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Show '! I sTOBV SO FAR: Old Early Bill J" whose days were numbered, had ?' shot Irora ambush early one morn- man h0 escaped with only a Ullel bole through his hat. Early Bill ;; .-ered home and sent his Mexican d caucho Ortesa, for his friends Doc 0 L and the Judge, who arrived without i lay ' " Kitt" Cole Ranch- Early til L needed the doctor to attend his ,tmd and the Judge to make his will. 5 vtever, Old Bill thought It would be J M U ",a,ie tW ldentiCal WlllS- 0ne ... L,0eathine his ranch and money to Ann ! we daughter of his old friend Busty lit- and the other leaving the same to " cle Cody, son of another old friend. 'V' now continue with the story. if :;; CHAPTER III i'i Warm as the early summer eve-jjjg eve-jjjg was, a thundering log fire was l! making the rocks blazing hot in the t; living room fireplace at the King It. Coie Ranch. Drawn up before the e;- hearth in his most commodious big chair sat old Early Bill with his long legs tucked under a heavy red wool blanket, with his overcoat on and buttoned to his chin, with his " bat on, too. His only attendant, if the only person he would tolerate ' ia the house, his foreman Cal Roundel Round-el tree, stood as far as he could from h the 'fire, his face glistening with sweat. Cal mopped his forehead with a blue bandana already sopping, and ! bad his say, not for the first time', ' either. "Bill," he said explosively, "I tell vou you're crazyl You'd ought by you all my life, the sorts of things a man might expect from you only he'd never know what to expect'" He sobered. "Me, I didn't show up very well that night, did I? Guess I must have been halfway drunk and your style of playing drove me crazy and to top it off, I lost pretty nearly every cent I had in the world. Just you wait until I can get into another game with you!" "Sure Say, Cal! Where's that jug?" "I'll go put up my horse," said Ranee Waldron. Again Early Bill Cole said, "Sure," and lay back in his chair and pulled his hat brim down. He sat there very still, looking into the fire. A queer little smile, a happy sort of smile with some strange sort of tenderness in it and a flick of humora hu-mora flick of devilishness, too, maybe touched his lips . . When Cal, first to return, came back into the room he thought the old man was asleep. So he was. Old Early Bill Cole, full of years and of wickedness and of a rare sweetness, sweet-ness, was taking his ease in his last long sleep. It was hard to catch a glimpse of the girl's eyes, so wide and drooping was the brim of her pink straw hat, so long and inclined to lower themselves them-selves bafflingly were her lashes. Her cheeks, too, were pink, and there was a laughing dimple in one of them. She scarcely lifted her fluffy skirts an inch when she stepped up into the stage; there was W.N.U. RELEASE He had ridden late last night and would have slept late this morning had he not been awakened by the commotion out in the yard attendant attend-ant upon the stage preparing for departure. de-parture. He hadn't thought anything any-thing about a stage, having a good saddle horse, and had ridden by way of Top Notch simply because it lay on his line of travel. Now, being be-ing awake, he yawned comfortably and stretched and came close to dozing doz-ing off again. Then through the other, coarser sounds of men swearing swear-ing at horses and trace chains jangling, jan-gling, he heard another sound, and he thought dreamfully that it fitted far more pleasantly into the early daylight hour. Little Ann Lee, very gay and electric this morning, was laughing. He got up then, dressed and ran his fingers through a wild thatch of dark red hair, cocked his hat on at an angle which bespoke an interest in life and full approval of it, and stepped along outside. And just as he got outside the door Long Peters, the stage driver, was calling down from his high seat. "All aboard, folks. Here we go." It was then that Cole Cody saw Ann Lee stepping up into the stage. He did catch the most fleeting of glances from her eyes under the long, demure lashes, and noted how the pink of her cheeks was as soft as the softest of apple-blossom colors col-ors tinting the eastern sky. "Hold on there!" shouted Cole Cody, Co-dy, and a. rights to have some kind of a m nurse here with you; me, I couldn't i- nurse a sick colt. A woman any-J' any-J' how. Somebody to " "Dry up, Cal," snapped the old "' man. "Go get me a drink. Get yourself one, too. And quit beller-j beller-j log like a bull calf." z Cal Roundtree, growling like a bear with a sore paw, started kitch-tnwards kitch-tnwards but stopped abruptly as he beard the lively racket of a horse's " hoofs coming on to the house. The 1 sounds stopped at the front door; j fe n there was a lusty knocking. It j Zonae in, you fool!" yelled old ttarly Bill!. j Ranee Waldron stepped in, just across tfae raised threshold, and stopped there looking about him, taking in everything at a sweeping i" glance. Then his look centered prob- ingly upon the man in the chair. - "This the King Cole Ranch?" he said. "You're Mr. William Cole?" "Shut the door, Ranee," said Ear-ly Ear-ly Bill, and all of a sudden his voice was quiet and all but toneless. 1 One speaks of a poker face; well, I his voice now was a poker voice. Ranee Waldron closed the door, ' pulled his hat off and came closer; Islanding at the side of the chair he put out his hand. Early Bill took it slowly, let it go with a degree of alacrity. "You never saw me before," said !"ance Waldron, puzzled. "How did you know me?" ' Oh, I saw you once, two-three months ago, Waldron. Four months ago, maybe. You mightn't remem- o 0 Old Early Bill Cole was taking his ease in his last long sleep. run. He called back to the hostler who had just lent a hand with hitching hitch-ing up, "Keep my horse until I come back," and jerked the stage door open. "If you're comin' along, pardner," said Long Peters, his whip poised ready for the long snaking out of the lash into the pistol-like crack that would start his team off like a shot, "climb up here. No more room inside." in-side." Cole Cody didn't make out clearly who the other inside passengers were; he didn't even see Aunt Jenifer. Jeni-fer. He saw nothing but the girl with the big pink straw hat. It drooped on each side of her lovely face and there were ribbons streaming stream-ing from the brim. He almost made her a bow; not quite, but he did take off his hat She almost smiled, but then she looked away very quickly and began talking hurriedly to her companion. The driver called out a second time impatiently, Cole Cody climbed up on the high seat, the whip snapped at last and they were off. The girl was saying softly into her aunt's ear, "Did you see him, Aunt Jenny? Isn't he I mean" Aunt Jenifer had a queer little trick of smiling, tucking in the corners cor-ners of her clean, pink-lipped mouth and letting her eyes drift sideways. She spoke for her thrilled niece's ears alone: "Yes, I know, Pet. Really Real-ly quite handsome and dashing and all that. To be sure. And I noticed no-ticed something else!" "What?" Mr. Me, I don t forget. Over at Bantam Springs, it was." Until he finished speaking it was hard to make much of his face, what with the effect of the flicker of the fire, an affair of light and shadow commingled, and with his broad hat brim pulled low. Now he lifted his head and shoved his hat back and looked up into his kinsman's eyes. Even so for another moment Ranee Waldron remained puzzled, "But but " Ranee stuttered. "At Bantam Springs, that night! Of course I remember. There was a card game we had a few drinks together But I didn't know who you "ere! I didn't know your name "ley just called you Bill Why didn't it Wu tell me?" I; "Better get a move on and bring . ""at jug, Cal," said Early Bill, and left the young man utterly to his own devices. 5 But Cal Roundtree didn't budge; j he stood stock still, staring in fasci-i fasci-i "ation at the visitor's face. Ranee j as bare-headed; the fire glow j seemed to make his face ruddier j and ruddier until it grew bright red. i Or was it just the flreglow, Cal won-I won-I ilered? Yes, Ranee Waldron was re- membering! That poker game at Bantam Springs! An old man, a stranger, sitting in! What a run of wit the old fool had had! He had been so clumsy; he seemed only halfway to know what he was do-j"8; do-j"8; he fumbled with the cards when he shuffled; he made crazy bets and ost and yet, by some miracle, in ne end he won everything in sight! And Ranee Waldron lost his shirt I that night; lost more than he could aord to lose, expecting with every WW hand to clean the old fool down to his bootheels; had lost more than list money, because he had lost his head, too, and had flown into a rage and had said things Just what had ) said? And the old fool was karly Bill Cole, keeping his name hidden the way he did an ace in the ho'e-and aU the time Early ' Bill ew who Ranee Waldron was! But this consternation, holding him tongue-tied and at utter loss, only momentary. He was a joung man of parts, was Ranee Wal-rn, Wal-rn, hard to down and harder to ep down. Of a sudden, startling tn Early Bill and Cal Roundtree, "' began laughing. "Bill Cole, you old heller!" he 'houted when he grew articulate. 1 might have known at the time t it was youl I've heard about just the flash of an out-peeping tiny foot, the merest suspicion of a pink-gtockinged pink-gtockinged ankle, and about her a wisp of fragrance as though she had just bathed and sprinkled herself with Florida Water. Little Miss Ann Lee, accompanied by Aunt Jenifer, fragile and tremulously tremu-lously smiling under her poke bonnet, bon-net, had taken the first stage from Bantam Springs, arriving at the small crossroads settlement of Top Notch in the early evening. There she and her aunt tarried overnight at the very respectable boarding-house boarding-house operated by a local celebrity, Big Belle. And there they spent the following day and night waiting for another stage to take them a day's journey through the mountains to the King Cole Ranch, some miles on the nearer side of Bald Eagle. All this, of course, was because of the letter she was carrying with her now, a most mystifying communication communica-tion from a Mr. William Cole intriguing, in-triguing, even beyond its mere mystification, mys-tification, because of the hundred dollar yellow back that had come with it. A huge sum of money but with certain strings to it. And, upward of a hundred miles from Bantam Springs at the trading post where he went now and then, a young man named William Cole Cody had received a very similar letter He considered the thing some sort of a hoax but then the hundred dollar "expense" money enclosed was real dough. It was a long trip across the mountains to Bald Eagle- he had heard of the place as had most men within a pretty con-siderable con-siderable radius. Why the devil should he pick up and travel because some no doubt crack-brained individual indi-vidual beckoned? Why? Well then, because a thing hke that gets a man's curiosity stimulated until it won't let him rest; because it is a simple thing for youth to scent adventure ad-venture over the next hill. And, when he is handed a key, it's sheer human hu-man nature for a man to wonder what lock it fits! So in the end Cole Cody slid into his newest boots and hat, decorated himself with his most flamboyant bandana, looked to his guns and "rough Black Rock Pass, and came in due course to the stage "op at Top Notch. He .tabled h.. horse had supper and went to bed. lr , the morning he'd saddle and ride 'buI a man never knows! "He saw you! I" Cole Cody, generally as forthright as a flying arrow going places, was inclined to a certain circuity this morning. He remarked on the horses first of all, not being in the least interested in-terested in them, yet singling out the off leader for remark; and in return got a thumb nail sketch of that animal's ani-mal's career, character and pedigree. pedi-gree. He spoke of Top Notch; of a high mountain town he knew they would pass through, Tap Rock; then of Bald Eagle. Of what a fine day it was. And finally of the inside passengers. pas-sengers. "Folks that live around here? Or strangers?" Long Peters swung his equipage around a bend, down into a shallow, dry creek, cracked his whip again and started them briskly up a sharp slope with the lifting mountains looming steep and black ahead. First disposing of those of his cargo whom he knew, he got around at last to Ann Lee and Aunt Jenifer. "We're carryin' a couple nice ladies, la-dies, too," he said. "Don't know much about 'em. They come this far with Hank Roberts day 'fore yes-tiddy; yes-tiddy; I only saw the two of 'em breakfas' time. They're a Miss Edwards, Ed-wards, that's the old lady and she ain't real old at that, and her niece, Miss Ann Lee. They come from somewhere way down yonder; around Bantam Springs some place, Hank says. And they never been up this way before; goin' to see some of their folks. Jus' visitin'." "Going far?" young Cody asked casually. 'All the way through to Bald Eagle. Ea-gle. We get there early tonight." He eased his straining horses down to a walk as the slope steepened and the road narrowed and roughened. rough-ened. "How about you, stranger? I ain't ever seen you any place." "Me? I'm headed on to Bald Eagle, Ea-gle, too. No, I've never been up this way. My stamping ground's down around Dutch Skill's Trading Post." "Glad to know you. My name's Peters; Tom Peters." "Glad to know you, Mr. Peters. I'm Cody; Cole Cody." Long Peters proffered his hand, the taut reins still in its grip, and they shook that way. Almost immediately they entered a great, silent and glooming wilderness. wilder-ness. (TO BE COSTIMEDJ |