THE CENTRE
© Alan Le May
WNU Service
SYNOPSIS
Billy Wheeler, wealthy young cattleman,
arrives at the ™ 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. He explains to Billy that the morn-
ing before he had come upon bloodstained
ground at Short Creek and found she trail of
a shod and unshod horse. The shod horse's
rider had been killed. The body had dis-
appeared. Link Bender had arrived at the
scene and read the signs the way he had
Dunn reveals that because of a financial
crisis the ranch may be in jeopardy. his
enemies may make trouble since Sheriff
Walt Amos is friendly with them. He says
he has asked Old Man Coffee, the country’s
best trailer, to join them. Dunn and Billy
meet Amos, Link Bender, his son “the Kid"
and Cayuse Cayetano, an Indian trailer,
at Short Creek. Bender has found the slain
man's horse, but the saddle is missing
Almost supernaturally, cattle attracted to
the scene by the blood-stained ground,
stamp out all the traces. Dunn is angered
when Amos tells him not to leave the
county. Following an argument, Bender
draws his gun, but Dunn wounds him in
the arm. Back at the ranch Old Man Coffee
arrives, with a pack of hounds. Co
in search of the dead man's saddle. Dunn
tells Billy that Marian is incensed at him
for trying to settle disputes by bloodshed
He reveals that the ranch is really hers
CHAPTER II—Continued
lf
Wheeler was silent. He could not
altogether agree with Horse Dunn.
He had seen range quarrels settled
by gunfire—but never to the ad-
vantage of either winner or loser.
However, he wasn't going to argue
with the Old Man.
“What if she ties my hands?”
Dunn demanded. “I've got to fight
this thing my own way. For myself
I wouldn't so much mind. But ain't
the qutfit hers, to begin with?”
“Hers?’’ Wheeler repeated.
“Sure, it's hers. Didn't you know
that?"’
Wheeler had not known it. ‘But
look here! You've run this brand
ever since I can remember. You
must at least have some part In-
terest here.”
“Not a penny or a head of stock,”
Dunn told him.
“But I happen to know,’ Wheeler
declared, ‘‘that you've always had
an outfit, another outfit, down in Ari-
zona. Yet your Arizona outfit hasn't
seen you four times in a dozen
years."
“I've had my
Dunn said.
“You mean,” Billy Wheeler said,
“you spent the last twelve-thirteen
years neglecting your own outfit to
build up a brand that don't belong
to you?"
Dunn shrugged. “Somebody had
to take holt. My brother died—sud-
den. He didn't leave the 94 in very
good shape. For two years it was
run by different bosses I hired. But
this same Link Bender—he had a
big outfit then—he was stealing the
94 blind. Pretty soon there wouldn't
have been any 94. And it was all
the kid and her mother had.”
Billy Wheeler stared at Horse
Dunn. Once he had heard it ru-
mored that Horse Dunn had loved
Marian’s mother, long ago.
‘“Marian’s mother always hated
and feared this country. She
brought up Marian to feel some sim-
ilar. That's why the kid can’t stand
gunsmoke, or anything done by
force. You see—my brother died
with a gun in his hand.”
Wheeler, unable to endorse the
Old Man's leaning toward violence,
expressed a belief that there ought
to be some way to avoid smoking up
the range. “If we can hold the 94
steady on the finance side,” he said,
“what can Link Bender's crowd
do?"
“God knows I've took all the steps
I know to steady the finance side,”
Horse Dunn said. ‘A minute ago
you spoke of my having an outfit
in Arizona. Well, I had an outfit
in Arizona. Six weeks ago | sent
word to Bob Flagg, my partner
there, to sell her out. She's sold.
For the last ten days I've been look-
ing for Bob Flagg. He's supposed
to show here with $50,000, as good as
in cash; another $50,000 in different
obligations and notes. Everything
I've got goes to the bracing of the
94."
Horse stared out the open door-
way toward the corrals; and now
Billy Wheeler saw Horse Dunn's
rocky face slowly relax, and soften.
Out at the far corral Marian had
caught the quiet old pony that Horse
had given her, and was preparing
to saddle. Horse Dunn watched her,
his eyes gentle. There was always
a shy humility about that strapping
big old man when he looked at this
girl, this daughter of his dead broth-
er. It was almost as if he might
have been looking at his own daugh-
ter, who had grown up away from
him. After all, she might have been
his daughter, if things had broken
differently once.
“You go ride with her,” Dunn
said with a certain awkwardness.
“You talk to her. Try to make her
see that—that this is a—a different
country, kind of.”
‘She doesn’t take any stock in
me, Horse."
“You go, anyway,” Dunn insist-
hands full here,”
ed. “I don't like to have her riding
this big range alone.”
With a curious reluctance Wheeler
picked up his hat and walked out
to the stable where his saddle was.
CHAPTER III
A rise of dust was going up on the
Inspiration road as Wheeler sad-
dled; he knew the approaching car
must be driven by Steve Hurley.
For a moment he hesitated, for he
would have liked to hear the latest
word from the camp of Horse
Dunn's enemies, Marian Dunn, how-
ever, was loping eastward along an
old trail not far off the Inspiration
road. Steve Hurley would be able
to signal to him from road to trail
if any new word concerned him. He
let his pony lope out and caught up
with Marian within the mile.
“Do you mind if I ride your
way?"
“Maybe,"”” Marian said, “you'll
show me where Short Creek is.”
Wheeler was startled. **Short
Creek?"
“Sometimes,”
easier to look
imagine it."
“1 was thinking some of riding
over that way,” he conceded. “Only
—] wish you'd let somebody know
when you set off to ride a distance
like that, so somebody
with you."
the girl said, "it's
at a thing than to
minute, ‘‘Sometimes it
me you people do everything you
can to make this into an unfriendly
country.”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“These Red Hills, with the sun
on them, are the background of the
DAS “>
“Wait Here,” Wheeler Said to
the Girl.
very earliest memories [1 have.
When I came here again it was as
if I were coming home. 1 felt free
and natural, here—at first. And
Horse Dunn is almost exactly like
my father, what little I can remem-
ber of him—so nearly like my fa-
ther that I can't remember my
father's face any more; because my
uncle's face comes in between.”
‘He worsHips the ground you
walk on,” Wheeler said.
“1 know.” A little shiver ran
across her shoulders, anomalous in
the blaze of the sun. “Then he turns
and does some wild, awful thing—
like yesterday; and it gives me the
strangest feeling of being complete-
ly lost in a country I don’t under-
stand.”
“Yesterday? What awful thing?"
‘‘He—he shot Link Bender.”
“It was kind of unfortunate, sure.
But I don’t know what else he could
do. Link drew on him. And all
your uncle did was to nick him in
the arm, so that he dropped the
gun.”
Marian’s tone was curiously de-
tached, unforgiving. ‘He admitted
he set out to goad Link Bender into
fighting.”
That was not exactly what Horse
Dunn had said, but essentially the
girl was right. It was like Horse
Dunn too that he could in no part
lie to this girl, but would put him-
self conscientiously into the worst
possible light.
“He said more,” Marian added.
‘‘He said that if it hadn’t been for
me he would have killed Link
Bender there at Chuck Box Wash.”
Billy Wheeler started to say, “Oh,
I don’t think—"" It was no use. It
was futile to try to hide from this
girl certain things which she was in
no way equipped to understand, yet
was sure to see clearly. “This is a
different country than you're used
to, Marian. Dry country men
learned long ago to depend on them-
selves; they've lived that way for
a long time.”
The car that had been an ap
proaching funnel of dust upon the
Inspiration road now came careen-
ing around a rutty bend 200 yards
below them. Steve Hurley leaned
from behind his dusty windshield to
wave at them, then brought his car
to a long-rolling stop. He signaled
Wheeler to ride to him.
“Wait here,” Wheeler said to the
girl, He wheeled his horse, then
hesitated to say over his shoulder,
“Don’t worry; we'll work every-
thing out all right.”
He put his horse down to the
road, jumping it through the red
rocks. From behind the wheel Steve
Hurley thrust a big square hand at
him, and Steve's big beefy face
flashed a quick grin. ‘Glad to see
you, Billy; the Old Man said he
figured you'd sit in. As soon as I
see who it was, I pulled up.”
Wheeler glanced at the boiling
radiator. “What's broke in Inspira-
tion, Steve?”
‘The Old Man may be wanting to
call his riders in. Thought I'd stop
and tell you what it was, so’'s you
could signal in any of the boys you
might see while you're out.”
“I'm listening.”
“It's all over Inspiration that
Sheriff Walt Amos will make an ar-
rest within three days. They're say-
ing the sheriff knows who's dead;
that it's a man Dunn swore to kill
if ever he found him on 94 range.”
Steve Hurley's sun-squinted eyes
rested steadily and keenly on Billy
Wheeler.
“Steve,” said Wheeler, “will
Horse Dunn submit to arrest?”
Steve Hurley looked away a mo-
“1 don't
said at last. “But I
Am I right he'll want
know,” he
guess maybe.
his riders in?"
“I'd sure think so.
coming faster than
would, Steve.”
The girl's eyes were questioning
as Billy Wheeler returned to her
side. ‘‘Don’'t worry,” he said; “it's
all going to work out.”
They turned off, no longer paral-
leling the Inspiration road; and for
a long while as the miles slowly un-
rolled under the fox-trotting hoofs
of the ponies neither had anything
10 say.
They were near Short Creek when
the girl spoke unexpectedly. “I'm
glad you came. You make things
seem straighter and smoother, just
the way you pace your horse along,
without any worry or fret.”
“There isn't anything to worry
about."
“You've changed since two years
ago," the girl told him. '"‘Some-
how you're nicer to ride with—
quieter, more restful.”
He glanced at her but didn't an-
swer.
“You used to be a stampedey
sort of person,” she explained, “al-
ways rushing your horse at things.
Whatever you went at, you always
went at it by the same way-—thun-
der of hoofs, taking all obstacles by
storm. 1 think I used to be afraid
of you."
For a moment he wondered if
things would have gone differently
between them if he had been less
eager, less turbulent. When you
wanted a thing too much you over-
played your hand and lost out alto-
gether. Maybe you could love a
girl too much, too soon, and de-
feat yourself the same way. Per-
haps if—
A quarter of a mile away within
the sharp-cut bed of Short Creek
something moved, held steady a
moment, then disappeared. It was
a rider there, who was watching
them; but it was not a rider who
meant to rise in his stirrups and
hail.
“Well,” he said briskly, “this is
Short Crick.
“You see,” he said, pulling up his
horse at the spot the cattle had
trampled, ‘this is nothing but a
place where it just happened that
somebody took a shot at somebody.
What is there to see? Nothing. I
want you to think of this place as
just a crick where horses come to
drink.”
Marian Dunn sat very quiet, star-
ing at the shallow water. He won-
dered what things, terrible to her,
she might be picturing.
This thing is
I figured it
“I'm glad I came,” Marian said.
‘“But especially I'g glad you came.
You—""
“Listen,” he said.
A horse as yet unseen was com-
ing fast down the cut. Its unshod
hoofs padded quietly in the sand at
the margin of the water, so that its
thudding lope was sensed less by
sound than by shock—the faint dis-
tant tremor of the ground.
“What is it?" the girl asked.
“Don't you hear? A horse is com-
ing up.”
“1 don't—"" She started to say
that she didn't hear anything; but
just then the unseen rider cut
through the shallows with a sud-
den sharp sound of thrown water
and the ring of hoofs on stone.
“Who is it?"
“Quien sabe? Turn and ride back
the way we've come,” he told her
without emphasis. *‘I'll be along in
a minute.”
Without a word Marian turned her
horse; she was at the two hundred
yards as a hard-run horse surged
up over the lip of the cut. The rider
was Kid Bender.
The Kid half wheeled his pony,
drove close to Billy Wheeler's
horse; his lean figure swayed back-
wards as he brought his pony to a
sliding stop, very close. Across the
back of his right hand showed the
heavy purple welt that Wheeler's
quirt had laid there; and in his face
was the joyous anger of a man
who takes payment for a past hu-
miliation.
“What you doing here?”
Wheeler ignored the question.
“You're a little off your range,
Kid,” he said. “This range comes
under the head of the 94. Maybe
I'll be ordering you off it pretty
quick. 1 haven't decided yet.”
“No,” said Kid Bender. “I don't
think you will. You're dealing with
a peace officer—patroling the scene
of a crime.”
“Peace officer?”
Kid Bender flipped over the tail
end of his neckerchief to reveal a
nickel-plated shield. It was cheap
and it was new: but as it flashed in
the sun Wheeler felt his scalp stir
oddly, as if he had glimpsed fire
behind smoke. Horse Dunn's view
of the situation was shaping up fast-
er than Horse himself had imag-
ined.
“Yesterday,” said the Kid,
knocked a gun out of my hand.
Billy Wheeler said distinctly,
“With a quirt. I whipped it out of
your hand with a quirt.”
Kid Bender's face darkened for
an instant but the hard gleam of a
joyous anticipation immediately re-
turned to his eye. ‘'I have orders,"
he said, ‘‘to see that the hired men
of the 94 don't trample over the
scene of this crime any more. I'm
starting with you; I'll give you fel-
lers something to remember orders
by. I'm taking your horse and your
gun. Maybe your girl there will
give you a lift after you're afoot.
Or maybe I'll send her on home—I
haven't decided that yet.”
“No,” said Wheeler, “you're not
taking either horse or gun.”
“You're against an officer of the
law. You know what that means?”
“1 know,” Billy Wheeler said,
“what I hope it means.”
For a moment Kid Bender hesi-
tated: they sat watching each other,
two men in a situation frem which
neither could withdraw. One of
them had sought this meeting—the
other welcomed it. Both knew that
something peculiarly personal had
to be settled here, now, between the
two of them alone.
“] see your girl has stopped a
little way up here,” the Kid said;
“seems like she sets watching from
the hill.”
Wheeler suppressed in time an
impulse to glance over his shoul-
der. Instead his eyes never left
Kid Bender as he jerked his chin
sharply toward his shoulder as if he
glanced away.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
“you
"
Nerve specialists contend that
driving an automobile, especially
through heavy traffic, tends to re-
lieve the condition of nervous peo-
ple. But the problem of the bad-
tempered motorist who unnecessari-
ly blares his horn and says many
bad things to other drivers re-
mained one of the great un-
solved puzzles until an official of
The American Kennel club, (gov-
erning body of pure-bred dogs) com-
mented on the subject. He told that
it is recorded in contemporary and
loves — often unreasonably. The
pure-bred dog will not tolerate an
indignity from a stranger.
The philosophy of the dog is very
simple, but very logical. If he gives
his affection, it is given whole-
heartedly. He dislikes trouble, and
will avoid it as long as possible. Yet
his defense mechanism is quickly
stirred by malignant forces. The
curious part of dog and human re-
lationships is that the human being
invariably learns something from
his dog-—the degree of knowledge
varying according to the intel
ligence of the person.
Motorists of the petulant species
are not the only ones who benefit
from the dog. The diabetic, who
also is really of an explosive, worri-
some disposition has a greater ex-
pectation of life if he becomes in-
terested in a dog. Doctors have
recommended dogs as pets especial-
ly for children suffering from dia-
betes.
seh
Zhumks about
Tombstone Inscriptions.
HOENIX, ARIZ.—A gentle
man took me
through acemetery that abound-
stately shafts.
I figured he wanted to show me
that rich folks continue to enjoy the
utmost luxury even
after becoming de-
ceased.
How futile and
how vain are most
tombstone inscrip-
tions. They give the
dates of birth and
death — events in
neither of which the
departed had any
say-so — unless he
committed
And just as the av-
erage graveside eu-
logy is a belated plea for the defense
offered after the evidence is all in
50 an epitaph is an advertisement
for a line of goods which perma-
nently has been discontinued
Somehow this burying gr
stuff reminds me of hired crit
other men's efforts.
between professional
ers and the other obituarians is that
the latter do their work after you
pass on, but the reviewer
wait until you're dead to
literary death notice for
Maybe critics are to ai
fleas were to David Harum's
they keep authors fr
being authors
* * .
suicide.
Irvin 8, Cobb
book review-
Catching Barracuda.
I E° CARILLO is quite
man when not actin
screen or leading parades § our
parade leader 's got
so they don't dare let a colored fu-
neral go past his house for fear he'll
rush right out and head the proces-
sion,
On one of the when there
Victor
se days
We
Glad, Mad Artists,
H ERETOFORE, ti e glad
geniuses, wh duce
sculpture
pieces of
wi resemble nothing
which
or in the wat
ssibly some bad
parties
pretty bili
earth
pe
these
ing
had once
have
among t!
sia for support.
But now one hears diver:
us,
aires may endow for them an
or a gallery—or possibly
asylum for more
there's money be-
d when money gets
in this
provided
it's
violent
demy
an
Cases vhow,
the
hind the cult, ar
behind ung BB
usually flourishes, the
money doesn’t get far behind,
as happened in 1920, when the rest
of the country was trying to figure
out what had become of the deposits
and investments, which we, of the
sucker class, had entrusted to our
leading financial wizards
Still, we of that same ignorant
mass-group do not have to buy ex-
amples of this new schoool. We don't
even have to look at them unless
we're in Germany and are escorted
to the official state-run display by a
regiment of Nazi storm-troopers.
And, aside from their ideas of
what constitutes art, it's said that
some of the artists themselves are
not really dangerous, merely annoy-
ing in an itchy sort of way. In
other words, they're all right if you
don’t get one of 'em on you.
. » »
country it
{00
Pugilistic Authors,
'M ALWAYS missing something.
On the occasion of one really his-
tinguished writers, I yawningly left
Messrs. Sinclair
Lewis and Theodore Dreiser quit
swapping soft blows.
And it was just my luck to be out
a publisher; anyhow some such
Eastman and Mr. Eastman retort-
e4 with a tremendous push which
The typical writer, no matter how
red-blooded his style may be, packs
all his wallops in his pen and never
in his fist. There have been excep-
vions. Once Rex Beach cleaned out
a night club all by himself, but his
opponents were hoodlums, not fel-
low-writers. He had something sub-
stantial to work on.
Some of my belligerent brethren
in the writing game never lose an
argument, but, on the other hand,
none of them ever won a fight
Neither did their literary opponents.
In fact, next to the average profes-
sional pugilist, I can think of no one
who, in the heat of combat, equals
a writer for showing such magnifi-
cent self-control when it comes ei-
ther ta inflicting personal injury or
sustaining same.
IR 8. COBRA
©-WNU Serv
Ask Me Another
® A General Quiz
1. What state did the Indians
give outright to one man?
2. What is intercolonial time?
3. In the early days of railroad
building, how much land was do-
nated to the railroad companies?
4. What writer is said to have
aroused the American public to
the necessity for the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitu-
tion?
5. What is the total value of all
farm machinery manufactured in
the United States last year?
6. How much did the late Sir
Thomas Lipton spend on Ameri-
ca's Cup races?
7. How is the word “saith’’ pro-
nounced, in one or two syllables?
8. At what age are women most
successful?
Answers
1. Rhode Island to Roger Wil-
liams
2. A standard
faster than e:
use in the extreme eastern prov-
inces
3. Approximately 138,000,000
acres of land was donated to the
railroads by the govern-
40.000, -
y the various states,
4. ‘Thomas Paine's pamphlet,
“Common Sense,” is said to have
had a great influence on the draw-
ing up of these documents.
5. $487,273,000.
6. From 1889 to 1930 the tea
raced five Shamrocks
and spent more than $4,000,000,
aic form of
is present
hour
od - rr “
standard, in
time, an
astern
of Canada.
federal
)
approximately
ys 4}
magnate
» archsz
a
of well-
“Ameri-
majority of
1890,
biographies
women given in
"” the
were
naking them forty-seven.
listed born in
Early State Names
If President Thomas Jefferson
wad had his say-so, there would
sve been more than the present
states comprising Northwest
Territory and most of their narhes
tongue twisters.
Northwest
the
wot
WV as
As
”m wie
ier:
Cleveland Plain Dealer.
GOOD RELIEF
of constipation by a
GOOD LAXATIVE
Many folks get such refreshing
relief by taking Black-Draught for
constipation that they prefer it to
other laxatives and urge their friends
to try it. Black-Draught is made of
the leaves and roots of plants, It
does not disturb digestion but stimu-
lates the lower bowel so that con-
stipation is relieved,
BLACK-DRAUGHT
purely vegetable laxative
WOMEN WHO HOLD
THEIR MEN
NEVER LET THEM KNOW
O matter how much your
back aches and your nerves
scream, your husband, because he
is only a man, can never undere
stand why you are so hard to live
with one week in every month
Too often the honeymoon ex-
prose is wrocked by the nagging
tongue of a three-quarter wife. The
wise woman never lets her hushand
know by outward sign that she is
a victim of periodic pain
For three generations one woman
has told another how to go “smil-
ing through” with Lydia E. Pink-
Bam's Vegetable Compound. I$
helps Nature tone up the system,
thus lessening the discomforts from
the functional disorders which
women must endure in the three
ordeals of life: 1. Furting fiom
girlhood to womanhood. 2.
paring for motherhood. 3. Ap~
Don . i. ay wif,
t be a
take LYDIA EE PINKHAMS
VEGETABLE COMPOUND and
Go “Smiling Through.”
WNU-—4 37-37
Yh le lL
of Health
Don't Neglect Them!