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


print, and if it had not been for
tomato can labels, perhaps would
never have learned to read print
at all. Everything he knew he had
learned with Dusty King. There
was every reason that he should
have grown to look something like
the great trail driver who had
brought him up.
Now, as they made their way
down the muddy street, before the
false-fronted wooden buildings, half
the cowmen that thronged Ogallala
hailed Dusty with comradeship and
delight; so that his progress was
that of a celebrated character, al
ready famous. The other half--they
were Ben Thorpe men-seemed not
to see him at all. 1t was hard to
tell which tickled Dusty King more
the warmth of his many friends, or
the bitterness of his innumerable
| enemies.
The bidding for the Crying Wolf
| lands was being held in a disused
store, and here the sidewalk and
ted groups. Through this crowd
Dusty King and Bill Roper waded,
| Dusty trying to look like something
bewildered, from the tall country.
Beside the door was posted hand
bill in black type, giving due legal
notice of the auction of leases, and
| Dusty stopped to study this with a
grave empty face, af if he had
never heard of it before.
'Mr. King" somebody said,
they've been waiting for you, fully
an hour"
Dusty looked blank. Then he
clutched his hat to his head in a
startled way, and rushed inside
with clownish representation of
haste.
Within, the crowd of plains-coun-
try men-bronZed men, saddle-faced
men, sometimes bearded men-gave
way as King, followed by Bill Roper,
shouldered his way to the back.
''Is this the place." King asked,
"where the feller is selling the
horse?"
The deputy commissioner took his
feet off his table. 1.-THE sale was
supposed to start at two o'clock"
he complained.
A little tribute, there. The COM
missioner-perhaps already in Ben
Thorpe's pay-hardly dared start an
important sale, without present this
slouching, nondescript-looking repre-
sentative of King Gordon.
mo word has come from your
partner at ALL" the commissioner
said.
HE amt coming"
Three men who sat in chairs
grouped around one end of the table
looked at each other. They ignored
King and Roper, as hostile dogs ig-
more an enemy of whom they are
not yet keenly aware.
The big man in the light-colored
hat was Ben Thorpe - the Ben
Thorpe whose far-scattered hold
ings perhaps already exceeded those
of King-Gordon. Thick-shouldered
now, heavy-bodied, he was today
more than ever power feared in
the cattle country-still unscrupu-
lous, still menacing, but now of a
different sort-a power of wealth, of
organization, and of bought-up law.
Beside him, the tall man, lean and
narrow-bodied as a slat, was Cleve
| Tanner; a hawk-faced man, keen
eyed, so cleanly shaven that the
tight skin of his jaws seemed to
shine. Cleve Tanner was manager
of Ben Thorpe's Texas holdings, the
breeding grounds from which
Thorpe's whole organization drew
its strength.
The other, the man who seemed
uncommonly dark, even among
these sun-darkened men, was Walk
Lasham. He was Ben Thorpe's man.
ager in the north, now; under his
poker-faced watchfulness lay Ben
Thorpe's northern holdings, the feed
ing grounds now necessary to any
wide operation in the cattle trade.
The deputy commissioner raised
his voice. This" he said, lis
federal auction, to place by public
bidding certain lands in the charge
of the Indian Department, by the
authority of the Secretary of the In
terror and the President of the
United States; namely certain
lands -
He droned through his preamble
perfunctorily; everyone in the crowd
knew exactly what was involved.
Something more than land was here
changing hands. To hold the Crying
Wolf would all but mean supremacy
in the north. But this thing was
bigger than that. The two organiza-
tions which here clashed again were
the great powers of the trails; be-
hind each of them were whole coun-
ties of Texas mesquite grass plains,
great areas of the middle short
grass country, scores of outfits. The
struggle between them had devel-
oped with the Chisholm trail itself
"a decade-long combat between
men of diametrically opposed prin-
ciples and methods. And now
"This land," the deputy commits
sioner concluded, ''is thrown into
blocks. I think, gentlemen, you are
already familiar with the placement
of the lands. Block ! includes, as
previously agreed, an estimated one
hundred sections, or sixty-four thou
sand acres, known hereinafter as
Block i; bounded on the north
by"
Cleve Tanner leaned close to Ben
Thorpe, whispered, and Thorpe nod
ded.
II shouldn't think" said the depu-