SYNOPSIS
Jim Wall, young cowpuncher from
Wyoming, seeks a new field in Utah,
He meets Hank Hays, who tells him he
is working for an Englishman, Her
rick. Hays and others are plotting to
steal their employer's cattle and money.
With Hays, Jim Wall goes to Her-
rick's ranch. Hays and his lieutenants
drive off a bunch of cattle, Heeseman
is Hays’ rival among the cattle rustlers,
Jim i= sent to meet Miss Herrick. Hays
betrays unusual interest in the girl's
coming. Wall finds himself falling in
fove with Helen, and he fears Hays
has designs on the girl Jim coaches
her in riding western style, and final-
ly kisses her. She is angry and dis
misses him, but relents and asks him
not to leave the ranch. Hays’ men re-
turn from the drive, having the money.
A quick getaway is imperative, Hays
tells them to go ahead, that he
will join them. He comes, with Helen
Herrick-—a capt Hays explains that
he stole Helen for ransom. Realizing
that Helen will be off if
falls into Heeseman's clutches,
Wall does nothing. Heesen
come i Havs leads the gang
into a retreat--The Robbers’
Roost ! he “roost” Jim keeps
watchful eye
riders anpear, ole ken to
cave, and Hays ang
pare for the coming
on
ive
worse Ehe
Jim
an's riders
egeman
CHAPTER X—Continued
—— Ge
Scarcely had he gotten out of sight
when Jim thought of
Smoky should
risked going
cure it, and
pi her bullet
What had become of Hays? Walt-
ing alone among these deflecting bul.
lets wore on Jim's mood. He decided
to peep out of the hole again, To th
end he elimbed to the shelf, rifle in
hand and the glass slung around his
neck.
He econld command every point with
the aid of the field without ex-
posing his head.
An Instant
the field glass,
taken it. Jim
to his pack to se-
the
have
back
had
fun of dodging
ele :
SIASS,
later a far-off shot
thrilled Jim. That might be Smoky.
Suddenly a dark form staggered up,
flinging arms aloft, silhouetted black
against the sky. That must the
sharpshooter. Smoky had reached
him. Headlong he pitched off the cliff,
to plunge sheer into the wash below,
Smoky had at carried out
idea.
Suddenly Jim
mounting the slope.
that he had not Leen discovered
Those on top were
peril to the
Jim marveled at
robber ¢!
Smoky—the last But
reached high enough to
leveling the rifle Le
alm. Then he fired.
“Heeseman I” 1 Jim,
if he himself had held that
Hays, working
Hou back
boomed. One
'
he
least his
espied Hays boldly
But it appeared
yet,
facing the unseen
west
fef. Still an
itl ther shot from
y
gee OY
took deli
er
hissed as sure
gun.
nded and aside, Rhots
knocked him to his
knees, but he lunged up to fire again,
Again he wns or th
for it hroke from his har da
his two revolvers
and as he fired
he backed aga
tion of the wall, Jim saw the
dust spatter from the rock above.
The shots thi and
Flays was turning to the left,
maining gun lowered.
down the slope on the other side.
fired again-
’
he leveled them,
one, then the other,
out
then no more,
were left of Heeseman's
taken flight. Hays watched
strode to the side of the Lig rock,
kept on watching them,
Soon he turned back and,
one gun, took to reloading the other,
It was at this moment that Jim relin-
quished the field glass to take up his
rifle. With naked eyes through
aperture in the brush,
Hays finish loading his gun.
This moment, to Jim's avid mind,
was the one in which to kill the rob.
ber. He drew a bead on Hays’ breast,
But he could not press the trigger,
Lowering the hammer, Jim watched
Hays stride up among the rocks, to
disappear.
Jim leaped up out of the hole to
have a beiter look. Far beyond the
red ridge he discerned men running
along the white wash, There were
three of them, scattered. A fourth ap-
peared from behind a bank, and he
was crippled. He waved frantically to
the comrades who had left him to fare
for himself. They were headed for
the cove where the horses still stood.
And thelr precipitate flight attested
to the end of that battle and as surely,
to the last of Heeseman's outfit,
outfit
sheathing
CHAPTER XI
Jim picked up the field glass and
slinging It on his elbow, essayed a
descent into the eave. On the shelf
he hesitated and sat a moment locked
fn thought. A second time he started
down, only to halt straddling the
noteh, The battle had worked out
fatefully and fatally. Would he see
Smoky again? Yet nothing had
changed the issue. The end was not
yot. With his blood surging hack to
his heart. Jim leaped down to meet
the robber chief,
“Where's Smoky?" called Jim, his
Iyng eyes on Flay's right hand.
“Cashed In,” boomed Hays, fastening
great hollow eyes of pale fire upon
Jim. "He had cover. He plugged 1
don’t know how many. Bat Morley's
outfit had throwed In with Heeseman,
An' when thet gambler Stud broke an’
run Smoky had to head him off. They
killed each other.”
“Who got away? I saw four men;
one erippled.”
“Morley an’ Montana fer two, 1
Copyright~WNU Service.
didn’t recognize the others. They shore
run, throwin’ rifles away.”
“They were making for their horses,
tied half a mile back. Where'll they
go, Hays?"
“Fer more men. Morley Is most as
stubborn as Heeseman. An’ once he's
seen this roost of ours—he'll want it,
an' to wipe out what's left of us”
“Heeseman 7”
“Wal, he didn't
Haw! He's dead.”
The chief strode
the cave and stared
mained at the spot he had selected,
to one side, between the robber and
Helen's covert,
“Jack an’ Mae, too? he ejaculated
in amaze, “How come? No more of
thet outfit sneaked down in hyar.”
“Mac stuck his neodle too far out
of that hole in the eave, And Happy
Jacek stopped a glancing bullet. There's
Just two of us left, Hays. By the
way—you going to bury your dead?”
“No. If I do anythin’ at all It'll be
gurl. Them stiffs ain't a pretty
run, Jim. Haw!
mouth of
around. Jim re
to the
If Jim Wall needed any galvanizing
shock to nerve him to the deed he
had resolved upon, that single posses
sive word was enough.
“I'll! bury them later,” he sald,
“Good. I'm all in. I climbed more'n
a mile to git to them fellers.” Hays
sat down heavily, and ran his right
“Flesh Wound, Nothin’
Over This Minnit”
to Fuss
inside his shirt to feel of the
on his shoulder. Jim saw him
Blood had soaked through his
bulge
wince,
shirt.
“You
“Flesh wound.
An’
wt hurts like sixty.
lower an’—"
got hit. 1 see™
Nothin
I've g
* to fuss over
ot a crease on
Half
{ this minnit
my head TI
! an inch
“I'd have been left lord of Robbers’
Roost 7
“You shore would, Jim.
money, an' a gurl to look after.
{ It Jest didn't happen thet way”
“No; it didn't. Bot It will!”
Lousy with
But
| ber's lethargic mind. Up went his
{| shaggy head and the pale eyes,
! opaque, like burned-out furnaces, took
on a tiny, curious gleam, When his
hand came slowly down from inside
his shirt the fingers were stained red.
“What kind of a crack was thet?”
{ he demanded, puzzled.
“Hays, you forget.”
“Youre sore thet |
square?”
“Hays, I take it you double-crossed
me same as you did them”
“Uh-huh. Wal, you got me In a cor-
ner, 1 reckon. Thar's only two of us
left. I'd be crazy to quarrel, . . . Would
a third of my money square me?”
“No.”
“It wouldn't, Wal, you air aimin’ at
a bargain, Say half then?”
“No.”
A tremor ran over the robber's
frame, That was a release of swift
passion—hot blood that leaped again,
But he controlled himself,
“Afr you tryin’ to pick a fight with
me?
At this Jim laughed,
= ‘Cause If you air, I Jest won't fight,
I'd be senseless, You an’ me can git
along. 1 like you, We'll throw to-
gether, hide somewhere a while, then
build up another outfit”
“It can't be done”
“I'll give you two-thirds of the
money.”
“Hays, 1 wouldn't take another dol.
lar from you--that you gave willing.
ly.”
Jim had turned his left side slightly
toward Hays, concealing his right
hand, which had slipped to his gun
butt, with his thumb on the hammer!
For Jim, Hays was ns good as dead,
“1t'll all be mine, presently,” he re
plied.
“Holdin’ me up, huh?’ rasped Hays,
“Learned to be a shoreenough rob
ber, trallin’ with me, huh?"
“Hays, 1 promised Smoky I'd kill
you-which he meant to do if he had
lived to come back.”
The robber’s face grew a dirty white
under his thin beard. At last he une
derstood, #o much, at least, What vol
umes his stupidity spoke for his ab
sorption! It chapged, Jim's posture,
didp't divey
his unseen hand, suddenly
with tremendous meaning.
“Shore, Thet doesn't surprise me,”
admitted the robber. “When men's
feelin's are raw, as in a time like
this, they clash. But I did my share
to clear the air. An’ if Smoky had
come back he'd have seen it different,
I could have talked him out of it. . ..
Jim, you're shore smart enough to see
thet, an’ you oughter be honest enough
to admit it."
“I daresay
loomed
you could have won
Smoky back. He had a fool worship
for you. But you can't talk me
out of anything.”
“Why, fer Gawd's sake—when I'm
givin' you all the best of the deal?”
“Because 1 want the girl,” thun-
dered Jim.
A great
stricken,
tered,
““Thet !
he gasped.
“All the time, Hank Hays," replied
Jim, steadily, and it was the robbers
eyes, pale fires no longer, that he
watched for thought and will
Still he saw the violent muscular
quivering which slowly diminished to
freeze into rigidity. He had struck
the right chord. In whatever way pos-
sible, Hank Hays loved this woman.
However it had begun, the sordid,
brutal thing had ended in Hays' wor-
ship of the golden-halred sister of
Herrick. Jim read this in the extraor-
dinary betraying eyes; and read more
--that it had been Helen the robber
had fought for, not his lost caste with
his men, not the honor of thieves. It
was this that accounted for the In-
fernal blaze of unquenchable hate, of
courage that death itself could scarce
ly have stilled.
All this immediately coalesced into
the conscious resolve to act and kill!
As the robber sprang up Jim's first
shot took him in the
breast. It whirled him half around.
His gun, spouti flame, tore up the
gravel at Jim's feet. A terrible wound
with its agony, its
mortality, added to the overwhelming
ferocity of jealous hate, gave the man
physical activity. He
hounding the other way, and
that Jim's second shot
mizsed him altogether, Haye’ gun was
booming, but it was also describing
the and jerks as his
body. as passion gave place to
desperate need and the gun aligned
Jim, Jim's third shot
troyed aim, force and conse
astonishment held Hays
Through It realization fil
Thet was it—all the time!"
somewhere
ng
ff conse fougne HR of
superhuman
whirled,
80
swiftly
SAME ourves
Then
itself with de.
lousness,
online face set woodenly,
The ith hammer up, dropped to
explode And the robber lodged
the wall, dead. with
mortal passion
res,
against slant of
the awfulness of his
stamped upon his feat
it was
hand which
Jim The
his gun was so wet
over, breathed,
held
that he thought his blood was flowing
But it was sweat,
“TI wish-
tered Jim,
* senibe
mut
He
Smoky could—know,’
over a convulsive jaw,
shoved Hays off the wall
Wiping his face, Jim staggered to
the rock and sat down, Spent and
heaving. he sat there, operat.
It was over—
All
robbers
The girl!
hole, soon to be
He must pack that
ride—ride away with
his will
ing on a whirling mind
the thing that had had to come.
dead! loyal and fal
alike. What to now?
Escape from that hell
besieged again!
hour and
less
fa
very
her
“Jim—oh, Jim!" came a cry from
k of the cave. ,
“Helen
hoarsely.
She appeared in the opening. “Gone?”
she whispered.
“Yes, gone—and dead.”
“8a W you is hedead™
*You bet your life,” burst out Jim,
his breast oppressed,
“Oh, help me out!”
He ran to assist her. She came slid-
ing out, to fall on her knees, clasping
Jim with flerce arms. Her head fell
against him,
“Get up.” he ordered, sharply, try-
ing to lift her. jut she was more
than a dead weight.
“God bless you! Oh, God bless
you!” she cried. The volce was husky,
strange, yet carried the richness and
contralto melody that had been one of
Helen's charms.
“Don’t say that!™
aghast.
“Jim, you've saved me” she whis.
pered, Jim's hands plucked at her
arms, caught them
She loosened her hold and ralsed her
head to look up at him. He saw only
her eyes, tearless, strained In over
whelming gratitude,
“No—not yet!” he blurted out. “We
must hurry out of this”
She arose, still clinging to him,
“Forgive me. I am selfish. We can
talk some other time. [ should have
realized you would want to leave here
at once. . . . Tell me what to do.
I will obey.”
Jim stepped back and shook himself,
“You kept me from thinking,” he
began, ponderingly. “Yes, we must
leave here, . . . Put on your riding
clothes,
-~gnd all you have.
it's all—over,” he called,
.
he exclaimed,
Take your time,
look out. I've got to bury Hays and
the men”
TO BR CONTINUED,
Earth 330,000,000. Years Old
The earth is 330,000,000 years old
and the universe is between 500,000,000
and 3,000.000,000 years old, These fig
ures are reached by ealeulations on the
radioactivity of lead, thooriam and
uranium,
<
7z
¢Z,
NAME IS
DOROTHY
Christmas
Gifts
By Luella B. Lyons
not & chance of the mailman reach
Mary M bemoaned her neg
ligence in pu her Ch
And that very afternoon,
of them
mile and a half of each other were to
brave the drifts and bold their annual
party, the
“One
them, arch
tting off MET mas
shop the
ping.
eight women
despite weather,
nice
fit to give, and
hole burned rig
of
that had to have a tiny
it smack In the center
she walled to Bob
hard to think of some
for he knew
counted on the
the lid, ton™
March. He tried
way out of the situation
how much she usually
annual party
“I've just had an idea and [I'd wtter
eare for it. being it's lonely.” he declared
rather excitedly. “Where's that sheet
of cellophane you peeled so carefully
from off that box of mine the other
day? Haul that out, get me that snap
shot you had printed to send to my
sister, and by that time—well, who
knows!”
Bob was always thinking up ways
and means to cover up for her lack of
planning and foresight, and she blessed
him as she ransacked happily for the
desired items. But when she again
joined Bob at the Kitchen table, she
gave a startled shriek.
“Hob, dear, that was the only gift In
gight and now you've ruined it” but
he smiled on, his pen Kkoife cutting
away that messy looking burn from
the book lid. Then with an old wood
burning set, he stippled the whittled
edge of that hole In the leather bind
ing. Then he backed that hole with a
double piece of cellophane and bound
the three edges to the inner side of
the book lid with a tiny band of purple
feather which matched the book.
in between the cellophane pleces
Bob slipped the lovely tinted snapshot
of Mary. With a squeal of delight
Mary accepted the new deal In Christ
mas gifts. “The newest thing In fads
Bob, darling,” she assured him delight.
edly. Such a tiny bit of work had
turned a perfectly impossible gift into
something rare that might have come
straight from the gift shop.
And after the women had raved
count, doing over booklds for a long
time after that. "Bless your bad mem
ory, darling.” he teases every time he
makes another entry In the cash book
of this spare time job of his
© Western Newspaper Union,
WRIA DIONE EEN
An Up-to-Date
Santa Claus
By Florence Harris Wells
HERE'S snow stretching as
far as can see In all
directions. We've had no pos
to get out the old car and
as we planned, and
tomorrow.” Tom Lambert
we
ible chance
rattie Inlo town
fast table at his wife, Lucey: “Do you
that even
urge his tiny
expanse of snow?”
“I've talked to them
their faith is boundless.” Lucy's usu-
ally cheerful voice had a break in It
“Yet how could we tell that It would
snow so long and steadily. But you
are better, Tom. We have that to be
thankful for.”
“Yes, I'm better. Anything Is better
than being shut up in a stuffy office
all day for a man that is used to God's
great outdoors. But forget me It's
those three kids I'm worrying about”
“Don’t worry, Tom. Let's have the
faith of the children. I'll pop corn and
we still have a few apples and nuts
for their stockings” 4
It was nearing noon when they heard
the whirr-r of the mall plane over
their heads Mary, Robert and little
Tom rushed out to wave greetings.
“Look! Look!™ little Tom shouted.
“Something's fallen out”
Sure enough, a parachute had been
released. Slowly but surely it descend
ed towards the little
group.
“It's going down
the chimney!” Rob
shouted.
But it missed the
chimney, hit the
edge of the roof
and came tumbling
down In their midst,
a gay umbrella of
red and green, with
a large white bag
securely tied to IL
Wired to the
bunches of holly
and evergreens,
that bedecked the
outside, was a card
“An accurate
guesser of distance, that pilot,” Tom
muttered as he unfastened the card
The children stopped tugging at the
fastenings and listened
while Tom read:
“My reindeer couldn't navigate
in such deep snow; so I'm sending
your things by air mail, because
the alr mail man tells me you are
such friendly children you must
pot be disappointed. «+ Santa
Clans.”
“1 knew Santa Claus wouldn't for |
got us!” Rob shouted
“80 did 1.” Mary and little Tom sald |
in one breath.
Lucy and Tom, Sr, looked at each |
other.
“Some thoughtful pilot,” Tom sald |
soberly.
Perhaps the alr waves carried, to the
fast disappearing plane, the “Merry
Christmas” the little family shouted to
Santa Claus couldn't
reindeer through such an
about it but
© Western Newspaper Unlon,
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The
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