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Show I " f-UGtNg CUNNINGHAM ' ' JWM rilAl.p,,,, v.v W.N.u. R.ELEASE '(&r C'llAI'l'Dll XIX Mh'lit was gocut l the Ci.nyon now. "Yon'i the cnbin." step called ofU.v. "Slow down!" He moved to look over a big boulder. boul-der. After a long time of staring, he walked ont and past the great rock. Con and Martinet folkuvcd. The stone house was small, a single spacious room built of native na-tive stone. The gaping windows were dark blurs against the weathered weath-ered gray of the walls. Step shook his head. "Reckon nobody's using it. Let's scatter out some. I'll g0 left. Con, you go 'way right. Martino, middle j for you." They moved as directed. As he walked toward the stone house, Con listened to the faraway rattle of the firing. He came up to the cabin looked at It and turned to place Step and Martino. Neither was in sight from where he stood, for his had been the longest move. He could not look Into the window openings. They were small and set high. There was a door opening, but no door. He went cautiously up to look in and listen. But he saw nothing, heard nothing, inside. He set his carbine down and fished a match out of his hatband, to relight his cigarette. ciga-rette. Then, around the corner from the cabin front. Dud Paramore stepped carelessly, humming. Con stared, not moving. "The Raniers told us that you're not Comanche Linn," Dud said abruptly. "Linn was killed after that Salado business." The tip of Dud's tongue came out to wet his lips. Con took a step toward to-ward Dud and, exactly as if pushed by a pole, Dud took a step backward. back-ward. Another step, and Dud duplicated dupli-cated it in reverse. The third step took them both out into the open, clear of the cabin. There was a heavy report that jerked Con from his grim concentration upon keeping keep-ing control of Dud; a shot from the cabin wall. Dud staggered. Then, like a drowsing cat stabbed, he whirled to face Martino, screamed, flashed his hands to twin Colts and whipped them out with speed that fairly blurred the movement Martino sent j another big slug crashing into him, but Dud was already falling twisted-ly twisted-ly backward. His guns roared almost al-most together and the bullets rang on the w-all. Martino stared savagely savage-ly down, then sighed gustily and put up a hand to rub his cheek. "We walked right into each other," oth-er," Con said slowly. Well! He's had it coming for a long time. We'd better bet-ter get going!" As they got nearer, the sound of the firing drew Con's brows together. togeth-er. He began to hurry. But, without with-out meeting anyone, they came out of the wide Canyon, where cattle and horses grazed undisturbed by the battle their brands had brought about, into a narrow gorge as deep as the valley it led from. Step waved toward the walls of the entry-canyon. But already Con had seen smoke rising from point after point I up there. He nodded and they continued con-tinued silently until Step halted them where a long jumble of boulders boul-ders split the canyon, j - Sitting comfortably behind a pair ! of boulders that gave him a resting rest-ing notch for the carbine, Con saw that Step put down his battered hat ; under his stomach, before stretching i at length. Then he looked up at the ! wall and the little carbine flamed. Like something jerked, a blue-and-black figure came sideways from high on the left wall, began to turn over and over in pir. It fell with the seeming of slowness, then vanished van-ished on a level with Con's eyes. "Come on!" he ordered. "Four down. Kind of timid souls, looks like. Maybe wondering about these doings behind 'em. Keep to the walls and watch!" They edged along the rugged sides of the canyon for fifty yards. Then Martino jerked a thumb at the bud-died bud-died man just ahead. Con stared and shook his head. "Now. tie that!" Martino grunted. "Janton, Onopa constable." Step waved them down behind boulders, again. Con could see the mouth of the narrow canyon and from the rough mesa on which it opened came heavy, ragged fire. But it was overhead that he looked. He was too close under the right wall to see anyone above him. But he understood that they were to cross-t cross-t fire, Step shooting to the right, he and Martino to the left. Just beyond him, three men seemed to be alarmed by the cry. Con began to shoot quickly, as Martino Mar-tino moved for a new position Step slapped shots at the other wall. A long, shrill cry lifted above the roar of the shooting: "They're down in the canyon! Behind Be-hind us! Look out!" Apparently, not all of the rustler defenders had taken to the guard rocks and shelves above the floor. Ducking, dodging, men began to ap pear straight ahead of the three. In the van he saw a big dark man with a hulking double of him close behind. He leveled his carbine at Latimer, saw him fall with the shot shifted aim to the runner who had jumped aside and fired again. 1 The first fury of the charge slackened. slack-ened. The fight became a series of individual battles, between Con. Martino, and Step, each hugging h. helter. and men of the other sid W.N similarly covered. The advantage was even. But there was yelling outside where the cowboy line was. uvcr the concentration of hunting targets without exposing himself, Con heard the Indian-like yipping. He moved to the side and peered around his boulder, looking down the barrel of his carbine. A hatchet face was exposed twenty feet away above a pistol. Con fired at Gloomy Megeath and the face disappeared. Up from a rock, as if stung, jumped the lanky, yellow-haired Saint West, to drop again under the thunder of guns. Something exploded in Con's skull . . . From the flat ground behind his boulder, Con felt himself falling. "It's certainly cold for this time of year," he said politely to someone beside him. "It seems to be getting into my throat, too. Hard to talk. Wonder what I'll land on . . ." He saw Janet come up to the train in Wild Horse and she looked at him and touched Nevil's arm. "That is a murderer from Texas," she said. "Be very careful about him." She stepped through the train and that seemed strange to Con. He wanted to tell her that he was But who was he? He tried to remember, remem-ber, but Uncle Hugh only looked at him with blank face and refused to answer. Aunt Hetty shook her head. "You're Mr. Norris' sister's boy, Con." She had never called Uncle Hugh anything but Mr. Norris. But somebody, some-body, somewhere, knew who he was. A fat, cheerful man, with a round, red face like a balloon, wiped his hands on a flour-sack apron no, his hand! For where his left arm should have been was a shining steel hook. Con forgot to ask him about his name. Something else was much more important. He stood by the corral in the Broken Wheel door-yard door-yard and looked all around him, even squatting to examine the ground close to the butts of the logs. "I want Billy Turtle!" he yelled. "Con! Con!" But that was just a dream. He opened his eyes and found a wall ahead of him, a cool-looking wall of buff plaster. Faces came between him and the wall, Topeka's and the doctor's and Janet's and Mrs. Teni-son's. Teni-son's. They all seemed happy about something. Even Topeka was grinning. grin-ning. A hand touched his forehead and he knew that he had been asleep and someone had been humming close by. The hand was taken away and he opened his eyes. "Sonny!" Mrs. Tenison said softly. soft-ly. "Sonny, are you awake?" "Sort of," he answered thickly, and fell asleep again. When he waked in the room again, the hand was still on his forehead. But Janet looked down at him. He smiled when she smiled. "You you know me?" she breathed. "Trouble has been," he said carefully, care-fully, "that you didn't know me. In spite of all my telling" Then he remembered the Canyon. "What happened at the fight?" he demanded. "Did " "Thanks to you and Step and Martino Mar-tino Palafox, Helligo Canyon is just a place, now. You came so close to getting through it all without a scratch! Then at the last you were hit three times almost at once, Martino Mar-tino says. On the head, in the arm and the leg. But you mustn't bother about it. The doctor says" "Step and Martino all right? Mr. Tenison and Caramba?" "Step has two more scars and Martino one. But they were just flesh wounds. Your Mr. Tenison U. P,ELEASEJlf -JT' and Caramba weren't hit. Some of the cowboys were killed; more were hurt." He lay looking at her, thinking. "We know about Comanche Linn, now," she said. "Both Raniers were killed in the fight. Nevil had a telegram from the Salado officers. They had found Linn, buried on a ranch where the Ranier gang often hid. Nothing that you've done. In the Territory, will ever be thought of as anything but good." "That's fine! So, if I want to stick on the Wheel and learn the business, busi-ness, looking to the day when I'll have a ranch of my own" "A ranch of your own!" she interrupted, in-terrupted, "Do you remember owning own-ing a turtle a desert tortoise, that is?" "I never did! That is, unless you count dream turtles. Three-four times a year, all my life, I've had a nightmare about hunting a turtle named Billy. But I never find him. I fall over a cliff and hurt myself " "Break your arm! Lie In the ar-royo ar-royo for hours before you're found by your closest friend and childish idol, Con, the one-armed cook of the Wheel!" she finished for him in a rush. "That Billy Turtle was your prize possession. He was always straying, so old Con branded him WT. You'd go hunting him, calling and calling for Con, who was the one you turned to for help in all your affairs " "What are you talking about? How do you know about my dream? And more than I ever dreamed?" "Didn't you ever wonder about this broken bone in your left arm? Didn't that uncle ever tell you about it?" "Happened when I was a baby. In Horsehide." "It happened within a quarter-mile quarter-mile of this house! And your scarred uncle' was Emory, who stole you! But he must have had some good in him; he made a fine man of you. He " "You you mean that I'm Ware Tenison?" "Nobody else! The evidence just rolled in, all at once! The cook remembered re-membered the name of a man scarred just as you said your "uncle" "un-cle" was scarred Emory. The doctor doc-tor saw your broken arm and remembered re-membered the break in Ware Teni-son's. Teni-son's. Then, all through your delirium, de-lirium, you called for Billy Turtle and Con the things that everybody who knew you at four remembered about you. Your mother well, you'll see her. Your father is going around one walking smile." "I am thinking," he said very slowly, looking away from her. "If I hadn't somehow headed for this country, like a homing pigeon, you would have inherited this place. I I have to think about that, Janet. It would have come to you, because of the way they feel toward you " "dome to me? Do vou think for one minute that I " "Don't bite me! What I am think ing is" He managed to get a weak hant up and find hers and hold it, evei draw upon it enough to bring hei down closer. " If there might not be a wa: that you wouldn't lose all the Wheel' Try and think! You're an educate! girl. Can't you figure some wa; that'll let us both have a share o the place?" "11 you're thinking what I'm think ing I certainly can!" And she carried the arm up, abou her neck, and put her face agains his. "A fine tassel end to this lariat,' he whispered. "Fine!" THE END |