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Show I The Settling ! j tfo Sage ! By j j HAL G. EVARTS S ' I j CopyrigM by Hal O. Evart ! WOT Service S I gnuTT, tinimiiii h Tin mi mum fc-w.fT.T.fl WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE At the Warren ranch, the "Three Bar," a Btranper applied ap-plied for work as a rider. Wil-liamette Wil-liamette Ann Warren knowc tc all as I3illie." is the owner of the ranch. The girl's father. Cal Warren, had been the original origi-nal owner. The newcomer Is put to work. Cattle "rustlers" have been tioubling the ranch owners. The new hand gives his name s Cal Harris. By his announcement announce-ment in favor of "squatters" he incurs the enmity of a ride' known as Morrow. The will made by Cal Warren stipulated that half the property should go to the son of his old friend, William Harris, under certain conditions. The new arrival is the man, and he discloses the fact to Billie. Slade, a ranchman with an unsavory un-savory reputation, visits Billie Slade, endeavoring to embrace Billie Is interrupted by Harris. While the riders are at their evening meal, far out on the range, six outsiders Join them. Billie knows them to be "rustlers" "rust-lers" To test Harris' courage the girl ippointshim temporary foreman, fore-man, suggesting that he order the visitors to leave. Somewhat to her surprise he does so. The men depart, making threats. Billie Bil-lie makes Harris permanent foreman. fore-man. Catching Morrow leaving cattle were they can be stolen. Harris discharges him. Riding with Billie, a man presumably Morrow, shoots at Harris. Three Bar riders start In pursuit of - Morrow. One of them. Bangs, is ambushed and killed. CHAPTER V Continued 10 The old man was gloomy and silent, liis face sot in sorrowful lines as he went about his work, and it was evident evi-dent that he was continually brooding brood-ing over the fate of the youth he had loved. Billie could not shake off the remembrance re-membrance of the boy's adoring gaze as his eyes had followed every move she made and in some vague way she fell thai she was responsible for the accident. Siie often rode near Kile Foster, knowing what was in his mind. He spoke but little and. in common with the rest, he never once mentioned Bangs. At file end of a week Slade rode jp to tlie wagon as the men were working the cows gathered in the second sec-ond circle of the day. He jerked his head to draw her aside out ot range of Waddles' ears. "How's the Three Bar showing up this spring?" he asked abruptly. "Better than ever," she retorted and he caught a note of defiance in her voice. "You're lying. Billie," he asserted calmly. "The Three Bar will show another shrinkage this year." "How do you know?' she flashed; and the distrust of him that Harris tiad roused In her, lately submerged benealh the troubling thoughts of Bangs, was suddenly quickened and thrown uppermost In her mind. "1 know," he asserted. "It's my business to know everything that sues on anywhere near my range. You say you want to run the Three Bat brand yourself. There's not a man tn this country that would touch Three Bar cow if you was hooked up with me." "And then the Three Bar would he only one out of a dozen or more Slade brands," she said. l"or no reason at all she was sud denly convinced of the truth of Har rls' suspicions concerning Slade Slit noled t hut his eyes traveled from on? man to the next till he had scru lluized every one that worked the herd. "Are you looking for Morrow?" she demanded, and Instantly regretted her remark. Slade's face did not change by so much as the bat of an eye and he failed to reply for a space too long a space, she reflected then turned to her. "Morrow who's he?" he asked "And why should 1 look for him?" "He rode for you last year" she said. ")h! That fellow. I recall him now. Bleak-looking citizen," he said "And what about him?" "You tell me," she countered. "That new foreman of yours the fellow that was scouting round abme for a few months has been talking with bis mouth," Slade said. "If he keeps that up I'll have to ask him to speak right out what's on his mind." "He'll tell you," she prophesied. "What then?" "Then I'll kill him," the man stated. The girl motioned to Lanky Evans and he rode across to them. "Lanky, I want you to remember this." she said. "Slade has Just prom Ised 10 kill Harris. And If he does I'll spend every dollar I own seeing that he's huhg for K," she turned to Slade. "Yoq might repeat what you just toltf me," she suggested. Slade looked at her steadily. "You misunderstood me," he stated. '.'I dou't recall any remark to that ef fect or even to mentioning the name of Harris. Who Is he. anyhow?" Evans slouched easily Id the saddle nnd twisted a smoke. '.Now let's get this straight what f'm to remember," he said. "Sir. Slade was saying that he planned to down Cal Harris the first time he caugli; lilm out alone. I heard him remark to that elTect" He turned and grinned cheerfully at Slade. "That's his very words and I'd swear to It as long as my breath .ield out. I'll sort of repent it over to myself so that I can give It to the judge word for word when the time comes." Slade favored him with a long stare which Lanky bore with unconcern smiling back at him pleasantly., "I've got my little piece 'memorized," 'mem-orized," Evans said; "arid in parting let me remark that 'Cal Harris will prove a new sort of a victim for you to work on. If you tie Into him he'll tear down your meat-house" He turned his horse and rode back to :he herd. "I'll play your own game," the girl told Siade. "If anything happens to another man who is riding .for me ind I have any reason to even suspect you were at the bottom of It I'll swear that I saw you do the thing yourself The Three Bar is the only outfit with a clean enough record to drag any thing up for an airing before the courts without taking a chance. Tnis rule of every man for himself won't hold good with me." She moved toward the wagen and Slade kept pace with her, leading his horse. "You're a real woman, Billie," be said. "You better throw In with a Harris Sat on a Rock and Reviewed the Plans He Had Formulated. real man me and we'll own this country. I'll run the Three Bar on ten thousand head whenever you say the word." "I'd rather see It on half as many through my own efforts," she said "And some day I will." "Some day you'll see It my way," he prophesied. "I know you belter than any other man. You want an out lit o"r your own and If the Three Bar gets crowded out you'll go to the man that can give you one in its plate. That will be me. Some day we'll trade." "Some day right soon you'll trade your present holdings for a nice little range in hell," a voice said In Slade's ear and at the same instant two huge paws were thrust from the little win dow of the cook-wagon and clamped on his arms above the crook of his elbows. el-bows. Slade was a powerful man but he was an infant in the grip of the two great hands that raised him cleai of the ground and shook hi in before lie was slummed down on his face ten feet away by a straight-arm thrust His deadly temper Mured and the swift move for his gun was simultaneous simultane-ous with the twist which brought him to his feet, but Ids hand fell away from the butt ot It as he looked ir.ti the twin muzzles of a sawedolT shot gun which menaced him from the win dow. The face behind the gun was ihe face of Waddles. "I'm about to touch oft a pound ot shot If you go acting up," Vad-l!es said. "Any more talk like you was just handing out and vou'll get smeared here and there." "Are you running ihe Three Bar?' Slade asked. "Only at times, when the nolion strikes me," Waddles said. "And this Is one. Whenever you've got any specific spe-cific business to transact with us why come right along over and transact It and then move on out." Billie Warren laughed suddenly, a gurgle of sheer amusement at the sight of the most dreaded man within a hundred miles standing there under the muzzle of a shotgun, receiving Instructions In-structions from the mouth of the Three Bar cook. For Slade was helpless help-less and knew it. "Waddles, you win," he said. "I'll be going before you change your mind." .As t lie man walked toward his horse which hac sidled a few steps nwny the big cook gazed after Mm and fingered the riot gun regretfully. The wagon did not move on wl en tlie men had finished working the herd, as the rest of tlie day had been set aside for kill-time. An hour afler Slade's departure the hands were rolling roll-ing in for a sleep. The girl saw Kile Foster draw apart from tlie rest and sit with his back against a rock. He was regarding some small object held in his hand. As he turned It around she recognized it as a boot heel and the reason for Kile's absence was clear to her. He had back-tracked the blue horse to the scene of the mishap. mis-hap. She was half asleep when a voice some distance from tlie teepee roused ber by speaking tlie name of Bangs. "I've a pretty elastic conscience myself," my-self," tlie voice went on. "I'm not above lifting a few calves for the brand I'm riding for or any little thing like that, but this deal son ot gorges up In me. They'll never cinch It on to any man they never do. Old Rile Is brooding over it. He'll likely run amucK. une way or anotner ne u try to break even for Bangs." Billie recognized the voice as Moore's and knew that one of ber men, at least, had not forgotten Bangs. It was the first time an Intimation Inti-mation that tlie affair was oilier than an accident had reached her ears. The calf round-up was nearing the end. Two weeks would see "the finish and supply the final tally. Harris sat on a rock and reviewed the plans he had formulated for the salvation of the Three Bar brand, realizing the weak spots and mapping out some special line of defense that might serve to strengthen them. In the seclusion se-clusion of the wagon Waddles was carefully rereading a much-thumbed document for perhaps the hundredth time. A man had come in at daylight with the mail from Brill's and Billie Warren was within her teepee poring over her share of it. The men had finished theirs and were sleeping. The girl read first the four letters In the same handwriting, one to mark each week she had been on the roundup. round-up. , The fifth was from Judge Colton, her father's old friend, to whose hands ail his affairs had been entrusted. en-trusted. After scanning this she read again the other four. Very soon now, in the course of a few months at the outside, she and the writer would meet away from his native envirpn-ment envirpn-ment and in the midst of her own. Always Al-ways before this had been reveised and her association with Carlos Deane had held a background of his own setting a setting ( In startling contrast to her log house nestling in a desert of sage. The Deane house was a wonderful old-fashioned mansion man-sion set in a grove of century-old elms and oaks. She kne,; his life and now he would see her in her natural surroundings. In a hazy sort of way she felt that some day she would listen to the plea that, in some fashion or other, was woven into every letter; but not till tlie Three Bar was booming and no longer required her supervision. Everything else in the world was secondary sec-ondary to her love for her father's brand and the anxiety of the past two vears of its decline eclipsed all other issues. Her reflections were Interrupted by Harris' voice just outside her teepee. "Asleep, Ri I lie?" he asked softly. "No," she said. What Is it?" "I've thrown your saddle on Papoose." Pa-poose." he said. "Let's have a look around." She assented and they rode off up the left-hand slope of the valley. A mile or so from the wagon Harris dismounted dis-mounted on a high point "Let's have a medicine chat," he offered. of-fered. "I've got considerable on my mind." She leaned against a rock and he sat cross-legged on the ground, faciug her and twisting a cigarette as an aid to thought. Her head was tilted back against tlie rock, her eyes half-closed. half-closed. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |