marked man
© D. APPLETON-CENTURY CO. By H. C WIRE WNU SERVICE
CHAPTER XIII—Continued
Walt brought his eyes back, meet
ing the unreadable darkness of hers.
“Not unless you tell me why you
want it,” he stated flatly. “That
bullet is the only thing I know about
for certain; my key maybe to un
lock a few blind doors.”
“Walt Gandy," Helen asked, lean
ing toward him across the table top,
“did anyone ever tell you that some
doors should never be opened? I
want that bullet for the best of rea
sons. No, I can't explain. I can’t,
Walt. But perhaps if you knew one
thing . . .”
A look of despair came upon lips
momentarily closed; she spread her
hands hopelessly, and then said,
“It’s always true that one lie has to
be covered with another, and an
other. Bill Hollister lied at the
Chino Drake inquest.”
Inside Walt Gandy everything
seemed to stop. He sat like stone.
Steadily Helen went on: “He lied
about being on the south rims that
day the cook was killed. I know,
because I was on the south rims
then myself. Bill wasn't there. Now
will you give me the bullet?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t
got it.”
“But you can get it for me!” she
said quickly. “Can’t you?”
“Tomorrow, maybe, in town. I
suppose we’ll be called in for a
hearing over Powell.”
“And then, Walt, you’ll go.” The
girl’s voice was all at once surpris
ingly tender.
Gandy looked at her. “You’ll tell
me nothing, Helen?”
“Only this, there’s going to be no
war on the Emigrant range, no more
killing. I’m working our troubles
out here.”
“You are!” Then Walt Gandy’s
smile came slowly, the fine lines
crowfooting his bronzed skin. “All
the more reason for me to stick. Do
you think for a minute I’d quit?
Curiosity if nothing else would keep
me hanging around. But I’m in this
as much as anybody. I’m in the
groove, and I’ll see where it leads,
regardless:
“You mean that?”
“Why not?”
Helen Cameron half rose from the
bench, hands on the table edge, and
once more the color was gone from
her face. She dropped back. "You
don’t know what you’re doing! You
can’t! What if you are in it? Go
ahead and throw your life away
and even that wouldn’t stop all this
horror! But I can stop it—and I’m
going to!”
She’d try, no doubt of that, In
•whatever way seemed open. Yet to
Walt Gandy a forced note In this
breathless outburst had too much
the sound of lashing herself into do
ing something almost beyond her
nerve.
His glance shifted out the win
dow into rapidly graying afternoon.
He avoided her desperate eyes, but
could still hear the overwrought
quickness of her breathing. Abrupt
ly it ceased; and then in a darting
look he caught the focus of her gaze
fixed beyond him.
Slowly, Gandy turned, and was
aware that he had been sitting with
his back to the closed hallway door.
In the instant of that discovery he
knew the meaning of the girl’s look.
They were not alone in this house!
He sprang up. But Helen was
ahead of him in reaching the door.
Backed against it, both hands be
hind her gripping the knob, she con
fronted him cold as steel: “Don’t
you dare!”
Gandy reached in under his coat,
came out with the thirty-eight, and
at sight of it her face blanched.
She choked. “Walt!” came from
lips that were suddenly trembling.
Sharply he said, “I don’t want to
hurt you. But I’m going in.” With
his left arm around her he took the
two small fists in his one. She
struggled.
“I’m sorry,” said Gandy. “Things
like this have gone far enough. I’m
going to see who is in there—who
has been listening to my talk!”
He had the girl at one side of the
casement now, released her abrupt
ly, grabbed the knob and flung the
door inward. In the same move he
thumbed back the gun hammer.
The door banged hollowly. Noth
ing sounded after that. For a sec
ond Gandy waited, then stepped
from the kitchen into a dim part of
the house where he had not been
before.
CHAPTER XIV
CASH CAMERON had built early
on the Emigrant Bench, and he
had put up a house with the thick
log walls and deep windows of a
fort. The kitchen wing with storage
shed and foreman’s quarters had
been added later. That was mod
ern; of mill-sawed boards, battened
on the outside, painted white with
in, But as Walt Gandy passed from
the kitchen, through a short hallway
into the great front living-room, it
was like stepping back half a hun
dred years. For this main part had
kept the look of Cameron’s pioneer
ing.
By the glint of rifle barrels he
made out a gun rack near the fire
place. Dark outlines of chairs
showed against the plastered wall.
A Navajo rug woven in an old four
corners-of-the-earth pattern made a
long gray patch upon the floor. Oth
er pieces of furniture were no more
than vague forms, grouped mostly
around the chimney end.
From the moment of entering here
Gandy’s eyes had been pulled re
peatedly to the fireplace maw. Now
he stood squinting at the black
square; until suddenly his nose
brought definite knowledge before
sight registered what he was squint
ing at. The red eye of a cigarette
stub glowed in the fireplace ash.
Lavic? Had he circled from the
bunk shacks and come in by the
front entrance? But Gandy had
watched from the window, and no
one had crossed the open front
clearing. Besides that, Lavic
wouldn’t matter; he was deaf.
His soundless movement carried
him on to a door which must lead
into the family wing of the house.
By this time he knew the front room
was empty. He paused.
“Walt! Listen to me!” Appealing
hands gripped his right arm. Whis
pering, Helen begged: “Don’t! You
can’t help. I’m working this out,
everything! You must not go any
farther.”
But Gandy shook his head. He
freed his arm from her tightening
fingers.
The door gave more easily than
he expected, as if it had been closed
not quite far enough for the latch to
click into place. It opened wide at
his touch, and before him was a
small plain cubicle with a desk, a
“That bullet is the only thing 1
know about for certain.”
chair, and a cot; Cash Cameron’s
office, disordered, empty.
Immediately on his right was a
door leading to the inner court
formed by the house wings. Gandy
sprang across to it, found it un
locked. Whoever had been here was
gone now.
But there was still another pas
sage ahead. He moved rapidly along
this, seeing a bedroom on the left
of it, and then the last room of the
family wing at the end.
Helen Cameron was no longer be
hind him. In her father’s office she
had turned back. Walt stopped, for
the door was open, and he stood
motionless, brought up short on the
threshold of the girl’s own four
walls. It was a large, airy place,
with windows on three sides, cur
tained, a fleece rug on the floor, in
timate with her things that revealed
unguardedly the girl who lived here.
Horsethief Fisher’s voice blared
suddenly outside. Gandy jumped
back along the passage. By the
time he had reached the kitchen the
old bronc rider and Paul Champion
had tramped in. Helen was putting
plates on the dining-room table.
“Man an’ child!" Horsethief burst
out. “Give us grub!"
Horsethief hung his battered hat on
its own particular wall peg and
reached under the sink for the wash
pan.
"Say, Miss Helen,” he called.
“Someone leave here just now? Paul
he was ahead of me coming along
the north pasture and thought a rid
er took off southwest.”
From his position, entering the
kitchen from the living-room. Walt
Gandy could not see the girl. Wheth
er she signaled Fisher or not, he
couldn’t tell.
Without pause nor change in his
conversational tone, Horsethief fin
ished, "But the kid he gets ideas
sometimes. I guess he didn’t see
no one.”
In another step Gandy could look
at Helen Cameron. She was mo
tionless beside the long ranch table,
a dish in her hands. “Walt,” she
said quickly, “I haven’t told them
You'd better.”
He nodded and went to the wash '
bench where Fisher and young !
Champion were bent over, dissolv- <
ing gray dust from their faces. "We
found Ranger Powell this after
noon,” he said “Been dead some
time."
Two dripping faces turned. Horse- !
thief Fisher looked up, made no re
ply, bent again and went on wash
ing the back of his neck.
Paul Champion stood up full
height and opened his mouth.
"Jeez,” he said, drawing it out.
"Where’s the boss?”
“Cameron won’t be around for
awhile,” Gandy told him. "Hollister
will be back some time tonight.
Horsethief, after we eat I’m corping
down to your bunk house. Wait!
there, will you?”
Fisher and Paul Champion were
in the middle of the bunk room, near
an iron barrel stove that had no
Are. A single oil lamp gave dim
yellow light.
So savagely was he gripped In
the urge to smash through any more
barriers and evasions, that Gandy's
stride carried him on close to Horse
thief Fisher, and before the bronc
rider had gathered what was hap
pening, an elbow was hooked around
his neck, and a hard fist was push
ing against his nose.
"If you don't open up and talk to
me.” said Gandy, “I’m going to
crack your skull and see what’s in
it!” Then he grinned, dropping his
arms. “Horsethief, for Lord’s sake
let’s go at this thing flfty-Afty!
"I think you’re the only man on
the C C that has nothing to hide.
I’ve listened to a lot of talk that tells
nothing; now I want to hear some
without a joker in it. What do you
say?”
Horsethief Fisher stared, blinking
sun-squinted eyes. Then the round
face wrinkled with good humor.
It lasted but a moment. Sober
ing, he said, “You’re right, Gandy.
Plenty of side-mouth talkin’. Nothin'
straight out.”
He wiped an open hand downward
over his face as if to iron off the
wrinkles; a slow movement, consid
ering Walt Gandy during the proc
ess. "I’ve been afigurin’ on you,”
he admitted. "Maybe you’re the
man I been lookin’ for. Hollister,
well, something’s happened to Bill
lately. Cash he’s kept away from
gun-fightin' too long. And Miss Hel
en; shucks, I don’t know, she’s all
balled up somehow.”
Gandy propped himself against a
post supporting double bunks and
took papers and tobacco from the
side pocket of his coat.
“Paul,” he asked, turning to the
boy whose ears were visibly stick
ing out, “rustle some wood and build
us a fire, will you?"
"Sure!"
as young ^nampion went out ne
took his belt and big forty-five from
a nail next the door.
"Now then, Horsethief,” said Gan
dy, "tell me who rode off when you
came back to the place tonight. I
know it’s true, because somebody
was at the house before I got there.
Who was it?”
"Man,” Fisher declared, “I don’t
know but I sure wish I did!”
His squinted blue eyes shone with
honest eagerness. "I do,” he ex
plained, “because I been figurin’
myself that it was time to quit this
game of guesswork and see just
who had stacked the cards! I owe
Cash Cameron a debt that I’d like
to pay back by flghtin’ for the C C.
But where do a fellow begin? When
the cook was found dead I had my
hunch. But now with Ranger Pow
ell . . .’’He raised hard hands and
let them fall.
"Make a guess,” Gandy urged.
“About tonight, I mean. Who could
have been there in the house while
the rest of us were away, and who
might have been taking off across
the bench when you came in?”
Horsethief shook his bald head.
"I didn’t see. It was Paul who
caught sight of someone on a smoky
blue, thought he did anyway. But
the only man that rides a smoky
blue in these parts, couldn’t have
been on the C C. Leastwise he’d be
a fool if he did come sneakin’
around now.”
“Who’d that be, Fisher?” Gandy
asked.
"Jeff Stoddard.”
In the act of rolling a cigarette,
Walt Gandy’s fingers stopped move
ment, and his brown eyes lifted for
a long studying look at the man be
fore him. “Stoddard. Owner of the
77?”
Horsethief Fisher nodded. "Only
one I know of ridin’ such an animal.
But Stoddard ain’t set foot on the
place since Bent Lavic began takin’
pot-shots at him two year ago.
Leastwise, I always figured it was
Lavic. And now with Cameron and
Stoddard on the peck over winter j
range in the sink, it don’t seem no
way sensible that Jeff should show
up here."
He looked along the bunk at Fish
er, who had backed against the edge
and sat down. “What was Bent
Lavic shooting at Stoddard for?”
"Judas, I don’t know! Except that
the old fellow is nuts. Hasn’t Hol
lister told you about him?”
"Some. Lavic aimed to be king
cowman here, and isn’t, and seems
to hold it against Cameron. That
it?"
"Hates Cameron,” said Fisher
flatly. "Hates Hollister, too. I’ve
seen it the last couple of months.
Man, I wouldn’t trust that old roos
ter the other side of a fence, lest I
could watch him!
"But then, there a Helen. Bet he
burns candles to that girl like a fel
low does in church to one of his
saints! He sure worships the kid. So
when Jeff Stoddard took it into his
noodle to come courtin' a couple of
year ago, I figure It was Lavic who
used to singe his ears with a rifle
bullet quite too frequent when night
time came and Stoddard started
home.”
Silent for a moment, Walt Gandy
rolled the paper ball In tightening
fingers. Then he looked down and
met Fisher’s gaze.
"Helen in love with Stoddard, was
she?”
"Naw, school-kid stuff," the man
declared. "She was nineteen Stod
dard must have been thirty-flve.
Cash, he didn’t like it so much, and
the thing was ended."
Walt Gandy said nothing. He stood
motionless, leaning with a shoulder
braced against the bunk support,
but with a body gone all at once cold
from more than the chilled air of
the room.' For it was plain to him
now who had been in the house with
Helen this afternoon.
CHAPTER XV
THE immediate, and too obvious,
conclusion brought by this knowl
edge held him in its tight-muscled
silence for perhaps five minutes.
Vaguely he knew that Horsethief
Fisher had gone to the door and
looked out, and that Paul Champion
had not returned with the wood. The
room grew chillier. Fisher came
back and stood near the cold bar
rel stove. Walt Gandy continued
to study the brown cigarette paper
crushed in his fingers.
Helen . . . and Stoddard. A man
thirty-five. Owner of the largest out
fit next to the C C, and Cameron’s
enemy. Only yesterday Pete Kelso
of the 77 in offering a short but
well-paid Job, had said: "There’s
going to be one smashing scramble
for public range that the C C con
trols. The man I boss for is getting
the jump.” The man was Stoddard.
And Stoddard had been here today,
secretly, with a girl who had fought
to keep him from being discovered.
“School - kid stuff," Horsethief
Fisher had declared. ", . . the
thing was ended.” Was it?
Through those five minutes Walt
Gandy stood in a mood both bitter
and hard, piling one grim thought
upon another in what seemed for a
little while an absolute case against
the girl. But in the end he knew
he was overlooking one fact. Helen
Cameron was no cheat.
Gandy twisted his cigarette and
bent over the lamp chimney for a
light. Horsethief Fisher had once
more crossed to the door, opened it
and was looking into the dark. His
bow legs had carried him on a step
outside, when from somewhere on
the slope above the bunk house a
gun’s sudden crash jarred the deep
silence.
At the first impact Gandy puffed
out the lamp. He straightened up in
darkness, one hand slipping out the
thirty-eight. He heard Fisher leap
into the room. The door remained
open, and outside, after the rolling
echo of that first explosion had faded
"There’s going to be one smash
ing scramble for public range
that the C C controls.”
from the timbered slope, all sounds
of every sort were hushed.
“Gandy!”
“Over here.”
Fisher hunched out of the dark.
"Come on! You heard where that
was from?”
"Not exactly.”
"The garden patch!” said Fisher’s
husky voice. "Where the cook got
his!”
But Gandy thought otherwise; that
the shot had come from higher up,
in timber where Powell’s body lay.
Moving outside and sliding on rapid
ly across open ground beyond the
bunk house, he saw that Fisher,
close on his left, had strapped a belt
holster over blue jeans. A dull glint
of gunmetal showed in the bronc rid
er’s hand. Fisher’s left hand came
out suddenly They stopped.
“I dunno,” he whispered, answer
ing a questioning turn of Gandy’s
head. "Thought I saw something.”
Walt was a little in advance. Over
his shoulder he said, "Guess not.
I’ve been watching. Let’s go on.”
Again Horsethief Fisher’s hand
groped out of the dark and touched
him. Gandy shook his head. They
stood facing up the slope. Minutes
passed. He could feel Horsethief
begin to shift restlessly. To the
right of them the barbed wire
creaked in a fence post staple.
The sound was as abruptly star
tling as a shot. Someone was crawl
ing through the fence.
Gandy turned his head, whisper
ing: "Fisher. You wait. Less noise,
one at a time. I’ll go.”
As he crept on beside the barbed
wires his eyes began to pick objects
out of what had seemed solid black
ness. When a gray blot moved
across his vision, soundless as his
own forward advance, it took sfrape
at once in human form.
(TO HF. CONTINUED)
At That, JP'e Doubt Ready
Answer Saved the Day
A certain gentleman was very
fond of golf, and of a little re
freshment after the game. He ar
rived home very late one night,
and was met by his wife in the
hall.
“Well, and what excuse have
you got to offer for coming home
at this unearthly hour?” she asked
angrily.
“It was like this, my dear, I
was playing golf with some friends
and—”
“Playing golf!” she cried in dis
gust. “Are you trying to tell me
you can play golf in the dark?”
“Oh, yes, my dear,” he said
quickly. “You see, we were using
the night clubs.”
These Things Endure
IF WE work upon marble it will
* perish. If we work upon bras£
time will efface it. If we rear
temples they will crumble to dust.
Bu< if we work upon men’s im
mortal minds, if we imbue them
with high principles, with the just
fear of God and love of their fel
low-men, we engrave on those tab
lets something which no time can
efface, and which will brighten
and brighten to a|l eternity.—Dan
iel Webster, “Speech in Faneuil
Hall,” 1852.
I ASK ME O A Quiz With Answer,
_ ______ _ _ __ y Ottering Information
ANOTHER f on Various Subjects
-«
The Questions
1. What tragic handicap afflict
ed the composer Beethoven?
2. Are all meteorites fiery when
they strike the earth?
3. What city in Europe is known
as “The Bride of the Adriatic”?
4. Where and when did the tux
edo first make its appearance?
5. Are any dogs naturally tail
less?
6. Where is frankincense ob
tained from?
7. If an army were decimated
in battle, what fraction of the men
would be lost?
8. In what city are the ruins of
the Parthenon?
9. Have diamonds ever been
known to explode?
10. Is the beaver a docile ani
mal?
The Answers
1. Deafness.
2. Although meteorites shoot
through the atmosphere in a blaze
of fire and are thought to be very
hot when they strike the earth,
many are actually cold, reveals
Collier’s. In fact, one complete
ly covered with frost fell in Colby,
Wis., on July 4, 1917.
3. Venice.
4. In the cheap dance halls of
the Bowery of New York city in
the early nineties.
5. Yes, the Schipperke poodle is.
6. Frankincense is a fragrant
gum resin obtained from trees.
7. One-tenth.
8. Athens.
9. Yes, freshly mined diamonds
occasionally explode with consid
erable violence.
10. The beaver appears docile,
but when aroused will engage in
a fight to the death with his
aquatic foe, the otter.
l’d Rather Be—
I’d rather be a Could Be,
If I could not be an Are!
For a Could Be is a May Be,
With a chance of touching
par;
I’d rather be a Has Been,
Than a Might Have Been, by
far,
For a Might Have Been has
never been,
But a Has Been was once an
Are.
—Ladies’ Home Journal.
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