OCR Text |
Show IWAtV y & soviet BTWilBI k-Jl&y. Copvrict by Alan L,mi CHAPTER VII Continued 9 "Go back to the Bar Hook," he told her. "Harry Wilson ought to be back there by now. Tell him to take the beat of the two cars and drive like h 1 to Waterman. I want five more men out here by sun-op sun-op tomorrow. I want Bud Jeffreys and Crazy Harris " he named three others he wanted and four or five alternates In case some were not to be found. All were men he knew, now laid off for the winter at or near Waterman. "Can you remember remem-ber those?" "Sure." "When you've put Harry Wilson on his way, bring a couple of horses and come back. If your father's there " "He Isn't." "If you see a couple of poles that would make a stretcher, bring 'em alone one of the horses can trail 'em like a travols. We'll take the boys to the Bake Pan camp." "On tie wayl" Jean whirled her horse. "Wait! Point out to me where Jim and Billy are." Jean pointed. Kentucky Jones made out a far-off far-off bottle-shaped dot upon the snow "j among the other dark dots that were sage and grease-wood; he recognized this as Billy Petersen's fallen horse. He could not see where Jim Humphreys lay. But far off to the southwest he could see the faintly moving specks that were 88 riders. "There they go," he whispered bitterly. "One of them tried to turn back and over-ride Jim Humphreys," she said, "but Billy Petersen drove him off. I can't see Lee Bishop down there guess he hasn't got down the trail yet I'll be back as quick as I can." She turned her horse and . was gone In a flurry of hoof-lifted "snow. Kentucky Jones took the Bake Pan trail. Lee Bishop was twenty minutes ahead of him in reaching Billy Petersen and Jim' Humphreys ; but he had sighted Kentucky on the iown trail, and he waited now for him to come up. "They got Jim Humphreys," said Lee Bishop morosely. "I bet he -Go Back to the Bar Hook," He Told Her. never lived to hit the ground. If that boy was shot once he was shot balf a dozen times." "What about Billy?" Billy Petersen was leaning against his dead horse, his legs stretched upon his folded saddle blanket In the falling light his face looked a pale gray-green. "I'm all right" he said without conviction. "He busted his ankle, some way, when his horse flopped. We better take him over to the lower camp, Kentuck he thinks he can ride all right If we lead along easy. We'll tie Jim Humphreys on your horse. I guess. He's lying over here about a hundred yards." They traveled the half mile to the Bar Hook Bake Pan camp slowly, slow-ly, Lee Bishop and Kentucky walking walk-ing and leading the horses. "How did this thing start?" "Me and Jim was coming home." Billy Petersen said, "past our southwest south-west well. The S3 had stuck up a kind of a tripod there, like as If to represent a well of their own, and It made us mad. We threw It down. v Coming on about a mile farther we run Into these four fellers, riding toward us. Three of 'em was together, to-gether, and one laying back, when we met up. They come up in front of us and stopped. One of 'em said, 'Which one of you Is boss bere?' Jim Humphreys said, 'Who the h 1 wants to know?' One of 'em says, T see you threw down our well tripod.' Jim says, 'And what if I did?' Well, one word led to another, an-other, and finally one of 'em says, 'D n you, Bishop ' " "Bishop?" said Kentucky. "That's what he called him. Jim didn't bother to tell him different Then all of a sudden the guns was out." "Who pulled the first iron?" Kentucky Ken-tucky asked. "Jim did," said Billy Petersen mournfully "Jim. he fired the first shot Only, he missed. One of the S8 fellers made the quickest draw I ever see or heard tell of. His first shot put Jim out of business. I think. One of 'em took a throw at me, and the other two poured It Into Jim as he went down. I grabbed out my gun and I threw a shot some place, but I don't know where, because be-cause right then my d n pony blew up. He made two or three pitches and then he took and run wild with me for two, three hundred yards; I pulled his fool head right back In my lap, but he just run loco, star gazing. I got him turned around I don't know where I was exactly when all of a sudden he somersaulted. somer-saulted. I forget what I was trying to do right then. "Paul Martinez had come up by then, and he was shouting at the other fellers. We threw a few shots back and forth, but I was behind the horse then. This this leg sure feels like something happened to It." They lifted Billy Petersen off his horse and carried him Into the one-room one-room log bunk house. Kentucky hastily built a fire while Lee Bishop cut off Billy Petersen's boot. "Catch hold of the top of the bunk, Billy," he said at last A strangling cry broke from Petersen's throat as Lee Bishop seized the injured ankle and suddenly jerked backward back-ward with all his weight. "The poor guy fainted," he told Kentucky. "I don't guess I'll bandage this here till we get some hot water." "I've got water heating on the stove." "Give me the makings. Say where did Jean go?" Kentucky told him briefly what he had done. "I guess you done all right," Bishop said. "The old man sure can't keep from fighting now. From here out it's pile into them and pile into them, and pile In again. All I ask is, save me Bill McCord!" "Jean Ragland Is coming down here with three more horses. I better bet-ter go on back and meet her on the trail. She'll break her neck sure, rounding those horses down that trail in the dark." Kentucky met Jean Ragland near the top of the trail. The news that he had to give her burdened him heavily. "How badly are they hurt?" she asked him. "Jim Humphreys Is dead." She put a hand to her face and he thought that she swayed In the saddle. He dropped from his horse and went to her, shouldering between be-tween the driven ponle3. Jean drew a deep shuddering breath. "Why do people have to go smashing around, destroying each other?" "It's bad," he agreed ; "nobody likes It any less thnn I do. But we'll have to go on with it a little way more." "The sheriff ought to be able to" "Billy says himself that Jim Humphreys fired the first shot. Range shootings always come In as self defense. The fight will have to go on. I didn't get anywhere with Rob Elliot today. I told him what I was going to do. and he said come ahead with It; and we left It there." Jean freed her hand. Her voice was steadier now. "The house was searched again." she told him. "Nothing much Is gone." "Nothing at all?" "All that seems to be missing ts an old .45; it hasn't been out of Its holster for two or three years, to my positive knowledge. Havpn't yon any theory yet. about who keeps ransacking the house?" j "It's mighty hard," he admitted, "not to put a theory to that. But I'm still following Old Man Coffee's way. If one theory Is worse than another, It's a theory that covers just part of a case." He mounted, and they made their way single file up the trail in silence. si-lence. He brought his horse abreast of hers as they gained the level footing foot-ing of the Bench and she turned to him vaguely. "I don't know if I can stand this. Kentucky, If it goes on much longer. Anything is better bet-ter than this terrible warring, and mystery, and nobody understanding each other." "We'll see the beginning of action tomorrow !" "Kentucky" her voice was faint with reluctance "I'm awfully afraid that we won't." "What do you mean? With those boys that we sent Harry Wilson for." he assured her, "I could stampede stam-pede half the cattle in the rimrock back where they belong. You'll see us " "The boys you wanted aren't coming, Kentucky." "Didn't you send Harry Wilson to" "I sent him; I told him exactly what yon told me to tell him. and he went ripping down that crooked road fit to kill himself." "Then" "My father was there, Kentucky. I didn't even know he was there until I had routed Harry Wilson out of the bunk house and started him to town. He came running out when he heard Harry drive out. I told him what had happened down on the Bake Pan. Kentucky, his face lit up as if It had been what he was waiting for. It was the strangest thing. You could see how terrible It was to hlra; yet It was as If he came back to himself again, all in a moment. He started to turn and go to his horse that was still standing stand-ing saddled near the door." "But If he means to take up the fight" "No, Kentucky; all of a sudden he seemed to remember what he had started to ask in the first place where Harry Wilson was going in the car. Then I told him what 1 had done, that you told me to. He stood there, and he seemed to think. And all that hard terrible light went out of his face again. And In the end it all simmered down to just a kind of a show of mean temper. tem-per. He was furious, Kentucky in a kind of ugly, discouraged way. He wanted to know who you thought you were, sending for men to hire onto his outfit. Of course I hadn't told him yet about selling you my share of the outfit." "What did you say to him?" "Kentucky, I kind of lost my tern per for a moment," Jean said. "I told him this was the time to fight, If ever he meant to. Kentucky, as I sat on the rim and heard the guns and saw Jim Humphreys keel out of his saddle oh, I was plenty sick. But something way down Inside of me wants to hang onto the range and won't let go. If they fight I can see we've got to stand our ground." "You told him that?" "Not all that but other things." "What did he do?" "He told me to get In the house and stay there. He said it plenty forceful! I'd give anything in the world to know what's got Into him. "Campo convinced himself," Jean went on, "that It would be an Irreparable Irre-parable hurt If Waterman and the rimrock got the Idea that we meant to make gunflght. The upshot up-shot of It was that Dad finally Jumped into the other car and went ripping down the road to Waterman after Harry Wilson, to countermand your call for men." There was a light In the bunk house as they came Into the Bar Hook layout and Kentucky looked at Jean questlonlngly. "I guess Joe St. Marie has come In," Jean said. "He wasn't here when I started out with the horses. Let's let him stay where he is. I don't understand that boy anyway, very well." "Does anyone?" "I doubt It" Together they rebuilt the fire In the stove, and warmed up something some-thing to eat. After they had eaten. Kentucky supposed that Jean would leave him to his own devices, or turn in; but she lingered In the kitchen, kit-chen, reluctant to be alone. "I don't know but what I'll sleep In the lean-to tonight, here off the kitchen," Kentucky suggested. "Yes, do," she said Instantly. "I don't know what's the matter with me. The night seems so still, and so empty, and so cold . . ." Jean sat down upon a low blanketed blanket-ed settee that stood between the stove and the corner wall, and Kentucky Ken-tucky came and sat beside her. "Jean." he said, "do you want me to find out who killed Mason?" She shot him a curious but untranslatable un-translatable glance. He thought that she was not going to answer him; but after a moment she said. "Yes." For no reason that he could name, he wondered instantly if she had lied. "The facts are beginning to add up a little bit now," he said. "What are you waiting for?" she said. "What's keeping the answer from you?" He hesitated. She looked so pitifully piti-fully tired that he could hardly brlnn himself to bear down upon her now Y'et he knew that he would he unlikely un-likely to have as good a chance again to persuade her to tell him what she knew. Already he knew that Lee Bishop was In danger, that Bill McCord had tried to draw 1 i' i try' m ir Presently She Turned Her Face Upward to Him. Bishop Into a fight that would almost al-most certainly have ended Bishop's life; and he was sure that Jim Humphreys had been killed because he had posed as boss and hence was perhaps taken for Bishop. He had a durable hunch that others were In Immediate danger as an aftermath to the killing of Mason. And he sincerely believed that he had no more right to turn away from the trail than a hound dog has the right to swerve or break ground, once he has put down his nose. "What Is holding me up?" he repeated. re-peated. "You, Jean." "I?" she said sharply. "Don't you think," he said, "that It's about time for you to tell me what you know? You didn't take the bullet at the Inquest without having a definite reason, a definite theory of this crime." She said almost Inaudibly, "Yes; that's true. But that blew up when Zack Sanders was found dead. . I swear to you, Kentucky my theory Is dead utterly impossible now." "That isn't the point" he Insisted. "The point Is that you did have a theory. That theory was based on something. Something that you saw? Or maybe something that you heard, or knew. Now I want you to tell me what that thing was." She turned toward him, but defensively; de-fensively; and as she met his eyes her own were tormented. "You I" His keen gray eyes fixed her unwaveringly. un-waveringly. "I'm not going to let you evade me any more," he said. Suddenly some resistance within Jean Ragland seemed to break She swayed against him, and turning, hid her face against his shoulder. She was breathing in long quavering quaver-ing drags; not sobbing, but as If very close to sobs. For a moment Kentucky Jones sat motionless. Then he took the girl Into his arms, gently, as If she were a weary child. Her hands clung to him as he drew her Into his arms. She said In a small voice, "Hold me tight, Kentucky. The night la so still, so cold. 1 keep thinking of how Jim Humphreys Is lying tonight down on the Pan." Presently she turned her face upward to him with closed eyes and he kissed her. They sat there for some time, there In the corner beyond the stove, In silence except for the soft cracking of the embers of the fire. As he sat with the girl In his arms the coldness and the bleak sense of disaster seemed to go out of the night, and the quiet lost its hostility. hostil-ity. That brief hour In which he felt against his body the faint beating beat-ing of her heart seemed inimitably precious; as If he were here serving serv-ing as a utility for a little while in a destiny Immeasurably beyond and above his own. Yet he had no Illusions concerning concern-ing the part he was playing here. He believed, as definitely as he had ever believed anything In his life. ! that she had put herself In his arms ! as a last resort silencing his qucs- i tions in this way when she could not longer otherwise evade him. But some grim factor within him humbly bowed Its head, waiting for a different dif-ferent day. Jean stirred at last, and freed herself lazily from his arms. She smiled at him faintly, her eyes dreamy, misty with sleeplnpss. "I'm dead for sleep," she told him; "I think I can sleep now better than I have been, these nights." He let hpr go. and when she was gone he smoked In a curiously ml-ed mood, half softened, half grimly Ironic. Presently he went to Zack Sanders' hunk, and lying down without taking off his clothes, was I almost Immpflinfoiv aloen ! I (TO EE COSTl.MLDJ |