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Show If BWMMAM 3y PETER B.KYNE out to the barn, saddled Len Henley's Hen-ley's black horse, Mose, and set off down the avenue Pa Burdan had had cleared the length of the home ranch at its northern boundary. He cantered along, knowing his head would not show over the tall luxuriant luxuri-ant growth and came out into rolling country, with sparse stunted growth and grassy open spaces between, two miles below the scene of his morning's adventure. He was fully three hundred yards from the river now and safe from pistol-fire, so he pulled up and through the telescopic sight searched the terrain. Presently Present-ly he saw that which he had sought three pack mules; from the curious curi-ous manner in which they moved about as they grazed he knew they were hobbled. ' He rode down on them, roped them, tied them together by their halters, removed their hobbles and led them back to the Wagon Wheel headquarters. He rejoiced in this addition to Dona Maria's assets, for the halters were strong and new and the mules young, fat and sound. He yearned to search along the river, find the rustlers' camp and burn their blankets and destroy their food, but decided not to risk that adventure. adven-ture. He knew that unseen eyes watched him from afar, that the owners of those eyes would realize they had been set afoot; that if they ''lE STORY THUS FAR: Mary Suth-it Suth-it lured to Arizona by the ad- 'semenls of the Wagon Wheel dude h, tperated by Ma and Pa Burdan. Is met at the station by Len Henley, e father, Ham, hai purchased the jji ootes from the bank and feels ; the ranch Is now his. Len takes 7 to Phoenix, enters the rodeo and ,i Mad Hatter to a finish, winning thousand dollars for Mary, who ' let Ham that Len could ride Hatter. t now buys the equity In Wagon ''., and Ham, learning she has not ''h money, threatens foreclosure. r re hires Ma and Pa Burdan and up on the ranch, where she kills Uie rustler. j CHAPTER XV "ong the north bank stretched the t;e ranch with its tall jungle grow-J grow-J ;o the edge of the wash, so Pedro 'zed none of Breezy's brothers, 'thing for him, would ride up bank. He reasoned one would tup the wash and the other along atow hillside on the south where fcarren soil produced a stunted t scattered growth, jiout a quarter of nine he heard 'out downriver: "Breez-z-z-yl If "hear me, fire three shots!" Jhis is a dirty low Mexican i:," Pedro murmured and fired oe shots! He slid in three fresh (ridges and waited ... He heard : e shouting down the river and an ering hail from the hillside; he ;d up and saw two horsemen rid-"down rid-"down to join the third man in -wash. Pedro was pleased with "strategy and reminded himself e ancient Spanish proverb that better to be the head of a mouse the tail of a lion, horseman came into view nd the bend, pulled up, turned -made a signal to those follow-yiim. follow-yiim. Pedro interpreted it to be -irning for them to remain in the "until he had ridden forward and e closer investigation. The ch was a cautious one, for the er came on at a walk, glancing Jit and right and Pedro saw he not a Wade, for the Wades were dark and this man was very d. So the Wades were part of j-ndicate, it seemed, uddenly the rider descried iizy's body. He pulled up, looked "fully around and particularly jver, then dismounted and led lorse over to the body, for until Jhould look close he would not "ble to make positive identifica- As he stooped over the body '$o let him have it and a second si was not necessary, "e rustler's horse jumped at the d of the shot but did not run -Pedro noticed that on the saddle bJ was a rifle scabbard with the of a rifle sticking out. He ran e horse, pulled this rifle out and that it was an Austrian Manner Mann-er carbine with the cut-off turned . He turned it back and drew bolt a little, disclosing a carte car-te in the breech and the maga-J maga-J filled, pressed the bolt home fyi, stepped away from the horse shouted: "Hello, Breezy!" That, Iknew, would bring Joel and joen Wade forward. It did. They e around the bend at a fast trot, Pedro as he stepped out from Jbushes and whirled their horses ;treat. ;i Pedro's way of thinking things gone badly with a well-laid plan i' since it was no part of his tegy to make Carlotta a widow, decided to break off the action, le retreated up the wash, paus-long paus-long enough to put a pistol bullet ugh the head of each wounded e; then he stripped their outfits l them, carried them to the le of the recently killed man and I a riata lashed them on over saddle worn by that animal. He t retrieved Breezy Wade's rifle, id long and interestedly into the i of his victim but could not rec-ize rec-ize him, searched him and found e dollars and ten cents, also a -'r addressed, in a scrawling but listakably feminine handwriting Sandall H. Wall, Earp, Califor- which he appropriated, togeth-with togeth-with the man's belt containing ol and rifle cartridges and two 1 handsome six-shooters, Fron- model forty-five caliber with nch barrels and gold-inlaid scroll k on barrel and frame. To the ivory butts polished ebony grips been added in order that the pon would not turn in the hand le being cocked during rapid fire, each ivory butt was a raised er hand, in color three aces and 'air of eights the dead man's d! They were, Pedro reasoned, r old guns, probably once the perty of some gambler who had been superstitious. He thought ' Don Hamilton Henley would like n to hang with his other sou-irs, sou-irs, had it been his luck to col- them himself! edro stepped up on Breezy ie's horse and, leading the re-lly re-lly captured animal with his loot, rned to headquarters, where he addled both horses and turned n-into the corral and locked the lies in the saddle shed. He car- al) three rifles and the two gor-is gor-is six-shooters into his house, 'tied the rifle magazines of car-"es, car-"es, adjusted the recently killed lit's belt to his own slim waist, e'ed the newest rifle to which attached a telescopic sight, fd Carlotta and the twins, went I he motored with his brood to Prescott. Pres-cott. As he pulled up in front of the county jail he heard a siren behind be-hind him warning him to pull ahead out of the space reserved for official of-ficial parking. He did so, got out and saw Sheriff Wade alight from his car and enter the jail office preceded pre-ceded by his sons, Joel and Rube I Pedro passed in after them and stood back while the sheriff "booked" his sons. When the day jailer said to them: "Follow me, boys," and took them upstairs to the cell block, Pedro crossed to the counter and looked at the register. Joel and Rube were booked as material ma-terial witnesses! "What's on your mind, Pedro?" Hank Wade asked kindly. "Nothing, Senor Sheriff. This morning I thought I did some small business with your sons on the Wagon Wag-on Wheel but I see now it was two other fellows. Why do you incarcerate incarcer-ate your sons as material witnesses?" wit-nesses?" "Got to have an excuse for put-tin' put-tin' 'em in jaiL After that story about Miss Sutherland an' Breezy broke in the paper public feelin' about Joel an' Rube commenced to simmer. Two juries couldn't convict 'em of rustlin' but your Dona Maria did, so in order to discourage a lyschin' bee at the Flyin' W, I run out an' brought the boys in for safe-keepin'." safe-keepin'." Pedro nodded approval of that measure. "This morning," he said, "three men came up the wash of the Santa Maria looking for Breezy." "The hell you say!" "Well, when they found Breezy who should be holding a wake over him but Pedro Miguel Jose Ramon Contreras y Ortiz. I killed one a stranger to me and the other two are afoot on the Wagon Wheel range armed only with six-shooters. I did ' not recognize them. They will head down-river or north to the Flying W and I need help to round them up." "Can't give you any, son. I been scandalized plenty but while I'm sheriff o' Yavapai County I don't aim to permit Yavapai County to scandalize itself by pullin' off a lynchin'. I need all my deputies here." Pedro sighed, said goodby and drove with his family to see a Western West-ern motion picture! i Mary, accompanied by her nurse and Margaret Maxwell, returned to the Wagon Wheel ranch with but one stop en route and that was on top of the hill above the little valley stretching down to the Santa Maria and in which her headquarters nestled. She gazed upon the scene below with new interest now; for an arena of tragedy it seemed so peaceful, peace-ful, in the soft late afternoon light its garishness was gone. She noted the green of Pa Burdan's dream of riches via the grapefruit route, the graceful outline of the sterile pecan trees, the verdant little horse pasture pas-ture with the caballado grazing or drowsing; and for the first time she agreed with Ma Burdan that the Wagon Wheel was beautiful and not with a savage beauty, either. And she was sensible of a quiet satisfaction satis-faction with it now because she knew it could not be wrested from her. A week ago she had not cared whether wheth-er it was or not; now she knew she would feel very badly to lose it. Margaret, watching her narrowly, murmured: "Seeing things, Mary?" "Yes, Margaret. Things that aren't there. But they will be." She had already told Margaret of her decision to keep the property and operate it but had disclosed none of her ambitious plans for clearing the home ranch. A certain conservatism, conserv-atism, the result,' doubtless, of training train-ing or good breeding, bade her refrain re-frain from enthusing over matters in prospect. Margaret also was aware that she had come to terms with Ham Henley in the matter of that deed of trust. "I suppose you'll fix the place up," she suggested casually. Arrived in the ranch yard, Pedro appeared and carried Mary from the car to her room. While the nurse was putting her to bed Margaret went out into the kitchen to organize the evening meal, but found that Carlotta had already seen her duty and was preparing to do it. She informed Margaret she could cook American style, by which she meant almost any style except Aztec, and really regarded herself as superior in cooking ability to Ma Burdan, who usually served three starches with every meaL When the culinary situation situ-ation was reported to Mary the latter declared she appeared to b the beneficiary of a conspiracy to make her happy; to which Margaret, in her dry way, replied she had often observed that if one spoke kindly to a stray dog a wag of the tail resulted. result-ed. "You are very fortunate, Mary," she concluded, "because you do not know you're the sweetest girl that ever stepped off a Santa Fe train. And perhaps I'm not doing right by you in mentioning it." "How do you like the place, Margaret?" Mar-garet?" "The dude quarters are very nice, but I agree with you the ranch buildings are unsightly. I suppose you'll be dudish enough to build a swimming pool." "Of course and a big one, too. A life-saver in the summer." "Great grief, child, are you planning plan-ning to spend the summer here?" (TO 8E CONTINUED! He pulled up, looked carefully around, then dismounted and led his horse over to the body. were not thoroughly familiar with the location of springs and tanks on that vast, semi-barren range they might die of thirst on their sorry journey to safety, for they had no canteens. They must walk twenty miles due north to reach the Flying W headquarters, or continue down the Santa Maria to its junction with the Williams River and thence to the Colorado River, in order to be certain cer-tain of water, for while Nature's fount, the barrel cactus, has often saved thirsty men from death, there were wide areas on the Wagon Wheel devoid of it. Escape that way mean a trek of about sixty miles and the devil of it was Pedro wouldn't know which route they might elect to take. Even now they were probably sneaking sneak-ing down-river, screened by the bank and the growth on it; Pedro realized he might follow them in the hope of catching them in an open area and destroying them at long range, but on the other hand if he followed fol-lowed them one or both might pop out at him from behind a boulder or mesquite bush and open on him with pistol fire. Thoughts of Carlotta and the twins made him conservative. Carlotta saw him coming and opened the corral gate for him to lead the mules in. He saw the relief in her eyes. "You seem to have done well, my Pedro," she suggested, suggest-ed, but Pedro only scowled." "Heart of my heart," he replied, "I have disgraced myself. I know now why my countrymen permitted Sam Houston, with a fraction of the forces of that mountebank, Santa Ana, to wrest Texas from them. The wretched Mexicans cannot shoot! But they have the swelled head and think they can," and Pedro beat his head with his knuckles to reduce the swelling. "I had man's work to do and what did I accomplish? Monkey Mon-key business, Carlotta mia, monkey business. Were it not for Juan and Victoriano I would leave you in shame that such a fine woman should have a fool for a husband." "Do not revile yourself, Pedrito." Carlotta urged, and put her arms around him and kissed him. "I must go to Prescott and see the sheriff, Carlotta, so prepare food and then I will take you and our sons with me. After I have seen the sheriff we will attend the movies; we will have dinner in Prescott, visit Dona Maria and return Jate tonight." So. ui Don Leonardo's old sedan, |