“BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL.”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 129, 14 March 1939, Page 7

“BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL.”

(Copyright).

CHAPTER VI. They clambered up a gully-filled trail down which water had poured in torrents during the rainy season. It brought them to a hill ledge, along which tho horses crept in the semidarkness, their hoof's slithering on! a down grade in outcrops of quartz and disintegrated granite. To their right, so close - that a bad slip might have plunged mount and! rider into it, yawned the shadowy chasm of the gulch, so deep that the eye could not pierce the lake of blackness at the bottom. A great boulder field of immense rocks stretched over the mountain lace above the trail. They were in the Red Rock country now. Tim Murphy had gone forward to lead the party, and a young fellow named Curly Teeters was on guard behind the hillman. Bitterly Dieter complained to him. “I’m not going to stand for it. This little squirt Cameron has got no right to hold me here. I’m a free man, and I don’t have to let him drag me around.” “That’s right,” Curly agreed cheerfully. “You can jump into the igulch any time you’ve a mind to.” Bucky turned in his saddle. “No talking back there. We’re getting close.”

They dropped down to a stream, crossed it, followed the bank. Bucky gave instructions for his men to keep well apart. Just ahead of them was Dolores Canon, a likely point of attack. Soon now, he thought, nerves taut. Dieter swung down from the saddle. “ ’S matter, Dutch?” inquired Cui'ly. “Saddle’s loose. Got to tighten the cinch. You go ahead. I’ll catch up.” Bucky rode back. “What’s up?” Curly was discounting. “Going to help Dutch fix, the saddle,” he explained. “I don’t want no help,” Dieter exploded. “You lemme alone. I ain’t so crippled I can’t tighten a cinch, you doggoned fool.” To the man ahead of him Bucky called a message. “Tell Tim to wait. We’re held up a minute. I’m going to take the lead' from here. Ask him to come back.” Dieter’s horse turned, so that it was facing in the direction from which they had come. He was standing back of it fumbling with something. Bucky had a sudden suspicion that it might not > be the cinch. He brushed past Curly’s horse, which had begun to move up the creek after the others. “Keep back, both of you!” Dieter cried. In the moonlight there was the flash of steel. A gun roared. The bullet whistled past Curly’s shoulder. Curly stopped in his tracks, completely taken by surprise. Dieter fired again, just before Bucky crowded forward into him. The weight of the horse hurled the hillman against the trunk of a pine. He clung to it heavily, gun still in hand, jarred by the shock of the impact. Bucky covered him. “Shove up your hands,” he ordered. The hillman jerked his revolver up, toward Bucky this time., He never had a chance to fire it. Two weapons barked, so close together that the sound of them merged into one. Dieter’s body sagged, slid down the trunk of the tree.

Curly moved cautiously toward him His face was drawn and startled.

“He shot first, Bucky. I had to do it,” young Teeters said. “I know,” Bucky agreed. “My bullet is in his body too.” He got down from tiie saddle and examined the prone figure. The other members, of the party' crowded round. They asked questions, offered opinions. “Examine his gun,” Bucky said' quietly to the foreman. Murphy did so. “Two shells empty —just fired,” he reported. “He tried to slip away,” Bucky told the men. “Pretended liis cinch was loose. When ho came close he drew his gun and fired twice at Curly. Even then I gave him a chance to throw up his hands. But ho wouldn’t have it that way. Raised liis revolver to fire at me. Then we let him have it.” '‘Explanation' satisfactory to me,” Murphy said. “All right with you boys?” The chorus of assent was unanimous. “Why did he do such a crazy thing?” Bud Keller asked. “He knew the Red Rock gang is waiting for us in Dolores Canon and he didn’t want to be blasted down when they poured a volley into us,” Bucky answered coolly. “His first idea was to light out. When we spiked that he had to try to shoot his way clear.” “They’re waiting for us—right in there?” Keller said, fumbling his words in surprise. “Cosh all hemlock, how d’you know?” It doesn’t make sense any other way. Why else would he be in such a hurry to get away? He had to escape now. A > little later wouldn’t do. “We going in after these birds?” Teeters asked. “No. But we’re going to make sure they are waiting for us.” A rifle cracked, and a bullet whined over our heads. “We know that already,” the foreman said grimly. “Get yore horses, boys, and find cover in the rocks. We’re bunched too close.” Bhcky gave sharp orders. “We’re not looking for a fight. They’ll jdo the crowding, if any is done. But IT they attack, shoot to kill.”' The riders scattered, each finding his own cover. ' Occasionally a rifle cracked. Once some one, two hundred yards away, lifted his voice in a yell of derision. But the Red Rock men came no closer. Bucky passed; the word for a slow withdrawal. The C 0 riders had to get out while the darkness still held, or run the chance of a pitched battle in the morning. This Cameron did not want. He knew a garbled story would be given out to the public, one in which all the blame would he laid on him. Since any lie circulated would be believed, ho could not afford; even a. victory with casualties. The C 0 men, most of them leading their horses until they were out of range, headed toward home by the

By WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE :: A Thrilling Mystery Romance with a Hard-riding, Two-gun Background.

most direct route. There was no longer any need for secrecy. Four or five miles below Dolores Canon they turned up a small creek, following it until they came to an open meadow. “We’ll camp here,” Ducky said. There was not a chance in a thousand that their enemies would find them in the darkness —not one in a hundred that the lied Dock men would be looking for them now the trap had failed—but Ducky set guards to protect the party in the event of a surprise. As the sun was coming up over a notch in the hills, they caught and saddled. Ducky and Tim rode in the van as they moved down the creek toward the junction. Just before they reached the point where the brook emptied into the larger creek Murphy dragged his horse to a stop abruptly. “Look who’s here.” Six men were riding down the Dolores Canon trail. Ducky recognised them as the leading spirits of the Ded Dock outlaw' tribe. Among the group were West and Quinn and Davis. Another was Dig Dili Savage, an immense hairy man all brawn and bone. Beside him rode a twisted wizen-faced old chap known as Tuffy Arnold. Usually Tufty w r as credited with being the brains of the outfit, a sly slippery customer not to be trusted out of sight.

In another twenty-five yards the tw r o parties w'ould have come together. Brad Davis ripped out a sudden oath and pulled up his mount. “Here are the dirty killers!” he cried. . Bucky, had not stopped his sorrel gelding. He rode to the edge of the creek separating the two parties. Tim called back to his men in a low voice. “Don’t jam too close. Kinda scatter along the bank.” “You came a long way to kill poor Dutch, Cameron!” West cried. Bucky looked the Ded Dock contingent over cooly. “Dieter asked for what he got, West. 'He tried to lead us into the trap you had set. When he saw he would have to go in too he tried to shoot his way out. You ought to do better than that w'hen you fix up an ambush. .Tuffy must be getting old and rusty if that is his best.” “You’re a damned liar,” West snarled. “You murdered Dutch.” “He fired twice at Curly before wo lifted a hand,” Murphy cut in. “He was aiming at Bucky 7 when two of the boys cracked down on him. “Which tivo?” demanded Quinn. “Never mind which two, Pete. It was self-defence.”

“Charge it to me,” drawled Bucky, stroking a little moustache. “And me,” Curly added. “I was in it.” “Grass will grow over yore grave for that, Curly,” West told him. Bucky watched closely Quinn and Davis. Tuffy Arnold would bo for peace, at least until he was out of the danger zone. The giant Big Bill, would take his cue from West, who despite his reputation as a dangerous gunman preferred the odds to be in his favour. The sixth man was a nonentity. It was Bucky’s opinion that there would he no battle now unless Quinn and Davis started it in impulsive anger. “You came up here lookin’ for a fight, did you?”’ challenged Davis. Cold-eyed, Bucky met his angry glare. “You know why wo came—because you set a trap you expected us to walk into like fools. Don’t tell your lies to us, you scoundrel. Keep them for Toltec. You brought us here to be murdered.” He stopped for a. moment, and moved the sorrel into the shallow water at the edge of the creek, as if he -were afraid they could not all hear what he said unless he was near enough for his voice to drown the rippling of the water. When he spoke again it was in an even monotone that made the scabrous epithets with which he blasted them more telling. He searched his vocabulary for long-drawn blistering words, and not once did he repeat himself. His mouth hardly moved. The muscles of his face did not alter a line. Both hands rested on the horn of the saddle, but there was a catlike litheness in his body that might awake instantly to violent eruption. They listened to him, held by some dominant force in. him that compelled attention. They felt the urge of a spirit full of fire and passion but controlled by a masterful will. His audacity was amazing. It brought back memories of other Camerons, his father and his uncle, men who had walked with bleak faces into deadly peril. “You can’t talk that way to me,” cried Davis, face black with rage. “I won’t stand it from any man alive, let alone a little girl-faced dude like you.” “I am talking that way,” corrected Bucky. “I’m telling you that you’re a thief, a liar, a coward, and a murderer. The only reason you don’t draw now is that you’re afraid I’ll kill you in your tracks.”

Tuffy Arnold pushed forward his horse. He laid a restraining hand! on Davis’s knee. “Hard words don’t break any bones, Cameron,” he said shaking his head reprovingly. “You’ve got us all wrong. I don’t know what you’ve got in yore nut, but there’s nothing to it. If Dutch was alive he would tell you so. And this talk about shooting folks in their tracks isn’t going to do you any good. We got past those days.” Davis brushed the old! man’s hand aside impatiently, but West’s heavy voice bore him down when he started to talk. “We’re not looking for war, Cameron,” West boomed. “And we’re not ducking it either. All of us have got yore number. You’re one of these bully puss fellows who go around with a chip on their shoulder. Only reason your bluff hasn’t been called is because the men like to pick some one of their size.” “Come on, boys,” Tuffy advised. “We’re peaceable citizens going about our own business. No use getting upset ‘over what this fellow says. This country has done made up its mind about him. He’ll have to do some more fast talking to explain away this Dutch Dieter business.” Ho turned his horse and; started down then trail. West followed, Big Bill at his heel. The other members of the party hesitated, but after a moment took the trail after them. (To be Continued.)