White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1929-02-22
The Settling of the Sage
by HAL 6. EVARTS
y urs
Copyright by Hal @. Eyarts

mix In I'll have your men hunted
down like rats"
Harper glanced toward the group
at the bar.
"You were prudent enough to pick
time when you're three to one to
tell me about that" he said. If I'd
kill you In your chair might have
some trouble getting out the door,"
"Of course I'd take every chance
to play SAFE" Harris admitted But
that is beside the point I'd have told
you the same thing If the odds had
been reversed. You've got brains, or
you'd have been dead for twenty
years. If thought you were q hap
hazard homicide | wouldn't be sitting
here. But you wouldn't kill a man
without looking few weeks ahead
and making sure It was SAFE"
"Go ahead-let's hear the rest OF
it." Harper urged. you've got an
original line of talk"
you're playing one game and I'm
playing mine," Harris said. you're
In the saddle now-like you have been
once or twice before. But you know
that the sentiment OF community re-
verses almost overnight You've
stepped out just ahead Of cleanup
a time or two in the past. I've got
hard bunch of terriers over at the
Three Bar and you couldn't raid US
without battle big enough to go
down In history as the Three Bar war.
Either way you'd lose. for 1t would
stir folks up-and when they're
stirred you're through. Do you re-
member what al Moody did up on the
Gallatin and what old Con Ristine
sprung on the Nations Trail? That
will happen again right here"
The two men were leaning toward
each other, elbows resting on the ia
Bile. Harper relaxed and leaned back
comfortably In his chair as he twisted
smoke. Evans propped his feet on
the table and Harris hung one knee
over the arm of his chair. The men
at the bar knew that some crisis had
been safely passed.
"You talk as If | was running an
outfit Of my own and had bunch of
riders that could swarm down on
you" Harper objected. Il don't even
run a brand of my own or have one
man riding for me-"
"The wild bunch is riding for you, !"
Harris stated.
Suppose that was true" Harper
said. 'Then what?"
"In one country after the next
they've hit the toboggan whenever
they got to feeling too strong. If you
line up against me that time has
come again. If get pOtted from the
brush I've hedged 1t so that those
boys that filed over there won't be
left In the lurch. There'll be re
ward of thousand dollars hung W
for the scalp of each of fifteen rner
whose names gathered while was
prowling rOund-reliable men to carry
on what I've begun; and marshals
thicker than flies to protect the home,
stead filings on the Three Bar"
"rhen It might be bad policy to
bushwhack you." Harper observed.
"You can go your own gait" Harris
said. "As long as you lay off Three
Bar COWS. You invited me one time
to come down to your hangout In the
Breaks. won't ever make that visi
unless you call on the Three Bal
first; then, just out of politeness, III
ride over at the head of hundred
men.
'Then 1t don't look as If we'd ge
anywhere, visiting back and forth,
Harper said.
Now don't think I'm throwing
bluff or threatening; I'm just telling
you. You could recite a number .
things that could happen to me In re
turn-all of EN- true. I'm just count
ing that you've got brains and cal
see it's not going to help either on
of us to get lined up wrong. Wha
do you say-shall we call 1t hands OF
between the Three Bar and you?"
ITO BE CONTINUED.)