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Show ' " ' ' ' -T ! ! I 11.11, I I ,11 I ... mi -J II DUDE MMAMg uU MX, fh peter b. kyne ,r.;ri -'iSS On August first Len received a telephone message from Tom Lundy one of his watchdogs on the Flying Fly-ing W range that four men were gathering Flying W cattle. A week later he and his father motored up to their Tomahawk ranch, loaded Len's two horses and his father's top horse, saddled, into a huge truck together with three pack mules with their pack outfits, bedding rolls, food and cooking utensils and returned to Prescott, where Hank Wade Joined them in his official car. They motored a hundred and eighty miles to Wickenburg and turned west across the flat or undulating undu-lating desert to Hope, then northwest north-west to Parker on the south bank of the Colorado River and northeast over a dirt road to Eagle Landing. About six o'clock the following evening they heard the distant protest pro-test of tired cattle and the shout of , men urging them down the wash. Half an hour later the sheriff with his party watched,, from a distance of thirty yards, his sons, Joel and Rube, and two strangers dismount, unsaddle their horses and three pack mules, hobble them and turn them loose to graze. They made fire down in the wash and all hands helped in the preparation of supper, from which task they presently were diverted by hearing the soft voice of cows, bulls, two-year-old heifers and yearling calves, trucked his crew back to the Tomahawk ranch and started his round-up there. Later in the summer, when the late calves had been dropped a few men would return to the Flying W and brand these. So Hamilton L. Henley's office-manager, Jess HubbeJI? sent fJoel Wade, to a Los Angeles address, ad-dress, a check based on this count and the price agreed upon for the various classes of cattle. When his May bank statement came in with the dead checks, Hamilton L. Henley examined the check he had issued to Joel Wade and discovered it had been deposited In a bank in Blythe, - California. In discussing the Wades with his son at dinner that night he opined that customarily a man resides close to where he banks wherefore Blythe, just across the Colorado River Riv-er from Arizona, was too close for comfort. Thereupon Len recalled Pedro Ortiz had told him that the man Pedro had killed on the Wagon Wheel had had a letter on his person per-son addressed' to Randall H. Wall, Earp, California, a tiny settlement about thirty miles up river from Blythe, and that, judging by their outfits which Pedro had captured, Wall and his two companions that day were from California. This seemed to argue that the Wade brothers must have had a connection THE STORY THUS FAR: Mary Sutherland Suth-erland li lured to Arizona by Iht advertisements adver-tisements of the Wa.oa Wheel dude ranch, operated by Ma and Pa Burdaa. She li met at the nation by Len Henley, who tells her the ranch Is out ol business and . who Ukei her to Phoenix. Here he rldei Mad Hatter In a rodeo and. win. three thoutand dollars for Mary from hit dad, Ham Henley, who hat bet afalnat him. Ham has bought the Burdan notes from .the bank and feels the Wagon Wheel Is now his, but Mary has bought an equity la It. She rehires Ma and Pa Burdan, takes up on the ranch, and Bints rustlers. Aunt Margaret calls oa Lea and tells blra Mary has almost forgotten that she ver loved him. CHAPTER XVII "I'll be forking a horse by the first of April. Threw my cane away yes-. yes-. terday." "I discarded mine yesterday, too, and drove in to Phoenix to celebrate cele-brate and buy some things. Margaret Mar-garet told me where I could communicate com-municate with you. I'm so glad you're in your father's house. You both must feel much happier now." "We are. How are you getting along out there, darling?" "I'm busier than a one-armed man addling a colt. That's a nifty. I borrowed from Hank Wade. Hank's my friend. And don't you call me darling because I'm telephoning you on business. I've been wondering if, Sheriff Wade saying: "Up with them, Joel! Up with them, ReubenI Up with them, strangers! You're all covered!" "Up!" Hamilton Henley's voice, fierce, harsh and raucous supplemented supple-mented the sheriff's command; simultaneously si-multaneously he put a bullet Into the heart of the campflre and scattered scat-tered the coals. Four pairs of arms went skyward and their captors closed in from four sides; while the Henleys and Lundy held them covered cov-ered the sheriff handcuffed them and linked them together with two additional sets of cuffs. "Paw," Joel Wade whimpered, "you ain't a goin' to take us in, are you? You wouldn't disgrace yourself by disgracin' your own sons, would you, paw?" "Your paw's been dead for some time, Joel," his father replied sadly. sad-ly. "You're talkin' now to the sheriff sher-iff of Yavapai County who took an oath of office to uphold the law. You an ' Reuben promised to stay out of Arizona after Mr. Henley saved you from that mob in Prescott Pres-cott an' bought you out an' here you are back in Arizona with eighty odd head of Mr. Henley's steers in your possession. Shut up or I'll gag you." The party was up an hour before dawn and Ham Henley and the sheriff sher-iff prepared breakfast while Len Henley and Tom Lundy, with a lantern, lan-tern, sought out the hobbled horses and mules, brought them in to camp and saddled them. After breakfast the prisoners were mounted on their own horses, and connected with a fifty-foot riata, while their horses were tied head to tail, with a lead rope from the number-one horse to the pommel of the sheriff's saddle, who was to lead the scrry proces- across the river and that the connection con-nection had not been broken when they sold out and, ostensibly, left Arizona. A few days later Len motored over to Earp, California, and made discreet inquiry of the postmaster for RandaU H. Wall. He was in- now that you ve abandoned the ro-; ro-; deo circuit, you would consider selling sell-ing me Mose and Pablito. I'd like them for my top horses." "I don't wish to sell my horses, but in memory of some high moments mo-ments and a sentiment I thoroughly realize has perished, I would like very much to present you with them. . And you're the only human being I would consider presenting them to." "Wasn't it Sir La unfa 1 who said that the gift without the giver is bare? Thank you, Don Leonardo, but I may not accept a gift from you, for any reason particularly a sentimental senti-mental one." "WelL you win that argument," he answered bitterly. "Very short-t short-t ly I will come out and remove all of my property from your ranch." "Don't bother to do that I shall have Pedro deliver it all to your fa- ther's Tornahawk ranch near Prescott" Pres-cott" - r"" A silence then. So she didn't want . to risk seeing him again. That knowledge stabbed him and she knew it did because when he spoke again his voice trembled. "Please tell Pedro that I give him the sedan and trailer house for old sake's sake. He has, for a long time, been planning a visit to his wife's people In Mexico and he will save money and be comfortable if he makes the journey jour-ney in the trailer." "I'll tell him and see to St that ... he gets an opportunity to make the Journey. Well, I'm sorry you couldn't , have been a better sport about this. It isn't like you to get nasty." This "was a blow below the belt and she knew It and waited breathlessly for his counter punch. "You're the nasty one I mean well, I don't mean that. You're sweet and wonderful " sion back to the Tomahawk truck, parked with its driver at Eagle Landing. Lundy, mounted on his own horse, was to follow with the rustlers' pack . mules, minus their cargo, and help the truck driver load them and the rustlers' horses Into the truck, which would then start the long blistering Journey back for ., the Tomahawk ranch. He was then to assist in loading the prisoners in the sheriff's ear. In addition to leg irons waiting wait-ing at the truck they were to be "Nasty-nice, eh? Well, nobody could be worse than that Mr. lien-ley, lien-ley, you're a iquitter. You can't take it" "I can take anything." "Goodby," she said coldly. "I trust you'll soon be your old swaggering, swag-gering, devastating self again, my handsome love pirate goodbyj!" If some half-wit had organized a Skeptics' Society, Hamilton L. Henley Hen-ley would, undoubtedly have been a rfhnrtpr mpmhpr And If thp Rorlptv "Up with them, Joel! Up with them, Reuben!" formed that Randall H. Wall was the younger brother of one Morton P. Wall, and both had a ranch about five miles up-river. They had home-steaded home-steaded a quarter section' each of splendid desert land fronting on the river, cleared it and planted it to. alfalfa, al-falfa, which they irrigated with water wa-ter pumped from the Colorado. The postmaster hadn't seen Randall H. had, at one of its meetings, decided to investigate the true inwardness of : the old adage that the leopard, cannot can-not change his spots, Brother Henley Hen-ley would have been found arguing the Issue negatively, even in the face of evidence that modern leop-'ards leop-'ards were achieving considerable success Jn spot elimination by the use of dyes, bleaches and selective breeding. His experience of life had demonstrated to him that fright and condign punishment do not operate to reform a thief hence when Joel and Rube Wade, figuratively speaking, speak-ing, shook the dust of Arizona from their cowboy boots. Ham Henley's interest in them did not cease. He had bought their Flying W outfit and in April he would throw a large crew of rjders from his Tomahawk' , ranch in on the,, neighboring Flying W and make a quick and very thorough thor-ough round-up and count. Then and then only would he send Joel a check to cover the final accounting, for the Jease and iron were both re'gis- tered in the name of Joel,, the eldest brother and neither Rube fior the estate of Breezy had figured in his deal. "You know. Hank,'' he told their father on the way back to Prescott, "I wouldn't put . it past them two boys to pay me a visit an' steal a lot o' them Flyin' W yearlin's after I've paid Joel for 'em. They got the swelled head. They just know they can outsmart the world an' I got a notion they'll have to cater, to that feelin' by workin' on me, just to "" catch even with me for makln em sell out to' me an' skedaddle." He made his round-up on the Fly-; Fly-; Ing W early in April and the forty riders he put on the Job had it finished fin-ished In. ten days; his Tomahawk " ranch manager reported the tally -of bis calf branding, . and the aged , " 0 wau ior pernaps rwo monins. xne brothers sold considerable baled alfalfa al-falfa which they trucked into the Los Angeles market but they also fed a great deal of it to cattle, augmenting the alfalfa with cotton seed cake and sugar beet pulp which their trucks hauled in from Los Angeles on their return trips after "delivering baled hay. The postmaster had seen truck loads cf feeder steers passing through town on the Wall trucks; he knew they bought feeders over in Arizona, fattened them at their ranch and then sold them as baby beef at the Los Angeles stock yards. Randall Wall had once told him they figured on. feeding a critter ninety days and putting two hundred pounds on him. Len drove up a rough sin-gle sin-gle track desert road that paralleled the river until he came to the Wall ranch; a half section of alfalfa stretching from some low hills to the river. He turned in a road that led through the center of the ranch to the ranch-house and noticed that this road was about forty ,feet wide and fenced on both sides. In the yard of. the ranch a man tinkering at the motor of a huge cattle truck came over and asked Len curtly what he wanted. Len replied that he wanted to see Ran-' Ran-' dall H. Wall on a private matter and was informed"TKarRanaall H. Wall" bad sold out his interest in the ranch and moved to Oregon.'. Len thanked him and departed, apparently satisfied satis-fied with this lie. i Upon .his return Jie armed and mounted two reliable old hands from the Tomahawk ranch, equipped them with two pack mules to carry their bed rolls, camp equipment and rations and sent them over on the Flying W range to rem-iin there all i summer and -wnlch for rustlers rounding up catt.e. i t : t"t"" j 1 tied in so securely that escape or an attack on the sheriff, en route, would be an impossibility. As soon as there was sufficient light to permit movement Ham Henley Hen-ley said: "Well, Hank, you better git goin'. You got a long hot day ahead o' you. Me an' Len's goin"' to swim across the river an' interview inter-view this Wall person. That feller's got to be made to realize he ain't acted right an' that it'd be the part o' wisdom if he stuck to j alfalfa farmih' in the future an' left lot feedin to somebody else. We aim to inspect his feed lots, see what brands he's got there an' burn all his hay. Words ain't never enough to impress a crook." ' He and Len had worked their way down the wash among the cattle, cat-tle, now beginning to climb out to graze, and had arrived on a sandbar sand-bar at the junction of the Williams with the Colorado when a detonation detona-tion sounded across the river, a shower of . objects rose high in the air and a billow of smoke and dust followed. A few seconds later the Henleys observed a similar phenomenon. phenom-enon. t "I'm inclined to think some other indignant Arizonan had gotten to Farmer Wall first, pappy," Len observed. ob-served. "See that rosy glow against the sky. That's haystacks burning up at thg feed lot?!" ' They sat their horses watching the rising glow, reluctant to cross the river now but curious to observe what developments might eventuate. Presently they heard the occasional bellowed protest of cattle being driven; driv-en; the sound approached the river steadily and above the bellowing they could hear the shrill . "hi-yi, hi-yi," of punchers driving' cattle. Tr BE CONTINUEDI - . - .- f ' 1 '" ' |