| Show ta byalin by LAN LE MAY installment 5 THE STORY STORT SO FAR dusty king and lew gordon were joint owners ol of the vast king gordon range which ch stretched from texas to montana when building up this string of ranches they continually had to right fight the unscrupulous ben thorpe he rivaled king gordon in wealth and power but had gained his position through wholesale cattle rustling and gunplay one afternoon king was killed by thorpe and his assistants as instants cleve tanner bogs and walk lasham kings adopted so son n bill roper decided to start a cattle war against thorpe in texas he made this decision against the strong opposition of his partner lew gordon bills sweetheart jody gordon pleaded frantically with him to turn back but c ouid could not change bis grim determination CHAPTER CHAER VII va these men whom roper now gathered about him hated a a particular aFtic ular man not only as lawless as themselves but a man who was more than one man ben thorpe was a a thousand men operating under cleve tann tanner r in th the south and walk lasham in the north his innumerable retainers bilam anted the plains from the rio grande to the big horn that ropers men hated ben thorpe was no coincidence roper had picked men of personal grudge most of them had first been outlawed because they had not suited a single organization the organization of ben thorpe up and down and across half of texas constantly in the saddle bill roper threaded his new organization sometimes dr dry camp pierce was with him more often he traveled alone these famous gunfight ers and outlawed men whom roper gathered were just youngsters mostly some of them were true tree killers some merely reckless kids who had got off on the wrong foot all of them were badly wanted by whit what little law there was dry camp pierce he was called that because he hated to camp too near to water wate r went to work for B bill ill roper as he had never worked before and thus the king of cow thieves the brand changer extraordinary for foi once aligned on the side of the law that was not ten rustlers camps hooked into thorpe territory but dry camp also helped in in other ways A hot june dusk five days after the meeting at whipper forks found bill roper agthe at the dry saddle crossing where helas he was t to i 0 meet lee harnish and this meeting too was arranged by dry camp pierce though by this time pierce was already fa far r away here ran the broad many chan meled river rivee dividing two countries a river whose split wanderings made two miles of intermittent shallows at this border of a vast im perceptibly imperceptibly rolling prairie balile stood a narrow string of adobe shacks that was the dry saddle crossing two men bill roper and lee harnish sat in front of one of those abandoned shacks and tried to get together ive always understood P roper said that you were ac acquainted quain ted some below the line Harnis hs hard eyes studied roper and for a little while nothing could he be heard except the mourn i ing of doves in the willow scrub by the water next to dry camp pierce lee harnish harms h was the oldest of those to join roper he was was twenty eight he was tall and lank sunbaked sun baked almost to the color of an indian his green ey eyes idere were curiously blank impenetrable and he liked to look his man in fhe eye w with ith the peculiar fixity see feenin the gaze of hawks ive b been een down there some he admitted I 1 k 1 ive made a few drives into chihuahua one drive to mexico 2 1 city if you had a big wet herd run to you just below the line would you know ho to get rid of it 1 I cant make out your hand harnish said king gordon never swung the long rope yet that I 1 heard of im not king gordon now my stunt is to smash cleve tanner and I 1 dont care what it costs what wrong with backing him into a shootout shoot out if what you want that comes later if I 1 bust tanner I 1 can bust thorpe Th forpe but if tanner is gunned before hes busted thorpe will take over in texas and the chance to break up his texas layout will be gone you aint going to bust him by running off a few head of cattle this river crossing is slow work kid 1 I figure to cross five thousand head within the next three months roper koper told him five thousand head wont ever even scratch the hide of thorpe and tan ner son 1 I know that as well as you what it will do draw tanner to throw vr release his warriors onto the border what I 1 want because by then ill be working somewhere else and you want me to take em on the other side is that the idee 1 I want three dollars a head american gold paid off as the cattle come out of the water ropers ways of gathering his wild bunch were diverse as diverse as the saddle men he gathered one way or another picking up a man here three more there he got all I 1 he needed and more but certain other things had to be done in order that the wild bunch would have work to do planned in such a way that teat something sol would be accomplished that would stay accomplished complis hed on a steamy afternoon early in july bill roper sat in fred maxims san antonio law off office icet maxim was an attorney who some thought had worked under a different name somewhere before but here assuredly adly he was in no ones pay im not asking the likes of you what bill roper said 1 I T ropers ways of gathering his wild bunch were diverse want to know who actually owns range rights on the graham stand the hard bitten little man across the desk from roper was still when it comes to lo ousting a man from possession you know who ousted bob gra hai haro and his family from possession cleye tanner took over that outfit by main horse orse ind and gun bower power without decent cause or reason everybody knows that im asking a you now taylor and graves are already doing everything that can be done to regain possession of of grahams outfit maxim said smiling it was the smile that roper liked suppose I 1 hold the bob graham lands and bob grahams graham 0 s family are living on it bob graham got possession maxim said suppose he did have never could happen happen ben thorpe shut upa minute roper said im not asking you to put graham back in possession of his range im not asking you to save him from being put off again in the way he was before what I 1 want to know is can you head off some cooked up legal interference with graham after hes in possession again fred maxim thought it over 1 I can only promise you that I 1 can cause considerable delay he said months of delay providing you can show possession ill keep you clear until hell freezes all I 1 want still july at willow creek A barren range of hills sand hills golden in the dawn purple in the twilight barren always beneath them what had been the willow creek camp of theold the old king gordon in the bunkhouse nearest the river five men lounging around a little room all right you hard guys 2 bill roper said you know who told you to come here dry camp pierce told you to come here maybe he told you what you could look for here huh these four gunfighters gun fighters who met roper here were none of them older than bill yet each was famous as a killer in his own right of them all bill roper alone had no name no reputation yet in respect for the name of dusty king they had come to hear him out I 1 nate liggett a round faced kd with eyelashes that looked as if they had been powdered with white dust paid said well what seems to be your offer loffer 1 I guess you already know bob graham roper said you know how a warrior gang of cleve tanners jumped down on him on some thin excuse and run him off his range they even took over his house and his windmill and his corrals now I 1 aim to hand back that range fange to bob graham hes waiting in in bigspring for the word your part of the job is simple enough you just go and take it away from the tanner bunch simple huh just how do you figure this simple trick is to be done A lawyer in san antonio kept the rangers off when ta tanner jumped graham now weve got another better lawyer in S san an antonio to keep them off when graham jumps tanner the only question is chos got enough salt to grab that range and then hang onto it and what do we get out of all this graham takes over the outfit and runs it you hang bang around and help him and see that he get itin run off again for that you get a half interest in the outfit you split it among boti you any way you see fit ill back graham with cattle and what other stuff he needs nate liggett said bill I 1 dont see where we come in for no advantage if youre satisfied with the lone wolf stuff youve been pulling I 1 got anything to offer you roper admitted but ill tell you this the boys that string with me now will see the day when they oil run texas and cleve tanner and ben thorpe too will be busted up and forgot its a hefty order maybe it is this graham business ness is a kind of experiment work if you malie make it work but if it goes through okay its only the beginning you hear mea me you string with me a little while and maybe by god well show a couple of people something chapter CHAPT R VIII hot dry days of 01 early august As the first sun struck with a red heat across the pl plain airis s the tanner men who held the graham ranch iauch were already saddling all over texas cowmen were throwing together the last trail herds of the year it wa was time for these tanner men to roll their chuck wagons again to round up the last odthe trail fit stock that remained in the herds which had belonged to bob graham out from what had been the graham corral three riders swept through the dusty dawn but they had hardly left the pole fences behind when six other riders confronted them rising into their saddles like Co manches out of the brush the strail strangers geis closed cloned in a semi cir ile cle unhurriedly their carbines in their hands in another minute or two the three tanner riders were grouped in a defensive knot while from the semicircle semi circle of the raiders nate liggett jogged bogged forward to talk it over 1 I dont thank you want to go on he said 1 I dont even think you want to work for this outfit any more two nights later one hundred and fifty miles away with the approach of dusk a peculiar light lay upon the valley of the potreros ros in a reach of open grass a herd of five hundred head bunched loosely tame heavy cattle already well removed by breeding from the old wild longhorn long horn strain but they had not bunched voluntarily they shuffled restlessly watching the brush something was happening around them that they did not understand As the light failed the figures of horsemen emerged from the brush cutting mile long shadows into the flat rays of sunset the huge heavy shouldered marf man who signaled to his spread out cowboys by turning his horse this way or that in indian horse language was dave shannon they did not harass the cattle only between sunset and the next daylight no cow took a step other than in the direction of the mexican border dry grass season texas scorched by the hot binds all across the southern ranges a pe peculiar culiar thing was happening As wa word rd spread from twenty points of disturbance certain of the older cattlemen began to sense that there was a bu curious rious almost systematic order to what in itself seemed a widespread disruption all over the big bend country eastward almost to the well bettl settled ed nueces nieces westward beyond the barren pecos northward to the fever line was breaking a spotty spott Y wave ave of 0 f raids raid S of an unparalleled boldness far apart but almost simultaneously hell had busted loose looe in in a great number of P places labs I 1 covering more than pa half TI of f T texas exas TO BE CONTINUED |
