JIM THE CONQUEROR

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3273, 2 March 1937, Page 2

JIM THE CONQUEROR

By PETER B. KYNE

Don Jaime smiled. "Thrice doubly armed is he whose cause is just," he soliloquised. "Well, Senor Antrim has the surprise of his life coming to him this evening. He's staked everything on a lone ace—and I'm going to take the trick with a trump deuce"

He decided to bear off to the right and give the sheep and their herders a wide berth, for he had no intention of coming to grips with Mie enemy anywhere except on his own lands and in defence of his inalienable rights. So he rode along the hogback at a walk for half a mile and then turned down a long draw to the valley below, through which the white road to Los Algodones wound 6ff.into the haze. At the mouth of the draw he paused and dismounted, for the long trip downhill had revealed the fact that his saddle cinch was loose; it had slipped out over the horse's withers. Don Jaime removed saddle and blanket, and adjusted it again to the horse's back. He was in the act of swinging the heavy stock saddle up onto the animal when something ripped across his breast. He felt a gentle plucking of his shirt, experienced a feeling that he had been burned. Then the crashing sound of a rifle echoed through the draw.

The thought flashed through Don Jaime's agile brain, "Tom Antrim had another trump. He's playing it." With a savage wrench he jerked Ken Hobart's rifle clear of the boot, dropped the saddle and leaped for the brush with the alacrity of a frightened rabbit. A fusilade of bullets followed him; before he could gain the shelter of the reverse slope of the left of the two spurs which formed the draw, he had been hit three times, the last wound dropping him headlong on his face.

The paralysis was but momentary, however. He rolled a couple of times, half rose, lurched forward and rolled again. When he reached "dead" ground he rested a. few seconds, then on his hands and knees crawled around the toe of the spur; presently he got to his feet and limped slowly and painfully up the hill fifty yards, got down on his hands and knees, and with his body as close to the earth as possible crawled back through the low sage over the spur toward the draw! When he could look down into the draw again he stretched out and brought his rifle to*the ready. He waited.

Presently, up the hillside across the draw he saw a bush move slightly. There was not a breath of wind, so Don Jaime concentrated his attention on that bush. It moved again, but Don Jaime could see nothing. So, deciding to feel for what was there while yet sufficient strength remained to him, he sighted carefully on the centre of that bush and fired. Something threshed in the brush, so Don Jaime continued to shoot until the threshing ceased. With the felling that he had better be sure than sorry he had put twenty bullets into the heart of that bush. Presenly, from far up the draw toward the summit a voice floated faintly:

"Don Jaime! It's Ken Hobart!" "Gome down, but be careful," Don Jaime shouted back with all his lungs. Ken Hobart came down that long draw at a mad gallop and when the thud of hoofs indicated his near presence, Don Jaime managed to stand erect and hail him. The ranger rode into the brush to Don Jaime, who leaned against his horse and clung to the saddle. "Hurt, my friend?" "Shot, but not fatally," Don Jaime informed him with a wry smile. "Top of the left shoulder, left biceps and calf of the right hind leg. Also a brand across my chest." "Where's the other man?" Don Jaime indicated the spot and then sat down to wait while the ranger rode up to invesitgate. The ranger's face was gravely humorous when he returned. "There's a man up there lying on top of a rifle. An oldish man. Looks like Tom Antrim—that is, dressed like him, but you've shot his head practically away and he's unrecognisable. Features quite obliterated." "While waiting for something or somebody to turn up, I didn't have anything 1 else to do, so I practised shooting," Don Jaime protested virtuously. "My horse still there?" "Yes, standing where you left him."

"Good old Border horse. Shooting never flusters him. Well, Ken, you'd better undress me and take an inventory; then get me on my horse and hold me there. It's ten miles back to the ranch but I can make it if I don't bleed to death. Ken Hobart carried Don Jaime out to the clean grass in the draw and examined his wounds with the skill of one whom wounds are no mystery. "Top shoulder muscle ripped and poss'bly a piece drilled out of the scapula. Hole through the left biceps, but the humerus is untouched. Leg wound nothing to write home about. All flesh wounds; blood just welling slowly. It will probably coagulate and quit in a little while," he announced casually. He brought iodine, bandages, and adhesive tape from his saddle-bags, for like all of his profession he had frequent need of such things and was not a half-bad backwoods surgeon. When his wounds were dressed, Don Jaime stood erect and gingerly rested his weight on his injured leg "Not

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any worse than a Dadly sprained ankle," he rejoiced, "and I've walked miles on one of them. . . . Well, let's have a look at the sassy old sheep - herder." With Hobart's assistance he mounted his horse, and together they rode up the opposite slope and gazed down at the dead man. "I could see a small glint of something white," Don Jaime explained, "after I fired the first time. I figured it might be his face, so I pecked away at it." "I never knew a man with Spanish blood in his veins who wasn't ferocious," the ranger declared. "I'm not ferocious. I'm practical. Ken. I wanted to keep on shooting to show any other bushwhackers who might be in on the job that I was armed and dangerous. And I thought, too, a lot of shooting might bring some of those herders from over yonder and I'd get enough for a mess. And why waste my shots?" "Well, your extravagance with ammuntion is what brought me direct to the scene. I'd ridden about half a mile from where we parted when it occurred to me that Antrim and his camp cook could easily have heard you directing me to have one of the boys come into Los Algodones with the auto and the trailer to bring your horse home. Rememember? You shouted. So he'd know you were travelling across country alone and unarmed for of course he could not know that as a mere matter of precaution you had borrowed my rifle. I just got a hunch it would be like the old scoundrel to follow and bushwhack you. He could be reasonably certain there would be no witnesses." Don Jaime gazed down at the grisly thing in the bushes. "Looks like Antrim —all but the face," he agreed. "Frisk him, Ken, in your capacity* as a peace officer, and see what luck we have." So the ranger turned the dead man's pockets inside out and in the coat pocket he found a black seal-leather wallet bearing on the outside the words in gold letters: "Thomas Antrim, Christmas, 1925." "Somebody, strange as it may seem, actually thought enough of this man to give him a Christmas present," the ranger murmured. "Here's a photo pest-card addressed to Thomas Antrim, Jolon, Las Cruces County, Texas. Picture of a girl taken at Atlantic City. Now, where have I seen that face before?" He handed the card up to Don Jaime, who studied it briefly and handed it back. "Miss Roberta Antrim, of Hillcrest, Dobbs" Ferry, Westchester County, New York," he announced grimly. "So she was a relative of his, after all." He sighed. "What else, old-timer?" "A letter in an envelope." "As a peace officer you have a right to read it." The ranger complied with Don Jaime's suggestion. "Brief letter from Roberta Antrim, addressed to 'Dear Uncle Tom,' and thanking him for sendng her a cheque for five dollars for the Babies' Hospital." "He gave up all of one lamb, didn't he? Generous man I" "Here's a card that says: 'ln case of death or accident please notify my next of kin, Miss Roberta Antrim,' etc Well, it sort of looks like old Tom's made a mess of things. He was .too old to have attempted to do this job himself. His eyes probably weren't as good as they used to be, and when a fellow takes to bushwhacking he ought to be reasonably fast and accurate with a rifle. When you borrowed my rifle you sort of spilled old Tom's beans, Don Jaime." "His sheep we still have with us, also his foreman and sheep-herders,' Don Jaime announced thoughtfully "I suppose his sheep are now the property of his next of kin, and Heaven forbid that I should wage war on a woman, Ken, my friend, I think we'll defer the war of the water-holes. The sensible thing to do now is to wire Miss Roberta Antrim to get down here on the job and look after the assets of her late Uncle Tom. She's a lady. She'll probably listen to reason and we'll get rid of these stinking sheep without additional bloodshed. They'll ruin a lot of the range in the interim, of course—Oh, let 'em drink! If we shoo them off now they'll die and that would be putting a crimp in the lady's bankroll." "Whatever else we may be, let us, at least, try to be gentlemen," the ranger agreed humorously. "Well, now, the next business before the meeting is to find old Tom's horse, drape Thomas across the saddle, take him into Los Algodones and deliver him to the local undertaker. My report of this affair will close the investigation. And you should get a doctor. It's ten miles to your ranch and ten miles to Los Algodones. I'm in command! All aboard for Los Algodones, amigo mio."

They had proceeded but a short distance along the road to Los Algodones when they were overtaken by a man driving an old automobile that had been converted into a truck. The ranger rode his horse into the middle of the road and held up his hand. The vehicle stopped. " The ranger looked the driver over. "I know you," he announced. "Aren't you Tom Antrim's cook?" The man glanced from the ranger to Antrim's horse, with Antrim's limp body hanging across the saddle; his dark face paled as he saw the dead man's head bundled up in his canvas coat.

(To be continued)