss, Minnie," he drawled, "for half that cream pie yonder." yon-der." Minnie looked at the pie and at Josefa, speaking swiftly. The old woman nodded. "If the mountain-stream wants to waste Itself on the greedy sands," she said, "who am I to counsel otherwise? Yonder is the pie." Minnie crossed the clean white floor and taking the pie from the window ledge where it sat cooling, divided It neatly. She fixed the two quarters on a plate from the cupboard and adding add-ing a fork, carried the whole to the boy. She was the embodiment of the spirit of womanhood since the world was selling her service to man for love. "Take it. Rod Stone," she said. It was indicative of her race that she did not exact her payment first. It was sufficient that she serve. If the white man chose to pay, to keep his word, so much the better. Stone took the plate and put one arm about the splendid broad shoulders. shoul-ders. Bending down, he kissed the half-breed half-breed full on the lips and for a second sec-ond the black eyes glowed. Minnie Pine put a hand on his cheek with a caress infinitely soft. "Humph," said Josefa, In English this time and pointedly, "I, too, have stood In the bend of a man's arm but mine was a full-blood Pomo. I did not 'ive to cover my head and weep." "Shut up, Josefa," said the boy Laughing again, "neither will Minnie, through me." At that moment the door to the south part of the house opened noiselessly, noise-lessly, and Kate Cathrew stood there scanning the group with her keen glance. "Stone," she said coldly, "is this the best you enn do to earn your wages? Get out with the men go quick. Minnie, Min-nie, if I see any more of this you'll frn Imr'tr nlicpa T ant lrnii fncafa ... ......... 1 VVl-K, what's the matter with your rule out here? Do you let all the morning be wasted without care?" Josefa gazed at her out of old eyes, calm with much looking on life, undisturbed. undis-turbed. "Not always," she answered, "but L too, have been young. Minnie will work better for the kiss." "Well." said Kate, "you'd better see that she does." Here's two kinds of love. And it looks as if bcth would make trouble. What next? (TO EE CONTINUED ) |