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Show 1 W.N.u. FEATURES' - --r?-. I THE STORY THUS FAR: Thunder-bead, Thunder-bead, the only white horse ever foaled on the Goose Bar ranch In Wyoming, Is evidently a throwback to his great grand-lire, grand-lire, a wild stallion called the Albino. His 14-year-old owner, Ken McLaughlin, hopes he will become a famous racer. Thunderhead, very fast but difficult to handle, Is entered In a race meet in Idaho. On a trip Into the mountains Thunderhead breaks away and joins a band of wild horses. He kills the leader, the Albino, and takes the herd for himself. him-self. Ken's father, Rob, tells Ken that O Touch and Go, a filly, will be raced Instead In-stead of Thunderhead. In a sudden cold snap both Banner and Thunderhead bring their herds to the stables. CHAPTER XXV "The two bands of mares and colts are all mixed up in both corrals eating me out of house and home eighty head of horses! Gus and I'll have to spend half the night sorting sort-ing them out putting them through the chute Banner took some of Thunderhead's mares and put them with his " A look of consternation dawned on Nell's face. "He did! Why. Robl Why, that might start a fight!" "It might and it did!" Rob reached for bread. "Oh, Rob! What did you do?" "We beat them apart. Just in time too before they really went ber-serker. ber-serker. A little later and we J couldn't have done it. One of them would be dead now." Nell was stunned into silence. Rob ate hungrily, then added more quietly, quiet-ly, "And it wouldn't be Thunder- V. 1 Rob would not be capable of, to say nothing of Ken. And lastly, the worst thing of all, it was only a matter of time before Thunderhead would kill Banner. Nell went to bed and sat reading, j but she didn't know what the words meant, for she was listening for a shot. At last she fell asleep, and Rob came in and undressed and put out the lights without waking her. But there had been no shot, for Rob had thought of another way just a chance of a way a very slim chance. In the morning the storm was still raging. Rob rose early, saddled Shorty and rode over to the telegraph tele-graph station to discover the state of the weather and roads westward. It was worst right here on Sherman Hill but snow ploughs were keeping keep-ing the highways open and busses were running. Fifty miles to the west no snow was falling. He rode back and explained his idea to NelL If he could take Thunderhead Thun-derhead In the trailer to Saginaw Falls if he could make the trip in two days, they would arrive on October twenty-third, the day before the Greenway race. There was still time. And if Thunderhead should give a good account of himself In the race, someone would buy him and take him far away and everybody every-body would be happy. After all, this was what he had been trained for. "But the storm, Rob! And the roadsl And those awful passes! Taking Tak-ing a horse down the Divide in a trailer In such weather as this!" willing to eat after he'd had a bit of exercise. Dickson came running up, anxious to inspect the racer ha was to ride that afternoon. "Maybe Dickson had better ride him," suggested Ken to Gunston, "so he can get used to him." But Gunston decided that Ken had better take him out for his first run. They saddled the horse and Ken mounted him and moved slowly off toward the track, Dickson close beside be-side Ken, and Gunston and Pratt following. The jockey was firing questions at Ken. Ken answered quietly. No, he doesn't mind the whip. Sometimes Some-times you got to beat hell out of him. . . . No, he's not hard-mouthed. hard-mouthed. You can guide him without with-out any rein at all. He knows where you want to go. . . . Sure, he's got a chance to win the purse ... he can win it, if he wants to, there just isn't any doubt about it. He can run faster than any other horse, I tell you. It's just if he wants to . . Well if he takes a notion ... if he's In a bad temper ... If he's got anything else on his mind" As he said the last words. Ken looked uneasily off at the horizon. Dickson looked anxiously at the horse. Ken added, "Sometimes he starts bad. Don't worry about that. He might start with a rough, hard gallop. gal-lop. That's not his real running gait. Just beat hell out of him. Fight him. Make him mind you. He can catch up with anything once he hits nl,,",U Nell said nothing to that. No. Certainly not the powerful young creature who had overcome such an antagonist as the Albino No it would have been Banner "Rob," she said quietly a little later, "do you think they're safe now?" "I do not." Rob shoved back his chair, went over to the stove and stood with his back to it while he filled and lit his pipe. He took a few puffs, drew the smoke into his lungs, felt the calming calm-ing effect of it, and finally took his pipe out of his mouth and held it, his eyes fixed in a brown study on the floor and said, "Banner will never be safe again." "But but " stammered Nell, "we can send Thunderhead away again he'll go back to that valley with his mares " "And in every storm he'll bring them home," said Rob quietly. "He's done that all his life, he'll continue to do it." And for a while there was nothing to be heard in the cosy kitchen but the whine of the wind around the chimneys, and a sudden furious onslaught on-slaught rattling the windows. Pauly crawled out from under the stove, stretched slowly and sensuously, sensu-ously, curling up her coral tongue, then seated herself and began a leisurely and thorough bath. "No," said Rob again with a sharp sigh, raising his eyes to the ceiling of the room and taking a few more puffs of his pipe, "Banner will never be safe not till Thunderhead is dead or gelded." A sound burst from Nell. "But Rob Ken!" And at that Rob went wild again. "I'm thinking of Ken too!" he shouted. "Do you think I like to do this? Now, when the boy has done better, achieved more, made me prouder of him than I ever have been in my life? If there were any way to get rid of that stallion get him hundreds of miles away from here turn him over to someone else But who would buy him or accept him as a gift? He's no use to anyone." Rob knocked the ahes out of his pipe, slipped it in his pocket, stamped across the kitchen to the porch and started to get himself into his outdoor rig. Woolen trousers into overshoes. Canvas trousers over both, tied at the ankles. Sheepskin lined lumberjack, felt-lined gloves, and deep, padded Scotch winter cap. With his hand on the door knob he paused and looked back at Nell. "I would be smart," he said slowly, "to put a bullet through him and haul him away. Ken would nev-er nev-er know but what he was still up g there in that valley." Nell made no answer and waited for Rob to open the door and leave. But he did not leave. She looked up finally and saw that he was looking at her. waiting. There was a certain expression on his face. He was suffering. suf-fering. He was furious. He was stumped. He saw only one way out he didn't want to hurt her. through Ken. He was asking her. and waiting wait-ing for her answer. Her heart gave a terrible leap, and she felt weak, and sat down at the table. He was serious about this, and he had put it up to her. She leaned her head on her hands. Not to Judge this like a sentimental senti-mental woman to judge it fairly like a judge. No, like someone who Dhas the real responsibility and whose duty it is to find the safest way out for everybody. She could see the years stretch ahead, the constant con-stant annoyance and expense to Rob of having these wild mares and their colts brought down for feed and shelter in storms. At last they would feel that the ranch belonged to them. Thunderhead was oriented to this place, there was no way to prevent his coming, except ex-cept by a sustained program of dis- ' cpuragement 8nd unkindness that When Ken moved out to the track, there was a small crowd strung along the rail, several of them holding hold-ing stop watches in their hands. But this was not one of the times when Thunderhead "'started bad." The familiarity of the light figure on his back, the well-loved voice, and those feather hands Thunderhead went from an easy canter without a hitch into his extraordinary floating float-ing run, and Perry Gunston's narrow, nar-row, tense eyes narrowed still more. He glanced at the watch in his hand, looked at Dickson, shook his head, and put the watch away. Dickson exploded, "Ker-r-rist! You don't see a horse run like that! You just dream about it!" "Gosh Awmighty!" exclaimed one of the others, "he's got the Green-way Green-way purse in his pocket!" "Looks like Ken's sold his horse," said Gunston. It was not until Ken sat down for breakfast with his father in the grill room of the Club House that he learned all the details of Thunder-head's Thunder-head's return. It seemed to him more dreadful even than he had thought. The stallion had not just come home alone, as he often had before, he had returned with the entire band of mares and colts his most cherished possessions and had trustfully put them in the keeping keep-ing of the Goose Bar corrals. And now, if his own plans went through, and his father's plans, Thunderhead would never see his mares again. With head down and eyes on his plate, Ken fiddled with his fried eggs. "Where do you think they all went the mares and colts?" he asked after a moment. "Back to their valley," said Rob. "That's their home. Thv would drift back there and" he broke oft". "And?" prompted Ken, raising his eyes. "I was going to say," said Rob, "wait for Thunderhead. They'd be expecting him to come back, of course, and take care of them. Why aren't you eating your breakfast?" Ken ceased all pretence, laid his fork down and leaned back. It was rather a garbled speech that poured out about Thunderhead's new affection affec-tion for him. His trust. And the way he was so terribly lonely for his mares and his valley, and right now when, for the first time, the ' horse had accepted him and turned toward him as if he was a friend right now, Ken was playing the part of an enemy to him not a friend at aU. Rob listened with an impassive face, eating his hearty breakfast i with zest, buttering his toast, filling I his cup with more hot coffee, glancing glanc-ing around the room, his head cocked as if he was hearing all that was going on as well as the words that came hesitatingly from Ken. He flashed one lightning glance at his boy. He saw the shadowed eyes, and the pallor and the thin drawn lips that had become familiar signs of Ken's heartache. Finally he said sharply, "You've been moving heaven and earth for ' three years to make a racer out of this horse and now you're changing your mind. Can't you stay put? Why in hell do you have to wobble about Like that?" Ken thought that if his father could only see the pictures that moved slowly behind each other in his own mind, he wouldn't ask such things. Right now Ken was seeing the picture of the way Thunderhead had so trustingly laid his head against him and placed his whole misery and longing in Ken's hands to straighten out for him. Ken spoke hesitatingly. "I guess it's just what you always say yourself, your-self, dad what we do to horses when we make them do what we want, instead of what they were naturally nat-urally meant to do." (TO BE CONTINUED) j "And ?" prompted Ken, raising his eyes. "Fifty miles west it's clear weather," weath-er," said Rob, as he threw things into his suitcase. "And, Nell the kid deserves it. The hardest part will be getting out to the highway over the ranch road. It's up to my waist in drifts." Gus had orders to take Shorty and spend all day, if necessary, driving those wild mares and their colts off the ranch. They would hang around for a while, but with Thunderhead gone, they would be at loose ends, and once off the ranch they would go straight back to their valley and stay there. Thunderhead was blanketed and put in the trailer, his head tied low so that he would be helpless in case he wanted to make a bolt for freedom. free-dom. Big Joe and Tommy were hitched to the home-made snow plough, and Gus, bundled up like an Eskimo, with only a slit of storm-reddened face visible between cap and collar, col-lar, forced the horses through the drifts. The car and trailer followed close behind. Ken was not alone with his horse long. Perry Gunston and Tommy Pratt came to look him over and give him his morning oats, and presently pres-ently others of the stablemen and trainers who had heard of the stallion stal-lion gathered around. Thunderhead would not touch his oats. He nosed them, then turned his head away, standing inert and indifferent. Gunston was disturbed. "Off his feed?" he said, looking question-ingly question-ingly at Ken. Ken took some oats in his hand and held them cupped under Thunderhead's Thun-derhead's soft black muzzle. Thunderhead Thun-derhead played with the grains, nuzzled nuz-zled Ken's hand, blew some of them away, then in a weary sort of manner, man-ner, swung his head aside and stood quietly waiting. The boys began to chatter. "It's the trip upset him. When Dusky Maid was brought from Denver, she was off her feed for a week." He might be coming down with shipping fever." To Ken. "You won't enter him. will you? If he's off his feed like this?" "It doesn't mean he's out of condition." con-dition." said Kon scornfully. "He's never out of condition. He can run faster lhan any other horse any time ! he wants to." Gunston suggested that Ken should give the horse a run. He might be |