OCR Text |
Show ijP4 By EUGENE CUNNINGHAM JfFf l EUOENE CUNNINGHAM W.N.U. RELEASE W" THE STORY SO FAR: To ave his life, Con Cameron ts forced to Join a band of outlaws headed by Dnd Para-more. Para-more. Because be was seen with the Ranters, who are wanted for robbery and murder, he Is suspected of being one of their gang, of being a certain Comanche Linn. Arrested when he rides Into Tivan, be Is not released in spite of the fact that be had saved the life of the marshal, Nevil Lowe, only a few days before. Knowing that he must escape or be hanged. Con breaks out of Jail with Jeff Ailmon. On their way to Join Para-more Para-more they meet a group of Mexicans, and Jeff takes their money. Con insists that he return it. One of the Mexicans promises to help him if he has a chance, and a little later. In the nearby town of San Marcos, he does so. One of Para-more's Para-more's men, Gonzales, has threatened to kill Con. The Mexican warns him In time, and Con kills Gonzales first. They are surprised in San Marcos by Lowe and a posse. In the fight that follows Lowe kills some of Paramore's crowd, and Dud swears vengeance. It is few minutes later. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER VIII "Now, Con," said Dud, "he's kind of like Big in one way nothing on the shoot, but kind of fancying his-self his-self with his fists. Of course. Big was really something at flst-and-skull and Con Say! You wouldn't think you're as good as Big was. Con? Would you?" "Why, certainly not!" Con cried loudly. "How could I be, if he was somewheres around as good as you are? You let me be just next after him, will you? Even that makes me second to you and I couldn't ask more." "We'll see!" Dud told him, flat, singsong drawl almost a whine. "You and me'll try a UT tussle friendly, of course. Kind of see where you do stack up when you Hin't bucking somebody like poor liT Snaky Gonzales." "This is certainly obliging of you. Dud," Con drawled humbly. Dud leaped a yard from the ground with a scalp yell and cracked his heels together. He dropped lightly and rushed Con with another yell, flailing terrific blows from all angles. Con slid to the side and let him go by. "Of course," Con went on evenly, "I never did see Big " Again he evaded the bull-like charge and Dud fell flat. Con watched him scramble furiously furi-ously to his feet and charge with the ferocity of an animal. He increased his speed, trying to hammer down the smaller man. Con hummed "Buffalo Gals! can't you come out tonight?" and jabbed his left into. Dud's face to snap his head back, hooked a right to the belt that doubled him over, then turned and walked to where the gaping Jeff and Catfish sat. "If it's all the same to you," he said, "I think that's just plenty for a friendly milL I'm all out of wind!" Dud walked shakily to where Catfish Cat-fish held his pistols, but when he sank to the ground he could only pant open-mouthed for minutes. "If you was half as good with your cutter as you are with your fists," he said at last, "you'd be somebody! Yeh!" Dud gestured toward the whisky Jug. "Take a big snort of that tarantula blood, you-all. We're going out in society. Yes, sir! We'll hit Nevil Lowe a lick that'll knock the book right out of the hand of that college professor grandpa that started the NL. We're going visiting him; going to strip the NL clean. If he ain't home that's what we want." They packed food into their saddle sad-dle pockets before mounting. Jeff and Catfish and Dud seemed to pick up cheerfulness during the day as they rode across the mountains. From thinking of the gunman, Con moved naturally to thought of that other artist with the Colt, gray and silent old Hugh Norris. They stopped before dark at the house of a Mexican rancher, set on the divide that marked the long drop down to Lobo Valley that held Tivan forty-odd miles westward. While he ate, and after the meal as they lounged about the door in pine-scented darkness, he listened to the talk of Dud, Catfish, and Jeff, and the ranchero and his two lean, handsome hand-some vaquero sons. "Many! and fine!" the rancher answered Dud's question about Nevil Lowe's horses. When they rode away from the ranchero's next morning, Catfish led the way across foothills until they came to a one-room adobe with a small pole-corral beyond it. A tall man with binoculars at his eyes studied them, then lowered his glasses. He stepped from the doorway door-way into the yard and waited. When they came up to him he nodded. "Howdy, Dud," he greeted them. "Hello, Catfish. Looking for a meal? Or just riding by?" "Rode by to see if you-all wanted to come along with us and help Nevil Lowe out with his horses. Seems terrible, them horses running run-ning wild just because Nevil's so busy sheriffing he can't round 'em up. I got some other notions, too." "We had something like that in our heads," the other said calmly. "Coming over to wawa with you. Pickings are awful slim with us. Be with you in a shake. Saint! Come on down." "Coming!" a cheerful voicv sa:d from directly overhead, . Con mounted calmly and rode over the ridge. A blond head lifted at the edge of the dirt roof. They stared as the lanky cowboy gathered a Winchester Win-chester and shotgun under his arm and swung easily to the ground beside be-side his dark, older partner. He laughed at Con's disgusted expression. expres-sion. "We like to be ready for company. So when we sighted you-all, I cached myself up there. If you'd wiggled a finger at Dandy, the four of you would have waked up in hell!" "What we need is about eight nursemaids two apiece!" Con drawled. "Somebody is going to steal the clothes off of our backs and the horses from under us, in this wicked world." "Hell! I guessed he was up there," Dud said quickly. "Well, let's get going," he grunted, when Con laughed. By early afternoon they were out on a great flat where mesquite and greasewood studded the long grass. A cut wire lay behind them and they began to gather horses and move them slowly forward. At last they halted in a Cottonwood motte in what Catfish said was Nevil Lowe's small holding pasture. "House is just across the ridge," Dud announced. "Catfish, you and Con stick here to keep an eye on our horses. Rest of us'll round up the ranch. You say the Boy Sheriff's Sher-iff's just working two boys, huh, Dandy? Reckon we can take care of 'em. May not be anybody there." He led the diminished band across the ridge and Catfish and Con smoked and waited. When an hour dragged past. Con looked at the sun. "I'm going up to see what's happened," hap-pened," he told the patient Catfish. "You're enough to watch the horses, in this pasture." Catfish began to object. Dud had said Con mounted calmly and rode over the ridge. The gang's horses stood outside of a neat, white plastered plas-tered house set in a grassy yard shaded by big trees and bordered with flowers. Con rode down the slope and into the yard, to swing off and let the reins trail. "Well!" Dud cried, when Con walked into a large, clean kitchen. "Thought there was something said, Con-Comanche, about you sticking with the horses ..." "While you-all sit easy and gobble gob-ble everything in sight, huh?" Con countered, grinning. "I left Catfish. He's a nice doggy fool enough to sit up and bark and be glad if he's flipped a bone." They were gathered comfortably at a big table covered with dishes. But evidently their meal had been finished; two quart bottles and tumblers tum-blers were in the foreground and Dud and the big, dark Dandy were drinking. Con made himself a sandwich sand-wich of steak and loaf bread and looked around. In a corner, very quiet and strained of expression, two young cowboys sat with backs stiffly against the wall. While he ate. Con loafed curiously about, looking at the tidy place. He could see the hand of Janet Lowe, he thought. He went outside and around to look at the front. One door opening off the living room was open. Through it he glimpsed a bed and two slender feet, oddly bundled about the ankles . . .. He went noiselessly across to look in. Janet Lowe was tied hand and foot with saddle strings. Her white, horror-stricken face was turned toward to-ward him; dark eyes were widened, glazed. He drew a long breath and slipped into the room, hand going mechanically into a pocket. "What's all this about?" he breathed in her ear. "I I didn't know what Dud was up to " "He he's going to take me with him! He hates Nevil. He's afraid of him. He says this will fix Nevil" Nev-il" Con stood and looked desperately about. The casement window in the thick wall was open and outside he could hear the horses stamping lazily. He went swiftly back to the bed, opening his stock knife. The whangs about Janet's wrists and ankles an-kles dropped away from the sharp edge. He put an arm around her and helped her up. She began to work her hands, move her feet, staring at him. "Come on!" he whispered. "There's a good horse out there for you. You know the road to town. Ride it!" He kept his arm around her shoulders shoul-ders as they crossed the room. Then he went easily through the window, reached through and caught her wrists. The small noises she made did not stop the talk in the kitchen. On the ground, outside, she watched him as a child might have done, expectantly ex-pectantly trustfully! "Quiet!" he warned her. There was a kitchen window to pass, before he could reach Jeff's horse. Someone would certainly be facing that way. He moved down the wall, dropped to hands, and knees and crawled under the line of that sill. Erect again, he moved toward the horse.. It opened its eyes and stiffened. When he put out a slow hand toward the trailing reins, it moved back a step. He edged closer. Another pace and he would be past the corner and in view of anyone looking through the kitchen door. Again he reached for the reins and the horse lifted a foot. He caught the reins and pulled. The horse followed easily even when he got down to crawl beneath the window. But inside the kitchen Dud said: "Saint! That damn' caballo of yours is a-walking off. Better catch him. We'll be leaving quick." Con stood and went faster toward the girl. He drew his pistol and faced the corner of the house while he put down a hand to help Janet mount. But Jeff's voice came lazily: laz-ily: "Ain't Saint's horse. Mine. He won't go nowheres." In the saddle, color seemed to come back to Janet's face. She looked frowningly at Con. "Come with me! No matter what it is that you have to face, I don't think that you're what You I'll make Nevil help you! He's not so sure of himself since that awful night when you and Jeff got away and the others Come with me! Please!" "Reckon not. Now, you walk on off, slow. Get over that slope, then give him the leather." "I wish you'd leave that awful Paramore!" she whispered, staring down at him with lip caught between her teeth. "I know you're not their kind. But goodby!" She bent suddenly from the saddle and her lips brushed his cheek. Then she straightened and sent the horse off at a slow walk toward the gate in the front fence. Footsteps on the veranda sent Con swiftly to that corner. But it was Jeff coming from the front door. His mouth was tight and his eyes narrow. nar-row. He looked furtively behind him, then at Con again. He beckoned imperatively. "Boy! You have got to take your foot in your hand and light a shuckl Dud and that big, mean, new fellow. Dandy, they have had their heads together. Dud says to Dandy, when I ain't supposed to hear, that there's one in the bunch he aims to get shut of. And it's your tail feathers he aims to collect! Dandy says he would as soon do it as not today " "Because of that?" Con asked frowningly. Jeff stared in the indicated direction. direc-tion. Through a gap in the trees Janet showed, going over the ridge that would hide her perfectly from the house, once passed. "You you let her loose!" he breathed. "And give her my horse! Hell! You ain't got Ave minutes Dud'U look into that bedroom Then he'll kill you! Man-Dud was plumb crazy about her first time he ever laid eyes on Janet. Here! I'm go ing back in and I'll stall Dud all I can. You slide around and grab Pancho and go on back to Catfish Tell him-oh, anything! Then you ride like hell and don't you never let Dud catch up with you, no timet And-luck, kid! I never met a man I liked better!" a" Con slapped him on the shoulder and ran noiselessly around the house, to drop and crawl beneath the window and so get to Pancho with the careless bearing of a rm n weary of idling. " "I'm going back to the horses Dud," he called. "Want Catfish t' come down and eat?" "Yeh. He might's well," Dud swered, leaning so that he tool w throuEh the door, grinning " 'TO HE CONTWUEDi |