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Show THE STORY SO FAR: Buck Hart, Jim Tetlow, and Pete Tollman, alleged rustlers, had been "drygulched" shot In the back. In retaliation, Lee Hart, brother of one of the victims and brother of the sheriff, Is believed to have taken Terry had his answer. He had found out what he had come to learn. "You will have to count me out," he told the No, By Joe manager, man-ager, and rose to go. "Wait!" Ellison got up and paced the floor, talking as he walked, stopping stop-ping to press his points. "You're too soft, Cal. These men were thieves, robbing us wholesale. But I'll say this, since you're worried about it: There won't be any more of it. In two weeks- three at the most we'll be ready for the big drive. Until then we'll rest." "Have you arranged it with the rustlers to rest too?" Terry asked bitterly. "I don't think so. Before forty-eight hours we'll hear of one or two of our riders shot out of the saddle. When we do we'll know that we murdered them just as surely as if we had used our own bullets." "That's no way to talk, Cal," his host reproved. "I want you to know exactly where I stand. You can tell the others too. I haven't been given a square deal, and I don't like it. All over this country I'm suspected of being at the bottom of this. I'm tell-ing tell-ing you now that if there's any more monkeying with the cards I leave the table."' He turned and walked out of the house. CHAPTER XIV INSTALLMENT SEVEN a shot from the back at Cal Terry, manager of the big Diamond Reverse B ranch. In Denver the big ranchers decide de-cide to call in a large number of Texas ex-peace officers to invade the rusUers' territory and kill them. Terry objects at close quarters, for there were powder marks on the face. Yea-ger's Yea-ger's rifle lay beside him, still clutched in one hand. Terry tried to reconstruct the scene. Two men had ridden into the aspen clump together. They had dismounted and tied their horses. Whether they had been quarreling, or whether there was an old animosity ani-mosity between them, he did not know. At least there had been no open enmity which would have prevented pre-vented them from siding each other on this ride. To guess the details of what followed fol-lowed was not possible. Yeager had taken two shots at him. The empty shells showed that. Had the other man protested? There had been hardly time for an exchange of words after Black had fired. Moreover, More-over, the dead man's face was a witness to the contrary. Fixed on it was a look of shocked surprise, as if the impact of his companion's slugs was entirely unexpected. It smelled to high heaven of treachery. Yeager had been killed by an accomplice. But why? The Diamond Reverse B foreman read again the message on the paper. pa-per. The meaning of it was perfectly per-fectly plain. Terry knew the cattlemen's cat-tlemen's association had stock detectives de-tectives living among the settlers and gathering information. Ellison had admitted as much when Tur-ley's Tur-ley's name had come up for voting at the Windsor Hotel in Denver. Some one of these spies must be the assassin. Terry left the body where he found it and rode to the ranch. He wrote a note to Lane Carey and sent it by a messenger. After supper he lay down on his bed and rested. Presently he would take the saddle to the plan. Ellen Carey, daughter of the postmaster, seems somewhat Intrigued In-trigued by the dashing Jeff Brand who with Jack Turley, another rusUer, are most outspoken against Terry. Ellen asks Terry to stop the killings. dryly. "You would have to rope and hog-tie him to keep him away. I thought you knew Jeff." "Let's have the messenger in here where we can see him in the light," Ellen suggested. "You ought to make sure the letter is from Mr. Terry." "A good idea." The man who had brought the letter let-ter was a Diamond Reverse B cowboy cow-boy called Slim. Both of the Careys knew him. He said that Calhoun Terry himself had put the letter In his hands. Slim had no idea what was written in it But the boss had told him to be sure the letter reached Carey, and that he was to wait and ride back with him. It relieved Ellen to know that her father would not travel alone in case he did not find Jeff. "You will be careful, won't you?" she said, standing at the stirrup after aft-er he had swung to the saddle. "And put that slicker on. It's still raining a little." Lane laughed. "This girl of mine bosses me like she was my wife, Slim. I reckon you would call me henpecked." Ellen smiled at the young fellow. "Will you tell Mr. Terry that I'm loaning him my father on condition that he is returned safe and sound under escort?" "Nonsense!" her father demurred promptly. "I've looked after myself quite a spell unassisted, and I expect ex-pect I'll make out to do it for a while yet." "But you'll tell him just the same, won't you, Slim?" "I sure will, Miss Ellen." It occurred oc-curred to Slim that it might be a good idea to leave the impression with the boss that she had asked him personally to come back with Lane. The two men vanished at a road gait into the darkness. "We're going to pick up Jeff Brand," explained Carey. "He's up at Roan Alford's place. Been gentling gen-tling some horses for Roan." Slim, astonished, looked at his companion. "Did Terry say for us to get Jeff?" "That's what he said." There was a gleam of satiric humor in the older old-er man's eye. "Maybe the lion and the lamb are going to lie down together." to-gether." "Would you tell me which one is the lamb, please?" Slim asked, chuckling. "Maybe I'd better have said the lion and the tiger." "What's up, Mr. Carey? I could see by the way the boss talked that it is something serious." "It is," Lane answered. "I can't tell you more than that because Terry Ter-ry asked me not to talk. But you'll know right soon." Brand had gone to bed in the little J It had come on to rain, a soft, fine rain that blurred the landscape. The mountains were no longer visible, and the foothills were vague and shadowy. Calhoun Terry had untied his slicker from the saddle and put it on. He had been in the saddle nine hours five on the way to the No, By Joe, and four on the return journey. jour-ney. Now he was back on Diamond Reverse B territory. In another hour he would reach the ranch house and Jim Wong would set about preparing him a good supper. Terry descended a long slope at a walk, forded a trickle of a stream winding down the draw, and put his mount at the slope. The rim above was fringed with bushes, and back of these rose a small grove of aspen. A bullet whistled past him. There was a puff of smoke from the aspens. as-pens. Terry swung his horse swiftly and raced for the wild cherries on 1 the bank of the little creek he had just left. There was another shot. A slug tore through the arm of the slicker he was wearing. After this, scarce three seconds later, two more explosions sounded. But before the echo of the last had died away Calhoun Cal-houn was in the bed of the stream, crouched behind a screen of wild cherry tangle. He had freed the horse and let it wander down the draw, but not before he had withdrawn with-drawn the rifle from its boot. His gaze swept the slope, to make sure his enemies were not circling the hillside for a flank attack. For there were at least two of them. The first two shots were from a rifle, the others from a revolver. There was something strange about this. The man with the revolver had waited until Calhoun was practically practi-cally out of range. Nor had Calhoun seen the bullets strike on the hillside. hill-side. While the foreman waited there came to him news on the breeze. Back of the rim and out of sight a man was riding from the aspens. He heard the swish of bushes and the clink of a hoof against rock. A vague, distant rumor told Terry-that the horseman was still going. There might be two of them. He could not tell that. The ambushed man did not intend to make any mistakes. This might be a trap. There were three possibilities. possi-bilities. Those who had lain in wait for him, having failed to get him, might be hurrying away to escape detection. Or one of them might be making a wide circuit to take him in the rear. Still another thought to consider was the chance that one of the attackers had ridden away to draw him from his cover, and had left a confederate to deal with him when he came into the open. Terry did not intend to come into the open, nor did he mean to wait there for a possible rear attack. He slipped along the bed of the little creek and reclaimed his horse. Leading the animal, he came to the end of the draw and circled a hill, taking care not to let himself be seen by anyone who might still be watching from the aspens. He mounted, but still kept to the low country until he had made a circuit which brought him back of and below be-low the grove from which the shots had come. This had taken time. Twenty-five 1 minutes or half an hour, Calhoun ; guessed. He tied the horse and began be-gan a slow approach to the rock . rim. Before he left he meant to find out all that could be learned about this attempt on his life. Darkness was beginning to fall. He found the tracks of two horses cut the sign of them where they had come in and again where they had left. A few moments later he came on a discovery that shocked him. The body of a man lay face down on the mold formed by last year's leaves. To his back a paper was pinned. On it was written, "This is what happens to rustlers." The body was still warm, though the heart had ceased to beat an hour ago. Calhoun turned it over. The man was Black Yeager, a no- torious bad man, the first one to have his name put on the black list at the meeting in Denver. He had been shot twice. One bullet had torn into his stomach. A second had struck him between the eyes. Evidently Evi-dently the revolver had been fired bunkhouse and was sound asleep when the two riders arrived. Carey was careful to call from a distance before knocking on the door. ."Hello the house!" he shouted. After he had repeated the call several times a voice answered sleepily. "Who's there?" "Lane Carey. I want to talk with Jeff Brand." After Brand had pulled on his trousers and boots he walked out to meet the man from Black Butte. "Didn't know you'd taken to night-riding. night-riding. Lane," he drawled. "Honest, I'm wore out busting Roan's broncos. bron-cos. Even if you are raiding the Diamond Reverse B range I'll have to beg ofl tonight" "Have your little joke, Jeff," Carey Car-ey answered. "But that's exactly where I'm going to the Diamond Reverse B and I'm taking you along." The friendly derision went out of the rustler's face as a light does from a snuffed candle. "What's in yore mind?" he asked. Carey took from his pocket the letter received from Terry and handed it to the other. "Read that," Jeff read. "What in Mexico does he want with me there?" Brand asked. "I don't get it. The thing doesn't make sense." "I don't know what he wants, but I've got a sort of notion. He wants us to hear his story and look the ground over with him. My opinion is, and you can take it for what it's worth, that Cal hasn't had a thing to do with these killings. Naturally, if that's so, he would like to clear himself from blame." "And if it isn't so, he'd like to whitewash himself just the same," Jeff jeered. "That's so. He would. But say he could convince us of his inno-cense inno-cense in this case. We would be two pretty good witnesses in his favor. fa-vor. I'm supposed to be a neutral, neu-tral, and you are strong for the small man." "Mr. Terry wouldn't put it just that way about me," the outlaw said. "He'd go quite considerable stronger." strong-er." "Anyway, I'm convinced he's not setting a trap to get you. But if you think so of course you had better bet-ter not " "Helll I'm going with you, Lane. I'll take my chance of any shenanigan. shenani-gan. I want to see what the fellow is up to. Be with you soon as I've caught and saddled." He walked back to the bunkhouse and finished dressing, after which he joined the others at the corraL They rode across-country through the sage until they cut the trail to the Diamond Reverse B. Slim led the way. Jim Wong shuffled out to the porch and took the two visitors into the room the ranch manager used as an office. Here Terry joined them shortly. (TO BE CONTINUED) "More trouble," he said. again, and he had learned to snatch an hour's sleep when he could. About eleven o'clock Jim Wong woke him. "Two men want see boss," the Chinaman said. Terry rose, put on his boots and coat, and went downstairs to meet his guests. CHAPTER XV Ellen was playing a game of checkers with her father. Usually he could beat her, but after two or three games in the evening he would get sleepy and relax his vigilance. He yawned, made a move and considered con-sidered it, without lifting his fingers. fin-gers. "All right," he said, removing his hand. Ellen promptly took three men. "Hold on! Wait a minute!" Lane Carey protested. The shiny face of Jim Budd appeared ap-peared in the doorway. "Man to see you, Mista Carey," he drawled. "Brought this here note along." Carey drew a sheet of paper from the envelope. He spent so much time reading it that his daughter grew curious. "More trouble," he said. Ellen read two or three lines of the letter, then turned back to the signature. "From Calhoun Terry," she murmured, surprised. I am writing from the ranch (the girl read). If possible, will you come here at once? An hour ago I found the body of Black Yeager about four miles from my house. He had been killed shortly before under very peculiar pecu-liar circumstances. While he was firing at me from ambush a companion of his shot him at close quarters. Please withhold judgment until you realize the facts. If Jeff Brand is within reach will you bring him with you? He may be able to get a clue as to who the killer is from studying study-ing the situation. Until you have seen me, better not discuss this with any others. "Do you think it's safe to go, father?" fa-ther?" she asked. "Let me go with you." "No," he vetoed. "You'll stay right here." 'I don't like to have you go alone," she protested. "It may be a trap. Maybe the letter isn't from Mr. Terry." "It's on Diamond Reverse B stationery. sta-tionery. And I'm not expecting to go alone. Jeff Brand will be with me." "Will Jeff go? He may think this is a plot to trap him." "Will he go?" Lane Carey laughed |