The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1939-01-12

tie way back in the hills. Coffee,
here, he went to Pahranagat-''
How'd Magoon die?" Horse
Dunn asked.
Wheeler would not be turned
aside. ''I guess that don't SO much
matter, Horse, ir view of a couple
of other things. For one thing, Mar
ian had her horse shot out from
under her, in plain light, back in the
hills. I've been thinking a whole
lot, Horse" he went on, "about how
anybody would ever come to take a
shot at her. Now-I think know"
What are you coming to, boy?"
Horse Dunn said.
Horse" said Billy Wheeler
"Horse-I know who killed Marian's
pony last night; and I know why"
He saw Horse Dunn's big shaggy
head sway and tip little to one
side as the old man sought to peer
more closely into Wheeler's eyes.
'If you know that" he began.
Wheeler's voice was fiat and re-
laxed with utter certainty. "You
know / do, Horse"
Billy Wheeler could hear his own
blood beating in his ears, like a far
off Indian drum; and this time the
silence was a terrible silence, un-
endurable to those gathered there.
Coffee" Horse Dunn said in an
unnatural voice, 'I'll talk to this
boy alone"
Perhaps some faint persistent
hope that he was wrong had lasted
somewhere in Billy Wheeler's mind.
But when Horse Dunn told Old Man
Coffee to go out, Wheeler knew that
he had not been wrong, but that
they were at the end
Old Man Coffee moved quickly,
with the smooth, sliding stride of
one of his own lion hounds. He
was glad to be out of there. For a
moment the young sun splashed
through the open door with the bril-
lance of a powder fare-up; then
the half-dark closed again as Coffee
let the door swing shut behind him.
They heard the crunch of his heels
in the dirt as he walked off down
the side of the hill.
"You go too, Marian" Horse
Dunn said softly. BILLY and I want
to-
"You want her to stay here,
Horse, think"
Stay here?" The old mans voice
was blurred by strange and unac-
customed uncertainty. "You want
her to stay here?"
It's you that needs her here"
Wheeler told him. Then after a mo-
ment he said, almost inaudibly-
''Tell her, Horse"
An odd back light from one of the
high ventilators outlined Dunn's big
shaggy head and the sweep of a
great shoulder, but his eyes they
could not see. AS he spoke it seemed
that it was not the big old fighter
who stood there, but an old man as
vaguely bewildered as child. Tell
her?" he said dinly. "You want
me to tell her"
Once more the silence descended,
brutal, complete; it held on end
lessly, as if no one of them was ever
going to be able to break it again.
And still Horse Dunn did not speak
nor move, but stood like a frozen
man, great shadowy figure just
beyond the bars. Billy Wheeler tried
to say something, anything, to break
that terrible taut stiffness; but he
could not.
Suddenly Marian Dunn stumbled
forward, against the bars. She
reached through, drew Hors e
Dunn's wrists through the barrier,
and hid her face in his two great
hands. Her voice came to them
choked and smothered.
s'I didn't KNOW didn't know"
Horse Dunn's words shuddered as
he cried OUT "What-what didn't
you know?"
"That you-could love me-so
much :"
Wheeler saw the old fighter sway;
but in a moment he was steady
again. He spoke across Marian $
bent head, and his voice had a hard
edge. "You don't know what you're