S SS)I
” B^^LANUMAY
W.N.U. Release. x
INSTALLMENT 12
THE STORY SO FAR:
Dusty King and Lew Gordon had built up of his sweetheart Jodv u
. vast string of ranches In the West. King father. After u/inw nZ °"’ f nd her man who was once his partner, but wai
was killed by his powerful and unscrupu- Roper conducted a Created ° Ut Texas> now his enemy. Jody Gordon had tried to
lous competitor. Ben Thorpe. Bill Roper. herds.on Thorpe’s Montana ranches 6 Told . reco . nc ‘ le her ,ather with Ro P er ’ He re *
Klng's adopted son. was determined to that Jodv had To d fused to compromise with Roper. She then
,venge his death In spite of the opposition and set out for the home of Lew ° Ut W * th Shoshone Wilce - one oi Roper'*
CHAPTER XVII
Shoshone Wilce, riding with Jody
Gordon through the same hundred
mile snow which screened Bill Rop
er and Tex Long in their raid on the
Little Dry, found himself the most
bewildered and the most unhappy of
men.
He could have refused to guide
Jody Gordon to Bill Roper’s rendez
vous; he thought it improbable that
Jody Gordon would have been able
to locate the rendezvous alone. But
whether she found it, or merely got
herself lost, Shoshone Wilce would
have been answerable to Bill Roper
for leaving her to attempt the ride
alone.
The alternative he had. chosen of
fered no greater prospect for a long
and helpful life. Lew Gordon would
go wild as a wounded silvertip at
the disappearance of his daughter;
and e«ery King-Gordon cowboy in
the country would be scouring the
brakes after Shoshone’s scalp.
Jody believed now that the split
between Lew Gordon and Bill Roper
was the basis of inconceivable dis
aster—not only immediate and per
sonal, but far-reaching in its import
to the cow country. Together, those
two very different cattlemen could
have beaten Thorpe, and consolidat
ed the King-Gordon empire.
Separated, Lew Gordon and Bill
Roper were mutually destructive;
Lew Gordon was probably right that
Bill Roper’s savage attacks upon
the Thorpe interests were the cause
of Ben Thorpe’s heavy reprisals
upon King-Gordon. And even though
Roper might bring down Ben Thorpe
in the end, which still seemed in
credible, he could never profit by
Lis victory, even if he lived. Unless
Gordon and Roper could be recon
ciled, Roper would in the end be
come just one more outTawed cow
boy whose trails could have no
fneaning, and only one end.
Jody Gordon had one other motive
in attempting the all but hopeless
reconciliation. She believed her fa
ther’s life to be in the sharpest dan
ger. Bill Roper, an even harder
fighter than the old trail breaker
who had trained him, would auto
matically take those precautions
that would safeguard her father’s
life, if once they could be brought
to work together again.
But the first move toward recon
ciliation must come from Bill Roper
himself. If she could persuade Rop
er to this, there was a bare possi
bility that she could also manage
her father.
It was a forlorn hope; but, as she
taw it, of such vital importance that
it could no longer be ignored. It
was as if events that would alter
the whole history of the cow country
lay in her persuasion of these two
stubborn men. She rode doggedly
now, with set face, trusting Sho
shone to find the way.
They rode until after midnight,
blind, as far as Jody could see, in
the wet fall of the snow. They threw
down their bedrolls then in the shel
ter of stunted snow-laden trees, and
Shoshone Wilce measured grain for.
the horses onto his own poncho.
They pushed on again early the
next morning, miserable in the raw
dawn, after coffee which Shoshone
made in a frying pan. All day long
they rode steadily, stopping only
once for bread and bacon, and to
bolster their horses with more grain.
The snow slacked off, giving place
to a bitter wind. Jody’s knees stiff
ened with saddle cramp and she
continually had to nurse her fingers
deep in her pockets to keep them
from going numb. She had a strange
sense of having taken an irrevocable
step which she might find great rea
son to regret. The fact that the
snow had hidden the trail they had
made, so that no one could follow to
find her, gave her a feeling of be
ing cut off from everything friendly
she had ever known. She no longer
knew where she was. She set her
eyes straight ahead, too proud to
osk Shoshone how far they had come
or how much farther they must go.
Just before dusk they climbed a
long rocky ridge which commanded
the length of a shallow valley set
brokenly with juniper and ragged
cedar.
Shoshone motioned her to stop her
horse. “Wait a minute.”
F'ar down the valley Jody Gordon
could see a faint haze that blurred a
rabbit-fur grey and brown of the
brush and runty timber.
"That’s smoke,” Shoshone Wilce
said at last. “This ought to be the
place.”
"So we really got here at last. ..”
Two hours more.”
"The smoke—that means he’s
there.”
Shoshone Wilce, suspicious and
doubtful by temperament, was less
“Don’t know if it’s him. Some
body’s there. Or, anyway, some
body’s been there.”
A swift panic chilled Jody at the
thought of meeting Bill Roper face
t 0 fac e again after so long a time,
kho tried to imagine what she was
going to say to him, and was com-
P‘Ctely unable. She wondered how
e would look, and whether he would
tii- yiad tc -ee her
9 0 0
Now Shoshone Wilce reached out
to catch her bridle reins, and they
stopped. She started to ask what
was the matter, but checked her
self. Wilce had become tensely
watchful, and she saw that he was
listening.
After a moment or two of utter
stillness, Wilce whispered “Wait a
minute;” and pushed his horse slow
ly forward into the dark. For a lit
tle while as he moved away from
her she could see the tall black sil
houette of his horse against the pale
snow, but soon this blurred with
the darkness and was lost.
Growing impatient at last, and a
little uneasy, Jody moved her pony
ahead after Shoshone. There was a
moment or two of panic, in which it
seemed that she had lost him alto
gether in the dark; but her pony
knew where the other was if she
did not, and presently brought her
alongside.
Shoshone Wilce was sitting per
fectly motionless on his horse, star
ing ahead into a darkness to which
the snow gave a curiously deceptive
luminosity that did not aid the eye.
“I don’t like this so good,” Sho
shone said.
“What’s the matter?”
“No lights.”
They moved ahead a little now,
Jody holding her pony beside that
of Shoshone Wilce. Shoshone moved
his horse forward twenty paces, and
Wilce whispered, “Wait
a minute.”
stopped again for a full minute; then
ten paces more.
Jody said, “What in the world—”
Wilce seized her arm and silenced
her with a quick shake. Then sud
denly—
An inarticulate oath snarled in
Shoshone’s throat; he snatched at
Jody’s rein, whirling her pony. His
own horse came straight up on its
hind legs as he spun it at close
quarters.
“Get going!” he said between his
teeth; and brought his romal down
across her pony’s flank in a snap
ping cut that made it plunge ahead.
She heard the rip of steel on leather
as Shoshone’s gun came out. Then
the silence of the night exploded
into happenings that were incredi
ble.
Two guns smashed out in a swift
flurry of detonation. A queer whis
tling grunt was knocked out of Jo
dy’s horse. It dropped from under
her, and the ground struck upward
with stunning violence.
For a moment Jody Gordon lay
motionless, her cheek buried in the
cool snow. She was aware of fur
ther firing, and more than one run
ning horse, and she tasted blood
from a cut lip; but at first she was
unable to think.
Someone said, “Well, we got one
of ’em, anyway.”
“Haul him inside.”
“Look out now, Bud—no funny
business.” The voice was unknown
to her, as was the figure that now
bent over her. Suddenly the man
jerked forward to peer at her more
closely. , „ ,
“What the—Hey! It’s Calamity
Jane, or somebody!”
Jody Gordon struggled to her feet,
shock giving way to anger. “You
fools, are you crazy? Bill Roper will
kill you for this!”
There was a moment’s silence,
and she sensed rather than saw that
they were looking at each other.
“Bill Roper,” one of them repeat
ed. “She says she’s looking for Bill
Roper!” .
“Lady, you better come inside!
Dazed and shaky as the fall of her
killed horse had left her, Jody Gor
don still appeared the most self
possessed of them all as she al
HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, PERRY. GEORGIA
*
lowed herself to be led into the lit
tle cabin at which she had hoped to
find Bill Roper.
The shack in which she now found
herself was a cramped makeshift,
intended only as a shelter for cow
boys, storm-caught while riding the
northern limits of the Fork Creek
range. A single lantern hung from
a roof pole; and now, by its yellow
light the two men studied her with
an unconcealed amazement.
“By God,” said the older of the
two, “it’s a girl, all right!”
The other man, tall enough so that
the door at his back looked small,
was much the younger of the two.
His face was prematurely hard-cut
—the face of a man who even in
youth had learned an effectiveness
in action upon which he could well
rely. He spoke sharply.
“Jim you know who this is?
That’s Lew Gordon’s girl!”
“Good Lord Almighty! I believe
you’re right!”
“It’s her, sure enough!”
“So you know me?” Jody said.
“I seen you once in Ogallala, and
another time in Bandera.”
The older man shifted his eyeufto
his partner. “Queerest turn of the
cards,” he said, “I ever seen in all
my born days!”
The younger man’s voice was
sharp and strained. “Jim, we got
to get her out of here, and get her
out quick!”
The man called Jim appeared to
consider intently, his eyes still on the
other’s face. “I ain’t so sure,” he
said after a moment.
“You talk like a fool,” the younger
man snapped at his superior. “Look
what we got! We got the law back
of us. We got the most powerful
cowman in the West back of us. We
got one of the biggest rewards that’s
ever been hung up, right ready to
drop into our hands. We’ve located
Roper’s main shebang, after work
ing on it for months. We got all
the odds in the world in our fa
vor—and here comes this girl and
bogs the whole works!”
“Just how do you figure she bogs
it?”
“We got every chance of nailing
our man, right here, any hour now.
But don’t ever think we’ll nail him
without a hell of a sharp fight. Sup
pose this girl gets hurt in this fight,
or gets loose and loses herself, or
runs out of luck some other way?
The quicker we get her out of
here—”
“Can’t.”
“What’s the reason we can’t?”
“We got the bear by the tail. She’s
dynamite so long as she’s here.
I grant you that. But what if
we leave her go? She warns Roper
off. Then where are we?”
The younger man’s eyes were
keen with a repressed excitement.
“Jim—you figure she come to meet
Bill Roper here?”
“She didn’t come here by ac
cident,” Leathers said with convic
tion, “any more than you or me.
And she sure didn’t come here to
throw in with us.”
A swift panic struck Jody with the
shock of a blow in the face. If
Jim Leathers wished, he could hold
her here—literally as bait with
which to draw the man whom it was
his mission to kill. If Shoshone
Wilce had got clear, and could reach
Roper, Roper would certainly attack
as soon as the best ponies of the
raiders could bring him. Or, fail
ing to locate Roper, Shoshone Wilce
might even bring her father—and
what orders Jim Leathers had in
regard to Lew Gordon ahe could only
surmise.
“I’m getting sick of this,” Jody
told Jim Leathers. “You owe me
a horse; there can't possibly be
any argument about that I’ll have
to ask you to rope a pony end bring
him to my saddle—and IT! be on
.my way!”
Slowly Leathers shook his head.
“You won’t give me a pony?”
“I’m afraid—you’ll have to wait
until your friends come, lady.”
For Jody Gordon’s white flash 01
anger there w as no outlet whatever.
She turned away to hide from them
the furious tears that sprang into
her eyes. She took off her sheepskin
coat and flung it on the table, for
the room was very hot; but be
cause her fingers were still chilled
to the bone she pulled off her gloves,
tucked them in her belt, and went
to the shallow fireplace to hold out
her hands to the flames.
They went on talking now in the
drawling, well-considered speech of
the trail, long pauses marking ev
ery interchange. Whatever else they
might think of her, they evidently
did not consider that she implied
any necessity to secrecy.
“If Roper is on his way,” th*
younger rider said thoughtfully,
“and this side rider of hers has got
loose and meets him, so that Rop
er knows what he’s up against—that
might be kind of bad medicine,
Jim. If he’s got his war-riders witi
him—”
“I’ve missed hooking up with Rop
er twenty times when I thought 1
had him,” Leathers said. “I’d socc
er meet up with him on any tem*,
than carry back the word tb*«
1 fell down.”
(TO HE CONTIMKD’
H ImJ|
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