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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 1937)
Cattle Kingdom -\ By ALAI EE MAY • Alan Le May WNU Servica _ J SYNOPSIS BUly Wheeler, wealthy young cattle man. arrives at the 94 ranch, sum moned by his friend Horse Dunn, its •Iderly and quick-tempered owner, be cause 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 enemies, includ ing Link Bender, Pinto Halliday and Sam Caldwell, whom he had defeated in his efforts to build a cattle kingdom. Dunn directs his cow hands, Val Doug las, Tulare Callahan and others to search for the killer's horse. CHAPTER I—Continued —2— “It means the sheriff is on the ride—he’s left Link Bender’s, head ed for Short Crick. Maybe you think he’s getting a slow start. He is. That’s the nature of the man. You ready?” “Lead out,” said Wheeler, buck ling his chap belt. “Wait” Horse Dunn reached down a broad cartridge belt whose holster carried a heavy six-gun, and swung this about his waist. “Pick your self a gun,” he told Wheeler. "What’s this for?” Wheeler de manded. “In case of emergency, boy.” Wheeler stared at him. Then he shrugged, picked a weighted gun belt from the wall, and strapped it on. .tiring your saacne. At the corrals Horse Dunn pointed out a stocky buckskin pony, and when Billy Wheeler had roped and rigged this animal, Dunn led the way out of the layout. Promptly Horse Dunn pushed his own tall sorrel into a hard lamming trot “I want to join up with the sher iff somewheres about Chuck Box Wash,” Dunn explained. "I’m right anxious to be with him when he makes his look-see at Short Crick.” “Horse,” said Billy Wheeler, “what’s happened here?” “You’ll see for yourself, better than I can tell you, knowing the lay of country like you do. But I’ll tell you what I know.” In abrupt sentences he told Wheeler what had happened. Morning of the day before, Horse Dunn had been riding Short Creek In the course of making a cattle count. The range of the 94 was far flung and broken; the first step to ward a count was to read the water holes, to find out what part of the range the big bunches were fre quenting. Reading sign on Short Creek, Dunn had come upon the double trail of a shod horse and an unshod horse, ridden side by side. The trail was going his way. He rode along it without attention—un til he came upon blood-stained ground. “1 studied the ground very care ful, tracing the trails,” Dunn said. “In five minutes I knew for sure I’d come on the place where a man met his death.” “But there was no body? Dunn shook his head. “The dead man keeled out of the saddle as he was shot,” he reported the sign. “But I guess he got stirrup hung, for he was dragged. His pony pulled him through the crick. I followed across, and found where he come loose. But the dead man was no more there.” “I don’t know as I get this,” Wheeler said. Dunn gave it as his opinion that the man on the other horse had fol lowed and picked up his victim. “When I saw that,” said Dunn, “I knew I was looking at the beginning of something. Maybe—at the begin ning of the end.” For a moment Wheeler stared at Dunn; then the spell broke. To as sume flatly that a man was killed, when even the identity of the vic tim was unknown, seemed to Wheeler an outlandish stretch, even for an old tracker. “This is the darnedest thing I ever heard of, Horse,” Wheeler complained. “What — no corpse? What kind of murder is this? Who’s missing?” “Nobody’s missing, that’s known yet.” “Well, what I don’t see,” Wheeler ■aid, “is why you were in such a hurry to report to the sheriff, with «o little known.” “I had no choice. I was still look ing over the ground when I sighted a rider, about a mile off. In a min ute I made out it was Link Bender. Maybe you can remember when Link’s Seven S was bigger than the 94. Maybe you remember how he tried to pinch out the 94—almost put Marian’s father to the wall. I broke him of all that! But he’s never swallered that he was licked. I’ve got plenty enemies, Billy; but Link Bender is the smartest of ’em. Naturally I couldn’t leave it so’s he could report he seen me sneak ing away. So I had to signal him over and show him what I found.” "And he read the sign the same as you?” “Billy, I keep telling you! There ain’t any other way to read that ■ign.” “Yes, but look here—the supposed dead man’s horse—” “Link Bender took oft on the trail of the dead man’s horse. Hoping to find the body, like a fool. I let him go, and haven't seen him since. So I don’t know what he found. But he went and reported to the sheriff, like I knew he would.” “I should think you’d have been some interested in the dead man’s caballo yourself.” “More interested in the other side of it. The killer’s trail took to the crick. Short Crick runs two hands deep on stone for two miles, then disappears in the sand. I took to the crick and hunted for where the killer left it. Plenty horse bands water at Short Crick, wading in and out. I lost the trail. “So pretty soon,” Horse Dunn fin ished, “I rode back to the ranch. By that time it had come to me what I might be up against here. So I had a wire sent to you.” They trotted two miles in silence. "I’ve been trying to figure out,” Billy Wheeler said at last, “where I fit in this.” Dunn was silent for a little way. “I’ve got enemies. Billy,” he said finally. "A few head of ’em,” Wheeler agreed. “And you know, too,” Dunn re minded him, “the cow country is in terrible bad shape. Everybody has had to borrow, for three years straight. Nobody has borrowed deeper than the 94. Now our debts come due again. I have to go to Las Vegas, maybe to San Francisco. “No, I Never Seen Him Before.” It’s a close call, by God, to keep the 94 out of bankruptcy! Now sup pose this coyote ring, with Link Bender at the head of it, can force some trouble onto the 94. Suppose that trouble is made to look bad enough so that I can’t extend those loans—let alone increase ’em? The work of 15 years drops from under like a shot pony!” Wheeler frowned. "There used to be a pretty square bunch running the county offices at Inspiration,” he said. "There was while Tom Amos was alive. He's dead; his boy is sheriff —and he isn’t man enough for it. Link Bender’s ring runs the whole show. They’re fixed to make a case stick, all right—for a little while— even if it’s a poor one. It’s going to be almighty necessary that we know more about this than the other fellers, Billy. I sent for a good man to help us with that end of it. I sent for Old Man Coffee of Mc Tarnahan.” “I’ve heard of him. I guess he’s pretty good on a trail. But still I don’t see where I fit. Horse.” "Suppose Link Bender’s crowd can work it out to hold me on some trumped-up charge—60, 90 days? Long enough for the 94 to go to pieces in the face of its called loans? There’s going to be more to pulling the 94 through the landslide than a wagon boss like Val Douglas can handle. There’s got to be a dif ferent man on the ground—and that man is you.” For a moment Wheeler was deeply troubled. If, by any chance, Horse Dunn’s prophesies should prove correct, Wheeler did not see how he could refuse the old man the assistance he asked. But evi dently this would mean that Wheeler would have to sign on to help with the management of the 94. Thinking of this awkward possibil ity, he thought again of the blue eyes of Marian Dunn, of the strangely lovely glow of her face in the reflected light of the red-gold hills. For him there was a magic in that girl. It was a magic which could humble a man, and break him, heart and soul; taking the light out of every victory he might win, when only she turned away her face. And he heard her voice, full of that same magic still: “I’m sor ry—truly sorry ...” Far ahead dark specks of horse men showed, emerging from Chuck Box Wash as if from the surface of the plain. Dunn booted his pony into a lope. CHAPTER II Walt Amos, sheriff of the Red Hills country, was a youngish man, with a direct but mild gray-green eye. He led a low-headed pony by a rope to his saddle horn. “I’m right glad you rode over. Horse,” he said when the 94 men had drawn up. “You’ll be able to help Link, here, recall how the sign looked when you first seen it.” Behind him, lounging in their sad dles, sat three others. These, Wheeler knew, were Link Bender, tall, hawk - faced, close - lipped; Link’s son, a lanky, weasel-faced youth whom Wheeler knew only as “the Kid”; and Cayuse Cayetano, a saffron-faced Indian breed who wore a circular shield marked "Indian Police” upon a green and black checked shirt. These three had nodded in greet ing, but said nothing; and now there was a moment’s awkward pause. In the silence could be heard an irregular moaning sound some where far to the north—the bellow ing of cattle working themselves into a state of mind over some un known thing. “I was figuring to ride over to your place later, anyway, Dunn,” the sheriff said. "I was especially kind of hoping you’d recognize this horse.” “Link Bender—” Dunn said slow ly—“he found him, did he?” “He found the horse—this horse; not the man.” Dunn studied the led horse at the sheriff’s flank. “So this,” Dunn said, “is the horse a feller got killed __ li on. The horse the sheriff led was a runty bay of the wild pony type which infests the intermountain ranges from border to border. It bore no brand; but broad on the withers and extending downward on the off side almost to the knee were the dust-crusted stains of yester day’s blood. Dunn leaned low to study the leet of the led horse. “It’s the horse from Short Crick, all right,” he said at last. “No, I never seen him be fore.” The sheriff looked hopefully at Wheeler, but Billy Wheeler shook his head. “Nobody knows the damn ani mal!" the sheriff burst out fretfully. “I’d have thought you fellers would know every horse in the country by this time. “You get around as much as any body,” Dunn grunted. “Where’s the saddle?” “Link didn’t And any saddle.” Dunn glanced at the dark, lean visaged Link Bender. "Dead man must have taken his saddle with him across the big divide,” he com mented sarcastically. Sheriff Amos looked irritated. “Well, come on; we'll look over the ground.” They turned and rode northward at a jog. A curious tension had come over them for no plain reason. They were nearing Short Creek; and the bellowing of cattle had be come near and strong—a fantastic deep booming broken by whistling soprano squalls. “What the devil them steers raising hell about?” Amos demanded querulously. Nobody answered him. They rode in a peculiarly oppressive silence, a silence somehow unnatural and omi nous, even among these naturally quiet men. Now as they rounded the shoulder of Two Bull Butte they sighted the disturbed cattle at the quarter mile, a dark milling knot, restless with tossing horns. Link Bender raised his clenched hands to the sky and swore abrupt ly, savagely. “There goes your sign! There goes your evidence, and your trails!” Billy Wheeler’s scalp crawled; men might misread the sign, but the cattle knew. One of the strang est things of the range, and the source of many a weird legend, was the way the big white-faced range steers would come for miles to mark the place of a killing, bawling and pawing, and throwing the dirt over their backs. The sheriff said in a strange voice, “Is that the place?” “Sure it’s the place! The fool crit ters have swarmed in on the smell of blood!” Wheeler heard Horse Dunn curse between his teeth. The Old Man jumped his pony forward, whipping up side and side, and charged down upon the milling cattle. The others joined him, whooping and whipping up their ponies. The steer bunch broke reluctant ly, half inclined to face out the charging riders. Wheeler had been less interested in the running off of the cattle than in the reactions of the riders. All sign would have been obliterated; he was anxious now to see who would be exasperated and who in different. Watching, he noted the conspicuous fury of Link Bender, the red-eyed anger of Horse Dunn— and the watchful detachment of Cayuse, the Indian. The riders were gathering again, disgruntled as they focused upon the stretch of creek the cattle had trampled. Horse Dunn circled a little and brought them to Short Creek again 200 yards up-stream. “Here you see my trail as I come up to the crick,” he said; "it’s the trail of the same horse I'm riding today . . . Here you see the trail of the two horses of the killer and the feller that was killed, riding side by side along the rim of the cut. Right here my trail comes on to theirs. You, Amos—notice that my trail is 20 hours younger'n the other two.” "I'm not so sure, l.uik rsenaer said. The sheriff hesitated, studying the tracks glumly from the saddle. He turned to the Indian. “What do you say, Cayuse?” Cayuse Cayetano spoke briefly and promptly in Spanish. “This horse of Dunn’s came yesterday,” he said. “The other two horses, maybe one day before. Not the same time.” “That Indian’s a deer hunter,” Sheriff Amos said. “When Cayuse says he knows, he knows. We’ll let it stand at that.” “You’ll have to take my word for it from here on,” Dunn told them. “The cattle sure smeared It up. But anyway—here the two-horse trail dropped down into the crick bed. So did I.” He led them down into the cut and along the margin of the water. Dunn moved a hundred yards down stream, checked his land marks, and stopped. “Here’s where the feller was shot,” he said; “he keeled out of the saddle. His horse stampeded across the crick, running some sideways. The feller was be ing dragged, like from the stirrup." Dunn turned and led across the shallow water. “As I rode up this bank,” he told the sheriff, “I seen that the trail of the killer was fol lowing the trail of the stampeded horse—the same as I.” He led on another 50 yards across a maze of cattle tramplings. “Here,” he said finally, “is where the feller broke loose from the saddle.” “How’d you know he fell loose here?” Amos asked. “Because he wasn’t dragged no further,” Dunn said shortly. For a moment now they sat star ing morosely at a shallow bowl-like pit which the dusty pawing of the cattle had dug. "This what you saw. Link?” Sher iff Amos asked. Bender nodded. “So far.” (TO BE CONTINUED) Light Beam Devised to Protect Sleep Walkers; Is Suggested for Hospitals A safeguard for sleep walkers, ty ing them to bed with intangible and almost invisible light beams instead of ropes or strips of bedeloths. has been devised by a British manu facturer of photo-electric cells and similar devices, states a London correspondent of the Chicago Trib une. One or more light beams of dim blue or red light are directed across the bed from special lamps and re flectors like miniature searchlights. These beams enter one or more light-sensitive cells, which give an electric current so long as the light beam enters them. If anything in terrupts the light beam, even for a small fraction of a second, the electric signal ceases. This stoppage may be made to sound an alarm or to work any other kind of electric apparatus. When the sleeper retires this light beam system is switched on. If then the sleeper gets out of bed or even sits up in bed. his body must cut one or more of the light beams passing across the bed. This casts a shadow on the light-sensitive cells, stops for an instant the electric current from this device and sounds whatever kind of alarm that has been provided. In hospitals the device is sug gested to watch over restless or de lirious patients not attended con tinually by a nurse. Any move of the patient to get out of bed instant ly flashes a signal to the nurse in charge of the ward. For sleep walkers who want to break their habit or to guard against hurting themselves, the alarm may be arranged to ring a bell if the sleeper arises and thus to wake him up. to turn on the bed room lights, to lock the door auto matically, to call some other mem ber of the family or to do anything else that may be desired to protect the sleeper. Attractive Church In Mexico The Great Church of Santa Prisca, at Taxco, Mexico, built in 1757 is reminiscent of some of the wonder fully picturesque places in Spain, with its huge dome decorated in glazed tiles in vivid ultramarine, orange, green and white sparkling in the intense sunlight Matching Lace Triuis Silk Sheers By CHER1E NICHOLAS O MATTER how much your ' taste and the general tenor of your life may call for practical tailored and sportsy-type clothes, there come big moments when none other than a really and truly dress-up dress will answer to oc casion. If anything more apropos can be found than either of the stunning models pictured in the way of dressiest-dress gowns that tune graciously to afternoon func tions, garden parties and such, pray tell, where is it? The illustration presents exactly the type of dresses we have in mind. Here you see two gowns that are one hundred per cent voguish. 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