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Show ' JACKSON GREGORY M GREGORY W.N.U. RELEASE &Wk THE STORY SO FAR: Ann Lee and Cole Cody, beneficiaries under two identical identi-cal wills of Old Bill Cole, sought to discover dis-cover who bad fired tbe fatal bullet at Old Bill. Suspicion centered around Ranee Waldron, who was living at the ancb when Ann and Cody arrived. Doc Joe and the Judge, commissioned by Old Bill to carry out his last wishes, were returning re-turning to town from the ranch (each with a will for safekeeping) when tbey were held up by a masked bandit whom they recognized as Ranee Waldron. To divert suspicion Ranee then killed his accomplice, Tom Gough. Cal Roundtree, foreman of the ranch, learned meanwhile mean-while that Doc Joe still lived. Now continue with tbe story. CHAPTER XVII Doc Joe pulled up the chair close to the bed and spoke softly, throttling throt-tling his voice down to a near-whisper. "For one thing, I ain't dead now, never was and don't intend to be for a spell yet," he said. "Get that in your head,, CaL Don't go thinking ghosts." "You don't look anything like what I might suppose a ghost would look," Cal said curtly. "Now, let's get after this: What in the name of blazes you been playing dead for?" "For a spell, I had to," said Doc Joe. "If I hadn't, Ranee Waldron would have killed me sure, like he did the Judge and Tom Gough. He nicked me side of the head." He put his finger gingerly to a bit of taped gauze over his temple. "It sort of dazed me. I lay on my side and saw him step over to the Judge. He shot the Judge between the horns before I could wiggle a finger. Then he looked at me. Maybe I sort of fainted a minute; I don't quite know or ree'lect I was scared enough to faint anyhow. He came back dragging drag-ging Tom Gough. He shot Gough twice and rode away. I tried to get up. I got dizzy and sure did faint for good. When I woke up and the boys hauled us into town, I was out cold. They thought I was dead. Me, I got to thinking. I let 'em keep on thinking so. Nobody knows but Doc Evans; you and him, now, CaL And you're both going to keep your mouths shut until I give the word." "Ranee Waldron is downstairs right now," said Cal, stubborn and eager. "He killed the Judge, you say. And you saw him? And it's almost a dead certainty that either him or his hired hand, Tom Gough, potted old Early Billl" "Shut up and sit down and keep your shirt tail tucked in! Now, listen. lis-ten. The Judge and me, we had those two wills that old jackass Bill Cole drawed up. And Mr. Ranee Waldron's got 'em now." And now Cal Roundtree, telling this to Cole Cody as the two jogged along, came to a halt. Then he began be-gan to swear explosively. And in the end, grown quiet after his struggle strug-gle with himself, he muttered disgustedly. dis-gustedly. "Cody, I don't know which end I'm standing on. There's something I know that I got to keep under my hat, like I been doing; I almost blew my top off and let the cat jump with old Doc Joe; I'm near doing the same thing with you." "Why not, Cal?" said Cody quietly. quiet-ly. "You and I haven't known each other all summer, but what's on your mind, old timer?" "No," Cal growled. "Let me be. Let me go on now and tell y,ou the rest that I can; what old Doc Joe has got in his mind. He says Ranee Waldron is smart like a whole herd of foxes; he says, no, Waldron Wal-dron won't destroy those wills right off; he says Waldron will play safe, and hide 'em darn good, where the devil himself can't find 'em, until he sees for sure which way the wind blows. What he says, is this: Waldron Wal-dron will try to gobble the King Cole Ranch and anything else left hanging. If he makes a go of it, he'll burn the papers. If there's any slip-up along the trail, well then, with the two wills in his war bag, he can dicker." After a long while Cody asked, "What does Doc Joe plan? How long is he going to play dead?" That started Cal Roundtree of! again. But he got himself in hand ultimately and explained some part of Doc Joe's plan. "Late tonight the other doc, Parke Evans, will find a paper in Doc's room, signed by Doc Jo himself, dated a couple of years ago, saying when he's dead he yearns to be packed up and shipped back to his boyhood's home which is in dear old Tennessee!" Cal spat far into space. "So Doc Evans will pack him in a box, and haul him off with him tomorrow, going back to Rim Rock, and to the railroad at Christmas Forks. They'll ship some sort of a bundle and Doc Joe will hide out for a spell with Doc Evans. Later he'll get a chance to creep back this-away by the dark of the moon. Meantime we're to watch and wait for Ranee Waldron to be making his play." Arrived at the ranch they unsaddled, unsad-dled, cared for their horses and said good-night, Cal to turn in at the bunk house and no doubt tilt his bottle to a long gurgle. Cole Cody hastening up the slope to the ranch honse. In the starlit patio he came upon Porflrio lounging cm a bench, waiting wait-ing for him. Porfirio's glowing cig arette described a quick, small arc in the gloom as Porfirio came to his feet "I'll see you in the morning, Porfirio Por-firio " "But wait!" exclaimed Porfirio excitedly. ex-citedly. "What the deuce is it?" muttered Cody, stooping to see better. "Not a dead cat, is it? Somebody's old black torn A hat!" Cody led the way into the living room; while he was lighting a lamp Porfirio explained how his persistence persist-ence had brought him to his discovery. discov-ery. From the place where the man had hidden when he shot Early BiHj Porfirio on horseback had ridden a score of times, following each time a slightly different path, thinking, Now if it was me, and I was riding like the wind, I'd go this way; thinking. think-ing. And I would get rid of that hat muy pronto. And he had looked at all the possible hiding places, had looked even for signs of a small hot fire. And then at last his keen eyes had seen a stick, a small dead pine limb, its end sticking out from under a sizable boulder! Aha! He had it! For how could a stick get itself shoved under a rock like that? If a man had moved that rock now, and had been in a hurry settling it back, and in a hurry to ride on, he might with a careless boot have kicked that stick where it got caught under the stone! Porfirio Por-firio sweated over the boulder, moving mov-ing it and found the hat. Yes, there was a bullet hole drilled through it. There was more. There was everything; Cole Cody could only regret that its message Be put his bands on hers; she permitted per-mitted the contact for a long moment. came too late. In the sweat band were the initials, tooled through the leather, "T.G." "Tom Gough, that's who it was, Porfirio," he said as he tossed the hat, now of no interest, to the table. ta-ble. "But Ranee Waldron Look, Porfirio, Tom Gough is dead already. al-ready. He's the stick-up gent that fought it out with the Judge and Doc Joe." Porfirio began cursing softly in the tongue of the south. He started to the door; he said good night sullenlyThen sul-lenlyThen of a sudden he whirled and cried out "Dead, the cabrone! And so he gets away from me like that, does he, Don Codito?" He laughed, and it was an evil sound when Porfirio Lopez laughed that way. Cody, not yet of any mind for bed and sleep, started a quick blaze in the fireplace and dragged a big comfortable chair in front of it. Sunk deep into Early Bill's pet chair, rolling what he thought was to be a good night cigarette, he did not hear a door open and close softly, nor did he hear light oncoming oncom-ing steps. What he heard first was a subdued voice saying, "Hello, Cole Cody. Mind if I join you and the fire a minute? I can't sleep can you?" He rose and drew up a companion chair; the young firelight, catching at a stick of pitch-pine, flared up and shone brightly on his face and little Ann Lee's as they stood a moment mo-ment looking seriously at each other; oth-er; it shone in their eyes and made them bright. "Ann Lee," he said after a while. "What is it. Cole?" she asked. Both their voices were quiet, hers hushed. "You realize by this time, don't you, that there's not a chance in the world of either you or me ever coming com-ing to own any part of the King Cole Ranch?" "Yes." She spoke very simply, not seeming or sounding in the least concerned; scarcely interested. He heard her long, quivering sigh before be-fore she added, "Maybe it's funny, but I don't seem to care any more. After what has just happened those two dear old men " Darn your hide, Doc Joe! It was hard for Bill Cole Cody to keep from violating Cal's confidence, just as it had been a man's job for Cal to keep from blurting out something else he knew, something he felt bound to keep to himself. Little by little, out of these drifting drift-ing silences, they fell to talking briefly and sketchily about each other, oth-er, about themselves. They laughed a little together, and came closer each other than ever before, when they started to speak at the same instant and with the same thought: ' "Why, your father and mine, too, must have been great friends!" Cody made himself another cigarette ciga-rette and, instead of smoking it or even remembering that he had made it to smoke, sat rolling and rolling it with his lean, strong fingers. fin-gers. He said without looking up, "I could almost be glad in a way, I would be glad if it wasn't that Ranee Waldron might come to profit by it that those two wills are, anyhow any-how for the present and maybe for good, out of the picture. All we've done, maybe all we'd ever do, is fight like cat and dog over the darned place! Maybe now well, maybe we can get along without fighting! It might be fun for a change, Ann Lee?" "I'm a beast most of the time, I'm afraid," she said contritely. "And I try so hard not to be! Honestly, Hon-estly, Bill Cole Cody, I try terribly hard." He put his hand on hers; she permitted per-mitted the contact for a long moment, mo-ment, then gently slid her fingers out from under his and, palm upward, up-ward, let them curl again on her lap. "I guess I shouldn't have spanked you so hard, anyhow!" "I deserved every bit of it and harder!" But he saw that the hot color in her cheeks now was not altogether al-together the affair of the fire. "And I guess I oughtn't to have kissed you on the stage the way I did!" "Let's not quarrel any more, ever," ev-er," she said hurriedly. She lifted her eyes to his. "We have been friends, in a way, haven't we? We do like each other, even after all that's happened; I know we do." He said soberly, "You're being mighty sweet, Ann Lee. I never knew a girl like you!" "I love fireplaces! One like this; look how the coals are forming now! Do you like to find pictures in them? Of course, everybody does. The fireplace fire-place is one of the things that makes me love this room." She stirred slightly and sighed; she moved her arms, crossing them, her hands on her shoulders, giving herself a little hug; she said, "Dear old Early Bill, he did try, didn't he? Tried so hard to 'have him his fun' and at the same time to do something splendid splen-did for you and me, for his old friends' son and daughter. Well, I've a tiny fireplace all my own at home, and when I go back to teaching" teach-ing" "Ann! What are you talking about? You haven't forgotten, have you, the money he left for us in the bank, fifty-fifty? We know that Buck-tooth Buck-tooth Jenkins got that ten thousand into the pot; you heard the Judge say there was a whole lot morel And you talking about teaching!" "Honestly, cross my heart and hope to die," she exclaimed, "I had forgotten all about that part of itl Why, there are thousands and thousands thou-sands there, all yours and mine!" Aunt Jenifer cleared her throat considerately In the far, dim end of the long room. "Mind if I come in, you two?" she asked, and came straight ahead. "I'm close to getting the jim-jams, all alone in my room. And I got to thinking about a pot of coffee and you two fighting again?" Cody gave her his chair, squatted on the corner of the hearth and started a fresh cigarette. Ann Lee began to laugh. And thus began on the King Cole Ranch a short period of time into which entered many a pleasant moment,, mo-ment,, with moments of quiet peace, moments of spontaneous happiness, flitting all too swiftly because always al-ways the shadow came back, moments mo-ments when Ann Lee surprised a look in Bill Cole Cody's which he did not know was there, which no other girl had ever put there; and times when he, trying to read what lay in her mind, what she felt deep down in her heart even, dreamed his dreams. They rode together hours on end, memorizing the lovely details of the vast King Cole Ranch. Once Ann Lee, as they came to the crest of a rise of land from which they could look for miles across a glory of undulating panorama, exclaimed breathlessly, "Oh, Cole! If this really real-ly could be ours!" And he repeated within himself, not looking at her but into the furthest blue distance, his Jaw hard and his eyes narrowed, "Ours!" And his thoughts switched swiftly, as so often they did, to the vanished Ranee Waldron. For since that night in Bald Eagle, none at the ranch had seen or heard of him. Ranee Waldron had simply faded out of the picture, leaving no inkling of where he had gone or why or for how long. And so the days drifted by, with summer ripening, and Cole Cody and Ann Lee with Aunt Jenifer lingered lin-gered on. (TO BE CO.STIM ED) |