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Show f By J. ALLAN DUNN Author of "A MAN TO HIS MATE" "RJMROCK TRAIL" By Dodd, Mead fc Co. WNTJ Service am still strong an' I still hav' this knife!" Once more he half drew the steel from the sheath and thrust it back. Then he caught the horn of the saddle with one hand, twisted the fingers of the other in the mane of the mustang, set foot in stirrup and, as the brute swung in a plunging half-circle, held himself close-pressed to its withers before, be-fore, with a lithe move, he made the saddle. "We mus' go along," he said. "The senor mus' not lose his train." Those were the last words he spoke until they reached the station a few minutes before the train pulled in. He waited until Caleb inountpd the platform, plat-form, then, with an "Adios, senor," was gone, mastering the curvetting mustang and leading El Don. Caleb, in the smoker, concluded at last that the Mexican's fidelity, tinged perhaps, by some injury in the fight from which he had never recovered, some slight lesion in his brain from the strain and excitement, had made him a monomaniac concerning the safety of his young mistress. He possessed pos-sessed a jealousy that he shared with Maria. It was an obsession with both of them. "I'd hate to be the man who had Luis Padilla on his track," he told himself, wondering If the ample Maria Ma-ria would also be transformed into a whirlwind of avenging fury. Here was a sample of the wilder West. It was a far cry to New England. Somehow Some-how the experience did not strike him as altogether incongruous, far-fetched. And he had learned the age of Betty Clinton. CHAPTER III Cox Hold up your right hand, with the ' thumb and forefinger well apart. Do the same with your left and bring it up above your, right, so that the tips of the forefingers join, but those of the thumb are a little apart. The oval gap represents the great bay of Golden, Gold-en, a mighty harbor, deep enough for all the navies of the world to swim In, a noble anchorage for commerce, .dotted here and there with Islands. Far to the northeast, near the knuckle of your left forefinger, a river flows In, tapping two mighty valleys, too far away to serve Golden with water. Opposite Golden, across the narrow strait where bay meets sea, looms the great mount of Sereno, covered with redwoods that extend back of it, up to the northern boundary of the state, a region, half exploited, of great beauty, vast logging prospects, partly developed, of small, rich valleys. Looking to the sea, to Sereno, across the bay to the mainland, Golden queens It over an unsurpassed panorama. pano-rama. On Semaphore hill, where ships were signaled in the earlier days, Caleb Ca-leb Warner shared the apartment of Ted Baxter, on the top floor of an ambitious am-bitious apartment building. Caleb, with none too large a capital, would have chosen a less expensive, less pretentious dwelling, but he had come there first as a guest of Baxter and now they divided two bedrooms, a bathroom and a tiny sitting room, at equal expense. In the old Columbian days the two had become fast friends. It had been to a large extent the attraction at-traction of opposites. Caleb, studying study-ing with enthusiasm, taking his games seriously. Baxter, handsome, Irresponsible, Irre-sponsible, generous, blessed with an array of superficial qualities that made him a universal favorite. And with a tendency to dissipation that Caleb fancied he had somewhat checked. But that was years ago and he found Baxter fairly embarked upon the pastime of spending all the money he could get hold of in the pursuit of amusement "getting all the fun he could out of life" he styled It. Caleb fancied he Inherited this facility from his mother, a widow who spent her time at fashionable resorts. West and East, as fashion demanded, who tried to forget her age and who let her son, to a great extent, travel his own path while she followed hers. Mrs. Baxter held the command of the Baxter estate. es-tate. She made her son a fairly liberal lib-eral allowance hut kept the larger portion for herself. Ultimately, It seemed, it would come to Baxter, if his mother remained unmarried. The two met perhaps four tilings a year, all told, for brief acquaintanceship. acquaintance-ship. The relationship between them j seemed annulled. Mrs. Baxter drew the line at having her son appear at the fashionable resorts where she was stopping. That was a tacit understanding under-standing between them. Doubtless the widow objected to having a twenty-six-year-old child Inject himself into her realm of arrested maturity. She had deliberately set back ber clock of life. The presence of Ted corrected cor-rected Time with too obvious a hand. Caleb reached the apartment a little after noon and found his friend still in bed. Baxter surveyed him with a grin that turned into a yawn. "Nice time for you to be coming home," he challenged. "Where's your New England conscience? Stopping out all night! Give an account of yourself, you reprobate. Never preach to me again. Tou're degenerating, Cal, my son. Have a gin fizz? I was out to the Beach last night. With a peach. With two peaches, .in fact, and another an-other caballero. The party gathers again this evening and I'm flat. What time is it? I think I'll get up. We'll have lunch at the club. Cox is in town. The man I've wanted you to meet. One of the Big Siege Guns of the coast." Baxter regaled Caleb with an account ac-count of the trip of the night before along the beach, visiting every boule-1 boule-1 vard resort. The "peach," It appeared, was a blond stenographer who was a "thoroughbred sport and a winner." By which Caleb tacitly understood that the young lady had acquiesced in every suggestion of Baxter's without with-out demur. Caleb broke the tale to make his own change of clothes, to shave and take his bath. Baxter ordered or-dered luncheon at the club over the telephone, to be ready in half an hour, then switched to the garage for his car to be brought round in twenty minutes. While they waited he rounded on Caleb and demanded a statement of what he had been up to. Caleb told his story. He saw no reason why he should conceal anything any-thing and yet he had some reluctance to describe his visit at El Nldo In detail. de-tail. He did not fancy that Baxter would see or would have seen the place and its people in the same light that he did. His reservations betrayed him. Baxter seized upon the mention of the girl with a whoop and quizzed him to the limit. "You sly fox," he cried. "A beauty with chestnut tresses, riding like a centaur after borzois, chasing a coyote and catching Caleb Warner ! She has you on the hip, Caleb. Romance has blossomed in your sterile Massachusetts Massa-chusetts soul. Sir Galahad and the Princess of the Hidden Valley ! It's a moving picture. "I've heard of the Clintons," he rattled rat-tled on. "Seen- the girl, too, at the dog show, though I don't remember the chestnut locks. Nest time you go a-fishing, my wandering gallant, I go with you." "Here's your car," said Caleb dryly, looking out of the window. Baxter gave him a bantering look and dropped the subject. The club known as The Altruists Is situated downtown, an Institution grown from an early membership of writers and artists, with two big rooms and free-and-easy privileges, to affluence and influence. It was full of good-natured men sharing a camaraderie that was new to Caleb's conception of club life. And j with them all Baxter was hall-fellow-well-met. A dining-room steward sought him out and informed him that lunch would be on the table in ten minutes. "We'll look around a bit," said Baxter. Bax-ter. "And I must . get you a card. Later we'll have you up for membership." member-ship." He led the way to a great room with a gilded ceiling and many tables and cozy corners beneath It. The walls were covered with cartoons drawn by the artists of the club, commemorating commemorat-ing past and current events, caricaturing caricatur-ing the bright lights among them. Baxter nodded to every one in the room, It seemed, and it was well filled. There was a general air of badinage, the members reminded Caleb of grownup grown-up hoys in recess from school. They worked their way through to a lounge for cigarettes and Baxter pointed &ut celebrities. As they settled themselves at the places reserved for them, Baxter indicated indi-cated a group of men at a round table not far from them. Padilla's story indicates that he is an unknown quantity to be reckoned with. What sort of factor is Baxter? (TO BE CONTINUED.) -t BAXTER Synopsis. Idly fishing: Her-manos Her-manos creek, in California, Catob Warner, civii engineer, and a New Knglander, is witness of the end of a coyote pulled down by two wolfhounds, urged on by a girl rider Admiring the hounds, he introduces himself, and learns her name is Clinton. With western west-ern hospitality she Invites him to the ranch to meet her father. At the Clinton home Warner learns his new friend's name is Eetty. He Is welcomed by her father, Southern Civil war veteran veter-an and owner of Hermanos valley. val-ley. Warner tells them something some-thing of his ambitions and his feeling that he Is destined to be a "Water-Bearer." I 1 CHAPTER II Continued "Thees knife is for all the enemy of El Nido." He patted the hilt of tire weapon with a nod of complacency and a keen look at Caleb, who was -won-deringly amused. Was the man half crazed? Did his twisted brain consider con-sider the stranger he had been ordered or-dered to escort as a possible menace to El Nido? "The puma was an enemy?" he asked. "Si senor. Eet lay there on that bough that overhangs the stream, the sycamore. On that bank, on the turf, below, play la senorita Betty. Her mother Is then dead one year, la senorita she is two. Dios 1 She is in charge of Maria an' she, thees Maria, has tie her by one long reebbon to the trunk so she shall play weeth her flowers an' not fall een the creek. May the Mother of God forgeev Maria ! An' me also, Luis Padilla! Senor, I am In love with Maria, we are to wed. I hav' leave my work, I hav' follow down the canyon to talk weeth Maria ! We hav' a leetle quarrel, jus' to make up. She run a leetle way from me. I follow. fol-low. In the wood we make up. SI. An' we forget the senorita. "Dios ! Of a sudden Maria scream an' point. There is the puma on the bough. Eet crouch to spreeng. The leetle one look up an' laugh at the great cat. An' I make to leap. Then I am young an' very queek, senor. Sanctlssima ' Maria, eet is muy bueno, eet is ver' good that I am !" Now Padilla was rolling a cigarette with a murmured, "eef you permit, senor," riding out of the water up to the little plateau where the thing had happened with a face as suddenly void of emotion as if a light had been switched off behind a shade, intent only upon inhaling the smoke of his cigarette, seated with one leg across the saddle horn. Caleb and the Don had followed him. The last puff taken, Padilla flung away the wisp of the cigarette end into the stream with a . savage gesture and slid to the ground. Again he was in his role, now giving pantomime to aid his words in conjuring con-juring up the happening. "Eet is by the mercy of the Good God that Maria tie the child, senor. I could not reach the leetle senorita In time but I reach that reebbon an' snatch her back so! Jus' as that puma spreeng. I see heem above me, all spread. He blot out the. sun an', , as I snatch back the baby, he yell, like El Diablo himself. His eyes shine, his teeth, I see his red mouth, I smell (he steenk of his breath, I try to dodge as he strike an' I too strike, weeth my knife. He come on me like the fall of the cleef. We roll over like two beast. Senor, I cannot tell jus' what happen. Eet Is not the one who fight who can tell the story. Maria, she did not see. Site hoi' the baby in her arm, an' she see only the end. "But I know I am all blood, my blood an' the blood of that lion, hot. The smell of eet make us both mad. I theenk he has empty my belly. Dios, he claw me like thees !" And Padilla raked himself down his shrunken side with suggestive fingers. He slash my face one time when I dodge. One time I am down an eet is growin' all dark. He take my arm like a dog take a bone. Senor, I hear those1 teeth on my bone. An' I stab, I steek, I cut ! We roll Into the creek. Me, I theenk I am almos' gone that time, but the water bring me back. Eet flow from me red with my blood. But eet flow red from the puma also. Senor, he is dead muerte 1 "When I get better I find the va-queros va-queros who breeng me back to El Nido take also the body of that Hon. They hev' for me that skin. Senor, eet Is not much good, that skin. My knife has spoil' eet. But there Is enough to make two little rug'. One for Maria, : one for me. Those rug' each In our two room' Maria an' mine beneath the crucifix. When we pray we kneel on those rug an' we never forget our oath." Again the fire of his speech suddenly sud-denly died out and he rolled another cigarette. "You are not married to Maria?" asked Caleb. "No, senor. That was seventeen years ago. We wait. Eet was the great fault of Maria, also of me. that we leave la senorita. Senor Clinton did not punish, lie geov mo praise nn' offer me money which I do not take. But wo we punish each the other. We punish that love which make us careless. We take the oath to God and the Mother of God that we watch always over the senorita. Some day cerhsps she marry, then Maria an' i.uls marry also, eef she Is marry the good man who take care of her. Put eef any man try to harm (he senorita. I Lnls Padilla, who keel the puma. I |