The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1941-05-01

string of outfits, can't stand UP
against the everlasting raiding, and
stampeding, and mysterious loss of
cattle. They say he's lost twenty
outfits, just because he couldn't
spare the gunner to hold the
range"
ELEVEN outfits" Roper said.
Then it was really your"
Those eleven outfits they speak
of-those were outfits roughed away
from little lonely men, on pretenses
that hadn't any justice or any true
law. Those outfits are back with
their owners now.'
'But-you admit your wild bunch
is behind all this?"
''Call it that if you want to. I
guess there isn't anybody knows as
well as you do what I'm trying to
do.'
She said in a dead voice, "I nev-
er believed it; couldn't believe it
until now."
Didn't ! tell you about it? I told
you about it before I began. I set
out to break Cleve Tanner; and by
God, he'll be broken!-if live
"You know Cleve Tanner has put
up five thousand dollars for your ar
rest?"
Bill Roper chuckled crafty. "All
right I'll put up ten thousand for
his arrest. There isn't going to be
any arrest, and he knows that, too."
II can't believe it," she kept say
ing over and over. ''I can't believe
it even yet"
"You can't believe what?"
''That you're an outlaw-a wild
bunch boss-thrown in with the ug-
liest killers this range has ever seen,
or any range"
He said ironically, "Don't hard
ly see how I could use second rate
men,"
Reports have come in" Jody
said wonderingly, from over eight
hundred miles of country; they're
beginning to call it a rustlers' war,
final showdown between the wild
bunch and lawful men. And you"
What about me?"
"Oh, Billy, it's unbearable! That
you-you've turned yourself into the
fostering point of all that struggle,
and hate, and lawless cunning"
He had to grin at that, unhappy
as he was. Didn't realize I was
festering," he said.
"You had everything" she said,
land you threw it away :"
He had only heard her say that
once before; but, in memory, he
had heard it so often since that her
words had the ring of a familiar
song.
''I'm sorry that we can't ever
see things the same," Bill said. 81
started out to get Cleve Tanner, and
I'll get him. After Tanner, Walk
Lasham; and after Walk Lasham,
Ben Thorpe. But when it comes to
saying I had everything before I
started in, I guess maybe that ISM t
So"
Jody said hotly, "There wasn't
one thing in all the world you didn' t
have-or couldn't have had-before
you chose this crazy way!"
II didn't have you," he told her.
"If had had you, guess I would
have you yet. Things don't shift
and change so easy as that-not in
the part of the world / know"
He was pulling on his gloves now,
buttoning his sheepskin coat. In
what was left of the light, the
| shadows lay heavy upon his face. AS
he stood there, he could have been
Dusty King himself-the man who
had broken a hundred long and
weary trails; except that Dusty King
had perhaps never looked so old.
Her voice came to him as if from
a distance. "And when you're
through" she said-'what are you
going to have left?"
Far as / know" Bill Roper said,
"I'm not going to have anything
left. God knows I've got very little
left now" He was glad she didn't
know how his resources had dwin-
died, how close to the end he really
stood.
Her voice rose sharply. "Can't
you see there's no hope in this
| ghastly thing? Thorpe's grip is un-
| breakable." She came close to him,
and her words came through her
teeth. ''It's your very life you're
| throwing away!"
Perhaps he misunderstood her
| then; for he grinned. Maybe" he
said, "that would be the least.
could lose; the very least of all :. :"
CHAPTER X
The winter dragged out slowly.