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Show IPETEIt. 'SIS. KY'tfE Copyright, by Peter B. Kyne. CHAPTER I When Itanceford Kershaw came oul of the post olllce ut V ti 1 1 -y Center, hi.-daughter hi.-daughter Lorraine, seated at the wheel of the Kershaw ear at the curb, saw Instantly that he had received some mall of a disturbing tiattire. His head wns bowed a little, as from a blow mid In his tread there was a lag that bespoke an Inhibition slightly greatet thin that Induced by tin; bullet thai Iin (I shattered his hip many years pre vlous. When he readied tiie car he leaned against the front door; then slowly Ms head came down until l is face was lildden. lie shivered faintly and a sigh half pain, half despair, escaped him. Mis daughter watched him with Boiuethlng of the alert, professional concern of a trained nurse. Only, In Lorry Kershaw's eyes, profound affec-tlon affec-tlon and pity showed. Sbo knew her father suffered from angina pectoris, nnd two doctors had told tier a long time ago tiiat she must he prepared to lose him suddenly. They had warned her against exhibiting exhibit-ing the slightest concern during one of his attacks, since that would merely Hdd to the grief and worry of her father fa-ther and perhaps hasten the end. So the girl waited until he raised his face and smiled at her a trifle sheepishly. "That was a real twister," lie gasped. "1 Jiggered I was a goner for sure. I don't think I could stand another like that one, Lorry." "Nonsense." Lorry twisted his great nose. "You ain't sympathetic," he protested, pro-tested, with a show of Irritation. But the girl knew he was secretly pleased; that her comradely badinage helped ma tori nl ly to allay bis excitement and the resultant furious pounding of his heart. "Too bad about you, Isn't It?" she Jeered. "You know very well the doc tor's orders are to avoid excitement ami to cultivate a placid outlook upon life at Its worst. Nevertheless, the instant you receive bad news you selfishly hoard it. Don't you know that bad news split between us doesn't occupy nearly so much valuable space in that stilled breast of yours? Yon climb into this car, ltance Kershaw, and cease your nonsense." Knnce Kershaw grinned at his daughter lovingly, lie relished being bullied by her, for he was fully aware ;of her reason for bullying him; aware that under her calm, debonair exterior there were tears and terror. , They drove In silence for about two ,niiles. Then her father said: "You were right, darling. I found a real jolt waiting for me In the post office. The Valley Center bank has bough; our mortgage from the Savings Bank of San Francisco, an' Babson's called it. Got to pay up in five days or the Imnk'll enter suit to foreclose." "Y'es, that was quite a shock," Lorry agreed, "but it might be worse. We have a year In which to redeem the ranch, and In that time we may he able to refund our mortgage." "We'll be counted out thirty days after the suit Is filed. Nate Tichenor will close in on us nnd take the cattle as soon as lie hears Babson has filed suit. And after that it wouldn't be worthwhile tryin' to refund the ranch mortgage. A cattle ranch without cattle cat-tle on It is a liability." "Still we're not downhearted," thn girl protested. "We have two thousand thou-sand head of feeders that aren't mortgaged mort-gaged to Nate Tichenor and we can pet twenty dollars a head for them. If we sell them now we can escape with forty thousand dollars, but if we hold them to put more fat on them liahson or Nate Tichenor will attach them to help cover a deficiency judgment. judg-ment. Forty thousand dollars can he made to earn 5 per cent net. That's two thousand a year. And 1 have a high school teacher's certificate secured se-cured In the University of California. I can earn eighteen hundred dollars a year teaching school and on thirty-eight thirty-eight hundred a year you and I can live the life of Reilly. Not a worry in life, old-timer." "You enn live the life of Reilly on It, honey, but I shall not. It will kill me to give up Eden Valley an' you know why." "It would have been a blessing It our family had never seen Eden Valley," Val-ley," the girl cried passionately. "It's been paid for In blood and tears and heartbreak and social ostracism, and all we have to show for the years is a private cemetery filled with Kershaw women who died heartbroken and Kershaw men who passed away with their boots on. And at last t lie Ilens-leys Ilens-leys have triumphed over us." "They got two more in their cemetery ceme-tery than we have, Lorry." "But they haven't any debts and after fighting titty years to own all of Kden Valley they'll win at last. Nate Tichenor must have money enough to buy In our ranch at the sheriffs sale Weil, he's earned his victory If any body is to get our part of Kden Valley. Val-ley. I hope it will be Nate Tichenor I wonder what sort of man Nare Tiche-zior Tiche-zior has turned out to he?" "I dunno. Lorry. I wouldn't attempt to figger even a half-breed llensley His father, folks do say, was a rigid peaceable, fair man at' whep he mar ried Angle llensley he wrote me, en-closin' en-closin' his photograph, an' udvlsin' me that marryln' Into the llensley family didn't mean he'd married Into the I lenslcy-Kershaw read. I took him at Ids word an' he kept It. But his son was raised a llensley. Me went armed alter his fifteenth birthday. I figgered him an' your brother, Owen, would shoot II out some day, which was why I never sent Owen to the high school at Valley Center. The principal dis covered Nate Tichenor wore a forty-five forty-five in a shoulder holster, an' ordered him to leave It home thereafter, but young Tichenor wouldn't do it so they hove him out o" high school. An' they do say he was the smartest hoy in the country." "lie's been gone from Eden Valley slncetho war," I.orry mused. "Nlneyears of life outside may have civilized him. I hope so. You've got to admit, dart, he hasn't been an importunate creditor." cred-itor." "lie don't have to be. The longer he holds off the more Interestil accumulate ac-cumulate an' the more cattle he'll have 1 GENEriSJL ST 1 k4- "Too Bad About You, Isn't It?" She Jeered. to levy on for his deficiency judgment Lie's smart. He don't figger to do no half-way Job bustin' us." "Well, whatever happens to us It will be worth while," the girl finally suggested, "provided it ends this senseless, sense-less, bloody feud." "The feud ended," Ranceforc" Kershaw Ker-shaw replied, "when your brother was killed In France. The last llensley 1 tangled with put me out of the ruunin'. A man so crippled he can't walk a mile or set a horse has got to wait for his enemies to come to him." They were passing a cluster of Buildings set among some scattered bull pines In the meadow about a quarter quar-ter of a mile to the left of the road. A lateral road led from a gate on the maiD highway down to these buildings which constituted the headquarters of the Hensley ranch. Since 1920 when Angie Tichenor, the last of the Hens-leys, Hens-leys, had died while her son was with the army In France, the Henslev headquarters had been deserted. For thirty years Ranceford Kershaw had never passed that gate without keeping a wary eye on the Hensley headquarters. And since the habit of thirty years may not be broken in six. he gazed upon the buildings now and started as he saw a column of smoke issuing from the chimney of the low ranch-house. Lorry saw the smoke also, and Instantly stopped the car. "It'll be too late to dispose of them two thousand feeders now," her father told her. "Nate Tichenor's back. Him an' Babson are both after us. They'll strike togother. Ah, poor Lorry my poor little girL Sorry, honey so sorry " He sighed deeply and lurched over against her; Ids head fell on tier shoulder. shoul-der. She set the brake, moved a little in her seat.put her right arm around his neck to steady him and with her left tilted his face upward toward hers with a look of love unutterable; racked by excruciating pain, nevertheless neverthe-less his high courage was equal to the effort of a smile; and then the light went out of his eyes and his heaving breast was stilled forever. For a long time she had known that some day he would leave her thus suddenly, awkwardly. . . Alter a while her thumb pressed the button in the center of the steering wheel and a series of raucous, long-drawn shrieks came from the motor horn. The Kershaw pride was In the dust at last. The last of the Kershaws was appealing to the last of the enemy for help I For two hundred years the Kershaws Ker-shaws had not been able, with patient submission, to tolerate more than a modicum of civilization. The first progenitor In America arrived with Lord Baltimore; thereafter each generation gen-eration moved at least one slate farther far-ther west; one might have traced the hegira of the tribe by its headstones, albeit many a Kershaw never found a grave at all. They were hunters, trappers, trap-pers, soldiers, and cattlemen. When liohin Kershaw, at the age ot twenty-two, came home from r lie .Mexican .Mexi-can war, he discovered that during his absence his father's ranch in northern Texas had been raided by Comanche Indians, his family slaughtered and the cattle stolen or dead in a drought. Robin Kershaw rode with Fremont to California and, when gold was discovered, dis-covered, was among the first to stake . a claim in the Sierra foothills. Before the snow flew in the winter ot '02, he had amassed a fortune of half a million mil-lion dollars and it was time to be moving on. He was now twenty-eight years old and he could afford to marry and move on to the solitude the Kershaws called peace. The land hunger was gnawing at his heart; he liked the cattle business busi-ness and he had in him In full measure the ancient primitive urge for free grass and free water. So he married a Juno who had walked to California beside be-side a covered wagon in '49 and with her rode up into northeastern California Califor-nia and cast about for a spot where the Kershaw odyssey should end. On a day in the year of 1S53 he drove his three pack mules out of the timber on to a bald spot on the crest of what is now known as the Goose Nest range, and saw three thousand feet below him the land of his heart's desire. "Lovely and lonely," the girl beside him murmured, and she spurred her horse in beside him and slipped her soft hand into his, so rough and calloused. cal-loused. Thus they looked upon their heritage. It was a wild elliptical valley Into which he gazed; Kershaw estimated it should contian nearly one hundred thousand acres. It was, in reality, a vast mountain meadow. No trouble to winter cattle there. He could cut sufficient suf-ficient wild hay to insure bringing them out in the spring strong and fat. A large stream meandered down the approximate center of the valley. After a long, searching, wistful contemplation con-templation of the scene below him Robin Kershaw said: "Weil call it Eden Valley." The two youthful pioneers slid down through the talus and pine needles at last into the beginnings of Eden Valley Val-ley a canyon about a quarter of a mile wide and four miles long. Kershaw rode his horse oul into the brown whirling creek waters until they lapped his stirrups, then turned back and joined his wife on the high ground along the foot of the hills. "A creek In the summer and tall, but a good-sized river in the winter and spring, Lorry," he announced. "There'll he no dry years in this coun try. Lorry; and there'll always be a world of water for summer Irrigation." The partner ot.his brave dreams nodded, for she, too, was a child of the soil and could understand his enthusiasm. enthus-iasm. "The country's laid out like a frying pan, Robin. This narrow canyon is the handle and the big valley Is the pan." Keeping to the high ground at the base of the hills they journeyed down the Handle to the Pan, fording numerous numer-ous lateral torrents that roared down the mountainside to the main stream below. Debouching from the Handle into the Pan (for so they continued to allude al-lude to the peculiar disposition of the country) Kershaw discovered that the creek was now, indeed, a river. And. as was the case in the Handle, so It was In the Pan. For fully a mile on the west bank of the stream the ground was inundated. "God's the ditch-tender In Eden Valley, Val-ley, Lorry," he exulted. "Once a year for perhaps a month. He gives free surface irrigation on a strip two miles wide and no man knows how long." He left her and rode or.t Into the sluggish wash to a point within a hundred hun-dred yards of the main channel. "From a foot to six Inches deep," he announced, an-nounced, when he rejoined her on the high ground. "What a grand soaking I And then a couple of Inches of new rich silt from the high country back yonder is left behind to fertilize the grass when the waters recede to the channel !" She smiled upon him, rejoicing with him In this discovery of unlimited free grass and water. On a mesa about forty acres In area, and backed up against the western hills, they found the location for their future home. Perhaps a hundred stately pine trees grew upon this mesa, with lush green grass between. "I can have a garden," Lorry murmured mur-mured rapturously. "And there's timber to our hand for our home and outbuildings," he added. "Weil build a grand big log house and well furnished. When this valley has been surveyed and thrown open to settlers set-tlers we'll have a squatter's right to this site, on account we've been here first." They camped that night Id the pine grove. Side by side, on a foot-deep carpet of soft pine needles, they lay under the stars that night and talked and made brave plans for their future. Truly, they were as Adam t.nd Eve in the Garden of Eden ; there, beneath their heavy woolen blankets, content in each other's arms, they saw no vision of the Serpent They dreamed not of the hatred and envy of humankind that one day should make them, their children chil-dren and their children's children fight to the death for this dear silent land ; that one day the waves of a new civilization would engulf them ; that one day they should be crowded 1 The following morning they continued con-tinued their Journey down the valley. Half-way down, the land on each side of the creek rose to a slight angle toward to-ward the hills on each flank, thus gradually grad-ually narrowing the area subject to annual overflow from the creek. The channel of the creek grew deeper, too; the man who would irrigate these lands in summer would have to erect a very expensive dam to raise the waters wa-ters above the bank level and divert them out over his haylands. Unquestionably, Unques-tionably, the upper half of the valley was, by far, the most desirable from every point of view, and there rose in the heart of Robin Kershaw a fierce desire to own it. Yes, he must have not less than fifty thousand of those rich acres. He could support a cow to every three acres, probably less ; that meant he could run, In the valley alone, not less than fifteen thousand head. "I'll be the cattle king of Eden Valley," Val-ley," he told his wife suddenly. Presently the valley commenced to pitch downward, the angle of pitch increasing in-creasing gradually as they rode. The quality of the soil and the quantity of grass decreased with the pitch ; the valley commenced gradually to pinch In until finally they found themselves riding through a gorge about two hundred hun-dred feet wide, walled in by towering granite cliffs about a hundred and fifty feet high. The gorge suddenly debouched into a vast, semi-arid plain into which the surging torrent of Eden Valley creek poured, gradually flattening flat-tening out In the inhospitable soil. Robin Kershaw turned In his saddle and looked back. "If a feller wanted to an' there was some other good country coun-try off yonder that wanted Irrigation, he could easy put in a dam in this box canyon. Plenty o' buildin' material right handy." The buttress of forested mountains on the northern side of the valley had gradually decreased in height until at the lower end of the valley they de generated Into a spur of g'assy uilh TO BH CONTINUED. |