Show ian BE E F w HAP HAROLD OLD CHANNING 10 I 1 LEW 1 I trill trail boss boil ol of the cross croil T hard which I 1 li bein bedaf 9 driven irom from X a ea the plangent indiana llan blent gent it at ogallala Oc allala T ahe h e y year r li a TOM ARNOLD owner TM hai bs been killed la k stampede itam pede his bli will 0 bamel mel low lew boss boil and owner until the ca tee re sold old when STEVE SIEVE tend and JOY JO are to receive their shares barei I 1 i after many difficulties and hardships including an indian they bring liln the kerd herd to dodge city here CLAY MANNING joy JOYs dance disappears lewi lew accompanied by mi me me men 13 en enten term the he town and bexon searching low lew hires a dozen extra hands handi for the remainder ol of the trip an ai he lean fears I 1 trouble with a rival herd the open A joy insists insist on coming to town li as she thinks clay needs her bar CHAPTER by the time lew had run back and got into info his own saddle there was only dust for or him to lo follow he gave n no 0 order the others ethers had seen and re read ad that lookout sign they poured behind him along the street then on the rivers open sh shelf elthe he caught athe drum of 0 hool hoof beats and rider turn tam suddenly north beside the whitewashed shipping pent pens he swung that way for a moment the figure was clear against the plaza lights where this street ended but at the railroad tracks it turned once more and was out of sight taking a blind guess he aimed across the depot yard before reaching the tracks himself and then was wai immediately sure which way the rider erhan had gone for the yard ended against the sprawling corrals of livery there was only one outlet he stepped down from his saddle with joe wheat Quarter night and the others following behind him and saw first eight or ten men afoot near theoffice the office then pete rachal was coming toward him swaying rapidly on his stubby legs and at the saine same time eveh even as rachal said 11 1 I got your crew burnet and nodded at the group grouer but theres a bunch he be saw clay and ed just inside the barns dark maw what he see in that moment was how bow many others might be watching him from the huge hug blackness behind the wide doorway then one other edged into the band light from the office and close to his shoulder joe cheats low voice said aid stoddard the boss he recognized stoddard without showing that he be did a short squat man who at the luth mouth of crazy woman creek had made the mistake of offering him a lob job he brought his glance back to clay and ed seeing the dulled heavy drunkenness of clays face was not drunk but stood with his bis huge body poised a little forward strangely like a man on tiptoe his 10 long ng arms loose at his bis sides th these esel things he saw in a brief survey that could have lasted only a moment with his own me men and his now new hands turned rigidly silent and pete pet e face in front of him me setting eting into a weary look then he moved hearing joe cheats lew for gods sakel and paying no attention to it he walked toward clay manning feeling there was no 0 recognition in clays heavy lidded eyes he reached him and took his arm clay he salo said come com on his tug brought the big shape out a little from the thi support of the doorway post stumbling against him he jerked his bis right hand up I 1 to brace clays body and someone must have mistaken that or an order was given that he hear agans A guns flame streaked from the black interior of the barn bam to become instantly blended into a crashing roar he felt clay jolt as if pushed helas he was trying to pull his own gun and hold the big man up but the iud suddenly denly dead weight threw him off balance something n g hot stabbed his arm they wea went t down together and a running wave of fire passed oyer oyer their heads rolling free and struggling up he had a blurred knowledge of dust and frightened horses and a last rattle of shooting far back toward the liveris li end and all at once there was silence a breathless hush bush in the ahi way of these battles until somewhere a man groaned and deep within the barn bam another called they got out herel berel and from the office pete unmoved voice said curly you better get the doe 00 91 the hospital was an abandoned army barracks standing on the prairies griss grass beyond the freight yards east ol of town the doe doc too was a discard from the army a man with bloodshot alcoholic eyes but watching him lew guessed he be was capable enough even now he be almust must haye baye been a top surgeon once he saw aw the long hands band Is were steady probing the slightly slight y puffed blue holes which were all that showed odthe of the wounds to in clay mannings naked back at such close range the bullets had bad entered straight t it ft clear in his mind yet what had happened perhaps hed clever ever know 0 w but it seemed that all baie e open A guns must have been turned u arned in his direction willing to sacrifice clay and even ed if they could blast through to him and they clays huge bulk had saved him taking that fire he remembered ed turning and screaming creaming at them before he fell and the way his bli new men iliad had lumped jumped instantly into the fight stoddard and the open A bitant expected e d that he himself they were gone now with joe wheat and the others back to guard giard the cross T camp he was alone here waiting for or the doctors doctor verdict before he letroy let joy know clay was face down naked on a cot directly in front of him still drunk enough so the doctor had given no anesthetic before going to work ed covered with a blanket was on the next cot while beyond him another open A hand lay thin and flat and wholly still his face the color of gray ash As far as he knew this was all that had come out of the battle there may have been some wounded he had tied a handkerchief around a gash on his own right arm the doctor probed a hole and brought out something end and ran in a swab like cleaning the ban barrel el 0 of a gun he wiped the spot and tossed a blanket over clay mats all he went to the sink to wash his hands lew followed bhatt the anwer answer doe doc you texans are tough hell pull through but he be be moved how long say a month ali AH right he started tor for the door ill arrange to leave him here riding hiding back across the plaza and up the two blocks of second avenue he felt an unreasonable irritation at the way things had turned out oat but then all that was gone when h he was riding from dodge leading her horse boree with its empty saddle he saw her sitting in the hotel lobby he knew how desperate Us wait must have been it softened lim him held hed have to tell her gently and yet seeing him she rose and came to the doorway quickly and took his arm she seemed to know joy it he said clays hurt hes in the hospital then he tried to ease it for her dont worry he hes going to pull through he have said that her acceptance was strangely calm take me to him she said end and that wair waff all they returned to the hospital walking and in the crowded plaza men gave way tor for him seeing the girl on his bis arm entering the hospital he half expected she che would throw herself heiselt on clays cot she released his arm crossed to the side of it and stood there looking down only her dark eyes showed him any emotion pity and tenderness and then a long grave look that he could not read afterward he be saw her glance up at the specked windows and the cobwebs spun in the corners comers of the room doctor she asked have you a nurse why no maam he said no I 1 sleep in the building nurses are hard to get in dodge 1 I see fee she looked at clay saying quietly hes sleeping now she know that clay was drunk but if he needs anything tonight ill be at the wright house will you let me know yes maam he promised dont worry hell be all right outside again walking back the way they had bad come she seemed unaware of the crowd or the town or anything beyond her own silent thinking they were almost to the hotel when she spoke lew you understand icart I 1 cant go on he did he had bad known it as the she stood there looking down own at clay hell need a nurse she said he nodded it what she meant exactly but he understood that too they were only using words to coyer cover up what wha t they both felt and knew in this moment ill leave a draft for you h be a said a at t wright and Bever Be verlys lyas ss store torre you need some things they reached the light of the hotel windows she took her hand from hla his arm her eyes came up to his bis then shining with a moistness in that light ill write to you at ogallala Og aUala well come by train as soon boon as we can in a little while he was riding from dodge leading her horse with Us its empty saddle and in that s saddles addles sadus adus emptiness was a symbol of the way he knew things were to be for him loyalty was the ake strongest trait she had she would never desert clay manning now even with the guard of his extra riders he felt no safety so close to town in camp where they were all waiting he said some of you had much fun in dodge this trip but you see how it Is wed better get on they eased the long longhorns homs up from the bed ground and trailed them north until after midnight when the moon set and darkness brought them to a halt but the summers dawn came between three and four these mornings at four they were moving again beyond dodge they entered immediately into what maps called the great american desert with the dark una line of the arkansas down over the tha rim of the world behind them no other landmark broke the flat brown earth even the little far apart streams at which they watered were treeless and dried to muddy pools the grama grass was cured and short and would not lost last another month yet its heads were still full of black seeds and on them the cattle grew fat young jim hope was driving joys mules now BOW but he be had bad stopped thinking about that he had bad dropped back into an old habit focusing all he be had on working out one thing at a time the one thing now was to get these long longhorns homs north for the first days and nights out of dodge he had kept close watch on steve and had posted rebel john and joe wheat to keep an eye on him he had thought then that steve might quit the herd and run back but there had been no sign of that instead he felt steve was thoroughly scared over what had happened in town or thoroughly whipped it settled his bis first arst concern and yet remembering clays tameness lameness before he made his break into dodge he would rather have steve in some open rebellion quietness ne as in his bis kind was never good food on this last lap of the march he be held again far west of the trall trail beyond sight of the dust flags of any other herds even if th the e open A had left dodge soon after he be did his long dally daily drives of twenty miles would keep him in the lead beyond the solomon they traveled a gently rising plateau that lifted them into a cooler air and he be rods rode these days feeling that nothing could stop them now he was far enough west to avoid the trap of settlers fences when they crossed the republican on the fifteenth of august boy Quarter night grinned that day 1 I guess weve got her lickett lick edt he thought so himself this was nebraska with two weeks left and ogallala only a little more than a week away he could see no hitch if it came to a last minute fight now that he be was bending east toward the trail he had bad plenty of men each night he doubled the riders on guard and during the day kept a flank ol of scouts out a mile from the herd they were going through and yet there was no exultant feeling in him no of a tremendous satisfaction satis Is f thata that man should have it would be the end of the trail that was all there would be news for him in ogallala Og aUala perhaps she would be there herself with clay and afterward he know he could still let the future wait a little longer before he made his plans plan thirty miles south of ogallala a high divide marked the keith county line beyond that it would be like uk rolling roiling down hill on the same day that its straight ridge edged against the sky ahead of him he saw four mounted men come up from the southeast circle his herd off all at a distance and ride back the way they had come and that night from his camp on a creek still south of the ridge he watched a chain of ad litus little fires break out along its crest indians somebody said waiting tor for their beet but it indians in the cool d dawn awn next morning mornin g au all of his bis men were having breakfast for an early a tart start when a group of eight or tell tea ride riders ro trotted out of the north the tw two 0 crouched circles around the fires broke instantly and spread then the trotting figures swung wide of the long longhorns homs it an aa attack in a moment he could make out the leaders headgear a stiff rolled brim and center creased crown known this country over as ai a peace officers hat bat he said its the law boys AU all right I 1 guess they took their hands from their guns AU all except steve he saw steve back away slowly his gun fully out of the bolster and rising in a guarded kim aim 11 as the peace officer came on ois H he sprang across and stood in trout front ol at him get out 0 of f at g b tl I 1 TO BB |