Show SMOKY ma y Riffi t i s ii sisS by LAN LE MAY release dusty custy king and lew gordon cordon had built to up 1 a 8 vast string ot of ranches king wax wa killed by hit his powerful and unscrupulous competitor ben thorpe DIU bill roper kings adopted son was determined to avenge his death in spite of 0 the CHAPTER R continued to ropers right surprisingly close a rifle spoke once only roper could neither see the man who had fir atred ed nor guess his target he waited five minutes gun ready then stood up and moved his pony down slope into a shallow draw in which it was hidden hidden by the brush moving cautiously tiou sly he proceeded north along the cut enking the position of the man who had fired through the hillside brush a figure moved crouching so low that his dark shape resembled a bear after a moment bill roper was able to make out that the approaching man carried a light carbine th the man with the carbine moved swiftly down the hillside sliding on the hard crust of 0 the snow but surprisingly singly silent in the brush the watched man dropped into the ravine angling toward the bend where roper stood bill roper pu pulled I 1 led himself out of the gully he was crouched in dense brush gun in hand as the scout appeared below him roper stood up steady he said the man in the draw jumped as if he had been struck but as he raised his hands he straightened so that roper naper saw his face IUs his captive was shoshone wilce by god said shoshone 1 I was never so BO glad to see anybody in my life lafel I 1 ropers voice bit like frosty ice you know where she Is yeah said shoshone yeah I 1 know where she Is roper dropped into the gully to snarl close into shoshones Sho face Is the she alive Is she all right oh yeah sure wilce assured him ashes alive all right dont s seem e e rn like ashes hurt any I 1 dont seem like roper repeated damn your hide where is she bill seems like them buzzards have her down there at that cabin and wont leave her loose who wont bill I 1 dont know who well how the devil did she get there me shoshone said he met R ropers eye bleakly obviously he knew that he was in trouble here 1 I brought her wily why to in all she would have come anyway bill she was dead set on locating you she have nobody else to ride with her I 1 figured sooner id try to bring her direct to you so somebody would be with her then than have her wandering loose around the country by herself A bartender in miles told me you were here and we rode here and then and then well then what AS I 1 ome come into the valley sho shone said seemed to me like something was wrong but I 1 make out what we come up to the cabin careful and slow in the dark but they seen us coming and they laid for us I 1 guess before we knew what had busted they gunned her pony down and they drilled mine twice so bad that I 1 had to turn him loose most likely hes dead by now I 1 shoshone hesitated and you run out and left her bill filled in for him bill I 1 swear I 1 have done nothing like that not for no amount thing was they was all around me I 1 see where to shoot or who they was I 1 figured first it was your own boys making a mistake and after I 1 seen it I 1 just figured to keep in a fighting position you might say and close in first chance only only you never saw any chance roper said with contempt W well e no theres seven of lern era akere do down w n t there bill and they keep an awful steady watch and I 1 been scouting em steady ever since sometimes I 1 get in a long shot at one or another of lem em this carbine dont carry so very good but I 1 plugged two of em dont know how bad how do you know she shot or hurt when her horse went down roper demanded by god shoshone it if you let anything happen to that girl they let her walk outside sometimes during the day shoshone said how I 1 seen ashes all right can you make out who the bunch down there is 1 I figure some thorpe gun squad 0 out t after your scalp I 1 figure they was laying to gun you and now that they got the girl I 1 figure gure that they aim to hold her for bait kind of shoshone fell silent and roper deep in thought let him rest youre most likely right roper said morosely at last theres four or five of cf these thorpe war parties out after me and tills this could easy be one but of all the infernal luck I 1 ever saw what did jody want with me did she tell you thorpe has made up his mind to kill her old man shoshone said 1 I went and told her because I 1 thought want her to know so she could look out for him some but the old man installment 14 THE STORY SO FARs tion of 0 his bis sweetheart twe etheart jody gordon and her father alter after wiping thorpe out of texas roper conducted a great raid upon vast herds in montana unable to reconcile her father with roper jody set get out with shoshone 0 listen to her and they had a row so then the only thing she could think of was to come to you ashes got some notion of trying to get you and her old man together again A fine chancel what I 1 told her but she why in gods name roper flared at him again you go after help 1 I figured id get strung up for sure shoshone said eald flatly if I 1 went and told gordon what id done I 1 wanted to come for or you but naturally I 1 know where went the only thing I 1 could figure out I 1 better try to ghost around these hills and maybe whittle em down to my size you say there are seven men in the cabin roper asked at last two wounded shoshone nodded they aint all in the cabin all of the time seems like they must have had the girl tell ern em that she come here to meet you naturally think you knew she was coming most likely they figure that if I 1 aint dead im carrying you word that will bring you here a kiting so holding her there now until they see it if they cant get you I 1 aint watched S A r taking an n awful chance roper said those fellers tor for fifteen years without knowing how they work taking an awful chance roper said iron death in his eye it if I 1 rode in here warned with my wild bunch it aint such a bad chance taking shoshone contradicted night and day their outposts are out two men can check the whole country daytimes so they can see you coming twenty miles you only got here because you come up through the timber to the south on the trail from miles the last way figure come nights there are more men on lookout than th that at near as I 1 can make out and their lookout Is strongest just before dawn I 1 suppose iron dog taught lem em that trick in the old days always striking just before daylight and now they cant get it out of their heads night and day they got ponies saddled if ever they spotted your wild bunch riding in be almighty hard to catch it if only roper said the wild bunch was going to ride binl but it maybe theres some way we could fake it SQ so give up and clear out I 1 figure leave the girl behind if ever they set out to 11 11 run un im going down and smoke em out roper said through his teeth im going to smoke em out before the sun run ever comes up again and youre going to help me shoshone nodded if we tackled lem em lust just before daylight when the outpost is strong and the cabin is weak they talked it over tor for a long time in the hidden bidden gulch where shoshone had been holing up they made coffee and cooked meat and completed their plans we can get in was shoshones Sho verdict at last we can get in and we can take the cabin but god knows how were ever going to get out ive ve got a plan for that roper said he tell shoshone what it was CHAPTER there were no stars when roper roused himself in his blankets and he had no mechanical means of tell wilee to find him they were e attacked by some ol of men hiding in ropers shack wiles escaped but jody was captured roper was approaching one of his own shacks when he noticed outposts keeping a careful watch os ing the time yet he knew very definitely that dawn was just jus t two hours away he shook shoshone wilce the little man groaned once then came full awake with the sudden re response 8 of an animal without the snow the rocklike rock like impenetrability of 0 the overcast sky would have made the night utter utterly y black but the ghostly pallor of the snow had the effect of faintly modifying the darkness the eye might possibly have made out a moving dark shape at ten yards beyond that there was nothing but a muffling blackness you lead out roper said his voice was instinctively hushed bushed even at this distance from the enemy youve had more chance to study the lay than me shoshone wilee wilce delayed bill he said 1 I lay thinking about this time for a long time after you was asleep A dogged stubbornness came into his tone 1 I figure we can probably take the cabin and if we take the cabin without fighting weve got a chance to get away but if so much as one shot is fired bill the outposts will close like a bar trap I 1 dont see no way we can ever get clear by the sudden frozen silence shoshone wilce was able to sense bill ropers copers anger 1 I wish to god bill roper said at last 1 I had hat crick tommy here or tex long or even the very greenest kid cowboy riding the range with them somewhere tonight I 1 need one other man tor for this job it take an especially brave man or smart man nor a real good gunfighter I 1 just need one fairly good man but I 1 even got thail bill I 1 only claim look bill I 1 aint afraid of em I 1 only you aint afraid bill roper repeated no not much but when the guns spoke you left a girl down under linder per her horse in the snow maybe hurt maybe dead and you ran for your life when bill roper had said that both were utterly still while a man might have counted a hundred shoshones Sho voice was flamand dead Is that the way it looks to you look at it yourself then shoshone Shosho nc said 1 I guess there aint anything more to say he stood up theres this to say bill roper said youre going to work with me tonight because I 1 got anybody else youre going to do exactly what I 1 say and when I 1 say without any back talk or question you make one slip tonight and the west wont hold you nor the world wont hold you and answer to me in the end you hear me okay shoshone said in the same flat fiat dead voice one thing more roper said it we make a quiet job well try to go out slow and quiet the three of us together otherwise yo you u take I 1 dodys lead rope and ride like hell six miles below here beai near the creek theres a kind of a brush corral you and the girl will wait tor for me there wait tor for me until daylight begins to come then go on they moved down into the valley of the fork walking fast when they had dropped into the bed of fork creek itself they moved northward following its windings tor for what seemed a long way but no sign of approaching dawn yet showed and roper felt that they had plenty of time As they at last passed the point where the cobin stood insisi ble in the dark shoshone indicated its location with raised arm but they moved on fifty yards farther so that they might approach the cabin from the north cautiously now shoshone climbed the bank silent as the indians with w whom hom he had spent his youth turning he gripped bill ropers arm IUs his words were whispered close to ropers ear one of the night guards is out that a way about five hundred yards he whispered about in line with where you see that big dead pine roper could see no dead pine it annoyed him that shoshones Sho eyes were better than his own as good as the eyes of an indian or a lynx ill leave my carbine standing just outside the door shoshone said 1 I only want it tor for later after weve took to the horses all right roper said but you remember this if theres any trouble in the cabin you stand and because if you dont ill turn and plug you myself it if it takes my last shot to do it okay roper went ahead now walking boldly across the snow better he thought to simulate the ca casual sit a approach of friends than to de depend end upon a hope of complete surprise As he raised his hand to the door a strange thrill of dread momentarily stirred him at the thought that jody gordon was inside with whon whom 7 TO KE BE CONTINUED |