Evening star., 1934-10-21
.UllDOCCER
YOU can ride on, said Nannie.
I've found a man who will fight: .
By JAMES STEVENS

he roundup camp was III All olu
crossed by a creek. pltchplne fire
i. popped high against the wagons.
Scud Gilroy, riding for the horse
corral, squinted through windy
shadows at the sprawled and squat
ting shapes silhouetted against the smoky light.
He was hoping to see both Neal Golfer and
Curly Moslander there. Scud failed to make
out Curly, but he did Neal.
Neal Golfer was back from the fire, sitting
crosS-legged in the shadows of his own wagon.
Scud spotted him he struck a match to a
cigarette. Meals lean face cast in quick
glow its features in that glimpse seemed stonily
set, then only the cigarette end shone in the
wagon shadows.
Scud rode on to the corral He unsaddled
and hobbled the roam, rubbed off the saddle
and turned the horse loose. sharp nicker
sounded from the piney darkness. Scud Gill
roy prowled for the sound. He closed up on
Neal Golfers blaZe-faced black
The horse still carried his saddle and bride.
Scud caught up the dragging reins led the
black to the corral hitched him there and then
made swift tracks for the camp
stud game was already started q
blanket by the fire. The late conner drew little
attention as he dished up plate of grub at
the chuck wagon. Scud drifted over to the
Golfer wagon and sat down by Neal. Neither
spoke until Scud had cleaned up his plate
Then Neal said:
Curly Moslander and me shot it out"
CCUD GIIROY was rolling cigarette. He
- crimped both ends and struck light before
he spoke. His voice was bury, easy drawl.
"Is Curly dead?" Scud said.
"I'd like to know" Neal spoke painfully,
biting each word through clenched teeth. I'VE
swapped considerable lead. I was hit, same
time Curly pitched of his sorrel. My black
lit out and I somehow pulled leather and held
on. Managed to pile off, but never unsaddled.
Walked straight to here, said was sick.'
Golfer was silent, his jaws set hard.
"was you hit bad?" Scud said.
'No," slipped his boss. "A cracked left rib
and slug still under it. Never bed hardly.
All right. only feel like I'd woke from night
mare. Got to help me, Scud."
Neal Golfer had the eyes of Indian.
His gaze smouldered through the shadows.
you trail up after Curly" he went on.
"This side of Mawl Creek ridge had it.
Take the black. Not hint to nobody, on ac-
count Of Vannie. I'm sick, sick understand"
yep" said Scud Glroy "All right Neal"
He stood up, tramping out his cigarette.
Without more parleying, Scud hooked up stick
of ptchpine from the rick and eased out be-
tween two wagons for the horse corral. No.
body noticed him any.
Scud Gilroy was a dry-lander who ranched
and rode for the Golfers most months of each
year. Like that for seven years, since he'd quit
school. That time his dad had been sent up
for killing. The other Gilroys pulled out.
The kid stuck to the dry-land ranch.
Seven years, and he was still hanging on.
Grim-eyed, short-spoken, seeming long way
older than his years. His silence hid
yielding hope tor Vannie Golfer, Meals kid
sister, but not even Vannie dreamed that.
Vannie never seemed to have thought for
anybody but Curly Moslander, young rowing
rider who had come to the valley this last
Summer
Scud rode Neal Golfers black up through
the pines for the timberline trail, until the
pines thinned away and the black bulge of
ridge loomed ahead in the shadows. The rider
pulled up, his gaze caught by trampled patch
of thick buckbrush below the trail
He swung down from the saddle and prowled
in the broken brush In one spot he plucked
twist of horse hairs from big thorny branch.
Scud then led the black on up the trail. A
hundred feet on he came to a second break in
the trailside brush.
A FTER look around Scud fired the stick Of
\ pitchpine he had brought along. It soon
blew into a hot torch, and in this light he
carefully combed every inch of the break and
the ground about it, paving the bush and
kicking up earth. At last his boot struck some
thing hard.
It was a revolver, pearl-handed 80. Five
of the six cartridge chambers held shells, and
three of the shells were empty. Scud set the
hammer on an empty, with loaded chamber
Just at the left, then he showed the baby gun
into the big inner pocket of his sheepskin coat.
That done, Scud led the black up the
trail. He kept the torch down. its smoky flare
skimming tracks in the dust. At the hump Of
the ridge he doused the torch, mounted the
black and rode fast back to camp.
The stud game going ahead full blast
now, with all the valley ranchers and riders but