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Show fcDESEMT HOSET ' h -iff Jim Do.me cts out to Hi ' . cans ' 'ra,n r"" "o. ' Lor" com" I'" ," Alvaro and Monte Garcia. P"fhlm b Star La ltno once U"' 'sM;.lher out of hi, ranch ,,'r" mm. "" resigns as !"J CarronS La Rue with the U"R asroes to Clve Jim th. t- U h to rclurn (or a promise "I'c Jim hires a new crew I that be will be travetins 0 Tensl'v. ranch for the next s n. stirts oft alone with sun-"1 sun-"1 oavs o nis I,:ick horsc-p horsc-p "" "rtjin papers and Instructions ",, a message for Dolores. won't fall." 'Thaptek VI ,widbe in and out of the ; ! .-e lor a few days, he said, reto keep their eyes open mouths shut. Did they fi They did. ne!t morning, they cor-;;:;;ery cor-;;:;;ery available head of sad-.1 sad-.1 on the ranch. Doane picked 'fjem, ne for 8 nTnt B5d eack grub and water. He into the desert, leaving flL the corral. He had rations !..!er for ten days; an extra plainer on the pack-ani-twenty gallons more of wa-I'y wa-I'y an emergency. At noon he Amounts, and rode the pack- "This was the rule. Some-Ir'tc'jr Some-Ir'tc'jr changes of saddle each j," II was mile-eating progress. -. Horning of the seventh day bard-ridden trail. At least I :vea animals had made the Following, he swiftly learned , j', Two bands of horsemen had , jj this way, one close on the :- fj"f the other, neither set of i r ii over two or three hours old. we are," muttered Doane. .. rj'i company ridin' ahead. 1 V, jo, old nag." 1 after noon, on a trail that .. va Be a cross country stam- j he caught up with a band of a riders, headed by sheriff Sam i ijoiSaaLoreto. Flick had come : p following the mountains. :" ;:a and the sheriff met without li formality of handshake, un-:M un-:M enmity on Flick's face. ; ml Flick's. Posse hits Bank Robbers 1; you decided to do a little work tis Job after all, eh, Flick?" was ' b'l greeting. " a former chief glared. "I n!"' he exploded. "And no iis to you, either. No help re-ad, re-ad, what's more." Insn't offering any. Flick. But P... are you sure you're on the stack?" "-i exploded all over again, ' red-faced. is's done it now. That girl 2 & nerve to ride right Into San Ii'iS two nights ago. Two of her a held up a cow buyer on the si and took close to eleven hun- dollars off him. An' the oth- - 'so raided Hank Hawley's cash 5-ra, an' went on to the hoteL 1 hundred and eighty-six dol- - They broke into the bank, 1 if lock on the vault stumped t So end of hell to pay!" ejaculated Doane. "I K: there might be, after that. you followed the girl's tracks r.ltown?" ' glared at him. "No," he f "I didn't. But I had the ; ,!:,rtuBe to pick up some men 1 ; now how to ride an' how to f blow the country down ; . . an' a lot more to boot! " had already looked over :;en. They were the four ; ;'j he had discharged from ie los Tres Hermanos the ' l his arrival, headed by ii Jt breed, Tony Suarez! : well mounted, and pre- - :;J deputized, V ride at -s side. :e made a halt while the , ; Tt on. As his mounts rest-'thmbed rest-'thmbed a ridge and kept the country with his fs I'm mighty wiong," he - they're hitting for that ::er.seeP. T know a ""hat will beat 'em there." tours later at midnight, .. ;( "utiously Into the north ''in were smoking em- we there, and a few moist . "a' was aU. ,-m. They.re headed either 'Tmos or Sand Wells," ; bI "Reon FUck made "P behind them, waiting j , ' shw track." Cr,was right !ftt,t m fte unexpected 'Ud hi, Tra Nuevas' the Pur" M1U' dlrUy for the Tres iy- But Flick had :;.0vemight. ;! pl'0Sed the new shting on that vast, arid 1. e Tres Hermanos ' tvi ' nIy on famUiar terri- iTVn 01611 rear fo1" iustV Jsunup he sighted ; Flil d 0131 meant sher- to the rear. 2JI jtr,vWas decidedly seri-a seri-a opl,0"3 also offered an ; "PPortunity. 0r unusual 'Beth, de straight for the :!- Ce7 ,lside his packs and Ire, e Ured. gaunted and had his men rope and put his gear on fresh ones. To the saddle again, in less than twenty minutes, moving across Tres Hermanos Her-manos once more to intercept the trail. By this time, two independently independent-ly moving, galloping forces were on the heels of the fugitives. Flick had shown unexpected generalship and split his forces at a strategic point, with Tony Suarez commanding one wing with two men. The ride went east. It became a game of hare and hounds. The hares were five in number, on worn mounts that already al-ready had seen over twenty-four hours of continuous labor. Before middle afternoon, forced to zig-zag innumerable times, the quarry was turned back toward the desert by Flick's party, and the second posse, under Suarez, was racing obliquely toward them, to cut them off. Capture Cap-ture seemed inevitable, with this maneuver. Doane, watching the play through his binoculars, saw that Tony Suarez, riding hard, was gaining ground fast. That worried him. "My God! What have I done?" Flick and Suarez were shooting spasmodically, although the range was long. One of the mounts stumbled, but kept going. The pace slowed. Doane bit his nervous lips. Then, suddenly forced to it, the fugitives fugi-tives made a right-angle turn around the point of a hill, riding now at the very face of the chaparral chapar-ral ridge where Doane watched. His nervousness vanished. "Good work, old girl! I know you now. And I want you, senorita Dolores Alvaro. I'll get you, and then we'll outride Sam Flick and leave him holding the bag." The fugitives were riding swiftly into the chaparral when he lifted his binoculars again, gaining distance dis-tance over Flick in the brush despite de-spite the hurt animal. They popped up again In an utterly utter-ly unexpected position; it was a crafty move. Riders swerved directly direct-ly back into Flick's course, where the sheriff could not help but pick up the trail, turned sharply aside, and were gone. Flick hit the hot scent and tore after them. He did not see what Doane had seen with his glasses: that now they numbered num-bered four, instead of five. They had turned aside into the chaparral, left the wounded animal and its rider hidden there, and lured Flick off in a new direction. Doane leaped into his saddle, put spurs to his horse and went clattering clat-tering down the ridge. He could teU within five hundred yards of where the wounded mount and the rider had taken cover. The last he saw of the posse, as he turned at the edge of the brush, was a lifting cloud of dust over the ridges to the west. "Now, Miss Alvaro!" He sank his spurs into the horse's flanks, and they went down the slope like a pair of cats. He struck the spot where the four had turned FUck aside. He turned the other way. carefully. The trail wove through thick walls of brush, a perfect screen At the end was a small "cfeartag. Doane broke into the clear- small lithe figure, in man's clothing, stood in e opn apace working on the Injured horse. The figure whirled. Express ve eyes widened. Doane saw again the lovely! delicate mould of Dolores Alvaro's features. Anger and sur- hM her motionless, staring prise held her rr seconds. at Doane, for a mauei Doane swept off his hat. Did Monte Garcia deIlr,, message to you, Miss Alvaro? he asked Pleasafy- with aU the She whirled away. animal responded gaUan y. regendofrrclPearing. Then foreleg, trying de perately er. Then he fell. a Up.ended! kicked-up swirl of ,addle. wfadobacesbeyonde,s rjs - after her. She lay in a still, smaU, pitiful mtle heap on the ground, one arm doubled limply under her. the other nung straight beyond her head. Her mount scrambled stiffly to its feet again. Doane blinked, trying not to believe be-lieve what his eyes saw. He slipped from the saddle and bent over her. "Dolores! Dolores!" She lay limp and passive in his arms. He could feel the light, slender weight of her body. He moaned. He cursed himself and his stupidity, madly. "My God! What have I done?" He. laid her gently on the ground again and ran to the roan, for his canteen. Returning, he paused, listening lis-tening once more to . the irregular sound of her breathing. He bathed her face gently, washing the bleeding bleed-ing wound on her forehead. "What a fool!" he groaned to himself. "What a fool I've been. She . . , she might have been killed." He stared hard into the still face for a long time. He bathed her face again, as he held her close. Suddenly Sudden-ly he noticed that her breathing was stronger, more regular. The color was returning slowly to her cheeks. "Dolores!" And then, as though commanded by that indomitable will so much stronger than his own which had carried him through that day and night in the desert, his head bent slowly and he touched her lips. Touched them reverently, and long. Twice he kissed them, three times, four, in a frenzy of relief. For a split instant, he felt her free arm go up and around his shoulder, and he thought he felt just the slightest pressure of her hand upon his neck. In a wild burst of joy, he lifted his head and looked squarely down into those midnight eyes, while his arm tightened about her. To his utter amazement and confusion, he found himself looking into two pits of fire. Her face was flushed with anger, and her eyes were blazing, and she was pushing him away. "Let me go. Let me go, I sayl" Awkwardly, he helped her to her feet. She stood swaying, making him think of a reed swaying gently in the wind, her eyes locked upon his, her hand brushing at her lips, trying try-ing to rub away the kisses he had left there. "You are indeed a fool, senor. You stop at nothing, like the men I warn you of. It was not enough that I save your life that morning In the . desert And the story Monte told you, that meant nothing! noth-ing! Or perhaps you used that story to help yourself, eh? To buy de los Tres Hermanos next to nothing, for yourself. And now, just for more insult, you trick me again. You dare to kiss me!" "But . . . but Dolores; I ... I love you. From the first moment I saw you, I have loved you. Please, listen . . ." She clenched her fists at her sides, and stamped a most impressive impres-sive foot on the ground. "Don't you touch me! Don't you touch me, nor put your hands on me again, or I'll . . . I'll kill you." She dropped a trembling white hand to the gun that swung at her hip. Dolores Pulls An Old Trick Doane's lips turned white. He stood there like a foolish schoolboy; he picked up his Stetson from the ground and stood twisting it inanely in his great gnarled hands. Desperate, Des-perate, in a sudden panic, he turned his back on her, walked away and stood fussing with his kerchief, and his hat and swearing at himself for his helplessness. He came to his senses as he heard the sharp slap of leather against horseflesh, and whirled around just as the girl settled set-tled firmly into the saddle, and struck the horse a blow with her quirt. She had his roan! She tore across the clearing and into the brush of the chaparral. A hundred yards away, atop a little mound, she reined up the roan, almost al-most pulling his forefeet into the air. She stood there, silhouetted against the sky, looking down at him. Her face broke, he thought, into a tantalizing smile; she lifted her sombrero som-brero and waved it at him. "Adios, senor. This is the trick you teach me, pretending sleep, you remember? Next time, you will use the handcuffs, yes?" She swung the horse, dug in her spurs, and was gone. Doane's heart leaped, and sank. He wanted to believe that she was not so mad, after all, that this had been an act. But her words had burned their way into his heart. He couldn't forget them. Sulkily, he stood stroking the mane of the injured in-jured mount she had left him., i "Well, come on, stranger. It's a long way to Tres Hermanos." It was midnight when he arrived at the ranch, leading the horse. His cowhands were waiting, anxiously, for Flick and his posse were camped near the corrals. Doane gave no account of himself, except that he had lost his mount by accident "Sure mighty obliged to you," vawned the sleepy sheriff, gratefully grateful-ly "But I don't savvy you, Doane. Never did. I guess. None the less, rm thankin' you for the help you give me today. We'll run that outfit out-fit into the ground tomorrow." (TO BE CONTINUED) |