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Show LEHI FREE PRESS. LEHI. UTAH mm -? "k W UUU IPJ IT S D. APPLETON TOE STORY THUS FAR C C ranch In central Summoned to Walt Candy is on hit Nevada, desert-wis- e way to help bis old rane partner. Bill ho Walt U stopped snort by a girl Sne knu holds a rifle tn faxing position him, tells mm bow to eel to the ranch and tells him that they ill meet again Within a quarter of a mile frofn his destination. Walt is stopped again. This time by a grono tells hun to man tesque, eet out and then tells him the C C crew it in Emigrant, the closest town, (or an inquest. Someone has been murdered. R;dmg to the inquest tn Emigrant, Walt leaves his hoise at the livery stable Wait learns that Casn is in Cameron, owner of trie C C raru-n- , trouble. A hard but honest man. Cash has sees Walt At the enemies. Inquest many Hollister and the girl ho had stopped him. C ranc C h, cook at the Chino Drake, former has been murdered and Sheriff Kd Battle Is tryuis to pin the blame on Casn Cameron. The girl Is called to the stand She ts Helen Cameron. Cash's daughter. She seemingly faints and, as Candy rushes to her aid, slips something In his hand It is the bullet from Drake s body. Walt rents a post office bos and leaves the bullet in It. Leaving the post office he is accosted by a dark, swarthy man who offers him a Job He draws the man out. finds that he wants to usurp Cameron's public range land Candy then turns him down in biting fashion. The man leaps at Walt, who whips him after a hard battle. The man Is Pete Kelso, foreman of the 77 ranch, an outfit hostile to Cameron. Candy ts called to the sheriff s office, where be meets Hollister. CHAPTER VI Continued Walt Gandy leaned over and studied the floor boards between his boots. It came to him that this man showed surprising intelligence after all. If he would use it! "Cash Cameron," Battle was say"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 Hollister was no longer smiling. "You're dead certain, are you," he asked, "that the C C 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 ing, in onl "The CC don't own title to five thousand acres of land. Jt'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 trom 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. Ybu 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 measuring 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 BarricaHes, came to the everyone except hearing today those from the 771" 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 'em out there on the street, sure! A rfack of wolves licking their chops! Eyeing each other to see who is going to lead in a rush onto the C C. 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 answering. Hollister 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 ovr-stocke- d. ft CENTURA CO. g By H. 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 is 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 ail right, but it stinks of next election's votes!" 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 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, without 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 elevens. These that he had on today were brand-new- . "The trpuble 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." CHAPTER VII 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. black Hollister's long - legged 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 man1, 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 ing of a mind as warped as the SOMETHING eye-pit- 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 seen, either, if it was somebody who came in from any other direction." Only the youngest cowhand, Paul Champion, appeared free of what "3 fPJ WNU SERVICE C WIRE at ever it was that gripped these oth- other cowpuncher who had stood out ers. He swung the knotted end Cash Cameron's right hand a of his halter rope and kept running there in the dark, emerged from gunny-saca with one hand back to the throat of his lean-tstorage room full of potatoes balanced on horse. A grin of repressed exciteun ment looked almost foolish on his his left shoulder. He walked fit to short legs, bandy enough boyishly eager face. roundest horse ever born. A ca.t he be"I'd say we better could jump between them and not gan. a as "Never mind, Paul," Cameron scrape his boots. His face now solana homely, stopped him gently. emnly intent upon tr.e job of carryWalt Gandy had begun the makNow he flung ing potatoes. ing of a cigarette. He put the sack down on ti.e ft or. the unfinished tube away. He faced said: "Horsethief. Cameron, saying, "There's one Cash Cameronwith our new cock. shake hands I guess ought to be made thing F.sher, Horsethief is this known right now, before anybody Gandy. and that name's no juke' But tastarts to check up." nas sort of weaned himself auay Cash Cameron's white head pivfrom the habit the last ten, fifteen oted. years." "I was on your place this afterA humorous twinkle of some past noon," said Gandy. Cameron's blue It was Hollister's voice, snapped experience lightedmomentarily t.ne banishing eyes, out in the dark: "Why didn't you strain that this day had put there, tell me that!" and Walt Gandy had a glimpse of Only Cash Cameron's features a hugely likeable old man. were visible from where Walt stood; Horsethief Fisher grinned and put the others were blotted in the night. out a knobby paw. "Glad to meet But he could feel the quick stab of you, Gandy." eyes toward him. He did not know Walt shook. Here, he knew at yet who the cowpuncher was, mak- 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 C C ate in a 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 ATTERN J) 5 EPARTH o ' le gingham, linen or piqu V; f ' v - -- j .' F.i..3 : good-nature- 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." "I've gone all through the house again, Dad." ing a squat shapeless form at the ranch-owner- 's 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 "Whoever did it and controlled. wasn't trying to rob us." "No," said Cameron. "No, of course not." He asked no further, and it was Bill Hollister who spoke up: "Then there's nothing missing, Helen?" 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 Lavic'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 ccuple 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. 'V'y'e got an idea that we'll talk about tfter Go ahead, Walt. You take the job." As Gandy peeled out of his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, .the raw-bone- It sounded reasonable. Cameron nodded. But somehow the ease and forgetfulness that had been upon the room for a little while was 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 f 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. 1'H be taking at my own shad ow 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. tight-mouthe- pot-shot- s d Then he, too, the apparition, recalling a child's swing there at the end of the ranch home. Bui who would be swinging? This time of night! urWie-stoo- . tTOREC.OSTIMUh V Pattern No. 8719 is 11, 13, 15, 17 and I dress requires 3 yard 0f 35. n fabric without nap. Bolero u yards. 1 yards f.jr .'.,".' yards bias fold required t0 !r SEWING CIRCLE I'AiltKS DtM 119 New Mouisoinen ve San Francisco '. Enclose 15 cents in t J a ' Pattern No v...e Name Address HOUSEHOLD IM QUESTIONS lJ Art gum may be used to clean gloves, shoes, and wail paper. When lighting a birthday cake always light the candles 'in the middle first and those on outside last. After a blanket has been washed and dried pin it on the line and beat with a carpet-beateThis makes the blanket beautifully soft ana nuny. r. If liquid in which olives are bois thrown away when bottle is opened, olives may be kept definitely if olive oil is poured over them after they are put back into bottle. ttled in- To protect the surrounding wall when cleaning electric light switch plates, cut a hole the size of the pattern plate in a piece of cardboard or THIS only new sports in the sense heavy paper and lay it on the wall that it is fresh from the hands of so that just the plate is exposed. our expert designers. It is also decidedly new in idea. You'll notice that the frock of 8719 fastens in the back, at neck and waistline three-in-on- e leavonly (with plenty of ing the front perfectly smooth. Thus you can lay it flat on the board for ironing. Made in the popular waistband style, it has a charming silhouette lap-over- ), small-waist-e- round-bosome- d The pattern also includes Belief and Unbelief shorts and a brief bolero Belief consists in accepting the that transforms your frock into a affirmations of the soul; unbehef street style, in just a twinkling. in denying them. Emerson. well-tailore- 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 something?" "Too much something," Walt admitted. 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 C C. 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 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!" 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