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Show IMjALAN LEMAY Sk-'-w I' W. ,, SE.rc.vice. SYNOPSIS Kentucky Jones, veteran cowman, Attends the Inquest, in the little town of Waterman, Into the death of John Mason, banker, and financial finan-cial mainstay of the district, which Is supposed to have been accidental. Jean, daughter of Campo Ragland, owner of the Bar Hook ranch, where Mason met death, surreptitiously passes to him the bullet which had killed Mason, she having abstracted it from the evidence during the inquest. in-quest. Kentucky goes to work on the Bar Hook ranch. CHAPTER II 2 THE Inquest was over as Kentucky Ken-tucky Jones returned to Kerry's store. He joined one ot the big groups which talked it over on the sidewalk. "Verdict come out same as expected?" ex-pected?" "Oh, sure; 'Accidental discharge of his own weapon.' The jury didn't hold off more than a minute and a half. Say ! The sheriff wants to see you." "All right." Kentucky Jones moved off down the street In unhurried long strides. As he reached the sheriff's little frame office Floyd Hopper was In the act of leaving, having just ejected, eject-ed, with diplomacy, more worried cattlemen than the little structure could comfortably hold. For Ken-V Ken-V tucky Jones, however, he reopened his 'door. "Come In here, Jones." Hopper jerked a ragged blind downward over the door's glass pane and flung himself Into a chair. "See you got your Inquest over." The sheriff puffed out his cheeks and blew an exhausted blast. "Damnation! Can you beat this? In the whole Wolf Bench country, here was just one man that as good as held the rimrock cattle in the hollow of his hand and a rabbit jumps, and blooey! He's gone. Great guns, Kentucky. Any other man, any other time " Kentucky Jones waited, studying " j him. There Is a certain type of .- man who seems fated to pursue public pub-lic office, somehow perversely unfitted un-fitted for anything else. Hopper was such a man. His straight-clipped straight-clipped gray mustache, his flat loose-skinned jowls and full-fleshed eyes somehow unmistakably advertised adver-tised the public office holder not incompetent, but definitely limited. "Any other man could have been spared better," he raved. "Even John could have been spared any other time. But with Wolf Bench cattle on the ragged edge of bankruptcy, bank-ruptcy, and the lowest beef prices since " "Does Cllve Plerson he steps Into Mason's shoes, doesn't he? does he know anything about cattle?" "A little, and maybe a little about banking. But with Mason dead all confidence has collapsed. Cllve Pierson Is scared stiff ready to stampede. Some think already that he'll break half the outfits on Wolf Bench, and the bank, too, If he can save the outfits he's got his money in. No man knows where his brand gets off. Nobody trusts his neighbor." "Maybe It'll adjust," Kentucky offered. of-fered. The sheriff burst out at him with something very like fury. "Adjust? It'll adjust like a dogie calf to a wolf! This throws the whole d n range out of balance! And you stand there and tell me " He paused hopelessly, out of words. "There you have It." He lifted his hands and let them fall with a gesture ges-ture of morose futility. "This is a good sample of the raw edge of temper the whole rimrock Is on. I call you up here to ask you a fa vor, and in two minutes we're jump lng down each other's throats." "That's all right," said Kentucky. "If disorderly conduct was my field, I expect I might be feeling somewhat ants-ln-the-undershirt myself." my-self." "Disorderly conduct Is right," the sheriff said. "Man, you'll see plenty plen-ty now I Half the range Is sore at the other half already. Take the U Circle Five and the Lazy Deuce. Or the Three Bar and the Running M ; today them two owners met face to face and never spoke. Or take" "Take Bob Elliot's SS and Campo Ragland's Bar Hook," Kentucky prompted. "There you are maybe the worst case of all. Those outlits have always al-ways jangled. And now look at it! Elliot don't own a fifth of his range. The rest is leased Indian land. Now Elliot's lease Is out. ! J'hem leases have to be bid for nd everybody knows that there's mre than one big outfit will never J t that lease go cheap. Elliot de pended on Mason to let him take the money for his bid. Now it's all over the range already that the bank won't back him. Elliot can't get any quick price for all that landless stock ; he's through." i "Aod what about Ragland?" "Ragland's Bar Hook could probably prob-ably stand through the storm, if it wasn't for the misfortune to Elliot. But Ragland's open range is the open range nearest toT511iot. What if Elliot turns and floods his cattle onto the Bar Hook graze?" Jones already knew that the Bar Hook was at least half on public domain. By the cowman's code Campo was entitled to the use of that range because he had developed devel-oped water upon it; but he had no legal hold upon the unfenced. "Are you convinced in your own mind," Kentucky asked him, "that Elliot will dare shove his herds onto the Bar Hook range?" "I know this," said Floyd Hopper, Hop-per, heavily, somberly. "Elliot don't need more than four or five riders to take care of his winter work. Yet he's laying on extra hands. He's hired on at least six more men just in the last couple of days, since the death of Mason. You know how it looks to me? Like he's not waiting for the day he'll have to move. Like he's not even going to wait the winter out before he starts filtering into the Bar Hook range." "In that case," said Kentucky, "Bob Elliot Is sure a man who enjoys en-joys to grab a bear. by the tail and go round and round. Campo Rag-land Rag-land will fight like a whangdoodle in defense of its first born." The sheriff grunted. Suddenly a new grievance seemed to occur to him, and the explosiveness came back into his voice again. "I'd give a hundred dollars to lay my hands on the son of a gun who swiped that bullet out of the inquest. Right out from under my d n nose, by G d ! It'll do 'em no good," he declared. de-clared. "It isn't as if we didn't have the " He stopped. "The other bullet?" Kentucky asked. The sheriff seemed to go relaxed and cold, all of an instant. He studied Kentucky with a questioning question-ing eye. "Why did you say that?" he said at last. "Well," Kentucky apologized," you were just remarking you had something some-thing on hand that would take the missing bullet's place." The sheriff's steady stare did not drift from Kentucky's face. "We took a mold," he said at last. "We took a mold of this bullet that's gone." "That was a smart thing to do," said Kentucky. "I expect," said the sheriff. He dropped his eyes, and his hands fidgeted with the miscellany on his desk. "Just the same," he said, returning re-turning his eyes to Kentucky's face In a cold and smoky gaze, "that was a very strange question. Mister, for you to ask. I had a hound dog once, that got in trouble that way." "Trouble, sheriff?" "By sight running." . They looked at each other, two men who had said more than rested rest-ed upon the surface of their words one of them unwillingly. Kentucky Kentuc-ky Jones began rolling a leisurely cigarette; and he grinned, the slow infectious grin that could make a dog follow him, or a woman wom-an remember him, or could make a man forget he had meant to paste him a couple. Sheriff Hopper stirred restively, and dropped his eyes. "I was just thinking of something," the sheriff said. "I was hoping I'd find you kind of at loose ends around here; like as If you might be able to take and do something different from what you figured to do." "As, for Instance?" The sheriff fidgeted. "There's an end hanging loose In this Mason case," he admitted finally. "So? I thought It was all decided that Mason committed suicide by mistake?" Hopper made an annoyed gesture. "The case Is closed. John Mason died of the accidental discharge of his own gun that's established. But it Just happens that there's a man has come In with a perjury." He paused. "Yes?" said Kentucky Jones after a moment. "To what effect?" "Well we questioned him abont Mason's death ; and later I found out he wasn't where he said he was." "You sure you want to tell me this?" "I'm not telling yon anything that ties yon to anything yet. Now. this feller maybe he was in sight when Mason was killed. Or maybe in earshot. Anyway, he lied about where he was tried to make a fool out of us. by G d! And I mean to hook him for IL" "Hardly seems Important," Kentucky Ken-tucky said speculatively, "if there's no question about how Mason died." "It isn't that," said the sheriff gloomily. "There's some awful bad times ahead of us here, Kentucky; Ken-tucky; and we got to show that the law has teeth In it while we still can. Now, if you don't mind taking the time, there's a thing you could do for me that would be an almighty favor." "Come to cases," said Kentucky. "This man I'm telling you about Is out at the Bar Hook. Now, I realize you're a cattle trader; but oftentimes a feller like you will take a riding job to fill In with, over the winter, or something especially espe-cially In times like this. Now, If you'll go to Campo Ragland and get a job, you can find out about this feller for me In a way that I couldn't myself, nor the deputies neither." . "You want me to hire on at the Bar Hook and root this feller out for you Is that it?" "That's the idea." Kentucky Jones was looking out the window, dnwn the snowy street. Half a block down, in front of the hotel, Jean Ragland's pony stood. He had seen the girl but half a dozen times in his life; yet she had singled him out today to aid her in a thing which he did not fully understand. She had been surrounded by friends, by men she had known all her life; even her own father had been there. Yet, for some obscure reason she had turned to him. Jean Ragland sat her pony with the easy lax grace of young muscles raised in the saddle. Now that she was in her own element again she no longer looked frail and small, as she had In the crush of the Inquest, In-quest, but competent and at home on her horse, as he had known her before. As she passed she looked straight at the window where he stood, and Kentucky believed that she saw him there; but she gave no sign. He turned back to the sheriff. Floyd Hopper smoked morosely In the shadows brought by the closing of the early dusk. "If you want to go out to the Bar Hook for me, I can make it worth your while. What we got to do Is " "I wouldn't touch It," said Kentucky, Ken-tucky, "with a ten-foot pole." Floyd Hopper stared at him Irritably. Irri-tably. "Just because you're gone on Campo Ragland's girl doesn't have anything to do with the job. This Is for the protection of the Bar Hook people, as much as anything any-thing else." "Protection or no protection," Kentucky Jones said shortly, "I won't touch it. As far as Campo Ragland's girl is concerned, I'll tell you straight and plain that if Mason hadn't been killed within fifty yards of her door, I wouldn't be here now." "I guessed that," said the sheriff drily. "You guessed It, and now you know it ; and beyond that to h 1 with you!" Floyd Hopper made a disgusted disgust-ed gesture. "All right. I don't blame you much. It's pretty near too much to ask a man to step square into the makings of a range war that's none of your own. I guess you're smart enough to stay out of it, all right. I wish I was " "I'm not out of it," said Kentucky Ken-tucky Jones. The other looked at him startled. star-tled. "Hopper," said Kentucky Jones, "how long have you known- that John Mason was murdered?" It took a moment or two for the sheriff to convince himself that he had correctly heard ; but when it had soaked in he came to his feet with a jerk. His eyes flared narrowly, nar-rowly, but his face was grim and tight. "You accusing me of lying at the Inquest?" "Yes," Kentucky Jones said. Floyd Hopper's leathery face turned a deep maroon, and in the .shadows his eyes seemed like points of light. "Then," he said, "it's because be-cause you know a whole h 1 of a lot that I don't." Kentucky Jones grinned faintly, relit his cigarette, and shook his head. The sheriff's voice was heavy and Intent "Come out with it, Jones! What's your play here?" "I'm going to try to get me the man that killed Mason." They stared at each other. "Jones." said the sheriff, "let's get this straight here. Are you working work-ing with me or not?" "Not," Kentucky answered. The dark color of the sheriffs face, which had faded slightly, now deepened again. "You look here, Jones ! If the time ever comes when it can be shown that Mason was murdered and the man who murdered mur-dered him can be turned up " "Maybe that time," said Kentucky, Ken-tucky, "is coming quicker than you think." "When it does come, I'll make my play, and I'll make It stick. In the meantime think twice, you, before you buck me! You can make plenty trouble If you want; I've got no doubt of that But it's you that'll burn if you do !" "Reassure yourself," Kentucky told him. "If I can't make a finish play, I'll make no play at all." "I don't know," said the sheriff, "but what you'll go a little farther than that If you know what's good for yon." The sherifTs voice was low, but j his words had more force than il he had thundered. "I mean you'll sit out of this altogether." "I told you what I'm goin? to dn,'" Kentucky said shortly. He was in a hurry now to be on his way; he wanted to hit t he Bar Hook road before the final closing of the dark The sheriff shouted at him, "You infernal " The door came open, shuddering as it broke clear from the ice that had formed at the sill. The man who stamped the snow off his boots upon the threshold was straight-backed and lean-shouldered ; his age was indeterminate he might have been forty, or he might Have been much more. He had a clean-cut, knife-carved face, set with blue eyes as clear and penetrating as sharp bits of ice. And he radiated a driving, thrusting thrust-ing energy, so definite as to convey an almost physical sense of impact. Floyd Hopper Baid without warmth, "Hello, Elliot"; and Kentucky Ken-tucky Jones said, "Howdy, Bob." Kentucky Jones had always been on good terms with Bob Elliot before; be-fore; but now Elliot looked over the other with a coolly noncommittal eye. "I heard," Bob Elliot said, "you got yourself a job today?" "That's so." "Bar Hook?" "Yes." The boss of the 88 looked Ken tucky over again slowly, with a certain cer-tain bleak Irony. Then abruptly he turned away, breaking into the painful-sounding cachinnations which passed with him for laughter. It consisted of a shaking of shoulders and a series of coughing sounds, accompanied by a general pained, cracked-up look, but no expression of enjoyment. While this went on he always turned away from his companions as if the unaccustomed onslaught In truth seized him against his will. The paroxyms died away. "And with a face like that," Bob Elliot was able to say at last. "Oh, naturally! nat-urally! Oh, of course!" "I've found It a useful face for fighting a wolf," Kentucky agreed equably. "Still, I don't see " "Just the brand," said Bob Elliot, El-liot, "that always goes loco over the nearest gimlet-headed girl." There was quiet while a man could count fifteen. "I'm going to finish rolling this cigarette," said Kentucky Jones, "and I'm going to roll it right. Then I'm going to see if I still feel the same way about that last remark. And if I do I'm going to smash your teeth down your throat." "Maybe you are," said Bob Elliot, without emotion. "Floyd, I hear somebody rustled the bullet that killed John Mason." "Oh, huh," said Hopper. "I'm not sure that I saw that done, Floyd," said Elliot, disregarding disregard-ing Kentucky now, "but I think maybe that I did; and I think so more and more.'" Sheriff Floyd Hopper came awake. "Who was it?" "I don't want to name a name," said Bob Elliot, "unless we can make a test to see if I'm right If I'm right, the party that took the bullet passed it on to another; Elliot's Head Snapped Back. ping snatch at the gun at his right thigh as Kentucky struck again, this time with his closed left hand. Elliot's El-liot's head snapped back ; he seemed to teeter for a moment, face upward, up-ward, then buckled at the knees and went to the floor like a dropped saddle blanket "For G d's sake get out of here," said the sheriff. "Get out of this town ! He'll kill you when he comes up." and I don't think this second one passed it on. I don't know but what he's Just dumb enough to have It still." "And where Is it?" said the sheriff." "I think," Eob Elliot said, "that you'll find the bullet that killed Mason Ma-son In the clothes of this man here: Kentucky Jones." The three were motionless for a moment The sheriff stared from one of them to the other. "Look here " "That settles It," said Kentucky. He smashed Bob Elliot across the face with his open hand. The owner of the SS staggered against the wall, spun half around with the weight of that open-handed slap. Jones said, "Take care of your self." Elliot's hand made a whip (TO UE CO.Tl.LEOJ |