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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 14, 1941)
// Bv"~a an Lt MAY W.N.U. Release t INSTALLMENT 11 THE STORY SO FAR: Dusty King and Lew Gordon had built up a vast string of ranches in the West. King was killed by his powerful and un scrupulous competitor. Ben Thorpe. BUI Roper. King's adopted son, was deter mined to avenge his death in spite of * * the opposition of his sweetheart, Jody Gordon, and her father. Daring raids upon Thorpe's Texas holdings wiped him out of the state. Roper then prepared for a great raid upon the vast herds on Thorpe's Montana ranches. Several * i < thousand Indians had gathered near the Canadian border to take every beef that was driven across. Shoshone Wllce, one of Roper's men, told Jody that her fa* ther's life was In danger, so she rode to warn him. He was surprised to see her. CHAPTER XV—Continued When Lew Gordon spoke, his voice was so quiet that its very stillness carried threat of imminent destruc tion. "Bill Roper sent a man to you?” “I didn’t say that. He's a man who was with Bill Roper in the Texas Rustlers’ War; he doesn’t seem to be in the Montana raids.” “Who was it?” Lew Gordon rum bled. “What’s his name?” “Shoshone Wilce." "Wilce! I know that name. I know It well. I’d rope and drag him in a second, if I caught him talking to you!” This man has talked with Ben Thorpe in Dodge,” Jody told her father. “A lot of strange news is working down to Thorpe from up here in Montana. Some bands of rustlers are slashing up and down Montana throwing lead and leather into the Thorpe outfits under Lash am; they say he’s badly hurt al ready—nobody will know how badly until the winter breaks." Her father waited, his eyes angry. ‘‘The word from Dodge explains half the trouble that King-Gordon is up against,” Jody said. ‘‘Thorpe can’t believe that one lone cowboy, deserted by everyone who should have been his friend, could manage to smash his Texas holdings, and go on to cut away his herds in Montana. He thought that we were backing Billy Roper in the Texas Rustlers’ War. And he believes that we’re backing him now.” “Well?” Lew Gordon said. “You mean to say you came all this way to tell me that?” “Ben Thorpe means to kill you.” Lew Gordon’s face showed no change of expression. But he did not reply at once. “I don’t doubt it,” he said at last; ' what would you expect? You bring war into a range and anybody is likely to go down.” Jody’s face was white. “You know what’s at the bottom of all the trouble we’re having,” her father said. “You know as well as I do that two years of nothing but trouble lays square at the door of BiU Roper.” Jody sprang up to face him. “I . certainly do not know anything of * the kind!” she answered him. Lew Gordon stared at her. “It’s an everlasting shame upon the cow country that Dusty King’s killers are still in their saddles. I tell you, Billy Roper is the only man I’ve seen with courage enough to—’ * And now her father angered as she had seldom seen him anger. “You’ll tell me nothing!” he roared. “Rop er! I’m sick of hearing his name—a dirty outlaw whelp that knows noth ing but kill and burn and raid!” Jody’s eyes narrowed and filled with tears. “You may as well know this,” she told her father. “The day that Billy Roper dies I want to die too.” For a moment Lew Gordon aeemed bewildered; he stared at his daughter as if the devil had come up through the floor. The girl who faced him was entirely strange to him. He heard her say, “If you had stayed by him, as Dusty King would have done, Thorpe would have been whipped and through, long ago.” “Child,” he said queerly, “what are you talking about?” “If you’d only take Billy Roper back into King-Gordon—” “That’ll never happen while I live,” her father said flatly. A silence fell between them, pres ently broken by the girl. “He asked me to ride with him once, when he first took the outlaw trail. I wish I had. To the last day I live. I’ll wish I’d ridden with him then. And now I’ll tell you something more. If ever he asks me again, I’ll go." For several moments he stared at her, more shaken than he had been since the death of Dusty King. Then his face congested, and he rose up on his boot heels to tower over the girl. “By God,” he said, his voice un steady with the repression he put upon it, “that closes the deal! I've kept my riders off him because of Dusty King, and I let him run on and on, rousing up a range war that has close to busted King-Gordon. But when it comes to tampering with you—it’s the end! I'm through, you hear me?” He caught up his battered sombre ro, and his spurs rang as he turned toward the door. “Dad, what ate you going to do?” “Thorpe has a reward on Bill Rop er’s head. King-Gordon i3 going to double that reward.” He went storming out, his face black and violent with portent of war. For several moments Jody Gor don stood motionless where he had left her. Then she turned and went out of the house to the long shed like stable. Shoshone Wilce was loitering there in the shadow of the rear wall, an uneasy and restless figure. “Did you find out where Billy Rop er can be reached?” Jody demand ed. "Yes, mam, I kind of did. I guess; and I got to be getting on there. Miss Gordon. If you'll just give me any message you want me to take, I’d sure like to be pulling out of here, before—” "All right. You be here with two good horses just after dark.” ‘‘If you could just as leave give me the message now, I’d sure like to—” “There is no message. I’m going with you to Bill Roper.” Shoshone Wilce looked like a man entrapped. “I can’t do it! Your fa ther—I just won’t do it, Miss Gor don!” “All right. I'll -make the ride by myself.” “Hey, look! You can’t—” “Bill Roper isn't going to like this, Wilce." Shoshone studied her searchingly, but found nothing to reassure him. It was in his mind that this girl would do exactly as she said. “My "I’d sure like to be pulling out of here before—” life ain’t worth a nickel, either way,” he almost whimpered. “You be here with the horses,” Jody said. She turned and went into the house, leaving Shoshone Wilce standing unhappy and uncertain, an kle deep in the wet snow. CHAPTER XVI The rounding up of the wild bunch of riders lost Roper a few days; but within the week Bill Roper and Jex Long rode into the plains of the Lit tle Dry. Here around a spluttering fire the riders crouched in their sodden blan kets, like Indians, while Roper gave out his orders. Thirty-two men and six outlaw leaders were now in the field against Walk Lasham’s power ful Montana outfits in the Great Raid. Roper's first move had been to split his renegade riders into five bunches under the leaders that he knew—Tex Long, Lee Harnish, Dave Shannon, Dry Camp Pierce and him self. Hat Crick Tommy he sent to Miles City in search of further word from Jody Gordon; Hat Crick would later rejoin Roper as messenger and scout. It was Roper’s plan that he and Tex Long, with twelve men between them, should make the most daring raid of all; a raid upon the big herds which Lasham held between the headwaters of Timber Creek and the Little Dry. Of all the ranges in which the wild bunch was inter ested, this was the nearest Miles City—the most accessible, the most closely watched, the best protected. How many cattle he could transfer from this range to the starving Ca nadian Sioux, Roper did not know; but it was his hope to raise such a conspicuous and stubborn disturb ance as would mask the operations of the rest of the wild bunch, and permit Pierce to work unimpeded. “The fourteen of us will split sev en ways,” Roper told them now. “I figure Lasham’s look-out camp for this range is about twelve miles southeast. We’ll comb every way but that way. I’m not telling you how to gather stock. Hunt ’em like you know how to hunt ’em. Move out one day’s ride, spotting your cow bunches. Next day pick ’em up and work ’em this way. And on the third day throw your gather against a coulee or something where one man can hold ’em, and the oth er man of each pair ride back and meet me here. I figure this range is heavy with cattle. I don’t see any reason why two good men can’t easy throw together three hundred head in a couple of days. That gives us a nice bunch of anyway two thousand. The more the better —but with two thousand we'll make our drive.” They slept that night under the slowly falling snow. Roper himself made coffee and routed out his rid ers two hours before the first light. They caught their horses in the dark, with hands that fumbled the stifc ened ropes; then split off in pairs to comb the range. For two days Roper watched the enemy camp while the snow held on, piling a deeper and deeper mat; then on the third day he returned to the rendezvous as the roundup men began straggling in. Tex Long was the first one back. “This range is plumb solid with stock,” Tex declared. “How many head do you figure me and Kid Johnson scraped up, just us two?” “Well," Roper grunted, “upwards of a dozen—I should hope." “Better’n six hundred head! Lord Almighty, Bill! Figuring they’re worth twenty dollars apiece, and al lowing that all the other boys do as good, we’re liable to get out of here with around eighty thousand dollars worth of cattle! You realize that?” But Roper was thinking of the let ter in his pocket; the appeal of a girl who needed him in some unknown way, and who did not even know why he couldn’t come. All the next day they worked to throw the little bunches together into a trail herd. Not all of them had done as well as Tex Long and Kid Johnson, but most of them had done well enough. And then, at last, the first herd privateered in the Great Raid began to roll. A long unstead ily moving river of cattle poured northward, a dark welter in the thin ning fall of the snow. White-faces, mostly, blocky and heavy, well win tered on the prairie hay—Roper counted two thousand six hundred odd! Pressed hard by the heavy force of cowboys, the cattle bawled but humped along northward into the valley of the Prairie Elk. Rounding up within a day’s ride of Miles City itself, Roper’s men had taken this herd almost out of the very corrals of Lasham’s outposts; and yet, so far as any of them knew, that swift-moving drive repre sented a harder blow than had ever been struck a cattleman in a single raid. In all their months of effort the winter wild bunch had been un able to achieve an equal reprisal upon Lasham, and now they could hardly believe their own success. They forced the cattle hard, driv ing through the clogging snow at a rate incredible to men accustomed to handling market herds. The cattle that broke the way through the snow kept dropping back, blown and tired; but as fast as they failed, others were forced for ward to take their places. Long horned, stag-legged steers of the old Texas strain fought the riders, breaking the heavy column repeat edly in their wild-eyed thrusts for liberty, and these were allowed to get away. Gaunt, weak cattle lagged back, unable to keep up even under the snapping rope ends of the tail riders; they also were allowed to drop out, promptly forgotten. Yet, in that first day, the side riders swept in enough north-roaming cat tle to more than make up the loss. Roper went with the herd as far as Circle Horse Creek; but when they had forded the shallows, crash ing through the rotten ice, he turned back. With him he took four men who he believed would do what he said. The cattle were moving more slowly now, plodding doggedly through the heavy going; Tex Long and the remaining eight men could hold them to their way. What was needed now was work of a different kind, and Roper thought he knew how that was to be done. It was his intention to fight a rear guard action—not only for this first herd, which would be delivered with in the week to the Indians who would spirit it away, but for the protec tion of all the rest of the wild bunch raiding to westward. But now as he neared the head of the Little Dry, a rider came drop ping down a long slope upon a racing horse. His carbine was held above his ragged sombrero in sign of peace; and as he came near they saw that it was Hat Crick Tommy. Roper jumped his horse out to meet Hat Crick. “What is it? Is there any word? Did she—” Tommy’s face was haggard with fatigue. “She’s gone!” he jerked out. “She’s been to Miles City—and now she’s gone!” “Gone? Gone where?” "Nobody knows. She’s missing— disappeared—strayed or lost or rus tled, I don’t know which! Her fa ther's wild crazy, and every K-G outfit in the north is combing the trails—” Roper sat staring for a full half minute. Then his hands fumbled for his reata, shook out the loop. "Turn that roan pony! I’ve got to have a fresh horse . . (TO BE CONTINUEDJ NATIONAL AFFAIRS Rtviewtd by CARTER FIELD ■ Power Supply Is Toughest Problem in Defense Production . . . Panama Canal Protection H orries U. S. Officials. (Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.) WASHINGTON.—The toughest nut to crack in the national defense pic ture, so far as production is con cerned, is admittedly electricity. The point is that it takes longer to construct a power plant than almost any of the defense plants for which such power will be needed. It takes longer to construct a hydro plant than a steam plant, but even the steam plants require more time than airplane factories, motor factories, or even plants for manu facturing explosives. Hence the need for conservation already manifested during the re cent drouth in the Southeast, and expected to occur in almost every section of the country. To meet this situation, while waiting for the new electric plants to be completed, an elaborate con servation system has been worked out by J. A. Krug, head of the power division of OPM, and Leland Olds, head of the Federal Power com mission. Pool Arrangement Is Fundamental Idea The fundamental idea ol the con servation plan, leaving out details for the construction of new plants at strategic points, is the grid or pool arrangement. Obviously, ev ery power system In the country, whether privately or public owned, maintains a reserve. In other words it seeks to have a capacity well in excess of any reasonable de mand which may suddenly occur. Assuming that In an ordinary sized distribution system this re serve is 10,000 kilowatts above what ever is the peak load, there would be this huge block of power which might be made available for nation al defense production. So the idea is to tie all the systems together then one reserve of 10,000 kilowatts might do for 10 systems, say, while the reserves of nine of them, or 90,000 kilowatts, would be available for defense production. It is not as simple as it sounds, of course. One difficulty is the heavy loss of power if electricty is conducted a long distance. But the pool system takes care of this. • • • Atlantic Outposts And Panama Canal President Roosevelt would like to do something about the Cape Verde islands, the Azores, Canary islands and Dakar, especially if and when— and Washington really leaves out the “if” in this connection, leaving only “when”—Germany moves into Spain and Portugal. But there is no certainty that anything WILL be done. There are many difficulties, not the least of which is the obvious reluctance of congress to permit the use of the army outside the Western hemisphere. Obviously there are two reasons for the President's desire; one is that occupation of these islands and Dakar by the Germans (Vichy is already hinting for German help in “defending” Dakar) would pro vide just that many more points of attack for the Nazis in the battle of the Atlantic. It would increase the problem of keeping Britain supplied with munitions, food and planes. Incidentally the supply of planes is gradually fading out of this prob i lem, as more and more of them are I flown over. The other, and perhaps even more important reason, is the Nazi men ace to South America which thereby would be intensified. Wrapped in the same bundle is protection for the Panama canal. Officials here have been worried about the canal for some time. It is parb of the whole Latin American problem. Destruction of the Canal, or at least its temporary blocking by explosions in the locks, is one of the important elements—to this country—of the various Nazi moves with the object^of taking over the governments of certain South American countries. , This also goes for Central Amer ican countries It is known, for in stance, that Guatemala has been told by Nazi agents that if Germany wins the war Guatemala can have British Honduras. If you will exam ine a map of Central America it will be obvious, even without know ing the complicated history of that part of the world, how tempting a prize this would be for Guatemala. One may remember that Poland was eager to seize part of Czecho slovakia when Germany was looting that country, that Russia took part of Poland later under similar cir cumstances, to be followed by tak ing part of Rumania later. One might think Guatemala would fear to get British Honduras, if the Ger mans won, because all Guatemala would later become a German col ony. But for some reason hard to explain it does not work that way. Most nations seem to look only at the immediate next step, and figure that in some way they can prevent history from repeating itself. By VIRGINIA VALE (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) THE “Bahama Passage” troupe won’t soon forget that picture. They journeyed to Nassau and began work in the middle of May at Salt Cay, a desolate island near by. After that they worked on other islands, in caves and finally some of them worked under water. Edward Grif fith, producer and director, hied himself to a submerged wreck and went down in a diving bell to officiate while scenes were made of Madeleine Carroll and Stirling Hay den (we’re assured that they didn’t use doubles!) diving down 18 feet to the ocean floor. Shooting the under-water scenes was no small task; it took more than a day to set up the heavy Techni color camera inside the diving bell. -* Fourteen-year-old Stanley Clem ents has already retired twice. A ■MMmp ammmmmmm Stanley Clements Major Bowes dis covery, he landed an engagement with a theater manager in Chicago; home sickness ended It, and he went home to New York. A few days later he re turned to Chicago— and a strep infec tion sent him home once more. Then he landed in the mov ies—in ‘‘Tall, Dark and Handsome," "Accent on Love and now in Met ro’s "Down in San Diego." He’s won his success in “toughie” roles, but he still has to fight against homesickness! -* With "The Reluctant Dragon" re leased at last, Walt Disney has his next full-length feature production practically completed. It’s "Dumbo of the Circus," and stars a baby elephant who becomes the world’s greatest circus performer because he can fly. It set a record—the en tire picture was wound up in a year and a half, instead of the usual two and one-half to three years de voted to previous full-length Disney pictures. -* Have you been listening to Guy Lombardo’s new Saturday evening program? He ana his Royal Canadi ans have won no end of popularity contests, so prob ably you’ve had them on your list of broadcasts that you want to hear since they began this se ries on August 2. Guy plans to intro duce at least one new number week- Guy Lombardo ly which he expects to be ‘‘the hit of tomorrow.” -* While Paramount’s testing to find the right actress for the role of “Maria” in “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Ernest Hemingway, the au thor, cabled from Cuba that he's found the perfect solution. She’s a Russian-Spanish girl who looks ex actly like the heroine. _H >1 If Raymond Massey didn’t look so much like Abraham Lincoln he wouldn’t have to wear a false nose. He wears it in the new DeMille picture, “Reap the Wild Wind.” He plays a deep-dyed villain, but he wears the same kind of clothes he’s worn when he played Lincoln, and all of us have grown accustomed to thinking of Lincoln when we see him in clothes like that. So—he’s wearing a pointed extension on his nose, to make him look properly sin ister. The announcement that Frank Capra and Robert Riskin, his writ ing partner, would handle the screen version of "Arsenic and Old Lace” for Warner Bros, assured the pub 1 lie that the picture will be a good one. The sum of $175,000 was paid for the motion picture rights to this very successful and hilarious stage success, in which Boris Karloff re turned to the stage. it Remember Singin’ Sam? You should, though he’s one of radio’s most unpublicized stars. He’s been on the air for 14 years, and his re corded programs are heard on more stations than any other program in America. In fact, it's estimated that he has more listeners than Jack Benny—about 8,000,000 a day, the year round; his “Refreshment Time” is heard over 227 stations daily. it ODDS AND ENDS—Gene Autrey’s signed to appear in the autumn at the two biggest rodeos—in New York and in Boston . . . Al Pearce and his gang, who return to the air waves in October, will be starred in a feature film by Republic Studios . , . John Garfield vio lently objected to appearing in “New Orleans Blues," but made up with the studio when he ivas assigned to “Bridges Are Built al Night" , . . Rich ard Arlen’s starring in a series of three aviation pictures for Paramount re lease . . . Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny Weismuller are housekeeping in a tree again, for their new “Tarzan" oictura. Hard to Say? Mother—What? A 20-page letter from that soldier friend of yours at camp. What did he say? Daughter—He says he loves me. ITmpah describes a harmonica as corn on the cob set to music. Truth That Hurts First Mother—Are you bothered much by your children telling fibs? Second Mother—Not so much as by their telling the truth at very inappro priate times. His Dish Edward—Golf is pie for me. Irving—Yes, I see you just took another slice. FLATTEN HIM Wife—What can a woman do when her husband is a rolling stone? Friend—Resort to the rolling-pin, Truth at Last “It was so long—I never saw such a fish!” “I believe you.” Down and Out Johnny—So you are down here lor a month? What I can't understand is how you girls afford such a long vacation. Gladys—Oh, that’s easy. We spend one month on the sands, and the other 11 we’re on the rocks. With the Rest Tubby—After all, fools help to make life interesting. When all the fools are killed off, I don’t want to be here. Pete—Don’t worry; you won’t be. The Line-Up “Is Mary your eldest sister?” “Yes.” “And who comes after her?” “You and two other fellows.” Not That He took his best girl for tea In a restaurant. Half-way through he looked at her and smiled. “You’re gorgeous,” he said. She seemed peeved. “I may possess a hearty appe tite,” she replied, “but no one could truthfully call me gorgeous, dear.” BEAUTY SCHOOL Enrcll Now. Nebraska’s Oldest School. Individual instruction, graduates placed in good paying positions. 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