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Show INSTALLMENT THREE saloon. Terry dismounts, sees enough to make him feel the shot was fired by Lee Hart, brother of the slain man, also believed to be a rustler. Terry is manager of the Diamond Reverse B ranch. Formerly a small rancher, he ! Ellen sat a little straighter on the horse. Her chin set. "Why not?" "There has been some trouble. A man has been killed." Ellen echoed the last word. "Killed?" "Shot from ambush drygulched." She stared at him, her eyes on .his. "Who was killed?" "Man named Tetlow. Lives on Fisher Creek." "Who did it?" "I don't know. I heard someone galloping away through the brush, and a little later I came across the body." "Just before I started down the canyon I heard a shot," Ellen said. "Just one. Do you think they had a quarrel?" "No. Tetlow didn't have his gun out. A bullet from a rifle went through the back of his head." "Murder." The word fell from the girl's lips in a low, shocked voice. "The second in a week. Are the big cattlemen starting in to kill all the settlers who are in their way?" "No." He spoke sharply, instantly. instant-ly. "These men were both rustlers, according to common report. They lived violently and made enemies. Maybe they quarreled among themselves." them-selves." "One of them was my cousin." Then, as her glance fell on the rifle in its scabbard beside the saddle, sad-dle, there jumped to her mind a horrid thought. He might have done it himself. Why was he carrying a rifle in a country where the almost sold to the big outfit, and is hated by the small men for it. Ellen Carey, back from school, sees some cattle driven hard one early morning, probably by rustlers. One of the men, she thinks, is Jeff Brand. -pleasure through him. He looked at her. "Some of your friends might not say so," he answered dryly. Turning the head of her mount, Ellen began the climb. He fell in behind her. Neither of the riders spoke. When they came out on the top of Johnson's Prong the man moved forward for-ward and rode beside Ellen. He looked across the North Fork Valley, Val-ley, the creek winding through it a ribbon of silver, to the forests marching up the huddled hills to the blurred horizon's edge. A snatch of Heber's missionary hymn jumped again to his mind. He laughed sardonically. sar-donically. The girl looked at him. "You are amused?" He quoted the verse: ". . . every prospect pleases and only man is vile." Her eyes, judging him indignantly, indignant-ly, refused to join his mockery. "I don't find murder funny," she said. . "I wasn't thinking of murder.'but of the man who turned his back on his friends. I suppose you would call him a traitor." "It isn't my business to call him anything." "You don't need to have anything to do with him after we reach the fork in the road just ahead. That's so. You can go back to your nice good friends, who shoot at enemies as they pass, through a window." "That's not true!" she cried. "My mistake. I should have said cousin, not friend. The name is Lee Hart." "When did he shoot at you if he did?" "Wednesday a week ago, about 4 p. m., from the Red Triangle Saloon." Sa-loon." She did not speak for a moment, and when she did it was to repudiate Hart "He isn't really my cousin. Only a distant relative by marriage. I haven't spoken to him five times in my life." They had come to the trail fork. The path to the left led to Black Butte, the other eventually to the Diamond Reverse B. For days Ellen's mind was full of this adventure and the man who had shared it with her. He had not asked her not to tell that she had seen him coming into the canyon, but she did not mention it to anybody. any-body. CHAPTER VII THE STORY SO FAR: Buck Hart, brother of S'aeriff Hart, is found with a bullet in his back. A reputed rustler, his friends blame the murder to the big cattlemen. Someone fires a shot at Calhoun Terry from the Red Triangle 3 Lane guessed. "Jeff Brand?" "Yes. I told him I was going with a handsomer man." Ellen smiled at her father. "So you mustn't let me down." "I won't," Lane answered. He did not smile back at her. "I hope you're not going to be interested in a man like Jeff. I'm afraid he's bad medicine, Nell." "For girls?" she inquired. "Yes, and for others too. He's a lawless young devil heading for trouble. My guess is that he is already a cattle thief. Don't be more than civil to him." She smiled reminiscently. "He probably thinks I wasn't even that, today." CHAPTER V Among the rolling hills to the north of the Diamond Reverse B lay the empire of the Bartlett Land & Cattle Company, familiarly known as No, By Joe. It stretched over hundreds of thousands of acres of grazing land, over which roamed great numbers of cattle bearing the B brand. The manager, Clint Ellison, rode in from watching a beef cut to hold a conference in his office with important im-portant guests who were just arriving. ar-riving. He brought glasses and a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, a pitcher pitch-er of water from a tray on a sideboard. side-board. "Help yourselves, gentlemen," he invited. John McFaddin, joint owner with his brother of the Flying V C, a very large ranch far up on Elk Creek, poured whiskey into a glass and drank it neat, after a perfunctory "Here's how!" Perry Gaines, manager of the Two Star Ranch, shook his head. "I never drink until I'm through my day's work." The third guest reached for a glass and the bottle. He was a round, roly-poly man of middle age, rubicund countenance, and bright, twinkling, merry eyes. "I drink before be-fore I begin it, during same, and after I have finished," he announced. an-nounced. "Here's to you, gentlemen. gentle-men. Happy days." McFaddin thrust into words the thought that was in his mind, that had been present with all of them for some days. "So an accident happened hap-pened to one of the gents too free with a rope and a running-iron near your range, Clint." Excitement ran like a prairie fire through the Buck River country. The heat of it converged on Calhoun Cal-houn Terry. He had reported finding find-ing the body of Tetlow, after having been seen by two men an hour or so after the killing not far from the upper end of Box Canyon. When seen, he had a Winchester rifle in a scabbard tied to the side of his saddle. The sheriff's posse had followed the trail of a horseman from the body to the lower mouth of the canyon. can-yon. Here he had been joined by another rider. Sheriff Hart rode up to the Diamond Dia-mond Reverse B to ask Terry to explain his movements. His brother broth-er Lee had suggested a posse, on which Jeff Brand and Jack Turley had offered to serve, big enough to capture the foreman of the ranch unless his men offered organized resistance. re-sistance. But Nate Hart decided against this. "We haven't evidence enough on which to convict him nothing like enough," he said. "No sense in going go-ing off half-cocked." "You'd better let me and some of the other boys go along," Lee insisted. in-sisted. The sheriff's eyes drifted a little scornfully over his heavy-set, bow-legged bow-legged brother. "I'm going for business, busi-ness, not war. If I took you along, Lee, it would be like waving a red rag at Cal." The sheriff found Terry looking over the ranch accounts. Hart was in his early thirties, big and rangy and vigorous. The genera! gen-era! opinion was that he was by all odds the best of the Hart brothers. "I've heard a lot of talk, Terry," he said. "Thought I'd better ride up and find out what you have to tell me." '.'You mean about your brother shooting at me from the Red Triangle," Tri-angle," Terry said, on the theory that a swift attack may be the best defense. "Don't believe all you hear. My brother didn't shoot at you." "I must have imagined the holes in my hat," Calhoun said. The sheriff did not pursue that line any further. "What I want to talk about is the Tetlow killing. You were the first to reach the body. Were you in time to see the killer?" "No. I heard the shot. He was gone when I found the body." "What were you doing down on the North Fork at that time?" "I was on my way back from Jim Creek, where I had been to see the station agent about wiring for some cars I needed to make a shipment." "We found two sets of tracks, both very recent. You didn't happen to see anybody else?" "I met two men on the mesa above." "But nobody in the canyon?" "No. Isn't it possible that the second set of tracks could have been made by the killer while he was escaping? He may have passed up the canyon before or after me." "Yes, it may have been that way. But the tracks show that the two rode side by side for a ways after they reached the prong." "Not necessarily. The tracks may not have been made at the same time," the foreman suggested. (TO BE CONTINUED) Ellison passed a box of good cigars ci-gars and took one himself. "Referring "Refer-ring to Buck Hart, I take it." The foreman of the No, By Joe looked at the Flying V C man, no expression whatever in his steely eyes. "I'm told he was shot. With a rifle. In the early morning. By a person unknown." Slanting a grin at Ellison, the plump, red-faced man he was Ted Collins, manager and part owner of the Antelope Creek Ranch offered a chuckling suggestion. "Have to call him Mr. X, I reckon, like they do in these detective stories." Ellison looked a long time at his cigar tip. "Like the rest of you, I've been milling this over night and day, gentlemen. We represent four out of the five biggest ranches in this part of the territory. I didn't ask Cal Terry to join us today because he isn't in quite the same position as we are. A few years ago he was a little cattleman himself, and though his old friends hate him like poison now, he may still have scruples against what I have in mind. Later we'll have to take him in, but we might as well make our plans first. If we're going to protect our properties prop-erties from wholesale thieving we must wipe the rustlers out en masse.' Tod Collins grinned. "The Antelope Ante-lope Creek rides to war with the rest of you. Cut loose with what's on your mind, Clint." From his pocket Collins drew a wallet and counted out one hundred and twenty-five dollars in bills. He put the money on the desk. "Now's a good time to settle that election bet we made with Clint, boys," he said. The managers of the Flying V C and the Two Star ranches each put the same amount on the desk. Ellison Elli-son gathered it up and put the wadded wad-ded bills in his pocket. He leaned forward and in a low voice began to outline the plan he had in mind. CHAPTER VI Ellen drew up on the bluff at the edge of Johnson's Prong. A windmill on Sheriff Nate Hart's place, near the upper end of the valley, caught the sun's rays and heliographed them to her. Her glance picked up a puff of smoke, and a fraction of a second later there came the sound of a shot. She dipped down into the Canyon, following the steep trail winding among the boulders. It was a rough descent, one not used often. Ellen had come this way because the canyon can-yon route to town was a prettier one than the dusty wagon road usually taken. She swung around a great boulder and came face to face with a man. Both of them pulled up, taken completely com-pletely by surprise. He was a lean, bronzed man, broad of shoulder, strongly built. A vague memory stirred in her. She must have known him when she lived here before going go-ing to school. "Good morning," he said. "Did you meet anybody as you came down the canyon?" "No," she told him. "Are you headed for Round Top?" he said. "Yes." "Don't go," he replied curtly. Ellen echoed the last word, "Killed." universal custom was to wear only revolvers? "Was Jim Tetlow your cousin?" he asked. "No. Buck Hart, by marriage." "Then you live in the hills here," he said. "My name is Ellen Carey." There jumped to his mind the picture pic-ture of a thin, long-legged, harum-scarum harum-scarum girl flying about the Black Butte country on a pinto horse. It was amazing that such a child could have developed into such a beauty. "Lane Carey's daughter?" "Yes." She frowned at him, on the verge of a discovery. "You are Calhoun Terry," she said. "I knew I'd seen you before. You were a friend of my father then." "Before I committed the crime of trying to better myself honestly and lawfully," he explained. She knew those who looked at what he had done from another angle, an-gle, but she did not intend to discuss dis-cuss itwith him. "What are you going to do with . . the body?" she asked. "I'll notify his friends where to find it." "I could tell the coroner while I'm in town." He shook his head. "Better not go to town this way. Miss Carey. The killer may still be down there in the fiats somewhere." Ellen looked at him,, startled. "You don't think he would hurt me, do you?" "Not unless he thought his safety required it. Maybe not then. But he might fire from the brush before he realized you aren't a man." "You mean, thinking I might be a witness against him." "It's just a chance. But why take it? I'll ride up the canyon with you as far as the Hartman place, just to be certain." "It's not necessary. I haven't seen anybody coming up the canyon except ex-cept you." Something in the way she said it, some inflection that was an unintended un-intended betrayal of her thoughts, caught his attention and fixed it. For the first time he understood that he was under suspicion. Grimly he smiled. "Nobody except ex-cept me. And I came direct from the scene of the crime, carrying the rifle that may have held the cartridge. car-tridge. Maybe it is not safe for you to ride up the gulch with me, since you're the only eye-witness against me." Their eyes met and held, searching search-ing for what lay beneath the surface. sur-face. Into Ellen's consciousness there beat an assurance that this man was no assassin. He was stiff and very likely wrong-headed. But to look at that lean, strong-jawed face, clean-cut and forceful, was assurance as-surance of some fundamental decency de-cency in him. "I'm as safe with you as I would be with my father," she said quietly. He was a man not easily moved, but her words sent a little shock of |