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Show 0 immm po.t ft fft MQrY Imlay Taylor M.i &5SQ: W. N. U. RELEASE THE STORY THUS FAR: Mac tells Bherwin that Jane is going to marry Btenhart. "I think she will not," he re-piled. re-piled. Solemnly Mac stated that the ibcrlfT had a picture of "someone Uiat's wanted." Sheriff Cutler had shown the picture to Jim too. Murder, first degree, escaped from Rhode Island. "I don't thinlt he's around these parts," Jim replied. re-plied. Jane too saw the picture, and Stenhart panted: "Don't let him kill met" Shcrwln admitted to Jane that he was the man they wanted. Jim advised ad-vised him to "melt away." Feeling like an outcast, Sherwin goes to Old Mac's shack where the foreman has a meal ready for him. "Alnt no use starving" ayi Mac. CHAPTER VI "Do you know why I'm wanted?" Eherwin asked, still standing. The old fellow nodded. "Seen th' paper you had in your pocket, Sherwin. Sher-win. You'd marked the description, and It dropped t'other day an' I saw It. Th' sheriff talked some, too, when we were goin' to look for th' place where Jordan jumped the creek. I ain't askin' questions. You sit down an' eat." Sherwin sat down. "You're a good man," he said chokingly. "I'm old," said MacDowell quizzically. quiz-zically. "I ain't dead set on punishing pun-ishing other folks." "Except Jordan," said Sherwin. Mac laughed. "Well, maybe! Eat, on, you may have a long hike. You can't take th' trains; Cutler'll have your picture up in 'em." "You said a while ago when you were tending my arm that Miss Keller was to marry Stenhart. Is that true?" MacDowell considered, pulling on his pipe. "I've heard Jim say so. You don't like Stenhart?" "He's my cousin," Sherwin said In a flat, emotionless voice. The old man started and took his pipe out of his mouth. "GoshI" he ejaculated, and stared at the young man dumbly. "He's my cousin and his testimony sent me to Jail for life," said Sherwin, Sher-win, and his voice shook. "He lied. He lied me out of the way for fear I'd break our uncle's will. He got everything." "An' you're accused of klllin' th' uncle because he'd cut you off, ain't that it?" Mac leaned his elbows on the table, looking across it at the shadowed face of Sherwin. The latter nodded. "The old story," sto-ry," he said shortly. "Uncle was killed in the garden. He was stabbed while he slept on the old bench by the cedars. I'd just found him when Max came in the gate; he'd been up the street at the newsstand. He swore I had the knife in my hand. It was perjury but he got away with It. Uncle and I had had a difference differ-ence the day before, and people knew of it. That went against me, end Max swore me into jail for life. That's all." Mac was silent for a while, then he grunted. "Did you tell Jim about it?" Sherwin laughed bitterly. "He wouldn't believe me If I did! The jury didn't. I've served eight years. I was twenty-two when I was sentenced. sen-tenced. Ever been In jail?" he asked ironically. "Come mighty near it once, son. Punchin' a rogue's head got me arrested, ar-rested, but somehow th' judge kinder kind-er agreed with me that it needed punchin'." "It's like being in hell to shut a healthy man up behind stone walls for life," Sherwin said bitterly. bitter-ly. "I won't be taken If I can help it; I'd rather die only I've got something to do first." The old man looked across under the lamplight again; something in the white face opposite moved him deeply. Sherwin was a stranger, he was an escaped convict, yet "Don't do it, son," old Mac said gently. Sherwin, startled, raised his bloodshot eyes to his. "You know?" "I reckon I do!" Sherwin rose and began to walk about the room. "I came out here to find him. He wasn't in his usual haunts in the city so they told me and I'd tracked him patiently, tracked him to Keller's ranch, when I stumbled Into your accident and motored you here. It was pure luck, I thought, to get here so easily without credentials, too!" MacDowell nodded. "He's gettin' well an he's sure to hang around Jane." Sherwin said nothing, but his hands clenched until the nails bit into the palms. In the silence the little room seemed full of Jane's presence. Again he saw her eyes change, saw her recoil! A shudder ran through him, fury leaped up In him, he remembered Stenhart'i white face, his cowardly cry: "Don't let him kill mel" Again he paced up and down. Old MacDowell rose slowly, itretchlng his uninjured arm. "Th' sheriff'!! be around here for a spell, maybe thirty-six hours. You can't hardly miss him If you try to get out now; some of 'em will meet up with you. I tell you what I'll r do you come along with me now, before moonrlse, an' I'll fix you up. I've Just been flgurln' it out." Shcrvin stopped in his pacing and looked at him, strangely touched. "How about Keller? He wanted me to ret out at once." "You ain't goin' to stay on th' ranch; you follow me." Mac picked up the food-pack and opened the rl A sudden gust of wind blew out the lamp. In the dark Sherwin pressed his hands over his eyes; he was trying to shut out Jane's face! "We're goin' to th' stables; ain't no one there, an' we can saddle up." "I can't take a horse from herel" Sherwin exclaimed sharply. "Easy, son, I'll lend you mine tonight," to-night," said Mac. "I con ride one of the ranch horses; we ain't goin' so terrible far." They went to the stables and old MacDowell brought out the horses. Sherwin hated to lay a hand on one of them but he mounted when the old man told him the roan was his own property. Silently, after that, they rode past the ranch-house and out on to the twisting mountain road. Five miles up in the redwoods they passed the limits of Las Palomas. The wind from the hills grew cold, but the sky was brightening; the highest peaks were already touched with moonlight. Sherwin turned in his saddle and looked down. Below r ' : J f S '. -. V " V :- I k . - I J In the dark Sherwin pressed his hands over his eyes; he was trying to shut out Jane's face! him lay the ranch; he could Just see the lights In the house, mere pinpoints pin-points of brightness. Darkness, like a velvet cloak, had fallen on the valley. He drew a deep breath. Jane was there, Jane, who had repudiated repudiat-ed him with her chill look, and Stenhart! Sten-hart! His hand clenched. Sten-hart's Sten-hart's lie had sent him to prison, it pursued him still. Resolve was hardening in him, he could not go until he had killed him. He rode on again but, all the while, he was aware of those lights down there in the darkness. He had lived eight years in prison but he was still young. The girl's eyes, her voice, her soft hands on his wounded arm, had kindled a flame; now the flame was made fiercer, more terrible, by jealousy. Stenhart was with her! Then suddenly he was roused from his fierce revery. Old Mac drew rein. "Get down," he said briefly. "We can hobble th' horses, we've got to hoof it the rest of the' way." The moon was rising over the top of the mountains as Sherwin swung himself out of the saddle. They had left the road and were on a mountain moun-tain trail; great trees surrounded them, their spreading boughs making mak-ing a dense shade through which the rising moon shot, here and there, an arrowhead of light. MacDowell Mac-Dowell led, and, as they advanced, the almost imperceptible trail grew narrower, tree-trunks of gigantic size locked them in; far off was the sound of rushing water, a mere murmur mur-mur at their ears. "Walk slow," Mac cautioned him, "th' path's mighty narrow in front now an' a mite treacherous. We're coming to the edge of a precipice, ain't nothing to save you if you fall." "I hear water somewhere," said Sherwin. "Mighty pretty little cascade below be-low us, 'bout two hundred feet. It's too far down for th' moonlight to strike it yet mind th' turn now there, you can see th' drop, It's mighty steep." They stood on a narrow ledge. Some convulsion of nature had long ago ripped out the side of the slope. Behind them was a bit of sheer rock; on either side the great trees stopped and there was only a narrow nar-row path at the edge of a deep ravine. ra-vine. Far down a turbulent little river roared over the broken rocks and tumbled from a high cliff Into the depth below. The moonlight revealed re-vealed a sheer precipice with nothing noth-ing reaching out from it but one old. gnarled tree. "A mighty bad place to slip," Sherwin said musingly; "easy to thrust a man over there to his deathl" Old Mac grunted. "Mighty easy but you ain't goin' to get th' chance, he's too lame a duck to get this : far!" Sherwin felt the hot blood burn in his face; how easily the old man had read his mind! Mac stopped now and pointed, ignoring ig-noring what he had just said. "Th' cabin's hid In there among them trees. I built it most forty years ago. I hadn't no health those days; doc said I'd got to live out, up here in the redwoods, so I knocked up th' shack. There used to be mighty good shootin' an' fishin'. It's stood weather better'n I expected. There ain't anybody knows about it except Jane; she saw it once, I fetched her up here. You can camp here safe enough till I bring you word where Culler's gone. Sherwin, looking ahead into the dense shadows of the mountainside, saw a light. Both men stood still, electrified. "By gosh!" Mac caught at his companion's arm and gripped it, listening. lis-tening. "I'm darned if Jordan ain't up here sure as shootin' 1" he whispered. whis-pered. "In your cabin?" Sherwin smiled grimly, loosening his pistol in the shoulder holster. MacDowell cautioned him to silence si-lence with a gesture and they both crept forward. As they did so, Sherwin Sher-win discerned the outline of a little cabin set in under a sycamore. A rectangle of light appeared, the door was open! Softly, step by step, the two men approached, keeping in the shadow. Sherwin slipped behind the house and looked in the window. win-dow. A man was sitting on the floor, smoking and reading a newspaper by the light of a candle. It was the outlaw! Sherwin signaled to MacDowell Mac-Dowell and the old man came softly over and looked in. The man was an easy mark, but they did not shoot, both loved fair play too well. Making a sign to Mac, Sherwin went quickly toward the thicker shadows of the trees in front of the cabin, then, deliberately and slowly, he began be-gan to tramp down dry twigs and make the noise a man might make in carelessly approaching from the woods back of the ravine. The sounds reached the rustler's ears. He extinguished the candle and stepped outside the door. "That you, Kenny?" For answer Sherwin sprang forward, for-ward, pistol in hand, and old Mac emerged from behind the cabin with a roar. "We've got you now, you skunk!" he shouted. The outlaw dodged, dropped to his knees, rolled over like a ball and went spinning down the slope, Sher-win's Sher-win's bullet speeding after him. A sailing cloud suddenly obscured the moon and, in the darkness, a gun flashed below them and a bullet whistled past. They heard a scrambling scram-bling fall. Sherwin fired again into the dark, a man cursed and silence si-lence followed, "Darn that cloud, I can't see a thing!" old Mac whispered. "You think Jordan's down there, Sherwin?" Sher-win?" Sherwin, who had gone to the edge of the ravine and came back after the last shot, answered as softly. "Yes! I can hear him scramble I'm hanged if I know how he got away without falling over the precipice! preci-pice! There comes the moon back out of range or he'll pick you off, MacDowell!" 'They both stepped back into the shadow of the cabin and waited, expecting ex-pecting a rush by Jordan and his confederates, but nothing happened. Far below them they heard a twig snap and some gravel slide. "Comln", I reckon!" Mac whispered. whis-pered. Sherwin shook his head. "Still going, go-ing, the same man. Very likely he's gone for help." "That's true, ain't any use stay-in' stay-in' here to be shot at!" As he spoke he felt his way into the cabin. "Want to risk lighting the candle?" can-dle?" Sherwin asked him from the door. "I've got matches." "Nope! We'd be targets sure then. I can see from th' "moon. Where you goin'?" "I'm going to stay here." "You'll have to give th' cabin up, son; you'd have a batch of them rustlers to fight if he comes back." "And the sheriff on the road," Sherwin replied grimly. "That's true!" Mac thought a moment. mo-ment. "I say, Sherwin, you'd better Just keep under the trees for th' night an' skip at daybreak. The posse'll be most likely tired an' rest-in'. rest-in'. You'll get some hours start anyways." any-ways." Sherwin nodded. He had other plans, but he would not tell them. He grasped the old man's hand. "Come, I'm going to see you off safe with the horses, then I'll come back here quietly." Mac protested, grumbling, but he finally let the younger man accompany accom-pany him to the road. Hii lame arm still made the old man more or less awkward. Sherwin helped him get the two horses and saw him mount. "You skip at daybreak," Mac said kindly, and leaned from the saddle to hold out his hand again. "I don'l believe you did it," he ended brusquely. Sherwin wrung his hand and stood under the trees, watching him go The old man's blunt sympathy and active help had touched him to th quick. He watched until the old fig ure in the saddle and the two horsei became mere specks on thQ whltt road toward Las Palomas. (TO BE CONTINUED) |