OCR Text |
Show By ALAN LL MAY W.N. Please. N&iS INSTALLMENT V THE STORY SO FAR: Dusty K'nS ana Lew ijordon were Joint owners of the vast King-Gordon range which stretched from Texas to Montana. When building up this string o( ranches, they continually had to fight the unscrupulous Ben Thoxpe. He rl- valed King-Gordon In wealth and power, but had gained his position through wholesale cattle rustling and gunplay. One afternoon King was killed by Thorpe and his two assistants. Cleve Tanner and Walk Lasham. King's adopted son. Bill Rop.ir, decided to start a cattle war against Thorpe In Texas. He made this decision against the strong opposition opposi-tion of Lew Gordon. Bill's sweetheart, Jody Gordon, pleaded with him, but could not change his grim determination. - 'And you want me to take 'em on the other side is that the idee?" "I want three dollars a head, American gold, paid off as the cattle cat-tle come out of the water ..." Roper's ways of gathering his wild bunch were diverse, as diverse as the saddle men he gathered. One way or another, picking up a man here, three more there, he got aU he needed, and more. But certain other things had to be done, in order that the wild bunch would have work to do, planned in such a way that something would be accomplished that would stay accomplished. ac-complished. On a steamy afternoon early in July, Bill Roper sat in Fred Maxim's Max-im's San Antonio law office. Maxim was an attorney who, some thought, had worked under a different name, somewhere before; but here, assuredly assur-edly he was in no one's pay. "I'm not asking the likes of you j what's what," Bill Roper said. "I Uli.iric.lt Vll These men whom Roper now gathered gath-ered about him hated a particular man, not only as lawless as themselves, them-selves, but a man who was more than one man. Ben Thorpe was a thousand men; operating under Cleve Tanner in the south, and Walk Lasham in the north, his innumerable innumer-able retainers fllamented the plains from the Rio Grande to the Big Horn. That Roper's men hated Ben Thorpe was no coincidence; Roper had picked men of personal grudge. Most of them had first been outlawed out-lawed because they had not suited a single organization the organization organiza-tion of Ben Thorpe. Up and down and across half of Texas, constantly in the saddle, Bill Roper threaded his new organization. organiza-tion. Sometimes Dry Camp Pierce was with him; more often he traveled trav-eled alone. These famous gunfight-ers gunfight-ers and outlawed men whom Roper gathered were just youngsters, mostly. most-ly. Some of them were true killers; tome merely reckless kids who had got off on the wrong foot. All of them were badly wanted by what little law there was. One night in early June, Dry Camp Pierce and Bill Roper sat in the "I guess you already know Bob Graham," Roper said. "You know how a warrior gang of Cleve Tanner's Tan-ner's jumped down on him, on some thin excuse, and run him off his range. They even took over his house and his windmill and his corrals. cor-rals. Now, I aim to hand back that range to Bob Graham; he's waiting in Bigspring for the word. Your part of the job is simple enough you just go and take it away from the Tanner bunch." "Simple, huh? Just how do you figure this simple trick is to be done?" "A lawyer in San Antonio kept the Rangers off when Tanner jumped Graham. Now we've got another an-other better lawyer in San Antonio to keep them off when Graham jumps Tanner. The only question is, who's got enough salt to grab that range and then hang onto it?" "And what do we get out of all this?" "Graham takes over the outfit and runs it. You hang around and help him, and see that he doesn't get run off again. For that you get a half interest in the outfit. You split it among you any way you see fit. I'll back Graham with cattle, and . back room of a saloon, deep In Texas. "Look," Dry Camp Pierce said. "I've stole cows until I could pave my way to hell with their hides. But I don't know to steal cows for Dusty's kid " Bill Roper's teeth flashed clean in his grin. "Whose cows?" "I've stole cows " "You're going to steal cows that belong to me, now." "Figure you own these cows?" "I'm half of King-Gordon, now split I've taken, out of King-Gordon, seven camps without cows; now I'm claiming the cows that Thorpe took from Dusty King. And from some other men that we're going to lend a hand to, pretty soon." Dry Camp Pierce he was called that because he hated to camp too near to water went to work for Bill Roper as he had never worked wnat otner stun ne neeas. Nate Liggett said, "Bill, I don't I see where we come in for no advantage." ad-vantage." "If you're satisfied with the lone wolf stuff you've been pulling, I haven't got anything to offer you," Roper admitted. "But I'll tell you this the boys that string with me now will see the day when they'll run Texas; and Cleve Tanner, and Ben Thorpe, too, will be busted up and forgot!" "It's a hefty order!" "Maybe it is. This Graham business busi-ness is a kind of experiment; it'll work if you make it work. But if it goes through okay it's only the beginning, you hear me? You string with me a little while; and maybe, by God, we'll show a couple of people peo-ple something ..." CHAPTER VIII before; and thus the king of cow thieves, the brand changer extraordinary, extraor-dinary, for once aligned on the side of the law that was not. Ten rustlers' camps hooked into Thorpe-Tanner territory . . . But Dry Camp also helped in other oth-er ways. A hot June dusk, five days after the meeting at Whipper Forks, found Rill Bnnpp at the Drv Saddle Cross- Roper's ways of gathering his wild bunch were diverse. want to know who actually owns range rights on the Graham stand." The hard-bitten little man across the desk from Roper was still cadgy. "When it comes to ousting a man from possession " "You know who 'ousted' Bob Gra- i fm nnccaccinn Hot, dry days oj early August As the first sun struck with a red heat across the plains, the Tanner men who held the Graham ranch were already saddling. All over Texas, cowmen were throwing together to-gether the last trail herds of the year; it was time for these Tanner men to roll their chuck wagons again, to round up the last of the ajiaj a, u. J fcM. ing, where he was to meet Lee Har-nish; Har-nish; and this meeting, too, was arranged ar-ranged by Dry Camp Pierce, though by this time Pierce was already far away. Here ran the broad, many-channeled river, dividing two countries a river whose split wanderings made two miles of intermittent shallows. At this border of a vast, imperceptibly impercepti-bly rolling prairie stood a narrow string of adobe shacks. That was the Dry Saddle Crossing. Two men Bill Roper and Lee Harnish sat in front of one of those abandoned shacks, and tried to get together. "I've always understood," Roper said, "that you were acquainted some, below the line." Harnish's hard eyes studied Roper, Rop-er, and for a little while nothing could be heard except the mourn- ham ana ms iamuy lrum iiusmiu". Cleve Tanner took over that outfit by main horse-and-gun power, without with-out decent cause or reason. Everybody Every-body knows that. I'm asking you now " "Taylor and Graves are already doing everything that can be done to regain possession of Graham's outfit," Maxim said, smiling. It was the smile that Roper liked. "Suppose I hold the Bob Graham lands, and Bob Graham's family are living on it. "Bob Graham hasn't got possession," posses-sion," Maxim said. "Suppose he did have?" "Never could happen. Ben Thorpe " "Shut up a minute," Roper said. "I'm not asking you to put Graham back in possession of his range. I'm not asking you to save him from being put off again in the way he trail-fit stock that remained in tne herds which had belonged to Bob Graham. Out from what had been the Graham Gra-ham corral, three riders swept through the dusty dawn; but they had hardly left the pole fences behind be-hind when six other riders confronted confront-ed them, rising into their saddles like Comanches, out of the brush. The strangers closed in a semi-circle, unhurriedly, their carbines in their hands. In another minute or two the three Tanner riders were grouped in a defensive knot, while from the semi-circle of the raiders Nate Liggett jogged forward to talk it over., "I don't think you want to go on" he said. "I don't even think you want to work for this outfit any more." I Two nights luter, one hundred and ing of doves in tne wuiow scruu ujr the water. Next to Dry Camp Pierce, 1 Lee Harnish was the oldest of those ; to join Roper; he was twenty-eight. He was tall and lank, sun-baked al most to the color of an Indian; his green eyes were curiously blank, impenetrable, im-penetrable, and he liked to look his man in the eye with the peculiar fixity seen in the gaze of hawks. "I've been down there some," he admitted. "I've made a few drives into Chihuahua; one drive to Mexico Mex-ico City." "If you had a big wet herd run to you just below the line, would vnn know hnw tn pet rid of it? was before. What I want to know is, can you head off some cooked-up legal interference with Graham, after aft-er he's in possession again?" Fred Maxim thought it over. "I can only promise you that I can cause considerable delay." he said. "Months of delay?" "Providing you can show possessionI'll posses-sionI'll keep you clear until hell freezes." "That's all I want . . ." Still July, at Willow Creek A barren range of hills, sand hills; golden in the dawn, purple in the twilight, barren always. Beneath twiiigni, Willow ity miles away With the approach of dusk, a peculiar pe-culiar light lay upon the valley of the Potreros. In a reach of open grass a herd of five hundred head bunched loosely tame, heavy cattle, cat-tle, already well removed by breeding breed-ing from the old, wild, long-horn strain. But they had not bunched voluntarily. The shuffled restlessly, restless-ly, watching the brush! something was happening around them that they did not understand. As the light failed, the figures of horsemen emerged from the brush, cutting mile-long shadows into the fiat rays of sunset; the huge, heavy-' heavy-' . . ...u ;,inr.Taq hie ! "I can't make out your hand," j Harnish said. "King-Gordon never I swung the long rope yet that I heard of." "I'm not King-Gordon now. My stunt is to smash Cleve Tanner; and .1 don't care what it costs." "What's wrong with backing him 'into a shoot-out, if that's what you want?" ( . "That comes later. If I bust Tan- 'ner I can bust Thorpe. But if Tanner Tan-ner is gunned before he's busted, ', Thorpe will take over in Texas, and the chance to break up his Texas layout will be gone." ; "You ain't going to bust him by 'running off a few head of cattle. IThis river crossing is slow work, Jkid." "I figure to cross five thousand head within the next three months," Roper told him. "Five thousand head won't even scratch the hide of Thorpe and Tanner, Tan-ner, son." "I know that as well as you. What it will do, it'll draw Tanner to throw his warriois onto the border. That's what I want Because by then I'll be working somewhere else." tiiem, what had been tne wuw Creek camp of the old King-Gordon. In the bunkhouse nearest the river five men lounging around a little room. ,, "AU right, you hard guys, Bui Roper said; ''y'plerce to come here. Dry Camp Pierce old you to come here. Maybe he told you what you could look for here, huh?" These four gunfighters who met Roper here were none of them older ftan Bill; t each was famous as a killer in his own right Of them au fT teTrrespUTr'm: nDus to hear him out Nate Liggett, a round-faced kid with eyelashes that looked as if they had been powdered with white dust saW "WeU, what seems to be your offer?" shouldered man who signaled to his spread-out cowboys by turning his horse this way or that, in Indian horse language, was Dave Shannon. They did not harass the cattle. Only, between sunset and the next daylight no cow took a step other than in the direction of the Mexican Mexi-can border . . . Dry-grass season; Texas scorched by the hot winds All across the southern ranges a peculiar thing was happening. As word spread from twenty points of disturbance, certain of the older cattlemen cat-tlemen began to sense that there Was a curious, almost systematic order to what in itself seemed a widespread disruption. All over the Big Bend country, eastward almost to the well settled Nueces, west- , ward beyond the barren Pecos, northward to the fever line, was breaking a spotty wave of raids of an unparalleled boldness. Far aparV but almost simultaneo'isly. hell hart busted loose in a great number of places, covering more than half of Texas. (TO BE CO.VTiAXEC |