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Show USELESS COWBOY AfkK TK STORY THUS FAR: Melody Jones mod George Fury rode Into Payne-vllle, Payne-vllle, strangers, and mistaken for the wanted ouUaw , Monte Jarrad, were rushed oat to her ranch by Cherry, Monte's flrl. As a posse was after them Melody and Fury were taken to the Rowntree deserted cottage. He changed his saddle lor Monte'i and started out. Mont found Cherry and was told the latest developments. de-velopments. Melody returned to Payne-Vllle, Payne-Vllle, entered the bar and met Ira, who told him that he knew he was not Monte. He kept Melody covered until Lee came In, covered them both while h marched Melody out. Lee Intended to shoot It out with Melody when they -were alon on the trail. CHAPTER X "What good's the corpse of any man?" Lee Gledhill asked. "No, I don't want him. Leave him stay where he lays." "Where you got off the trail, you bull-headed bazoop," Melody said, "is on this here idee I killed him. I never done so. Because he ain't daid. He's a hell of a sight more alive than one of us is going to be, if you keep on like you been. Blame It," he finished, "I'm getting tired of this!" 'Then how come you got his saddle?" sad-dle?" "I got it off'n his girl, damn it." Lee Gledhill was beginning to glare with that look of outrage which comes to a man who is becoming bewildered, and bitterly resents it. "I'm supposed to think she was wearin' it?" "I put it on Harry on my pony-as pony-as a favor. The idee was maybe it would fool some jackass like you, long enough for Monte to get away. But I'm blamed if I'll go through with it no more. If I'd of knowed the botheration this here was going to be, I wouldn't of tetched the whole thing with a prod-pole." Lee was looking at Melody weirdly, weird-ly, now. "How well do you know Monte Jarrad?" "Don't know him any. I never Been him, yet." "So you aim to have me think " Lee Gledhill' s voice was stranger "you want me to think you was damn fool enough to let some girl talk you into a thing like this here? You figure I'll believe that such a damn fool could ever have got his full growth?" Melody thought he had him there. "Here I be," he said, "ain't I?" Lee Gledhill said, looking almost frightened, "I never listened to nothing noth-ing like this." He turned cadgy again. "What's the name of this girl?" "Monte's girl? Cherry de Long-pre." Long-pre." "That's her name, all right," Gledhill Gled-hill admitted, worse bothered than before. "Monte spoke it frequent." He stared hard at Melody rs if looking look-ing at an incredible, perhaps dangerous dan-gerous monstrosity. "I don't believe be-lieve you, natcherly," he said. "It ain't in human reach to swaller no such a lie as that lie is. But you never killed him. That I know, now." They did not have to ride far, as it worked out. Cherry de Longpre was already nearing Payneville, powdering the road. As Melody and his captor topped a long rise, a tower of dust was boiling toward them. Lee Gledhill drew Melody off the road into the brush; but Melody almost immediately immedi-ately recognized the de Longpre buckboard, with Cherry driving, and George Fury beside her on the seat. George's horse was tied on behind. Melody was able to apprise Lee Gledhill in time for Lee to flag the buckboard. Cherry had a hard time pulling down the hard-run team, but got them stopped a hundred yards beyond. Her hands kept tensing and slackening the lines, to hold the rebellious re-bellious horses, and she looked at Melody and Lee with poker-faced questioning as they came up. "Well?" Lee Gledhill took a good look at George Fury, then reached over and took Melody's gun out of his chaps pocket. He stuck it into the loose top of his own boot. George stayed kt,' but his eyes were bright and awake, like a watching owl. "You again, huh?" Melody said to George. George looked sheepish. "I come back," he grunted. Lee Gledhill went to the buck-board buck-board wheel, backing his horse around in such a way that he could watch both Melody Jones and George Fury at the same time. "Your name Cherry de Longpre?" "Might be." Cherry said sharply, like the snap of fingers. "Take oil your hat, if you want to talk to me!" Lee Gledhill hesitated, annoyed that she should catch him up, and make a thing of it, when he wa3 thinking about something else. Snilf-sneer. Snilf-sneer. Sulkily he obeyed, and started start-ed over. "You maybe heard of Lee Gledhill," Gled-hill," he said. "Uh huh I see you have." "Anybody's heard ot him." said Cherry noncommittnlly. "There's handbills out. even, offering a reward." re-ward." A faint insolence came into Gled-hiU's Gled-hiU's tone. "Been readin', huh? AU right. Good. Because I'm him. And seein's you study up every handbill you see, I reckon you know I side-ride side-ride Monte Jarrad." "You might even be named Luke Packer, and work tor the express company," Cherry said, with a lump of ice in every wn "All right," Lee said again. "Never "Nev-er mind who I be. It don't change what I'm here for, any. I want to ask you one thing. What became of Monte Jarrad?" Her hands were motionless now, and the whole girl was motionless; she watched the riders sidelong, and for moments did not seem to breathe. "I suppose I must have seen him about twice in three years," she said at last. She looked at Melody with a hard, blank stare. "Who's that you've got there?" Lee Gledhill studied her steadily for a long space. He was looking at her squarely now, holding George Fury in discount. "You mean to tell me," he said slowly, queerly, "you set there and tell me you don't know you don't know who this man is?" Cherry de Longpre looked Melody Jones straight in the eyes, but her own eyes were blank. There was no message in them, either, any more than he could have found in a couple of puddles of gray rain. "I never saw him before in all my life." Melody Jones stared at Cherry de Longpre unbelievingly. Cherry looked sad and dreamy, showing no sign of tension. "Yew befewzled numpus!" George Fury shouted at Gledhill. "Has everybody ev-erybody gone crazy here but me?" "Who the hell is this?" Gledhill demanded of Cherry. He kept his gun on George Fury, and the corner of his eye upon Melody. Cherry looked at Gledhill with ostentatious os-tentatious significance, and tapped her forehead. "Different," she told him. "Confused like, but helpless." "Never you mind her," George shouted at Gledhill. "She's in it Cherry had a hard time pulling down the hard-run team. with the rest. Monte Jarrad is alive and kicking, what's left of him! He's layin' low in a hide-out, nursin' a wownd and I can show you where he be!" It stirred up Lee Gledhill. "How far away?" " 'Tain't so fur but what we can make it in time to eat!" Melody started to say, "Don't pay any attention to the old" "Shut up!" Lee stopped him. To George he said, "Take the lines, Mister. You're on your way. ..." Lee Gledhill kept them herded together to-gether when they dismounted at the Busted Nose. "Once and for all," George said to Melody, "I want you to take note who does the thinking here. I figured out where Monte is by" using my head. I know where he's hid, and even how to git in it. He's been here the hull time, while you was messing mess-ing around blind. And I've knowed thet sence we first rode in!" "Shut up," Lee told him. "You're all going to be in trouble in about two jerks!" George looked him over with slow dispraise; then led the way to the barn. Cherry de Longpre stood in the broad doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight. She spoke directly to Lee Gledhill, ignoring the others. "There's coffee on the back of the stove," she told him. Her words sounded tired and subdued. "I'll show you the last word I got from Monte, if that will be any help." Lee Gledhill considered for a long time, looking poker-faced from one to another of them. "All right," he said at last. "Come on in the house," Cherry said, and led the way. On the gallery she held the broken screen door open for them while Gledhill made Melody Jones and George Fury precede him into the kitchen, and the chained bear cub scrabbled at her boots, unnoticed. Cherry stepped through the doorway door-way after Lee Gledhill; and for a moment, because he was watching tlie others, his back was turned. Cherry's right hand reached into the corner by the door where her carbine stood. The carbine W'hipped up, not smoothly, as a rifleman might have taken it, but with a direct, purposeful practicality, as she might have caught up a broom. She planted plant-ed the muzzle hard in the middle uf Lee Gledhill's back. "Get your hands up!" she blazed at him. "Melody, take his gun!" Lee Gledhill's whole body went rigid with a jerk, as if he had been struck by lightning. Then very slowly slow-ly his hands came up. Melody took Lee's gun, and recovered his own. She snapped orders at Melody and George, and her cool, indifferent weariness was gone. "Saddle my pony," she flung at them. "I ride that old punkin-seed mare. Then throw down the corral bars, and turn everything out. Put those broom-tails broom-tails into a stampede that will carry them halfway to Texas!" . "What about this feller's horse?" "We'll lead him with us." "Horse thieves hang," Lee Gledhill Gled-hill said, "where I come from!" "You'll find him tied about five miles down the trail." George Fury kept Lee Gledhill's hands up while Cherry changed into riding clothes. By that time Melody had saddled her round-bellied old roan, and he held it for her to mount. Cherry came close to the animal, then stood hesitating. "What you aim to do?" "This time I know you're leaving the country! I know because I'm going with you and see that you do." "You think a heap of that Monte jigger, don't you?" She didn't answer him. Melody looked depressed. "Okay," he decided. "You love him, then." "I always thought I did. Since I was fourteen years old." "And nothing he done ever changed it," Melody kept on. "I don't change easy," Cherry said. "Who ever loved a man for what he did, anyway? That's got nothing to do with it. If it did, the population of this country would die out quick!" Cherry stole a quick glance at him; but there was no more bitterness bitter-ness in his face than there had been in his tone. She spoke In a monotone, mono-tone, not looking at him. "There's one other thing I want you to do. Not now sometime, after aft-er all this has blown over. I want you to come back here then, and turn up the express company's strongbox. I want you to give it back to the people it belongs to." "Cain't." "I can't make you do it, if you won't." " 'Tain't that. I jest don't know where it's at." "I'm going to show you." He turned and looked at her, but she did not meet his eyes. "Monte told me where it is," she said. "He told me when he thought he was going to die. There's an old, old cabin that near everybody has forgot. for-got. Monte's used it before; but he'll never use it again. It has dobe walls, four feet through. There's a slab sill to the only window. Once when Monte was hiding out, he dug a cache in the wall, under that slab. It's near big enough to hide a man, if a man could breathe in there. And that's where the strongbox is, with more money in it than you ever saw in your life. So I guess you know I trust you, now." "Where did you say this cabin " "I'm taking you there." They rode a mile in silence. The slow dusk of the mountain country was closing in. "I suppose," Melody said at last, "you'll be going back to the Busted Nose, then, after you show me where it's at." "I don't know. And I don't care much. I'm sick of the whole forsaken for-saken thing. But I'm going to see you fetched out of this, before I do anything else." "Whut? Why?" "Because you don't know how to take care of yourself, or what's good for you that's why!" "I don't know why," Melody said "you set yourself to all this trouble now." There was bitterness in Cherry's voice, not his. "I don't blame you for saying that," Cherry said. "If ever a mar had a right to get sarcastic, you're it." "I didn't mean it that way." Cherry angered unaccountably "You never mean anything," she lashed at him. "You never com plain about anything, or demand anything, or let out a holler buttei wouldn't melt in your teeth! But 1 know what you're thinking, just the same!" "I carved his name on a tombstone," tomb-stone," she whimpered, "and dropped it square on top of you! How was I to know you wouldn't run? You spoiled everything just be-cause be-cause you wouldn't run. But I should have told you. I should have told you what I was trying to do, so you could have had open eyes." Her voice sounded so queer that he leaned forward over his saddle horn to peer into her face; and he saw that she was crying. "You'd of been wrong." Melody said gravely, "to of so done. Because Be-cause I'd of told you to go chase a sting-bee. and I'd of rode on." "I wish I was dead!" Cherry burst out hysterically. "Don't feel that way." Melody consoled her. "I wouldn't of missed it" (TO BE CONTINUED) |