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Show ROLLIN BROWN $gp$t Deputy sheriff Jim Doane lets out to track down a pang of train robbers In the desert of San Loreto county. He meets Dolores Alvaro and Monte Garcia. Garcia tells him how Star La Kue once tricked Dolores' father out of his ranch and later shot him. Jim resigns as deputy, and confronts La Rue with the story. La Rue agrees to give Jim the Alvaro ranch In return for a promise of silence. Then Jim hires a new crew and tells them that he will be traveling about the extensive ranch for the next few days. He starts off alone with supplies sup-plies for ten days on his pack horse. He leaves certain papers and Instructions with Garcia and a message for Dolores, telling her, "I won't fall." CHATTER VI He would be In and out of the ranch-house for a few days, he said; they were to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. Did they savvy? They did. At dawn next morning, they corralled cor-ralled every available head of saddle sad-dle stock on the ranch. Doane picked two of them, one for a mount and one to pack grub and water. He rode oil Into the desert, leaving them In the corral. He had rations and water for ten days; an extra water container on the pack-animal held twenty gallons more of water, wa-ter, for an emergency. At noon he changed mounts, and rode the pack-horse. pack-horse. This was the rule. Sometimes Some-times four changes of saddle each day. It was mile-eating progress. The morning of the seventh day he hit a hard-ridden trail. At least a dozen animals had made the track. Following, he swiftly learned more. Two bands of horsemen had traveled this way, one close on the trail of the other, neither set of tracks over two or three hours old. "Here we are," muttered Doane. "There's company ridin' ahead. Let's go, old nag." Shortly after noon, on a trail that looked like a cross country stampede, stam-pede, he caught up with a band of six riders, headed by sheriff Sam Flick of San Loreto. Flick had come south following the mountains. Doane and the sheriff met without the formality of handshake, unconcealed un-concealed enmity on Flick's face. Sheriff Flick's Posse Hunts Bank Robbers "So you decided to do a little work on this job after all, eh, Flick?" was Doane's greeting. His former chief glared. "I have!" he exploded. "And no thanks to you, either. No help requested, re-quested, what's more." "I wasn't offering any. Flick. But say . . . are you sure you're on the right track?" Flick exploded all over again, puffing, red-faced. "She's done it now. That girl had the nerve to ride right into San Loreto two nights ago. Two of her men held up a cow buyer on the 6treet and took close to eleven hundred hun-dred dollars off him. An' the other oth-er two raided Hank Hawley's cash register, an' went on to the hotel. Got a hundred and eighty-six dollars. dol-lars. They broke into the bank, but the lock on the vault stumped em. No end of hell to pay!" "Whew!" ejaculated Doane. "I reckon there might be, after that. Er . . . you followed the girl's tracks cut of town?" Flick glared at him. "No," he 6puttered, "I didn't. But I had the good fortune to pick up some men that know how to ride an' how to trail. They know the country down here, too . . . an' a lot more to boot!" Doane had already looked over Flick's men. They were the four cowhands he had discharged from Eancho de los Tres Hermanos the morning of his arrival, headed by the lank breed, Tony Suarezl Each was well mounted, and presumably pre-sumably deputized, to ride at Flick's side. 1 Doane made a halt while the posse went on. As his mounts rested, rest-ed, he climbed a ridge and kept watch over the country with his binoculars. "Unless I'm mighty wrong," he mused, "they're hitting for that north water-seep. And I know a short cut that will beat 'em there." Twelve hours later at midnight, he rode cautiously into the north seepage. There were smoking embers em-bers of a fire there, and a few moist tracks. That was all. "Hm-m-m. They're headed either for Tres Hermanos or Sand Wells," he concluded. "Reckon Flick made a dry camp behind them, waiting for dawn to show track." Again Doane was right ... in part. Pressed from the unexpected angle of the Sierra Nuevas, the pursued pur-sued had hit directly for the Tres Hermanos country. But Flick had not halted overnight. Dawn disclosed the new shifting of the pawns on that vast, arid landscape of the desert. The pursued pur-sued crossed the Tres Hermanos boundary, plainly on familiar territory; terri-tory; five miles in their rear followed fol-lowed Doane. At sunup he sighted the tiny dust head that meant sheriff sher-iff Sam Flick, to the rear. The situation was decidedly serious. seri-ous. But just this also offered an unusual opportunity. Or unusual luck. Doane now rode straight for the ranch. He threw aside his packs and saddle, turned the tired, gaunted animals free and had his men rope and put his gear on fresh ones. To the saddle again, in less than twenty minutes, moving across Tres Hermanos Her-manos once more to intercept the trail. Ey this time, two independently independent-ly moving, galloping forces were on the heels of the fugitives. Flick had shown unexpected generalship and split his forces at a strategic point, with Tony Suarez commanding one wing with two men. The ride went east. It became a game of hare and hounds. The hares were five in number, on worn mounts that already al-ready had seen over twenty-four hours of continuous labor. Before middle afternoon, forced to zig-zag innumerable times, the quarry was turned back toward the desert by Flick's party, and the second posse, under Suarez, was racing obliquely toward them, to cut them off. Capture Cap-ture seemed inevitable, with this maneuver. Doane, watching the play through his binoculars, saw that Tony Suarez, riding hard, was gaining ground fast. That worried him. "My God! What have I done?" Flick and Suarez were shooting spasmodically, although the range was long. One of the mounts stumbled, but kept going. The pace slowed. Doane bit his nervous lips. Then, suddenly forced to it, the fugitives fugi-tives made a right-angle turn around the point of a hill, riding now at the very face of the chaparral chapar-ral ridge where Doane watched. His nervousness vanished. "Good work, old girl! I know you now. And I want you, senorita Dolores Alvaro. I'll get you, and then we'll outride Sam Flick and leave him holding the bag." The fugitives were riding swiftly into the chaparral when he lifted his binoculars again, gaining distance dis-tance over Flick in the brush despite de-spite the hurt animal. They popped up again in an utterly utter-ly unexpected position; it was a crafty move. Riders swerved directly direct-ly back into Flick's course, where the sheriff could not help but pick up the trail, turned sharply aside, and were gone. Flick hit the hot scent and tore after them. He did not see what Doane had seen with his glasses: that now they numbered num-bered four, instead of five. They had turned aside into the chaparral, left the wounded animal and its rider hidden there, and lured Flick off in a new direction. Doane leaped into his saddle, put spurs to his horse and went clattering clat-tering down the ridge. He could tell within five hundred yards of where the wounded mount and the rider had taken cover. The last he saw of the posse, as he turned at the edge of the brush, was ' a lifting cloud of dust over the ridges to the west. "Now, Miss Alvarol" He sank his spurs into the horse's flanks, and they went down the slope like a pair of cats. He struck the spot where the four had turned Flick aside. He turned the other way, back-tracing carefully. The trail wove through thick walls of brush, a perfect screen. At the end was a small clearing. Doane broke into the clearing. clear-ing. A small lithe figure, in man's clothing, stood in the open space working on the injured horse. The figure whirled. Expressive eyes widened. Doane saw again the lovely, delicate mould of Dolores Alvaro's features. Anger and surprise sur-prise held her motionless, staring at Doane, for a matter of seconds. Doane swept off his hat. "Did Monte Garcia deliver my message to you, Miss Alvaro?" he asked pleasantly. She whirled away. With all the supple strength of a man, she vaulted vault-ed into the hurt mount's saddle. The animal responded gallantly, for the length of four or five paces toward the other end of the clearing. Then he stumbled. Stumbled, sickeningly. Stiff in a foreleg, trying desperately to recover. recov-er. Then he fell, head-on, in a kicked-up swirl of dust. Up-ended! The girl went free of the saddle, thrown half-a-dozen paces beyond. It all happened before Doane's horse could make two leaps after her. She lay in a still, small, pitiful little heap on the ground, one arm doubled limply under her, the other flung straight beyond her head. Her mount scrambled stiffly to its feet again. Doane blinked, trying not to believe be-lieve what his eyes saw. He slipped from the saddle and bent over her. "Dolores! Dolores!" She lay limp and passive m his arms. He could feel the light, slender weight of her body. He moaned. He cursed himself and his stupidity, madly. "My God! What have I done?" He laid her gently on the ground again and ran to the roan, for his canteen. Returning, he paused, listening lis-tening once more to the irregular sound of her breathing. He bathed her face gently, washing the bleeding bleed-ing wound on her forehead. "What a fool!" he groaned to himself. "What a fool I've been. She . . . she might have been killed." He stared hard into the still face for a long time. He bathed her face again, as he held her close. Suddenly Sudden-ly he noticed that her breathing was stronger, more regular. The color was returning slowly to her cheeks. "Dolores!" And then, as though commanded by that indomitable will so much stronger than his own which had carried him through that day and night in the desert, his head bent slowly and he touched her lips. Touched them reverently, and long. Twice he kissed them, three times, four, in a frenzy of relief. For a split instant, he felt her free arm go up and around his shoulder, and he thought he felt just the slightest pressure of her hand upon his neck. In a wild burst of joy, he lifted his head and looked squarely down into those midnight eyes, while his arm tightened about her. To his utter amazement and confusion, he found himself looking into two pits of fire. Her face was flushed with anger, and her eyes were blazing, and she was pushing him away. "Let me go. Let me go, I say!" Awkwardly, he helped her to her feet. She stood swaying, making him think of a reed swaying gently in the wind, her eyes locked upon his, her hand brushing at her, lips, trying try-ing to rub away the kisses he had left there. "You are indeed a fool, senor. You stop at nothing, like the men I warn you of. It was not enough that I save your life that morning in the desert And the story Monte told you, that meant nothing! noth-ing! Or perhaps you used that story to help yourself, eh? To buy de los Tres Hermanos next to nothing, for yourself. And now, just for more insult, you trick me again. You dare to kiss me!" "But . . . but Dolores; I ... I love you. From the first moment I saw you, I have loved you. Please, listen . . ." She clenched her fists at her sides, and stamped a most impressive impres-sive foot on the ground. "Don't you touch me! Don't you touch me, nor put your hands on me again, or I'll . . . I'll kill you." She dropped a trembling white hand to the gun that swung at her hip. Dolores Pulls An Old Trick Doane's lips turned white. He stood there like a foolish schoolboy; he picked up his Stetson from the ground and stood twisting it inanely in his great gnarled hands. Desperate, Des-perate, in a sudden panic, he turned his back on her, walked away and stood fussing with his kerchief and his hat and swearing at himself for his helplessness. He came to his senses as he heard the sharp slap of leather against horseflesh, and whirled around just as the girl settled set-tled firmly into the saddle, and struck the horse a blow with her quirt. She had his roan! She tore across the clearing and into the brush of the chaparral. A hundred yards away, atop a little mound, she reined up the roan, almost al-most pulling his forefeet into the air. She stood there, silhouetted against the sky, looking down at him. Her face broke, he thought, into a tantalizing smile; she lifted her sombrero som-brero and waved it at him. "Adios, senor. This is the trick you teach me, pretending sleep, you remember? Next time, you will use the handcuffs, yes?" She swung the horse, dug in her spurs, and was gone. Doane's heart leaped, and sank. He wanted to believe that she was not so mad, after all, that this had been - an act. But her words had burned their way into his heart. He couldn't forget them. Sulkily, he stood stroking the mane of the injured in-jured mount she had left him.. "Well, come on, stranger. It's a long way to Tres Hermanos." It was midnight when he arrived at the ranch, leading the horse. His cowhands were waiting, anxiously, for Flick and his posse were camped near the corrals. Doane gave no account of himself, except that he had lost his mount by accident "Sure mighty obliged to you," yawned the sleepy sheriff, gratefully. grateful-ly. "But I don't savvy you, Doane. Never did, I guess. None the less, I'm thankin' you for the help you give me today. We'll run that outfit out-fit into the ground tomorrow." (TO BE CONTINUED) |