F ridgy, June 13, 194! SOUTHERN OREGON MINER Page 6 W.N.U. Release ey-Al*H U MAY Hl.Phillipr p INSTALLMENT 13 Dusty King and Lew Gordon had built ttp a vast string ot ranches. King was killed by his powerful and unscrupulous competitor. Ben Thorpe Bill Roper, King's adopted son. was determined to avenge his death tn spile of the oppon • CHAPTER XVII—Continued A shiver ran the length of Jody Gordon's body. Casually, as if they were talking about getting breakfast, these quiet-faced men were speak­ ing of a proposed death—the death of a boy who had once been very close to her. and very dear. Sud­ denly she was able to glimpse the power and the depth of the animosi­ ty behind the mission of these men. No effort and no cost would seem to Ben Thorpe too great if in the end Bill Roper was struck out of ex- istence. "Jim," the younger rider said so- berly, "if Roper's got his wild bunch with him—Jim, it's such a fight as none of us have ever gone into yet! When you stop to think that any time—any minute—a bunch ot 'em may land in here—” “Charley's on lookout," Jim Leath­ ers shrugged. "We'll know in plenty time." A silence fell, a long silence, Heavy upon Jody Gordon was the panic of an open-space creature held helpless within close walls. Her voice was low and bitter. “You're set on holding me here?" “No call to put it that way." Jim Leathers said mildly, almost gen­ tly. But his eyes denied that mild­ ness, so that behind him Jody sensed again the vast animosity built by the Texas Rustlers' War. “I want a flat answer." Jody said bravely. “Are you going to give me a horse, or not?” Once more Jim Leathers' canine teeth showed in his peculiarly un­ pleasant grin. “Hell, no,” he said. CHAPTER XVIII «IB STORY SO »AH: lion ot hl» »wretheart. Jody Gordon, and her lather After wiping Thorpe out of Texas. Roper conducted a (real raid upon Thorpe'» vast herd» in Montana. Roper left for Lew Gordon'» home when told that Jody had disappeared Unable • • I beyond his age. in a face so dark to reconcile her father with Roper. Jody had set out with Shoshone Wllce to And hin> They weie attacked by some of Thorpe's men hiding in Roper's shack. Wilce escaped but Jody was captured. The men decided to hold her as bait • • dieted, forms lovely large und small accessories. It is fun tu do. • • • Al TOMOIUI.ING AND THE BLOOD TESI "Pull over to the curb!” “What for?” “For a blood test." "But I ain't bleedin’, officer!" "Y o u "'"WILL bel” “It was your own man talked her and lean-carved it was hard to rec­ into it." Gordon said with menace. ognize behind it the face of Dusty “My own man? What man?” King's kid He made no attempt “A little sniveler called Shoshone • • to answer a question which was nec­ Wilce. Everybody knows he was a Thia may be a essarily meaningless to him. He scout coyote for you. before Texas typical Sunday finished pulling off his gloves, unbut­ ever nut you out." afternoon dialogue in heavy auto toned his coat, and hooked his I “Nobody run me out of any place,” traffic this summer. Already one thumbs in his belt before he spoke. Roper said; but hts mind whipped state. New York, has passed a law “I heard yesterday that Jody has to something else. It was true that making the alcoholic content of the turned up missing," he said, “I he talked to certain men in the town blood stream admissible court evi­ came to Miles hell-foisleather to see before he had come here. Now sud­ dence in the case of alleged drunken if it’s so. From what I could fine1 denly he knew that he had learned driving. out down in the town, no word has what he had come to find out. He come in on where she is. If that's buttoned his coat, pulled on his If your blood shows IS-lOOths of true, I don't aim to give my time gloves. 1 per cent alcohol, you're pickled Gordon confronted him stubbornly. And if it holds more than S-lOOths to anything else until she's found." “ I mean you shan’t leave here with­ but less than 15-100ths, you're not "You mean to deny you know out telling me what you know.” any too sober. where she is?” Gordon shouted • • • A glint of hard amusement was Roper's voice did not change. plain in Bill Roper's eyes, "I know has always been the custom to It "You talk like a fool." he said. what you've told me. But I’ll add judge whether an automobile driver Lew Gordon's eyes were savagely this onto it. I think you'll soon was soused or sober by his behavior, intent upon Roper's face; he was have back your girl I'm walking breuth and monologue after the mo­ trying to discover if this tnan could out of here now, Lew, because it's ment of impact. But it is going be believed. time for me to look into a couple of to be a matter for a laboratory from "You may be lying.” he added at things. But I’ll be seeing you—if now on. • • • last, “and you may not, but I’ll tell Thorpe don’t get you first" you this—you sure won't leave here The veins stood out sharply on Once you just called a cop if some t Lew Gordon's forehead, high-lighted driver returning from a wedding by a faint dampness. “In all fair­ tried to go between your front head ness I’U tell you this," he said. "It’s lights, mistaking your flivver for true I can't lift a gun on you, or two bicycles. Now you call a chem j on any man who stands with empty 1st. • • • hands. But as soon as you're out of that door, all Miles City will be on Little week-end travels. Little drop» of gore. the jump to see you don't get loose. Twenty thousand hangs over your Tell which driver's half stewed head, my boy!” And which driver's more. • • • "Quite a tidy little nest egg.” Rop- er agreed. "I'd like to have it my­ The cry after each sound of rip­ self." ping fenders will be, “Quick, officer, And arrangements A trick of the wind sent a great the needle!" whirl of papers across the room as may have to be made to have a chemical laboratory at every pump­ ■ he went out." He had not come here without pro­ ing station. viding that the horse which waited under his saddle was fresh and good. He struck westward now out of Miles City, unhurrying. At the half mile he found a broad cross trail where I some random band of cattle had trampled the snow into a trackless : pavement. He turned north in this. 1 followed it for a mile, then swung and the Blood Test. northwest over markless snow. Now • • • that this horse was warmed a lit­ You may be able to tell how many tle he settled deep in his saddle and pushed the animal into a steady times a man has been arrested for trot; at that gait, even in the snow, drunken driving by the needle he could expect the tough range- marks on his arm. bred pony to last most of the night Lew Gordon's eyes were savage­ Can’t you picture the scene: You ly intent on Roper’s face. are tooling along the highway when CHAPTER XIX some fellow tourist tears off your till I find out where my girl is. You leap out, fire in You're wanted anyway, my laddie A tired horse is not much in­ left fender. buck; there's a legal reward on your clined to shy. toward the end of ■ your eye and demand. "Whatxam- head, right now—and part of it was long day's travel; and when Bill mattah? Doncha know how to put up by me.” Roper's horse snorted and jumped drive?" He falls out of his car, zig "I beard that,” Bill Roper said. sidewise out of its tracks the rider zags unsteadily to your side and re­ “When I get ready to leave. I'll looked twice, curiously, at the car­ marks, "Lisshen, whoosha think thinkya talking to whaffor and what- leave, all right My advice to you is cass which had spooked his pony. A to begin using your head. I may be dead pony on the winter range be­ za big idea cornin' oush side street in a kind of funny position. But it ing a fairly common thing, he was sixty miles sour and nosh give no puts me where I know things about about to ride on, when he noticed warning, huh?”• • • the Montana range that neither you something about this particular dead Now up to 1941 you could just draw nor your outfits have got any clue to. pony which caused him to pull up If you want your daughter back you and dismount for a closer examina­ back and say, “Why, you're drunk, mister!" But not any more better figure to use what I know tion. about the Deep Grass.1’ After leaving Lew Gordon he had You've got to get a needle and make Lew Gordon compelled himself to ridden deep into the night. Half an sure! Perhaps Lew Gordon should have known that if Bill Roper learned of Jody's disappearance at all. Roper would come directly to him. And, knowing this, be should have prepared himself. But Lew Gordon bad not met Roper face to face in nearly two years; and nothing was farther from bis mind than the pos­ sibility that Roper would walk in upon him now. Upon this night Lew Gordon was pacing the main room of his little Miles City bouse; forty-eight hours had passed since bis daughter's dis­ appearance and the old cattleman had lashed himself into a state of repressed fury 'comparable to that of a trap-baffled mountain lion, or a goaded bear. Everything that could be done to locate his daugh­ ter was being done. He knew that Jody’s disappear­ ance was voluntary, and he knew its purpose. The brief but highly in­ formative note that Jody bad left him told him that much. It simply said: “One of you must be made to see reason. I am going to talk to Billy Roper myself.” What this did not tell him was where Roper was, or how Jody ex­ pected to find him. Impatient of mystery and delay, be could not un­ derstand why his many far-scattered temporize. What he couldn’t get hour would bring him within sight cowboys could dig up no word. For around was his own belief that Rop­ of the Fork Creek rendezvous, and all be knew, his daughter was by er knew something definite, specific, he was eager to push on, so that his this time lost somewhere in the about where Jody bad gone—or had deduction as to Jody’s whereabouts frozen wastes of snow, in immedi­ started out to go. He must have might have a quick answer, one way ate desperate need of help. known also, in spite of the bluff to or the other; but when he had ex­ Lew Gordon sat alone for a little which anger had prompted him, that amined the dead pony he was glad while. For the moment his help­ he could not hold Roper here when that he had checked. less anger was burned down into a This was no winter-killed pony. Roper decided to leave, nor force heavy weariness. His mind was full any information from him in any The bright trace of frozen blood that of his daughter, whom he persistent­ had first caught Roper’s eye was way whatever. ly pictured as a little girl, much the result of two gunshot wounds in “ What is it you want to know? ” more of a child than she actually neck and quarters. he asked at last, helpless, and angry was any more. A dark foreboding possessed Rop­ Suddenly it struck him how curi­ in his helplessness. er as he studied the dead pony. Rop­ "In the first place, I want to know ous it was that in this bare room er himself was short-cutting through in which he sat there was no sign what made you think Jody wai the hills, following no trail. The co­ with me?" of any kind that Jody had ever been incidence that he had stumbled upon here at all This was partly be­ “You swear." Lew Gordon de- the carcass in all those snowy cause she had never lived here nor manded, “you don’t know the an- wastes could be accounted for only even been expected here; but it swer to that?” in one way: both Roper and the brought home to him sharply how “I don’t swear anything," Roper pony had followed a line of least much of his life had been given said. “I asked you a question, Lew." resistance through the hills— a line to cattle, how little to his daughter. Lew Gordon hesitated. It was a that had the Fork Creek rendezvous It made him «realize how little be at its far end. His discovery told knew his daughter, and how little good many years sinc^ anyone had him that there had been fighting at talked to him in the tone Bill Roper he bad ever given her of himself. Fork Creek within the last forty­ This was Lew Gordon’s state of took; but for once the purpose in eight hours. If he was right in hand outpowered the violence of his mind as the door thrust open, let­ believing that Jody had come to natural reaction. He turned from ting in a brief lash of wintry wind; Fork Creek— and he wheeled in his chair to face his litter of papers, and handed Bill He remounted and swung north- Roper the little scrap of Jody's the last man on earth he had ex­ handwriting which was all she bad ward, mercilessly whipping up his pected to see. left to indicate where she was gone. weary pony, but approaching the Bill Roper shook a powdering of "One of you must be made to see Fork Creek camp roundabout, be- dry snow oft the roll of his coat reason. I am going to talk to Billy hind masking hills and through hid- collar, then stood looking at Lew den ravines. An hour passed be- Roper myself. ” Gordon in a cool hard silence as he fore he threw down bls reins and When Bill Roper had read that, i pulled off his gloves. Once this man crept on hands and knees to the the eyes of the two men met in hos ­ had been almost a son to Lew Gor­ crest of a ridge commanding the don—the adopted son, in actuality, of tile question. valley of the Fork. Lew Gordon's dead partner. But a “This looks mighty like a false He moved a half mile closer and definite enmity now replaced what lead, to me," Bill Roper said at last. resumed his watch; but for some a little while ago had been a friend­ “Like as if she aimed to cover up time be could make out nothing. ship as deep and close as the vari­ where she really went, Don’t Then just as the sun set. three ance in their ages could permit. AU hardly seem likely she'd start out men moved out of the cabin. For a the meaning of their association, al­ to come to me.” moment or two they stood in the most as long as BiU Roper's life, "I know she went looking for you snow close together. One went back was gone, wiped out by those two because she said she did. My girl into the cabin. The two others dis­ smoky years since the death of don't lie.” appeared for a moment, to reappear Dusty King. Roper shrugged. “Why should she mounted. They separated, and Rop­ For a moment or two Lew Gordon do that?” er watched them ride in opposite di­ stared at him in utter disbelief. Then rections up the nearest slopes of the he whipped to his feet. hills. These passed beyond his sight, “Where is she?" he demanded in­ but in another minute or two their tensely, furiously. “What have you ways were retraced by two other riders. done with her?" y- BiU Roper no longer looked like i "Outposts,” Roper decided, “Somebody’s keeping a hell of • the youngster Dusty King had raised careful watch." on the trail. His gray eyes looked < hard and extremely competent, old A MASK Of FINE F IC T I O N (TO HE CONTINUED) _____ But where? Have you a I needle on you? Probably not. So you yell for a cop. Here Is where the catch comes in. The blood test to be legal must be taken within two hours of the collision. What chance have you of locating a cop these days inside of two hours? Of course, if the drunk is a good fellow and wants to be fair, he will give you a little of his blood volun­ tarily. If he is the right type auto- 1st, he will carry a needle on him, ab his arm and let you have a few drops with a polite “Here’s my blood. Just call me up and if I'm drunk, let me know. We can adjust things." Pattarn 2772 contain» dlroctlpm tur mäkln« square; Illustration» ot It and ot ■lltche»; malerlals required; photograph ot »quar«. Send order to: Hewing Circi» N»»dl»crslt Dept. 117 Minna HI. San »'ranrlaro, Calif. Endo»« IS cent» In coins tor Pal* tern No............ ... Name ............................................. Addre»» ...................................... .......... FAMOUS ALL-BRAN MUFFINS. EASY TO MAKE. DELICIOUS! 2772 \ \ T ANT to win a prize? Thia ’ ’ crochet design wins it re­ peatedly wherever shown. The six-inch square, so easily cro- Jlsk Me Jlnother A General Quiz The Queationa 1. A pundit is u man who is— illiterate, comical or learned? 2. What American city outside the United States has the largest population? 3. How long is a tennis court? 4. Where is the world's largest church building? 5. Which of the following had faithless daughters— Othello, Mac­ beth or King Lear? 8. The name of Elijah Lovejoy is associated with what? 7. Over what country does the House of Savoy reign? 8. What organization la the largest user of office space in the world? 9. What was the area of Ger­ many before the present war as compared to that ot the state of Iowa? 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