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Show By ALAN LL MAY W, N.U. Release QLj Husty King and Lew Gordon were Joint owners ol the vast King-Gordon range which stretched from Texas to Montana. When building up this string of ranches, they continually had to fight the unscrupulous Ben Thorpe. Thorpe ri- INSTALLMENT 3 THE STORY SO FAR: valed King-Gordon in power and wealth, but he had gained his position through wholesale cattle rustling and gunplay. Their opposing interests came to a showdown show-down when the Government announced the auctioning of the valuable Crying Wolf land in Montana. King bid high to beat out Thorpe. Bill Roper, King's adopted son. raced home to tell pretty Jody Gordon the good news. A rider soon brought the news that Dusty King had been killed. CHAPTER IV They buried Dusty King five miles south of OgaUala, beside the Great Trail which he himself had pioneered. pi-oneered. They thought he would want to rest out there in the open plain, near enough to the cattle trail so that the rumble of hoofs would sometimes come to him through the ground. Over his grave they piled boulders, boul-ders, after the fashion of the prairie men. Bill Roper himself fitted a cross of railroad ties, the most durable dur-able and massive timber available at Ogallala. After that was all done, and night had come on, and everybody had gone back to town. Bill Hoper went back to that lonely cross and squatted squat-ted on his heels against the pile of stone. After a while a ridden horse came toward the cross at a walk; and Bill Roper remained motionless, unseen un-seen against the stones, as the horseman horse-man came up. The rider stepped to the ground and walked slowly toward the cross, the reins of his nnnv on his arm. "Then, by God, King-Gordon has come to its split-up" Silence again before Dry Camp said, "And I suppose I'm expected to just kind of stand aside and stay out of it and see how you work it out, huh? Well, I won't do it, Bill." "You're in this, Dry Camp." . "How am I in it?" "I've got to have me an outfit. It's got to be made up of boys that aren't afraid of Ben Thorpe or all hell; boys that haven't got anything any-thing more to lose. I'll need near fifty men. But to start off with I want Lee Harnish, and Tex Daniels and Tex Long; Nate Liggett Dave Shannon " "Wow!" said Dry Camp, "You get those four or five in the same bunch, they'll eat each other alive." "That's the kind I want," Bill Roper said. "I want a wild bunch such as the West has never seen before." "And me what am I supposed to do?" "You you're heading south. You're going back to Texas and "We're going to carry the war into the other camp, Lew. For every outfit that Ben Thorpe has grabbed by force of arms, he's going to lose two; for every head that has come into his herds by rustle and raid, two head of his are going to be missing when he makes his roundup count. First thing, I'm going to break Cleve Tanner down in Texas. After thaW Lew Gordon looked Bill Roper hard in the eye, smiled a little, and shook his head. His voice was slow and deep, stubbornly emphatic, as a granite cliff is emphatic. "No. We've never gone outside the law yet, and while I live we never will. We play the straight game always; and if we lose that's in the hands of things beyond us." Bill Roper angered. "I know how you feel about it," he said, keeping his voice down. "You swayed Dusty that way always. If you'd looked at it different, the guns would have been out years ago and it would have been Ben Thorpe that went down. As it is Dusty King is dead. Now you want me to drift on as we I always drifted on, and I'm supposed to forget that Dusty's out there under un-der a pile of stones. Well, I'm not going to play it that way, Gordon." "While you're with King-Gordon," Lew said slowly, "you'll play it as I say you'll play it." "If you want to buy me out," Roper Rop-er said, "you can do it at your own price. Because I'm going to do exactly what I tell you I'm going to do; I wouldn't run a sneak on you, Lew." "You figure." Lew Gordon said in- "Quien es?" Roper said, "Oh,' hello, Dry Camp." Dry Camp Pierce came and sat down beside Bill at the foot of the stones. "Find out anything. In the town?" "Hell, no." "No," Dry Camp repeated after him. "No, and they won't" "You talk mighty sure, Dry Camp." "I talk mighty sure because I am mighty sure. Nobody saw Dusty killed except the three men that done It; and one other man." Bill Roper's hand shot out and caught Dry Camp's lean arm in a grip that bit like a trap. "Who was that?" "Me." There was a silence, sharp and hard, before Bill said, "How is it you haven't told anybody any-body this?" "Haven't had any chance to talk to you," Dry Camp said. "I'm telling tell-ing you now, ain't I?" "Who was it?" "Cleve Tanner; and Walk Lash-am, Lash-am, and Ben Thorpe." Dry Camp took a match out of V a nnnV ot fit his cowhide vest and ' ij Sit J "You're in this, Dry Camp." credulously, "that you, one youngster young-ster on horseback, can smash up Ben Thorpe? You wouldn't last forty seconds longer than a celluloid collar col-lar on a dead gambler." "There'll be a few go with me," Roper said. "Who?" "Dry Camp Pierce for one; Lee Harnish, Tex Daniels, Tex Long; in all, maybe fifty men that I think I 1 know where to get." Lew Gordon looked as if he would explode. "You're naming the most vicious outlaws on the plains," he said. "If you ever get those men together, it will be the most infernal wild bunch that ever " "By God," said Bill Roper, "I'll shnw.vnn hnw tn clean a ranse or chewed the end. "You see" he searched for his words painfully, after the manner of men who are much alone "Dusty, he tied his horse out back of the Lone Star Bar, in the angle of the wagon shed. There's a kind of a corner there, like you can't see into it from any place, hardly; and what with it getting dark" "Where were you?" "I was in Bailey's Harness Shop, next door. I saw Dusty turn off the walk, and walk back between the buildings. I'd been watching for him, because I wanted to speak to him a minute. I went back through the harness shop, and I was just going go-ing out the back door. And then hell bust in the wagon shed angle." "The time it happened," Bill Roper said, "there must have still been a little light" "Enough to see by, all right. These three varmints steps out of the shed quick and quiet. Dusty knew what he was up against, all right His gun come out; but Walk Lasham grabs his gun arm with his left hand and bears down like he was wras-tling wras-tling him. Then the whole works v.i, r, ns all three of you're going to start rounding 'em in." "What you offering these boys?" "Horses and grub, and what other stuff we'll need. Not another thing." They sat silent for a long time more. "All right," Dry Camp said. "I'll go." In the starlight Bill Roper swung down in front of the little shack which served King-Gordon as a loading-foreman's office at their Ogallala Ogal-lala pens. Within, Bill Roper found Lew Gordon sitting alone. "I just talked to a man," Roper said, "that saw the killing." Gordon was instantly alert. "Who was it?" 1 "He's a man that can't come forward, for-ward, because he's already an outlaw out-law in his own right. But Dusty was killed by Ben Thorpe, and Walk Lasham, and Cleve Tanner, the three working together. Walk Lasham bore down Dusty's gun." They looked at each other for a long moment. "This man that told you this we've got to get hold of him; his i-,o tr, an tn the authorities. break a range; I'm telling you I don't care which." Lew Gordon slapped his hand on the table; it fell with a dull and heavy wallop, but so hard it seemed the top of the table would split "No. No, by God! Not under my brand. Not in a hundred years . . ." "Then draw up the terms of the sale." Gordon was silent again, for a long time. He seemed very old, very tired. "Reckon you're man enough to make your own decisions, Bill." "Thanks, Lew." "But do me one last favor will you? Don't decide here and now. Take a couple of days to think it over. It's for your own good. But I'm asking it as a favor to me . . ." Bill Roper dropped his eyes, and for a moment or two he hesitated. "I'll take an hour," he decided in compromise. CHAPTER V Bill Roper walked slowly to the Gordons' tall house, on its rise at &Wl J nau o Bill." Roper shook his head.. "He'll hang if they lay hands on him. Anyway, nobody would believe him against these three." Lew Gordon made a gesture at once impatient and weary. "Wherever "Wher-ever we turn we hit some snag of lawlessness," he said. "There's too many men afraid to stand forward for-ward and face out the law. Seems like nothing is done open and above-board above-board any more." "Never was, since I remember," Roper said. "I've got a couple of ways in mind right now. I'm going on the warpath, Lew." Gordon had been fiddling with a pencil, and now he threw it on the table in front of him. "We're figuring figur-ing you to take over the Crying Wolf, Bill. Dusty's half of King-Gordon King-Gordon naturally will stand in your name now; Dusty never paid any attention to any other kin. But the Crying Wolf was where he figured for you to go and work; and there isn't any call to change that now." "You can count me out of the Crying Wolf, Lew." What do you want to do?" "We're going to branch out a new way " Roper said. "We're going to have a warrior outfit And I'm its new boss." "I don't get you." seems iu , em let loose. They just stood and throwed it into him, and it seemed like he was never going to fall Ben Thorpe pumped two more shots after aft-er Dusty was down, and dead That was all the story. Both of them seemed to recognize that there we no questions to ask, nothing to ad- promise you this, Bill:" Dry Camp said at last. "I can't go up ST testify agt these me. You I.rhere"s .e finish of P But that would be all "ght Only, what court, that we got would believe me aga.nst thBUl?Roper said. "There isn't any-thtaB any-thtaB you can do. I don't suppose.' "Oh yes, there is. There's one t rfn I'll have to kind of mf.No you ain't," Bill RP"sa;dn ' tr eo at this thing a 'T retgwav Trouble with you, vTfiguruig toese three men as you re figuring int They lot' biggest' s of tough out-got out-got the J8Ji" d they spread we want to get an, ptace Dry Cam.?wL you aim to do?" minutes. What you self in softly. He wanted desperately desperate-ly to talk to Jody Gordon; but it was nearly midnight, and he couldn't make up his mind to wake her. As it happened, decision was unnecessary. un-necessary. In the fireplace some lengths of Cottonwood log still burned, and before the fire Jody lounged upon a buffalo robe, wide awake. "You've been a long time." "I know." He stopped beside her, half raised her in his arms, and kissed her lingeringly. Her arms and her lips clung, making it difficult diffi-cult for him to think of the road he had chosen. But presently he sat beside her on the buffalo robe, and turned his eyes to the coals. "There's some stuff we have to talk about, Jody." "I can think of better things to do with firelight than just talk." "Jody King-Gordon is splitting up." Jody brought herself up on one elbow. "Why, Bill what do you mean?" "Dusty's share comes to me, as;, you know. I I'm taking it out." "You're Bill, you must be loco!" "Maybe. I'm going against Ben Thorpe." "But but " Jody was at a loss for words. "Since the trail began, he'g stood for everything we're against Four of the biggest rustling gangs in the, country are directly hooke up witt I him, if it could be proved. He', j stopped at nothing, and where he couldn't force his way he's boughl his way. But now he's gone to' far." (TO BE COM LM EDJ nner runs Thorpe's breed-Cleve breed-Cleve Tanner nu j ajm lng outfits in to M fi m t0 ttt,intone iT smashed out of the Ben Thorpe is W?.Le'w Gordon will never stand for-" |