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INSTALLMENT 10
THE STORY SO FAR-
I Dusty King and Lew Gordon had built
■ ‘ vas t string of ranches in the West.
I King was killed by hls P° werful and un ‘
■ !crupul° u3 competitor. Ben Thorpe. Bill
I Roper. King's adopted son, was determined
I to avenge his death In spite of opposition
CHAPTER Xlll—Continued
But now the scar-mouthed man
B poke suddenly; from his position
at one side he had dared flick his
eves to the door. “Walk, look out!
Don't turn! Watch this buzzard, but
w heel back and stand by me!”
Into the front of the bar two men
had come; they came striding back
the length of the room; their spurs
ringing brokenly. Roper did not see
their guns come out. But suddenly
the weapons of both of them ap
peared in their hands, smoothly and
easily, from no place.
The two men were Lee Harnish
an d Tex Long.
Tex Long’s .45 clicked in the palm
of his hand as it came to full cock.
He said, “Howdy, Bill. A spic girl
just brought us word. Dave Shan
non and Hat Crick Tommy are up
the street. And Dry Camp Pierce.”
“Gosh,” Lee Harnish said, “we’ve
been hunting you for two months!
You want us to blast these Indians,
boss?”
Bill Roper drew a deep breath,
and grinned. At first he could not
even appreciate that here, at last,
were the leaders he needed for his
great raid. All he could think of
was that he had been reprieved from
certain death; and he knew that life
was good.
CHAPTER XIV
The tribute implied by the re-gath
ering of the wild bunch leaders was
one of the most extraordinary things
that had ever happened in Bill Rop
er’s life. There was not much to
their story. Driven out of Texas on
the eve of Bill Roper’s victory, for
a while they had gone their separate
ways. But gradually they had drift
ed together again, in the Indian na
tions, at Dodge, in the northern cow
camps. With Cleve Tanner broken
in Texas, and the roots cut from
under Ben Thorpe’s organization by
the loss of his breeding grounds, the
outlaw riders found themselves un
willing to leave their work unfin
ished. So at last they had come
looking for Roper—and had found
him.
The first thing was to get them out
of there. He named as rendezvous a
lonely shanty on Fork Creek.
Roper himself was the last to ride
out of Miles City. Seasoned night
riders though these men might be,
with names now famous the length
of the trail, most of them were
youngsters still. No one of them
could be trusted not to get a skinful
of liquor, and go gunning for Lash
am’s men on his own hook.
Roper was relieved, therefore,
upon riding into the Fork Creek ren
dezvous in the dreary February twi
light, to find his Texas men already
waiting for him there. They were
eating fresh beef, but not their own,
as Roper came into the little cab
in, stamping the snow off his boots.
Lee Harnish looked sheepish.
“Say, I forgot something. I got a
letter for you here.”
Roper took the worn envelope and
stood turning it over in his hands.
The date showed it to be three weeks
old—no great age, everything con
sidered. But what took hold of him,
so that for a full minute he dared
not break the seal, was that the
letter was from Jody Gordon.
Roper ripped open the envelope.
The whole note covered no more
than half a page; but as he folded
it and put it into a pocket, his hands
were shaking in away that would
have cost him his life if he had been
walking into a gunfight then. There
was a long silence.
With a visible effort, Roper
Pulled himself together. Briefly he
told them what his new wild bunch
had done.
“But we haven’t even scratched
the surface,” he finished. “Unless
we hit Walk Lasham quick and hard,
Thorpe will get his balance again,
and reach his roots back into Texas;
and all the work we did down there
will go for nothing.”
“Me,” Tex Long said, “I aim to
swing with you, and try to finish up
what we begun. But, way I see it,
tne layout up here is terrible bad,
tor our style of work.”
“There isn’t any profit in the way
I figured,” Roper admitted. “I’ve
baen taking a pasear up along the
Lanadian border; I figure it’s an
easy drive. If you criminals are
willing to come on and take one
more crack at Thorpe and Lash
am—”
There’s no one beyond the bor
°ar that’s needing any stock,” Dry
Lamp Pierce said gloomily.
‘Dry Camp,” Bill Roper said,
I m thinking of the tribes.”
t There was a moment’s silence.
Granting that Canada’s full of war
Paint,” Tex Long said; “how the
devil—”
I ve talked to Iron Dog.”
Lvery one of them, each in his
1 Way> P r icked up his ears at
' Iron Dog was a famous war
nor chief of the Gros Ventre Sioux.
ld Bged and starving, his decimated
■ i driven far out of their home
to-intry, i ron Dog no longer was the
u jbornly resisting force which had
/“ ce made his name. But though
e was broken and helpless now,
ernn, nts of his leadership re
— OVI JT Alt;
by hls sweetheart. Jody Gordon, and her
father. Roper's successful raids against
orpe s Texas holdings wiped him out of
the state. Roper then left for Thorpe's
Montana ranches. Jody, told that her fa
t tber ’ s life was *n danger, left her home to
mained, his influence extended over
many bands, and more than one
tribe.
I don’t hold with dealing with red
niggers, much,” Dave Shannon said.
‘These bucks are forced out of
their ranges without any deal made
whereby they get fed,” Roper said.
“Half of them are in as pitiful a
state of starvation as you ever saw.
A big part of the blame for that is
on Walk Lasham. Now I aim to
square the deal.”
I already made us a rendezvous
with Iron Dog, before I knew you
were in on this,” Bill Roper told
them now. “Inside of a month Iron
Dog will be camped on the Milk Riv
er with anyway seven or eight
bands.”
“Seven or eight bands!” Tex Long
shouted at him. “My God, there’ll
be worse than a thousand Indians on
the Milk!”
“A thousand, hell!” Roper said.
“If there aren’t that many buck war
riors alone, I’ll eat the beef myself!”
The men in this little cabin were
not easily surprised, and less easily
shocked or awed; but their usually
unrevealing faces now gave them
away.
“God Almighty!” Dave Shannon
said. It was almost a prayer.
“He’s done it now,” Hat Crick
Tommy said slowly. “You know
“Now I aim to square the deal.”
what happens when you throw that
many loose Indians together? You
got a war on your hands, by God!
They’ll come whooping down Mon
tana—they’ll tear the country wide
open! The whole frontier will go up
in a bust of smoke. Nothing’ll ever
stop ’em, once they get together like
that!”
“One thing will.”
“What will?”
“Grub,” said Roper.
“That might be so,” Dave Shan
non admitted. “I never yet see an
Indian go to war on a full stom
ach . . .”
A tensity had come into that dark
cabin; they were realizing now that
they stood in the shadow of events of
a magnitude they had not dreamed.
In the quiet, Bill Roper’s hands kept
creasing and recreasing the letter
from Jody Gordon. A faint damp
ness showed on his forehead, but
his fingers acted cold and awkward.
"There’s five of us here,” Tex
Long said. “You expect us to just
suddenly feed every Indian in crea
tion?”
“I’ve got twenty-seven riders wait
ing to throw in with us at the first
word.”
“Twenty-seven riders? Where?”
“AH over Montana. What do you
think I did all winter? Holed up like
a she-bear?”
Silence again, while they all stud
ied Roper.
“How many you figure to move?”
Tex Long asked at last.
Roper’s voice was so low they
could hardly hear his words. “Be
tween twenty and thirty thousand
head.”
Tex Long threw his hat against
the roof poles in a gesture of com
plete impatience. “Dead of winter,”
he said; “maybe having to fight
part of the time; why, thirty-forty
cowboys couldn’t drive —”
“We don’t have to handle this
stock like fat beef,” Roper remind
ed him. “We don’t have to pull up
for quicksand, or stampede losses,
or high water. If a hundred head
get swept down a river, what the
hell? Some different Indians will get
hold of ’em downstream. Working
that way, hard and fast, thirty cow
boys can move every head in Mon
‘‘We’re terrible short of time,”
Tex Long said.
“I know it; in another couple of
THIS IS
HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, PERRY, GEORGIA
ride 500 miles to warn him. Walk Lasham,
manager of Thorpe’s holdings In Montana,
saw Roper sitting atone and unarmed In a
saloon one day. Gun In hand, Lasham pre
pared to kill hts hated antagonist who was
leading the rustler's war.
♦ *
months their chuck wagons will be
heading out, and the deep grass will
be full of their riders. We have to
move and move quick.”
“It might be,” Dry Camp Pierce
declared himself, “it just could be
done.” A hard gleam was coming
into the old rustler’s wary eyes,
“And if it can—great God! There’s
never been nothing like this!”
The others seemed to have had
the breath knocked out of them by
the unheard-of scope, the bold dar
ing, the headlong all-or-nothing char
acter of the plan.
“This is bigger than the Texas
raids,” Tex Long said wonderingly.
“This is bigger than anything has
ever been!”
Suddenly Dave Shannon smacked
his thigh with his huge hand. “By
God, I believe it’ll bust ’em!”
Over the pack of outlawed young
sters had come a wave of that fa
natic enthusiasm which sometimes
sways men as they face the im
possible, but Roper, strangely, was
unable to share it. The great raid
he had planned all winter now
seemed futile—a plan senseless and
cold.
“Bill,” said Lee Harnish, “what’s
the matter with you? You got chills
and fever, or something?”
Roper spoke to Harnish alone, as
if he had forgotten the others. “That
letter was from Jody Gordon,” he
said.
“Bad news, son?”
“I don’t know. She wants me to
come to Ogallala.”
“When?”
“Now—right away.”
“What for? Does she say?”
“She says she needs me; she says
she needs me bad, and right away.
I guess she does, all right. If she
didn’t, I don’t believe she’d ever
write, to me.”
The faces of the wild bunch rid
ers were expressionless, noncommit
tal; Roper knew they wouldn’t have
much to say. They were youngsters
still—all except Pierce; but their
faces were carved lean and hard by
long riding, and a lot of that riding
had been for him.
He stood up, shaking his shoulders.
“Catch up your ponies.”
“We pulling out? Tonight yet?”
“You bet your life we are. Ought
to make Red Horse Springs by mid
night.”
“And after that,” Harnish said
slowly, “what is it, Bill? Is it Ogal
lala?”
Once more the silence, while they
waited for Bill.
“It’s the raid,” Roper said.
CHAPTER XV
Lew Gordon came stumping across
the corral of his little Miles City
house, his spurs ringing at every
stride. His big hands, rope-hard
ened and thickened at the knuckles,
swung loose at his sides; but his
face had the look of a man beset.
Opening the back door of the
house he sent a great roar through
the walls—“ Jody! Jody, where are
you?”
She answered him, and Lew Gor
don went to find her.
“What’s the meaning of this?” was
his greeting as his daughter came
running to him through the house.
“You were supposed to stay in Ogal
lala!”
Jody threw her arms about his
neck and pulled his head down to
kiss him; but Lew Gordon was not
to be put off.
“That horse wrangler just brought
me word that you was here," he
said. “There’s a pretty kettle of
soap, when some horse wrangler
knows more about where a man’s
daughter is at than he knows him
self!”
“Dad, will you please sit down?
I tell you, I want to talk to you!”
“Oh, all right.” Lew Gordon
flopped into a chair, jabbed his spurs
into the floor at long range, and
tore off another huge mouthful of
beef.
“There are two pieces of bad
news,” Jody said now. “First thing,
Ben Thorpe has cut under us in
the bidding for the government con
tracts, at Dodge.”
A spark leaped into Lew Gordon’s
eyes; under the pressure of the last
two years he had turned edgy and
garrulous, as if his mind had be
come hasty on the trigger, now that
his hands were idle. “I might have
known it!” his big voice boomed.
“Those infernal—”
“The loss of those contracts is go
ing to hurt,” Jody said; "I’ve
brought the books up into fair shape,
and it looks to me as if King-Gordon
is starting the worst year in his
tory. If the losses go on piling up
the way they are—”
Jody Gordon came and sat on the
1 arm of her father’s chair. "There
was a man rode up to Ogallala from
Dodge City,” she said. “He brought
some very peculiar news, and I don’t
like it at all.”
“If that renegade Colorado outfit
think they’re going to—” Lew Gor
don began.
“This was a Bill Roper man,”
Jody said.
Lew Gordon checked as suddenly
as if he had been struck across
the face.
(TO HE CUNT I!W EDI
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