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Show lllllllllll y PETER B.KYNE .2Sf, N'-lS SgSgSggggSSgSggggggggSSgSSS two thousand. You ever hear o' me gettin' mushy about the public an' prosecutin' a cow-thief?" "Mebbe they don't work on you." "They don't any more, but when they did I didn't prosecute 'm an' I didn't hire 'm killed. I did it myself. my-self. I only suggest a hired man in your case because I doubt If you know enough about firearms to commit com-mit suicide. Have you paid your rent to the state land commissioner for them six townships you got under un-der lease?" "No-c-o-o." "Got the money?" "No. I was goin' to ask you to loan it to me until " "No, Bill. The bank has been kind t you an' patient, you ain't reduced the indebtedness an' you ain't paid your interest or the taxes. You're through." Five minutes after Burdan had left his office, Hamilton Henley had, via the telephone, purchased the Burdan notes and collateral from the State Bank of Arizona. He summoned sum-moned his general office-manager and confidential man, Jess Hubbell, explained what he had done and Instructed In-structed Hubbell to get him a certified certi-fied check to cover the purchase. "I thought you had enough cow outfits to worry over," Hubbell com- THE STORY SO FAR: Mary Slither- I land makes arranscments to be met at 6ughuaro, a iag station In Arizona. She arrives by train and waits for Uie station B.igon from Wagon Wheel Ranch U pick Her np. When no wagon comes she gets panicky. After a long wait Len Henley, f Congress Junction, picks her up In a truck and drives her t his trailer house, where she eats her breakfast. Henley explains why the station wagon did not come. It had been attached, as well as the horses and ranch equipment. He te-tides te-tides for Mary that she should put up In 1 hotel In Phoenix, and with that as her base 6he could roam around and secure accommodations at an orthodox- dude ranch. CHAPTER n Although the upbringing of Hamilton Hamil-ton h: Henley, Senior, had been accomplished ac-complished after the early American Ameri-can formula not infrequently described de-scribed as being drug up by the hair o' the head, he had never keen sensible of any resultant handicap. He had educated himself surprisingly surpris-ingly well in everything save the English language preferring American Amer-ican with an Arizona accent; he was very intelligent man, aggressive, fearless and more Imaginative than anybody had ever given him credit tor being. At fourteen years of age he had secured employment as horse wrangler on a cattle ranch down In Cochise County, at a wage of fifteen flollars per month. At fifty-five he was a cattle king, sole owner of six large cattle spreads, with a heavy Interest In two dividend - paying mines, stocks in various banks throughout the state, and an office in his own office building in Phoenix, in which city he also lived in a modest adobe bungalow attended by a married mar-ried couple the wife his cook and housekeeper and the man his body met Hank Wade, the sheriff of Yavapai Yava-pai County, emerging from the county coun-ty court-house and noticed that the latter looked very forlorn. Ham Henley thought he knew why and decided de-cided he must do something about it, for while a hard man in many ways he was not Infrequently given to sudden gusts of kindness and sympathy and, under the spell ol them, could be magnificent. "Hello, Hank," he greeted the sheriff. "I'm on my way to the Apache Club for lunch. Come and have a bite with me." "I'd like to, Mr. Henley," the sheriff sher-iff replied, "but I reckon I'd better not. You might lose caste in the community." "To hell with the community. I'll not make believe I haven't heard the gossip that's fiyin' around about you, Hank, since them three boys o' yourn was turned loose after two juries failed to convict 'em of cattle stealin'. They're sayin' that, as sheriff, it's your job to select the jury venires from the great register o' voters an' that in the case o' the jury selected to try your boys you didn't make no mistakes. I don'1 believe that." "My boys was guilty an' I know It," the sheriff replied sadly. "So does everybody else that read the transcript 0' the testimony. They bought out, Mr. Henley, but not on money o' mine." "I know it an' when you run for office to succeed yourself next fall, Hank, I'll be out beatin' the cactus for votes for you." "I won't run agin, Mr. Henley. Throw enough mud an' some of it's sure to stick. I'd get licked." "Now, Hank, you quit feelin' bad. I been talked about some, too.. 1 been bawled out in a church right in this town as a bloody-handed killer an' all because I ketch some rustlers makin' off with my critters an' win the resultant argyment. People say I'm lawless. Well, maybe I be, bul I'm practical." "I might meet some men at the Apache Club that'll give me the cold shoulder, Mr. Henley." "If they do I'll have somethin' tc tell 'em! Hank, me an' you outlive our enemies. Come up to .the Apache Club with me. I want to be seen there with you an' let everybody know you're my friend an' that nc friend 0' mine was ever crooked." He took the sheriff by the arm and forcibly turned him. Almost with reluctance the latter yielded. "I begged my boys to confess, Mr. Henley," the sheriff went on. "1 could have fixed it with the complainant com-plainant to ask the judge to shou clemency; I could have fixed it with the judge to go light on 'em as first offenders. But no! They told me was an interferin' old fool an' like tc broke my heart." "I'm afraid. Hank, the lesson didn't sink in. They'll be at it agin." "Got to," the honest sheriff declared. de-clared. "Them two trials left 'em broke, an' they ain't got no othei way o' meetin' expenses. Mr. Henley, Hen-ley, there ain't but one cure foi what ails my boys an' you an' m know what that is, because we applied ap-plied it when I managed your Double Dou-ble H ranch." Very early next morning Ham started back for Phoenix, but left the state highway at Congress Junction and turned northwest across the desert des-ert to the Wagon Wheel ranch, foi he was minded to get Bill Burdan oul of his way as quickly as possible, and he was quite certain that a small gratuity and assurance of freedom from a deficiency judgment would effectuate prompt abdication. When Y Im-I iinr servant and chauffeur, xie naa one piest room In his home and lived in the hope that his only son would occupy it occasionally if and when the latter should conclude to cease taming a living in a vocation the elder Henley considered disgraceful. Ham Henley had always grieved lecretly over an apparent lack of toughness in his son and ascribed his defect to Len's mother, who had been a Back Bay, Boston lady with aiore admiration for culture than corpuscles. In the upbringing of Len ihe had, in a way of speaking, gotten got-ten the jump on Hamilton by pointing point-ing him out as a horrible example. Years before her death she had started, definitely, to make her own plans for Len's life, thus setting him against his father and, in the end, Inducing a coldness between them. One day in January Hamilton Hen-(ey's Hen-(ey's secretary came into his office and announced that a Mr. Burdan Was in the general office and desirous desir-ous of an interview. "Ah, Bill Bur-flan," Bur-flan," Henley murmured, "yes, I know him. I smell a touch, but show him in." In the matter . of contemplated raids upon his finances, under the guise of unsecured loans, Ham Henley Hen-ley was psychic. And he liked to have such interviews over quickly; hence when Bill Burdan sat down, with his hat on his knees, and smiled wistfully at Ham Henley, the latter laid: "Well, Bill, what's on your mind?" "Trouble, Ham." "Who's runnin' his iron on you?" "The State Bank of Arizona at Prescott. They hold my note secured se-cured by chattel mortgage on my cattle, an' another note secured by deed o' trust on my home ranch. Ham, they're a-threatenin' me. You bein' a director o' that bank an' an old friend o' mine " "No. I was going to ask you to loan it to me until " plained. "I thought I had you trained but here you are organizing more work for me." "This will be a temporary job, Jess. I had to take two tricks to . win and them mortgages were the high trumps." Hubbell nodded and Ham Henley went on. "I figger on puttin' the Wagon Wheel in shape an' unloadin' it on a dude at a nice profit. Bur-dan's Bur-dan's broke flatter'n a tortilla; all he can save is the family photograph photo-graph album, some clothes an' the old lady's sewing machine. So he will grab at a little getaway money and I'll give it to him to sign a quit-claim deed to the home ranch an' give me a bill o' sale for the cattle o I won't be put to the ex- pense o enterin suu in ioreciosure. He shouldn't ought to object to as-signin' as-signin' his state land lease to me, either, so I can move right in an' take charge. Somebody's got to take charge because Bill Burdan will just walk out an' leave everything." "You have a sweet set-up there and at a third of its value, Mr. Henley." "So sweet I hate to unload it on a dude, but then it's just the sort o' place that'll appeal to a dude woman, wom-an, because it'll be a goin' concern an' she can walk right into a mighty nice ranch-house, of Aztec architecture architec-ture an' all furnished with Navajo rugs an' heavy oak chairs with calf-hide calf-hide seats an' all them sort of romantic ro-mantic fixin's. At that they're mighty swell 'n in nice taste. They wouldn't affront me none." "How are the cattle? Are you sure old Burdan has the number of the cattle enumerated in the mortgage? mort-gage? The Wade boys worked on him, he claimed. You might find a shortage." "I expect to,' but I don't mind that because I'll make enough on the . deal without worryin' over that item. The cattle are poor stuff. The old man let 'em run down old breedin' stock, short calf crops and inter-breedin' inter-breedin' an' nothin' much when he started thirty years ago. Them Wade boys had ought to be ashamed o' themselves for descendin' so low as to waste their time stealin' trash." Now, whenever Ham Henley had arranged to buy or sell anything he wasted no time closing the deal. Hence the following day, he motored up to Prescott and relieved the State Bank of Arizona of its two sour loans. After leaving the bank he decided de-cided to have luncheon at the Apache Club, the oldest club in Arizona, and of which he was now one of the old-e&S old-e&S members. En route there he he arrived a man detached himseli from a bench in front of the blacksmith black-smith shop and came out to mee) him. "Where's Bill Burdan?" Ham Henley Hen-ley asked. "Everything that ain't been nailed down here or mortgaged has been attached, Mr. Henley. I'm the deputy dep-uty sheriff in charge. Mrs. Burdan packed her duds an' left yesterday an' the old man packed his an' left this mornin' early. He was all broke up so I reckon he won't be back." "Where'd he go?" "Phoenix." "Thanks. I'll locate him there.-' . A little south of Wickenburg Len Henley suddenly pulled in off the shoulder of the highway, stopped and pointed to a sandy wash flanked by scattered sycamore trees; through this wash a stream about fifty feet wide and an inch deep wandered slowly out into the desert. "That," said Mr. Henley reverently, "is the famous Hassyampa River." "I'm surprised the birds didn'i drink it up before it got this far, Don Leonardo." Mary had heard Pedro Ortiz call him that and had taken a fancy to that form of address. ad-dress. "Don't make funny cracks aboul the Hassyampa River," he warned. "You could very easily get yourself in bad with the Spirit of the Hassyampa. Hassy-ampa. Now, if you'll please get oul and follow me down to the stream we'll discover whether or no youi presence in Arizona is to have the official blessing." He led her down to the edge of the sad little stream, removed his wind-breaker wind-breaker and spread it on the moist sand. "Kneel and drink," he commanded. com-manded. "Nobody has been known to acquire typhoid drinking from thp Hassyampa." (TO BE CONTINUED) Bill, iam Henley interrupted, "I've known you forty years and you ain't a friend of mine in that sense. A feller's got to dig deep to git to my bump o' friendship in money matters. It's been done many a time, at that, but not by men that regard a promissory note as somethin' to be renewed. You came to ask me to use my influence with the bank to lay off'n you. You want more time." "That's right, Ham." "Time won't help you out. You borrowed most o' that money to build an' furnish a swell ranch-house tor dudes, an' when you got the dudes you didn't know how to entertain enter-tain 'em. You thought they wanted to rough it so you fed 'em fodder that only a cowpuncher could digest. You didn't know that a dude ranch Is a bust unless you got a general store a couple miles away, so the dudes can ride down to it, tie their horses to the hitchin' rack outside jn' buy an ice-cream sody. You iidn't know you had to have beautiful beauti-ful wranglers to ride herd on 'em n' that their feelin's could be hurt If they was scolded for slouchin' in the saddle an' givin' one o' your nags a saddle gall, or cinchin' him so tight he bucked 'em off or raised a cinch scald. I read in the paper here a while back that some dude woman, that gets stacked by one o' your horses an' bunged up, sues you for damages. An' as if you didn't have enough trouble on your hands you had to go to work an' spend about twenty-five hundred dollars dol-lars tryin' to convict them three Wade boys o' stealin' your cattle." "I felt it was my duty to the public pub-lic to expose 'm, Ham." "The public be darned. Who told you you was Santa Claus? You could have hired them three skunks killed lor five hundred dollars an' saved |
