Illinois Valley News, Thursday, June 5, 1941
Page Six
Kathleen Norris Savs
BÍ~ÁLAN Lt MAY
W.N.U. Release
An hour spent in the Wells Fargo
office with the deputy commission
er, filling out forms, signing papers,
ended as Dusty King and Bill Roper
stood with Lew Gordon on the board
walk. It was the first time the three
had had a word alone since the Cry
ing Wolf had passed into the hands
of King-Gordon.
“Well,” said Dusty King, "we got
her.”
"Maybe,” Gordon said, “this Is
our chance, Maybe now we can get
the cow business on a sound basis,
here in the north, and have some
order, and decent law.”
“You’ll never get a ‘sound basis’
until Ben Thorpe is bust.” Dusty
said.
"What law enforcement we
got In the West is rotten through and
through with office holders that
Thorpe owns.”
"Some day,” Gordon said slowly,
“Ben Thorpe has got to go.”
“Some day? Lew, we've got him
beat!”
King's exuberant mood of victory
was not to be dampened. “You want
law and order?” he chortled. "We’ll
show ’em law and order!”
"That puts me in mind,” said Gor
don. “A feller passed me this here
to give to you." He handed Dusty
King a little twisted scrap of paper,
torn off the corner of something
else. Dusty untangled it, looked at
It a moment, showed it to the others.
F'ive words were penciled on it in
sprawling black letters:
TH« STORY SO FAR:
rivaled King-Gordon in power and
wealth, but he had gained his position
through wholesale cattle rustling and
gunplay. Their opposing Interests came
to a showdown when the Government
announced the auctioning of the Crying
“Who’s this from, Lew?"
Gordon’s
lips
moved
almost
Boundlessly. “Dry Camp Pierce."
Roper knew that name, without
knowing whnt lengths of outlawry
had brought Dry Camp Pierce to
where he was today.
Rewards
backed by Ben Thorpe were on Dry
Camp’s scalp over half the West;
probably it was as much as his life
was worth to show himself in Og-
allala now.
“This note—”
Dusty King tossed it off with n
shrug.
"Oh—I suppose Thorpe is
getting drunk some place and spout
ing off about what all he's going to
do to me, when he catches up.”
Dusty’s teeth showed in his infec
tious grin. “I suppose Dry Camp
thought I ought to know about it.”
“He's right. Dusty," Lew Gordon
said. "We do want to look out, all
of us, al) the time.”
“We always had to look out,”
Dusty scoffed.
“It'll be the more so now. There
isn't anything in the world Ben
Thorpe's people will stop at. Dusty.”
“Let 'em come on.”
“We want to look out,” Gordon
said again.
“If you feel that way about It,”
said Dusty, "what was the idea of
your working through that law we
can’t wear guns in town?"
Bill Roper said, “We could have
brought it to nil open shoot-out. five
years ago ten years ago. Better if
we had "
Gordon
Ing ever gets fixed up « ith guns ”
Dusty King pulled his hat a little
more on one side so that he could
wmk at Bill Roper unobserved But
he said. "He’s partly right. Bill Ben
Thorpe isn't just one man any more.
Walk Lasham—Cleve Tanner—any
one of a dozen others could step into
his shoes. It's n whole rotten or
ganization has to be busted up.”
“Ben Thorpe downed, and they'll
quit," Bill Roper thought
“Hen Thorpe down and it’s only
begun.” Dusty countered. “Get it
cut of your head that you can tlx
anything up by downing Ben Thorpe.
Not wlnle this organization stands
in one piece. Might be a good idea
fur you to remember that. Bill, in
cast' anything happens.”
“Dusty,” Bill said, “if ever they
get you. by God, I'll
If it’s the last—’’
“No," said Dusty. "You hear me?
No. If they get me —you'll reniem-
ber what I said.
You remember
you're flgl ng a thing, and a big
one; not just me man.” His face
crinkled in that fa imiliar, contagious
grin.
“Forge < t it!
Dry Camp's
spooky, that's i all."
He hocked an arm through his
partner’s, and I went swaggering off.
Ten paces down tlie walk he
stopped, turi ed. and came back
He leaned ch sc to Roper. "If any-
thing should happen, kid—remem-
ber what I aid ”
t n tri i
k
in
That Lew Gordon had a daughter
was not so surprising as that he had
onlv one Single-minded, he elung
■ 11 his life to tlie memory of the
wife he had lost when their first
child was bom
Jody Gordon was twenty now She
didn’t exactly run Lew Gordon; no-
body (fid Hint But It was fairly •P-
parent that his stubborn bid for su
premacy in western cattle was in-
tended in her behalf, and without her
would have been meaningless to
him.
Because Gordon hadn't wanted his
grl Altering around through the
she broke away
to hold her.
she said, "standing around making
an impression on each other."
He turned from the window, and
she was laughing at him as he had
thought, her mouth smothered with
her fingers.
"Come here a minute," he said,
going toward her.
She twisted from the edge of the
table, as if to put it between them,
but she was too late. His rope-hard
fingers caught her wrist, and held
her as easily as if he had dallied
a calf to the horn.
“Listen.” he begged her. “Lis
ten—
He caught her up, clamped an
arm behind her head, and kissed
her hard. Hard, and for a long
time.
So long as she was rigid in his
arms, fighting him, he held her;
but when she stood limp.
limp, neither
yielding nor resisting, his arms re
laxed, and Jody tore herself free.
She lashed out at him like a little
mustang, striking him across the
mouth. Her face was white, all that
quick, irrepressible laughter gone,
as for a moment she looked at him.
A trickle of blood ran from Bill
Roper's lips, and made a crooked
mark on his chin, Then she turned
and fled.
When she was gone
stood still, sucking his cut lips. After
a little while he went to the win
dow, instinctively turning to open
space for his answers.
He could remember Jody Gordon
as a little tow-headed kid. before her
hnir had darkened into the elusive
misty brown that ft was now Or as
a colt-legged girl with scratches on
her shins from riding bare legged
through the sage. Or as a peculiar
ly tempestuous, uncertain thing, nei
ther child nor woman.
But this
I
latest phase he couldn't understand
at all.
He picked up his hat. and for a lit
tle while stood turning it in his
hands.
Then he threw it in the
corner, and went searching through
the house.
Jody was tn the tallest of the four
foolish towers, From here you could
see tlie town, and the slim, glitter
ing line of the railroad. connecting
these far plainsmen with a world
hungry for beef.
Jody said matter-of fact’.y, "We've
got to have more loading pens, Bill.”
Bill’s face broke into a slow grin.
Abruptly he laid hard hands on dis
used sashes, and broke them open
Wolf land in Montana Bill Roper, King’»
adopted son, had inspected this territory
and found it to contain an almost un
believable wealth of grass. Bidding went
high at the auction, but King beat out
Thorpe to gain control of the land.
• •
Into their little cubicle flowed the
sweet air of the open prairie sweep,
at
inspiriting with the fresh smell of
the new grass.
She said, “Tell me about your new
job."
"It isn't new.”
"They said that you’d be the new
boss of the Crying Wolf, if we got
it,” Jody said.
For more years than he could re
member, he had been working to
ward this opportunity—the chance
to take two years, or three, with
such-and-such cattle, on such-and-
such land, and show that he could
pay out on market deliveries in
pounds of beef. But now—a mil
lion horns and hoofs didn't seem to
mean so much.
Something was here—something
that wasn’t any place else—not on
the long trail, not in the wild termi
nal towns. He knew now he had to
tell her that, and he dreaded it, be
cause she probably would think it
was funny. He wouldn't look at
her as he spoke, because he didn't
want to see her laughing at him.
"I don’t know as I’m so much in
terested as I was,” he said.
Even if Hugh turns out to be a scamp he util hardly be able to du any
"Why, Billy—not interested in the thin# crueller to Sally than did the ueak mother uho let a lV-year-old girl go
Crying Wolf—nearly five hundred out to night clubs, dancing u ith men she hardly knew, and to be brought home,
square miles of feeder land! What's when her own escort failed her, by a drunken stranger.
come over you?”
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
“I guess maybe I’m tired of rid-
WHAT TO DO . . .
QOMETIME8
second
ing alone,” Bill said.
Sally itH cripple . . . she’s in love
thoughts are so curiously
with Hugh . , . and Sally’s mother
“Alone? With all the outfit you'll
wonders whether to meet Hugh's
have—I wouldn’t call it alone.”
different from first ones
terms or sacrifice her daughter’s
“I would. Grass country is lonely that one finds oneself, some
wishes. It’s a hard question, es
country.” he said now, "as lonely what shamefacedly, com
pecially since Sally’s inactivity is
as the dry plains, You get to won-
due to a tragic event that would
pletely
reversing
the
original
dering what the everlasting cattle
never have occurred had her moth
That’s what hap
er been wiser four years before.
add up to, in the course of a life. position.
Don't fail to read Kathleen Norris’
Then some night you know you don’t pened to me after I read this
broad minded, revealing answer to
care what they add up to; and you letter, which presents a
this “Troubled Mother.’’
think. ’Damn fat beef!' ”
strange and unusual problem.
"Why, Billy—why. Billy—”
“My dear Mrs. Norris,” writes a may have your answer within a few
"None of it means a damn, with- Pittsburgh woman who signs herself
days.”
out you’re there,” he told her. only “Troubled Mother,” "I am a
Not a Fortune-Hunter.
"Working cattle doesn't mean any- widow with two daughters, Sally
That's the gist of the letter, and
thing, because you’ll always have and Betsey. Sally, now 23, was in-
as I say my first impulse was quite
all the cattle you need anyway; and jured four years ago when return-
different from my second as to an
no long trail means anything, with ing from an evening party, Her fa
swering it. I felt that Hugh was a
out you’re at the end of it. I’m sick ther had refused to let her go, but
fortune hunter who would sacrifice
of long drive-trails, empty of you her escort was a boy we had known
honor for money, get possession of
at the end."
for some time and I finally yielded the entire worldly wealth of a wid
There was a long, motionless si and said yes. Unfortunately the boy ow with two young daughters, and
lence: he kept his eyes on the far became affected by drink on this oc then perhaps ill-treat his wife to
sand hills as presently she leaned casion, and Sally came home with the point where she would pass out
another group. There was a terri of the picture entirely.
forward to look up into his face.
"You really mean it, don’t you?” ble accident, one of the girls and
But on second thought I realized
the driver were killed, and some
Jody said.
that this letter from Sally’s mother
Jody’s words came very faint, and thing happened to Sally’s spine so reveals more than she probably sus
that she never can walk. I have al
a little breathless.
ways felt that grief over this tragedy pected. For one thing, Sally’s fa
“Why didn't you say so before?”
shortened my husband's life. He ther didn't want her to go on that
He looked at her then, and she
fatal night party that ended her
died of flu the following winter.
wasn’t laughing. In her eyes was a
young gay dancing days so tragical
Confined to Wheel Chair.
new. grave light, such as he had
ly, and for another Sally's mother
"Fortunately we were left well hasn't been any too successful in
never seen; a warm light, a beloved
light, better than sunset to a weary provided for, and although unfortu her management of the estate since
day-rider who has worked leather nate investments have somewhat her widowhood.
since before dawn. Timorously, but lessened our holdings, I have been Arrangement Could Be llappv One.
very willingly, she came into his able to provide my girls with a
It is highly possible that Hugh
harming home, garden, music, ed-
arms; and he held her as if she were
sees that if she is allowed to go on
not only a very precious but a very ication. hospitality. My Sally is a
making foolish investments there
fragile thing. For a little while it beautiful creature, wheeling herself will
soon be nothing left for any-
about
from
porch
to
garden,
refus
seemed that one trail, a trail longer
one, whereas if he handles it wisely
than the Long Trail itself, had come ing to be invalided. They tell me and
sensibly they will all be better
there is no reason why she should
to its end.
off. At 34 a doctor has reached an
not be a wife and even a mother.
"Can’t believe.” he said at last,
“That is the problem. About a age to think of marriage and fa
his lips in her hair, "you’re sure-
year ago she met a doctor who was therhood, and although Sally can
enough mine.”
born and whose family lives in this never go with him to movies or
"All yours—all. all”
city
He is romantically good-look dances or banquets, it is highly pos-
They had one hour, there in the ing, steady, ambitious and success sible that with her intelligence, de-
prairie lookout tower, discovering ful. and my poor little girl fell mad votion, sweetness she can make a
each other, getting acquainted as if ly in love with him at once and can home for him that will rival all
for the first time. The sun went think of nothing but Hugh.
these amusements.
down in a gorgeous welter of color.
If he is a charlatan he certainly
“He liked her. and was always
Jody shivered a little. “I wish gentle and brotherly and sympathet hasn't betrayed it in his past his-
Dad and Dusty would come, Espe- ic with her. They talked books, mu tory. He has a fine position and
cially Dusty.”
sic, played games, but Hugh never has already made himself a dis
"Why?”
made love to Sally, even when vis tinguished figure in his own field.
"He has so many enemies, Some ibly she grew almost frantic with the He will give Sally a very ecstasy
motions that were too much for her. of happiness, and it seems to me
of them are dangerous as diamond-
backs It worries me when he’s due Finally I told Hugh of the situa her chances of successful wifehood
tion.
He was much amazed and are as good, or possibly better, than
and doesn't get back.”
very
thoughtful,
saying that at 34 he those of girls who have had every
himself.
”
"Dusty'U take care of
had
been
once
or
twice in love but thing their own way. who think of
Bill Roper chuckled, and held her
that he had never thought of Sally nothing but themselves, and who
closer.
in that connection, had indeed made never have had the stern disci
One half hour more . .
pline that Sally has had.
a
sort of petted little sister of her.
Up from the town came a crazily
A Good Risk.
ridden horse, splashing mud eaves- He said he would think about it.
So
I
sent
in "Troubled Mother’s”
Wants
Entire
Estate.
high under the urge of spur and
"When he brought me his answer envelope my advice that the risk
quirt.
"He’ll lame his pony if he goes it was this. That he really loved was a good one All marriages are
down in that slick." Bill commented. Sally without being in love with her risks, and Sally’s own opinion of the
and was very fond of Betsey, too. man she loves might be considered
"Now what do you suppose—’’
He said he would some indication of his worthiness.
The rider tried to pull up in front Betsey is 19.
marry
Sally
if
I
would make over When Sally’s troubled mother dies,
of tlie house, and the frantic pony
be it few or many years from now,
swerved and slid, mouth wide open to him my home and my proper
it will surely be a satisfaction to her
to the sky.
Its shoulder crashed ties and all the girls' properties and
to know that Sally is in safe hands,
give
him
the
complete
management
the fence, taking down a dozen feet
That on no other that there is a man who loves her,
of pickets. The rider tumbled off. >f the estate
and who is into the bargain a good
ran up the steps to hammer on the terms would he consider the ar
doctor, close beside her.
rangement.
as
Sally
must
always
door.
The small amount of pride the
lave an attendant near her and he
Roper went clattering down the
felt the responsibility too much oth- "troubled mother” will have to
stairs, pulled open the door, "Now
rwise. Sally and Betsey will in swallow is insignificant compared
listen, you—”
with the happiness which Sally will
herit their share when Betsey is 25
“Bill—Dusty—Mr. King—h<
1 told him I felt deeply ashamed receive by marrying the man she
Bill Roper froze, and there was a
hat I had betrayed my child by loves.
long moment of paralyzed silence,
Even if Hugh turns out to be a
making him the original suggestion.
“Spit it out, man” Roper shouted
"He was called away at just this scamp he will hardly be able to do
at him.
time for a three months stay in a anything crueller to Sally than did
“BiU—he’s daid!"
Chicago hospital, and Sally drooped the weak mother who let a 19-year-
“Who—who—"
almost into illness. She grew »hin old girl go out to night clubs, danc
“Dusty King's daid Bill, they
and pale, lost all her animation, ana ing with men she hardly knew, and
gunned him — they gunned him became a shadow of herself. Noth to be brought home, when her own
down!"
ing we could do roused her, but escort failed her. by a drunken
"Who did?”
.vhen Hugh returned 10 days ago stranger. Two-thirds of our traffic
“Tain’t known.
Mr, Gordon's she suddenly blossomed into radi accidents happen at night; thou
there; he—”
ance again and sent for him at once. sands of them happen when dazed,
Bill Roper walked out past the After a long talk he told me that sleepy youngsters stumble out of
cow'boy stiffly, like a man gone he was still willing to accept my road houses, stupid with poor food,
blind. Without knowing what he did proposition, but on his own terms. I bad drink, bad air, smoke and noise.
he walked down to the gate, and temporized, feeling that Sally’s The problem of Sally's life never
stood gripping the pickets with his whole future is at stake, and am would have to be solved today if a
two hands.
sending you an atr-mail envelope wiser mother had solved it four
(TO Bl CONTI NT ID)
with an assumed name so that I years ago.
press of Ben Thorpe’s ruflfiians at
the auction, getting his own boys
into fights, Jody Gordon was wait
ing here for news of what had hap
pened to the Crying Wolf. Bill Rop
er vaulted the foolish little picket
gate, scuffed the mud off his boots
on the high front steps, and let him
self in. He sent a Comanche war
gobble ringing through the house,
but Jody was already flying into the
room.
"Did you get it? Did you get it?”
"All of it!”
Jody flung herself at him, and
kissed him; so sweet, so vital, so
completely feminine that he wanted
to keep her close to him. But she
broke away again as he tried to
hold her.
"How much did it cost?”
"Seventy cents—gold.”
Jody’s breath caught. "Can ne
come out on it?”
"Sure we can come out on it. Not
a cent less would’ve turned the
trick. Dusty—”
Jody sat on a walnut table that
had come all the way from St. Louis,
and swung her feet. The story
seemed to tickle her in more ways
than one. "I can just see you all,”
IN GOD’S NAME LOOK OUT
Should She Marry Him?
Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)
INSTALLMENT 2
Dusty King and Lew Gordon were
Joint owners of the vast King-Gordon
range which stretched from Texas to
Montana. When building up this string
of ranches, they continually had to tight
the unscrupulous Ben Thorpe. Thorpe
• a
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lightfully in embroidery.
• • •
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Send your order to:
Box 166-W
AUNT MARTHA
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Enclose 15 cents for each pattern
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Birds in the \V ar
Despite violent disturbance and
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cathedral and Trafalgar square in
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ever, while the gulls of the
Thames embankment, the star
lings that twitter under the eaves
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haunts. Any evacuation that oc
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to their previous homes, bombs
or no bombs.
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As ‘‘unkindness has no remedy
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WNU—13
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ST. LOUIS. MO. «
23—41
•••••••••••••••••••••a
TEACHING A CHILD
VALUE OF PENNIES
A child of a wise mother will be
taught from early childhood to l-e
come a regular reader of the ad ver
tisements. In that way better perhaps
than in any other can the child be
taught the great mine of pennies and
the permanent benefit which comes
from making every penny count.
••••••••••••••••••••e
: