The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1941-03-27
CHAPTER L


all that long war. Here they sat,
these men who had fought common
enemy for SO long: Dusty King, who,
with the hoofs of countless cattle,
had carved many a Great Plains
trail deep into the short grass; young
Bill Roper. who had begun follow
ing those trails with Dusty King be-
fore he was big enough to hold
horse; and old Lew Gordon, Texas
man, whose wild marketless herds
had been the roots of fortune.
Dusty King and Lew Gordon con-
stituted King-Gordon, the famous
partnership that had developed with
the great cattle trails; until now
their many brands marked far-scat-
tered herds beyond estimate. They
were here because of tomorrow's
auction of land leases. Under the
hammer would 60 the grazing rights
On the Crying Wolf Indian lands
those miles and miles of stirrup-
deep grass that King-Gordon want
ed, and that Ben Thorpe had to have.
1t was curious that their long war
with Ben Thorpe should have met its
true climax here. The three in this
room understood that the outcome
would rest upon what the two older
men decided here. Possession of the
Crying Wolf meant dominance in
the north to King Gordon, or to Ben
Thorpe; there was no longer going
to be room for both.
'sThis is an old fight, Lew" Dusty
King said. ''It goes back as far as
that first time you backed me with
little herd, to see if / could make it
through to Abilene. Don't hardly
seem like we better draw back
now"
Lew Gordon stirred, swaying his
shoulders imperceptibly, like stub
born bear. Credits going to be
terrible hard, this coming year," he
said at last.
Dusty King seemed to sprawl
little more loosely; he was playing
poker in a way of his own. Swag-
gering, easy-going, spendthrift-he
still was a man who believed in
vincibly in himself.
81 passed Ben Thorpe in the road,
today" he said. "He was looking
mighty prosperous. bet he weighs
two hundred and twenty-five pounds
now, with his stomach pulled in"
''His backing is terrible strong"
Lew Gordon said, his eyes on the
floor.
No one knew better than Lew Cor
don that Dusty King, in tackling the
impossible a hundred times, had
hundred times shown the way for
the rest. But Gordon remembered
too the poverty of the cattle-poor
days before any outlet was found for
Texas beef. To risk all they had
won, in a single slashing stroke at
an old enemy, was almost more than
Gordon could bear.
"You know why Ben Thorpe's
strong" Dusty King said. "And you
know how he got his start. We know
why it is that SO many Texas out
fits stand in Ben Thorpe's name;
and how many different ways he's
found to jump down on little lonely
Texan cowmen and leave them
broke or dead. And we know what's
happened to many little outfit that
started north, but never brought
their cattle through, nor got home."
every year." Dusty King said,
"since we began driving up the big
trails, we've locked horns in one
way or another with this one gang
I'm not forgetting who started the
Red Crick stampede where Dave
and Bob Henry died under piled up
cattle; nor the Tularosa shootings,
with four more of my boys dead.
There's some good cowboys under
the prairie, Lew"
Gordon said almost inaudibly,
''Never could prove anything"
''His herds have grown faster than
ours have grown" Dusty Kings ex-
pressionless voice droned on. He's
as big as we are; he'll be bigger
soon. From the Big Bend to the
Tetons, he owns more outfits than
he knows the names of. He's never
run an honest deal where he could
run crooked one, nor square
trick where he could play mean
one; it's a long time since he rode
all night with his rifle in mis- hands,
but Lew, if he isn't stopped-there's
plenty he can hire to do his dark
of-the-moon stuff now"
Dusty" Lew Gordon said, we've
blocked him every way we could
That's why he'll get you, and
me too, in the end"
Again the silence closed, with be-
hind it the perpetual bawling of the
cattle, far off in the spring night
Dusty King said casually, "Cleve