© Alan Le May
WNU Service
SYNOPSIS
Billy Wheeler, wealthy young ecattleman,
arrives at the 84 ranch, summoned by his
friend Horse Dunn, its elderly and quick.
tempered owner, because of a mysterious
murder. Billy is in love with Dunn's niece
Marian, whom he has not seen for two
years. She had rejected his suit and is still
aloof. Dunn's ranch is surrounded by ene.
mies, including Link Bender, Pinto Halliday
and Sam Caldwell, whom he has defeated in
his efforts to build a cattle kingdom. Dunn
directs his cow hands, Val Douglas, Tulare
Callahan and others to search for the killer's
horse,
CHAPTER I—Continued
—
“It means the sheriff is on the
ride—he’s left Link Bender's, head-
ed for Short Crick. Maybe you think
he's getting a slow start. He is.
That's the nature of the man. You
ready?”
“Lead out,” said Wheeler, buck-
ling his chap belt.
“Wait.”
Horse Dunn reached down a
broad cartridge belt whose holster
carried a heavy six-gun, and swung
this about his waist. ‘Pick your-
self a gun,” he told Wheeler.
“What's this for?” Wheeler de-
manded.
“In case of emergency, boy.”
Wheeler stared at him. Then he
shrugged, picked a weighted gun-
belt from the wall, and strapped it
on.
“Bring your saddle.”
out a stocky buckskin pony, and
when Billy Wheeler had roped and
rigged this animal, Dunn led the
way out of the layout. Promptly
Horse Dunn pushed his own tall
sorrel into a hard lamming trot.
“I want to join up with the sher-
iff somewheres about Chuck Box
Wash,” Dunn explained. “I'm right
anxious to be with him when he
makes his look-see at Short Crick.”
‘““‘Horse,” said Billy Wheeler,
““what’s happened here?”
“You'll see for yourself, better
than I can tell you, knowing the lay
of country like you do. But I'll tell
you what I know.”
In abrupt sentences he
Wheeler what had happened.
told
in the course of making a cattle
count. The range of the 94 was far-
flung and broken; the first step to-
ward a count was to read the water
holes, to find out what part of the
range the big bunches were fre-
quenting. Reading sign on Short
Creek, Dunn had come upon the
dauble trail of a shod horse and an
unshod horse, ridden side by side.
The trail was going his way. He
rode along it without attention—un-
tii he came upon blood-stained
ground.
“I studied the ground very care-
ful, tracing the trails,” Dunn said.
“In five minutes I knew for sure
I'd come on the place where a man
met his death.”
“But there was no body?"
Dunn shook his head. ‘“The dead
man keeled out of the saddle as he
was shot,” he reported the sign.
“But 1 guess he got stirrup nung,
for he was dragged. His pony pulled
him through the crick. I followed
across, and found where he come
loose. But the dead man was no
more there.”
“lI don’t know as I get this”
Wheeler said.
Dunn gave it as his opinion that
the man on the other horse had fol-
lowed and picked up his victim.
“When 1 saw that,” said Dunn, “I
knew I was looking at the beginning
of something. Maybe—at the begin-
ning of the end.”
For a moment Wheeler stared at
Dunn; then the spell broke. To as-
sume flatly that a man was killed,
when even the identity of the vic-
tim was unknown, seemed to
Wheeler an outlandish stretch, even
for an old tracker.
“This is the darnedest thing 1
ever heard of, Horse,” Wheeler
complained. ‘“What — no corpse?
What kind of murder is this? Who's
missing?”
‘“Nobody’s missing, that's known
yet.”
“Well, what I don’t see,” Wheeler
said, “is why you were in such a
hurry to report to the sheriff, with
so little known.”
“I had no choice. I was still look-
ing over the ground when I sighted
a rider, about a mile off. In a min-
ute I made out it was Link Bender.
Maybe you can remember when
Link's Seven S was bigger than the
94. Maybe you remember how he
tried to pinch out the 9%4—almost
put Marian’s father to the wall. I
broke him of all that! But he's
never swallered that he was licked,
I've got plenty enemies, Billy: but
Link Bender is the smartest of ‘em.
Naturally 7 couldn't leave it so's
he could report he seen me sreak-
ing away. So I had to signal him
over and show him what I found.”
‘““And he read the sign the same
as you?”
“Billy, 1 keep telling you! There
ain't any other way to read that
sign.
“Yes, but look here—the supposed
dead man's horse"
“Link Bender took off on the trail
of the dead man’s horse. Hoping
to find the body, like a fool. I let
him go, and haven't seen him since.
So I don't know what he found. But
he went and reported to the sheriff,
like I knew he would.”
“I should think you'd have been
some interested in the dead man's
caballo yourself.”
“More interested in the other side
of it. The killer's trail took to the
crick. Short Crick runs two hands
deep on stone for two miles, then
disappears in the sand. I took to
the crick and hunted for where the
killer left it. Plenty horse bands
water at Short Crick, wading in and
out. I lost the trail.
“So pretty soon,” Horse Dunn fin-
ished, “I rode back to the ranch.
By that time it had come to me
what I might be up against here. So
I had a wire sent to you."
They trotted two miles in silence.
“I've been trying to figure out,”
Billy Wheeler said at last, “where
I fit in this.”
Dunn was silent for a little way.
“I've got enemies, Billy,” he said
finally.
“A few head of 'em,” Wheeler
agreed.
“And you know, too,” Dunn re-
minded him, ‘‘the cow country is in
terrible bad shape. Everybody has
had to borrow, for three years
straight. Nobody has borrowed
deeper than the 94. Now our debts
come due again. I have to go to
Las Vegas, maybe to San Francisco.
“No, I Never Seen Him Before.”
It's a close call, by God, to keep
the 94 out of bankruptcy! Now sup-
pose this coyote ring, with Link
Bender at the head of it, can force
some trouble onto the 94. Suppose
that trouble is made to look bad
enough so that I can't extend those
yans-—let alone increase ‘em? The
work of 151 years drops from under
per
like a shot pony!
Wheeler frowned. ‘There used to
be a pretty square bunch running
the county offices at Inspiration,”
he said.
“There was while Tom Amos was
alive. He's dead; his boy is sheriff
—and he isn't man enough for it.
Link Bender's ring runs the whole
show. They're fixed to make a case
stick, all right—for a little while—
even if it's a poor one. It's going to
be almighty necessary that we know
more about this than the other
fellers, Billy. I sent for a good
man to help us with that end of
it. I sent for Old Man Coffee of Mc-
Tarnahan.”
“I've heard of him. I guess he's
pretty good on a trail. But still I
don’t see where I fit, Horse.”
“Suppose Link Bender's crowd
can work it out to hold me on some
trumped-up charge—80, 90 days?
Long enough for the 94 to go to
pieces in the face of its called
loans? There's going to be more to
pulling the 94 through the landslide
than a wagon boss like Val Douglas
can handle. There's got to be a dif-
ferent man on the ground-—and that
man is you.”
For a moment Wheeler was
deeply troubled. If, by any chance,
Horse Dunn's prophesies should
prove correct, Wheeler did not see
how he could refuse the old man
the assistance he asked. But evi-
dently this would mean that
Wheeler would have to sign on to
help with the management of the 94,
Thinking of this awkward possibil-
ity, he thought again of the blue
CHAPTER II
Walt Amos, sheriff of the Red
Hills country, was a youngish man,
with a direct but mild gray-green
eye. He led a low-headed pony by
a rope to his saddle horn.
“I'm right glad you rode over,
Horse,”” he said when the 94 men
had drawn up. “You'll be able to
help Link, here, recall how the sign
looked when you first seen it.”
Behind him, lounging in their sad-
dles, sat three others. These,
Wheeler knew, were Link Bender,
tall, hawk - faced, close - lipped;
Link's son, a lanky, weasel-faced
youth whom Wheeler knew only as
“the Kid"; and Cayuse Cayetano, a
saffron-faced Indian breed who wore
a circular shield marked “Indian
Police’ upon a green and black
checked shirt.
These three had nodded in greet-
ing, but said nothing; and now
there was a moment's awkward
pause. In the silence could be heard
an irregular moaning sound some-
where far to the north—the bellow-
ing of cattle working themselves
into a state of mind over some un-
known thing.
“1 was figuring to ride over to
your place later, anyway, Dunn,”
the sheriff said. ‘I was especially
kind of hoping you'd recognize this
horse."
“Link Bender—'" Dunn said slow-
ly—*‘‘he found him, did he?’
‘““He found the horse——this horse:
not the man."
Dunn studied the led horse at the
sheriff's flank. “So this,"
said, *‘is the horse a feller got killed
on."
The horse the sheriff led was a
runty bay of the wild pony type
which infests the intermountain
ranges from border to border. It
bore no brand; but broad on the
withers and extending downward on
the off side almost to the knee were
the dust-crusted stains of yester-
day's blood.
Dunn leaned low to study the feet
led horse. "It's the horse
at last. ‘No, I never seen him be-
fore."
The sheriff looked hopefully at
Wheeler, but Billy Wheeler shook
“Nobody knows the damn ani-
mal!"’ the sheriff burst out fretfully.
“I'd have thought you fellers would
know every horse in the country by
this time."
“You get around as much as any-
body,” Dunn grunted. "Where's the
saddle?”
“Link didn't find any saddle.”
Dunn glanced at the dark, lean-
visaged Link Bender. "Dead man
must have taken his saddle with
him across the big divide,” he com-
mented sarcastically.
Sheriff Amos looked irritated.
“Well, come on; we'll look over the
ground.”
They turned and rode northward
at a jog. A curious tension had
come over them for no plain reason.
They were nearing Short Creek;
and the bellowing of cattle had be-
come near and strong—a fantastic
deep booming broken by whistling
soprano squalls. “What the devil
them steers raising hell about?”
Amos demanded querulously.
Nobody answered him. They rode
in a peculiarly oppressive silence, a
silence somehow unnatural and omi-
nous, even among these naturally
quiet men. Now as they rounded
the shoulder of Two Bull Butte they
sighted the disturbed cattle at the
quarter mile, a dark milling knot,
restless with tossing horns.
Link Bender raised his clenched
hands to the sky and swore abrupt-
ly, savagely. “There goes ybur
sign! There goes your evidence, and
your trails!”
Billy Wheeler's scalp crawled;
men might misread the sign, but
the cattle knew. One of the strang-
est things of the range, ard the
source of many a weird legend, was
the way the big white-faced range
steers would come for miles to
mark the place of a killing, bawling
and pawing, and throwing the dirt
over their backs.
The sheriff said
voice, “Is that the place?”
“Sure it's the place!
blood!”
between his teeth. The Old
upon the milling cattle.
up their ponies.
ly, half
charging riders.
Wheeler had been less interested
in the reactions of the riders.
sign would have been obliterated:
he
would be exasperated and who in-
different,
conspicuous fury of Link Bender,
the red-eyed anger of Horse Dunn—
and the watchful detachment of
Cayuse, the Indian.
The riders were gathering again,
disgruntled as they focused upon
the stretch of creek the cattle had
trampled.
Horse Dunn circled a little and
brought them to Short Creek again
200 yards up-stream.
“Here you see my trail as I come
up to the crick,” he said; “it’s the
trail of the same horse I'm riding
today . . Here you see the trail
of the two horses of the killer and
the feller that was killed, riding
side by side along the rim of the
cut. Right here my trail comes on
to theirs. You, Amos—notice that
my trail is 20 hours younger'n the
other two."
“I'm not so sure,” Link Bender
said.
The sheriff hesitated, studying the
tracks glumly from the saddle. He
turned to the Indian. “What do you
say, Cayuse?"
Cayuse Cayetano spoke briefly
and promptly in Spanish. “This
horse of Dunn's came yesterday,”
he said. "The other two horses,
maybe one day before. Not the
same time."
“That Indian's a deer hunter,”
Sheriff Amos said. “When Cayuse
says he knows, he knows. We'll let
it stand at that.”
“You'll have to take my word for
it from here on,” Dunn told them.
“The cattle sure smeared it up.
But anyway-—here the two-horse
trail dropped down into the crick
bed. So did 1.”
He led them down into the cut
and along the margin of the water,
Dunn moved a hundred yardn
down stream, checked his land.
marks, and stopped. “Here's whem
the feller was shot,” he said; “ho
keeled out of the saddle. His horse
stampeded across the crick, running
some sideways. The feller was be-
ing dragged, like from the stirrup.”
Dunn turned and led across the
shallow water. “As I rode up this
bank,” he told the sheriff, “I seen
that the trail of the killer was fol-
lowing the trail of the stampeded
horse-—~the same as 1.” He led on
another 50 yards across a maze
of cattle tramplings. “Here,” he
said finally,
broke loose from the saddle.”
here?” Amos asked.
“Because he wasn't dragged no
further,” Dunn said shortly.
For a moment now they sat star-
pit which the dusty pawing of the
cattle had dug.
iff Amos asked.
Bender nodded. *'So far.”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Any spectator at a dog show
notices the alert expression of one
dog, while another may appear dis-
interested despite the efforts of its
owner to make it “show off"’ to the
judge. The dog that does not perk
its head or rivet expressive eyes at
tical dog breeders that the A. K. C.
learned various characteristics of
your dog and mine, notes a writer
in the elphia Inquirer. An-
other plain fact about the intedli-
ence of the average pure-bred dog,
their
to
EEERER]
ial
+
natural for some dogs to display its
natural instinct. For instance — a
Beagle, Setter or a Spaniel will be
“all eyes’ with the appearance of a
shotgun or rifle.
All breeds cannot be expected to
show traits of the hunt, but the aver-
age house pet will learn early
to perk up and wiggle, as soon as he
glimpses his own getting a leash
from the hook. Some of the more in-
telligent will show real vanity in
cleaning muzzle and paws after a
romp in the mud. Others have
in m
1363 ll
1252
the sewing bug will get!
u, if you don't watch out, |
young lady! And when it does
there will be a hum in your life
(and we don't mean head noises).
Inspiration Number 1.
The vivacious me |
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new autumn advance. It calls for |
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Fashion has gone color mad
Reds of every hue,
blues, lavender, warm browns, all |
are being featured in smart ave- |
nue shops along the Rue de la |
Paix. i
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for
all
fall.
Morning Frock. |
For most of us, each day de- |
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Sew-Your-Own appreciates this |
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frock in the center. Five pieces |
are its sum and total; seven morn- |
ings a week Any tub- |
well fabric will do nicely as the
material — try one version in|
printed rayon |
Tailored Charm.
The waistcoat used to be a gen-
tleman's but, alas, |
like n another smart idea, |
womankind has copped it. Here |
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quisite waist line, sweet little col- |
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its cycle
The Patierns. |
Pattern 1363 is designed for
sizes 12 to 20 (30 to 40 bust). Size |
14 requires 3% yards of 3-inch |
saterial, plus 18 yards of ribbon |
for trimming, as pictured. |
Pattern 1354 is designed for |
sizes 34 to 46. Size 36 requires 4% |
yards of 35-inch material. |
Pattern 1252 is designed for |
sizes 12 to 20 (30 to 38 bust). Size |
14 requires 3% yards of 38-inch
material.
i
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Valuable Lesson |
The years have taught some |
wiser than this: to spend in all |
things else, but of one’s friends to |
be most miserly.—J. R. Lowell. i
Send your order to The Sewing
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N. Y. Price of patterns, 15 cents
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WNU Service.
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