Show KY LAN LE MAY prease dusty king and lew gordon had bad built up a vast string of ranches in the west kling king was killed by his powerful and unscrupulous crup ulous competitor ben thorpe bill roper K kingi ln gs adopted son ion was ater deter mined to avenge avenge his bla death la in spite of CHAPTER XV continued when lew gordon spoke his bla voice was so quiet that its very stillness carried threat of imminent destruct de tion bill roper tent sent a roan man to ta you 1 1 I say that Ws hes a man wl who was with bill roper in the tex texas oas rustlers war he seem to be in the montana raids who was lt it lew gordon rumbled his name ame Shoshone Wilce I 1 know that name I 1 know it well I 1 id d rope and drag him to in a second if I 1 caught him talking to youl this man has talked with ben thorpe in dodge jody told her father abot A lot of strange news is working down to thorpe from up here in montana some bands of rustlers are slashing up end and down montana throwing lead and leather into the thorpe outfits under lash am they say hes badly hurt already nobody will know how bow badly until the winter breaks her father waited his eyes angry the word from dodge explains half aalf the trouble that king gordon Is up against jody said thorpe cant believe that one lone cowboy deserted by everyone who should have been his bis friend could manage to smash his texas holdings and go on to cut away his herds in montana he thought that we were backing billy roper in the texas rustlers war and he be believes that were backing him raw well lew gordon said you mean to say you came all this way ay to tell me that ben thorpe means to kill youl you L lew w gordons Gordon 8 face showed no change of expression but he be did not reply at once 1 I dont doubt it he said at last what would you expect you bring war into a range and anybody Is likely to go down dodys face was white ly you ou know at the bottom of all the trouble were were having her father said you know as well as I 1 d do that two years of nothing but tr trouble ou ble lays square at the door of B bill in roper jody sprang up to face him 1 I certainly do not know anything of th the e kandl she answered hi him M lew gordon stared it at her its an everlasting shame upon the th ec cow ow country that dusty kings k killers hera are suu still in their saddles I 1 tell you billy roper is the only man ive seen with courage enough to and now her father angered as she h had ad seldom seen him anger t tell ell me not nothing hingl he roared roper erl im sick of hearing bearing his name a dirty outlaw whelp that knows nothing but kill and burn bum and dodys eyes narrowed and filled with tears you may as well know this she told her lather father the da day y that billy roper dies I 1 want to die too for a moment lew gordon seemed bewildered he be stared at his bis daughter as if the devil had come up through the floor the me girl who faced him was entirely strange to him he heard her say it if you had at stayed a by him as dusty xing king would have done thorpe would have been whipped and through long ago child he said queerly what are y you 0 u talking about if only take billy roper bober back into king gordon that never happen while I 1 live her father said flatly A silence fell between them presently broken by the girl he asked me to ride with him once when he first took the outlaw trall trail I 1 wish I 1 had to the last day I 1 live ill wish id ridden with him then and now ill tell you something more if ever he asks me again ill go for several moments he ha stared at her more shaken than he had been since the death of dusty king then his face congested and he rose up on his boot heels to tower over the girl by god he said hla his voice unsteady with the repression he be put upon it it that closes the dealt ive kept my riders off him because of dusty king and I 1 let him run on sm and d on rousing up a range war that has close to busted kini king gordon but when it cornel comes to tampering with yo the endl end im through you hear me he caught up his battered sombrero and rid his spurs rang as he turned tow toward rd the door dad what are you going to do thorpe has i a reward on oa BIU bill ropers head king gordon Is going to double that reward he went storming out his face bi black ack and violent with portent of war for several moments jody gordon stood motionless i where here he I 1 had left her then she turned and went out of bf the house bouse to the long stable shoshone wilce was loitering there in affie the shadow of the rear wall an uneasy uneasy and restless fig figure did you find and out where billy illy rop er cr can be reached jody akmand demandt installment 11 THE 8 T olty SO FARI the opposition ot of Ms his sweetheart twe etheart jody gordon and her father daring raids upon Th texas holdings wiped him out of the state roper then prepared for a great I 1 raid upon uia the vast herds on Th montana ranches several yes mam main I 1 kind ot of did I 1 guess and I 1 got to be getting on there miss mis 3 gordon if lust just give me any message you want me to take rd fd sure like to be pulling out ot of here before all ali right you be here with two g good horses just after dark if you could just as leave give me the message now id sure like to there Is no message im going with you to bill roper shoshone wilce looked like a man e entrapped nt rapped 1 I 1 cant do itt your father I 1 just wont do 14 it miss gordon all ali right ill make inalie the ride by myself hey look you cant P bill roper going to like this allce 11 shoshone studied her se searchingly archin gly but found nothing to reassure him it was in his mind that this girl would do exactly as she said my 4 id aure sure like to be pulling out oat of here before life aint worth a nickel either way he almost whimpered you be here with the horses jody said she turned and went into the house leaving shoshone wilee standing unhappy and uncertain ankle deep in the wet snow enow CHAPTER XVI the founding rounding g up of the wild bunch of f riders lost roper a few days but within wl thin the week bill roper and tex long rode into the plains of the little dry here around a spluttering splutter ing fire the riders crouched in their sodden blankets like indians while roper gave 0 out ut his orders thirty two men and s six ix outlaw leaders were now in the field against walk La shams powerful montana outfits in the great raid ropers first move had been to is split plit his renegade riders into five bunches under the leaders that he knew kaev tex long lee harnish dave shannon dry camp pierce and himself hat crick tommy he sent to miles city in search of further word from jody gordon hat crick would later rejoin roper as messenger and scout it was ropers plan that tex long with twelve men between them should make the most daring raid of all a raid upon the big herds which lasham held between the headwaters of timber creek and the little dry of all the ranges in which the wild bunch was inter ested this was the nearest miles C city ity the most accessible the most c losely closely watched watch edthe the best protected how many cattle he could transfer from this range to thi th starving ing canadian sioux roper did not know but it was his hope to raise such a conspicuous and stubborn dist disturbance urb as would mask the operations oil of the rest ot of the wild bunch and permit pierce to work unimpeded the fourteen of us will split seven ways roper told them now 1 I figure La Las shams bams lookout look out camphor camp for this range Js ii about twelve miles southeast wet well comb ever every y way but that way xin not telling you how to gather stock hunt em like you know how bow to hunted hunt hun tem em move out one days daya ride spotting your cow bunches next day pick lem em up and work em this way and on the third day throw your gather a against a coulee or something where aher e one ne man can hold lem em and the other men man of each pair ride back an and d m meet iet me here F r figure this range rang a is heavy with cattle I 1 dont see any r reason eason i why two good men c cant ant n thousand indians indian had bad gathered bear near the canadian border to take every beet beef that was driven across shoshone waco one of 0 ropers roper men told jody that her la fa uie life was in danger to so she rods rode to warn him he was wai surprised to see sea her I 1 I 1 easy throw together three hundred head in a couple of days that gives us a nice bunch of anyway two thousand the more the better budwith but with two thousand well make our drive they slept that night under the slowly falling ailing snow roper himself made coffee and routed out his riders two hours before the first light they caught their horses in the dark with hands that tumbled fumbled the stiffened ropes then split off in pairs to comb the range for two days roper watched the enemy camp while lethe the sno snow held on piling a deeper and deeper mat then on the third day he returned to the rendezvous as the roundup men began straggling in tex lang long was the first on one eback back this range Is plumb solid with stock tex declared how many head do you figure me and kid johnson scraped up just us two well roper grunted upwards of a dozen I 1 should hope betteen Bel Bet tern six hundred head lord almighty bollt figuring worth twenty dollars apiece and allowing that all the other boys do as good were liable to get out of here with around eighty thousand dollars worth of cattler you realize that but roper was thinking of the letter in his pocket the appeal of a girl who needed him in some unknown way and who did not even know weyhe why he come all ali the next day they worked to throw the little bunches together into a trail herd not all of them had done as well as tex long and kid johnson but most of them hid had done well enough and then at last the first herd private ered in the great raid began to roll A long unsteadily moving river ot of cattle poured northward a dark welter in the thinning fall of the snow white faces mostly blocky and heavy well wintered on the prairie hay bay roper counted two thousand six hundred odal pressed hard by the heavy force of cowboys the cattle bawled but humped along northward into the valley of the prairie elk rounding bounding up within a days ride of 0 f miles city itself roper bobers ism men en had taken this herd almost out of the viry very corrals of La shams outposts and yet so far as any of them knew that thai swift moving drive represented sena a harder blow than had ever been struck a cattleman in a single raid in all their months of effort the winter wild bunch had been finable to achieve an equal reprisal upon lasham and now they could hardly believe their own success they forced the cattle hard driving through the clogging snow at a rate incredible to men accustomed to handling market herds the cattle that broke the way through the snow kept dropping back blown and tired but as last fast as they failed others were forced forward to take their places long horned stag legged steers of the old texas strain fought the riders breaking the heavy column repeatedly in their wild eyed thrusts for liberty and these were allowed to get away gaunt weak cattle lagged back unable to keep up even under the snapping rope ends end a of the tail riders they also were allowed to drop out promptly forgotten yet in that first day the side riders swept in enough north roaming cattle to more mor than ethan make up the joss loss roper went with the berdas herd as tar far as circle horse creek but when they had forded corded the shallows crashing through the rotten ice b he turned back with him he took tour four men who he believed would i dov dochat hat he said the cattle were ier emo moving ving more slowly now plodding doggedly through the heavy going tex long and the remaining eight men could hold them theato to their way what was needed now was work of a different kind and roper thought he knew how that was to be done it was his intention to fight a rear guard action not only for this aist first herd which would be delivered within the week to the indians who wo would ul d spirit it away but tor for the p protection kotec of all the rest of the wild bunch raiding to westward but now as he neared the head bead ol of the little adrya dry a rider came cam 0 dropping down a I 1 long ong slope upon a racing horse his carbine was held above his ragged sombrero in sign ot of peace and as he came near they saw that it was hat crick tommy roper jumped his bis horse out to meet hat crick what Is it Is there any word did she tommys tommas fee face W was 3 haggard with fatigue ashes 1 1 go gonel n he jerked clerked out ashes been to miles city and now ashes gonel gone gone where nobody knows ashes ms missing sing disappeared strayed or lost or rustled I 1 dont know her fathers wild crazy and every KG K G outfit in the north is combing the trails roper sat staring for a full halt minute then his hands tumbled fumbled lor r his reatta reata shook out the loop turn that roark roan conyl ive got to t have haje a fresh horse hone X TO BE CONTINUED |