Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, June 1, 1917, Page 7

© NANG ®@ MUSIC MOUNTAIN By frank TL. Spearman Author of Whispering Smith SYNOPSIS. t I—On Frontier day at Sie. no and tr is beaten forgan of Mt nm superir charge « ut he refuses. ain sees Nan danc- ing with ¢ . is later derisively pointed Nan on the street by G and is moved 5 cept the stare line De Spain and Lefever inn and the Deaf Sandu: nd ret S an demands t in re the Morg t goin a out Sasson au CHAPTER V Jays him untill nearly He meets Nan, who de overtaken by the Morgans, but lands his captive in jail CHAPTER VI-— Bpain beards the and is shot at thr meets Nan again. CHAPTER Vil—He prevents her going into a gambling hall to find her Uncle Duke and inside faces Sandusky a . who prudently decline to figt e time CHAPTER VIII—De Spain, anxtovs to make peace with Nan, arranges a little len with McAlpin, the barn man. to rive her out to Morgan's gap, and while waiting for ber goes down to the inn to get @ cup of Coffee. CHAPTER IX—In the deserted barroom he is trapped. He kills Sandusky and Logan, wounds Gale and Sassoon and es- capes, ly wounded. CHAPTER X—Bewtidered and weak, he wanders into Morgan's gap and is @its- covered on Music mountain by Nan CHAPTER XI—Nan, to prevent further fighting, does not tell, but finds out from McAlpin that De Spain had really been trapped and Had left his cartridge belt behfnd when he went into the fight at the tan. CHAPTER X1I—While De &pain te un- Able to travel Nan brings food to him He telle ber that he became a gunman to find and Gea) with his father’s ur murderer. He gives Nan his las ridge. CHAPTER XIII—Gale almogt stumbles over De Spain's hiding place. Nan drawe him away and to stop Gale's rough woo- ing De Spain bluffe him out with anempty gen Noo planes De Spain's escape. CHAPTER XIV—De Spain crawls out | of the gup over the face of E) Capitan; at aight, Nen meets him with a horse and his cartridge belt, which she had sneaked from Mc. in, and De Spain rides into Calavasas. { CHAPTER XV—De Spain hires old Bull | Page and gains a valuable sid. After two, inigitiy visita to the wap, De Spain gets a | ‘word with Nan, She tells him to forget her and be asks her to shoot him. | Your people, (me up on this roof. LOR Z RIOT OF CHARLES SCKIENER'S SONS “This,” He Cried, Beside Himself With | Fury, “ls Your Work.” another moment a small fusillade fol- lowed. “By the Almighty,” muttered De Spain, “we must have our horses, Nun. y right here. TH try driving those fellows off thelr pereh.” She caught his arm. “What ure you koing to do?” “Kun in on them from cover, wher- ever I cao find it, Nan, and Push them buck. We've got to have those horses,” “If we could only get away without ta fight!" “This is Sussoon and his gung. Nan, You heurd Pardaloe. These ure not ; I've got to drive ‘em, or we're gone, Nan.” “Then I go with you.” “Nan, you can’t do it,” whispered De Spain energetically. “A chance bullet—”" She spoke with decision: “I go with you. I can use a rifle. Better both of us be killed than one. Help I've climbed it # hundred times. My rifle is in my room. Quick, Henry.” Overruling his continued objec- uons, she lifted her foot to his hand, put her second foot on De Spain's | shoulder, gained the sloping roof, and CHAPTER XV1—Nap attends her wncis \Duke in the hospita) at Bieeny Cat, De Spain wgoe and wins her love. CHAPTER XVIl—Lefever manifests an | iitereet in De Spain’s cartridge belt, and expresses surprise at his unreadiness to ft Bassoon. Bassoon almost discovers 4 lovers at their trysting place. CHAPTER XVIlI—In Morgan's gap Gabe telle Duke of Nan's meetings with De in and Duke warns Nan that he will kil’ De Spain if she tries to marry him CHAPTER XIX—De Spain arrangers a meeting with Duke and tries to make friends with him without success. CHAPTER XX—Gale persista in his wooing of Nan CHAPTER XX1—De Spain enlists & epy. | He hears that Nan is kept in the house | and that her uncle ts trying to force her | to marry Gale. CHAPTER XXII—A mysterious meesare comes from Nan to take her away. CHAPTER XXIII—De Spain, Lefever | S04 Scott invade the Morgan prronenore | be Spain alone walks into Duke's house and, Preventing a forced marriage, fexeal ‘aD away. CHAPTER XXiv. — } Flight. De Spain, catching Nan’s arm, spoke | burriedly, and they hastened outside | toward the kitchen. “We must get | ‘way quick,” he said as she buttoned | ber coat. And, knowing how she suf- | fered in what she was doing, he drew her into the shelter of the poreh and | caught her ¢lose to him, Tl take you | Straight to Mrs. Jeffries. When you! fre ready, you'll marry me; we'll make | our peace with your Uncle Duke to- kether. Great God! What a night! This way, deurie.” | “No, to the stable, Henry! Where's | your horse?'’s “Under the pine, and yours, too. | found the pony, but I couldn't find | your saddle, Nan.” | “I know where it’s hidden. Let's ' Fet the horses.” | “Just 2 minute. I stuck my rifle un- | der this porch.” He stooped and felt | below the stringer. Rising in a mo | ‘ent with the weapon on his arm, the | ‘wo burried around the end of the— house toward the pine tree. They iad | «most reached this when a murmur unlike the sounds of the storm made | De Spain halt his companion. “What is it?” she whispered. | ‘istened intently. Without speaking, | he took Nan and retreated to the cor-| er of the house. “There is somebody {a that pine,” he whispered, “waiting tor me to come after the horses. Sas- rage may have found them, I'll try| a out, anyway, before I take a chance. } tand back here, Nan.” ae Put her behind the corner of the Fae: threw his rifle to his shoulder, a fired us nearly as he could in the arkness toward and just above the oc Without an instant’s hesitation ‘; pistol shot answered from the direc- on ig which he had fired, and_in | then | tons ‘out of the question. scrambled on her hands and knees up to the window of her room. A far-off peal of (uunder echoed from the moun- tains. Luckily, no flash had preceded it, and Nan, rifle in hand, slid safely down to the end of the lean-to, where De Spain belped her to the ground. He directed her how to make a zigzag advance toward the pine, and, above ali, te throw herself flut and sidewise after every shot—and not to fire orten. In this way they advanced slowly tut safely to the disputed point and understood—the horses were gone. A fresh discharge of shots came from two directious—seemingly from the house and ihe stable. A moment later they heard sharp firing far down | the gap—their sole avenue of escape. They withdrew to the shelter of @| the distance that separated them from | large rock familiar to Nan even in the | the cliff, when a second thunderstorm . dark. While De Spain was debating in his mind how to meet the emer- She tole him thére was no other. “And this will run all night. Henry,” she suid, turning to him and as if } thinking of a question she wanted to | isk. “how did you happen to come to ne tonight when I wanted you so?” “T came because you sent for me,” | 4© auswered, surprised. “But I didn’t send for you.” He stopped. dumfounded. “What un, Nan?” he demanded un- get your message on the * last night, in wy office at . from « mun that refused {to give his name.” “) pever sent a Y messuge to you,” {she insisted in growing wonderment. j “I have been locked in a room for }ihme days, dearie. The Lord knows anted to send you word. W ever phoned u message like ths Was ta trap toe get you in her He told her the story—of the stren- faous efforts he had made to discever he identity of the messenger—and iow he had been balked. No muat- cer,” said Nan at last. “It couldn't lve been a trup. \ friend, surely, not an enemy. “Henry,” every time she repeated ais nume De Spain cared less for what should happen In the rest of the world, “what are we going to do now’ We can't stay here all night—and | take what they will greet us with Ip | the morning.” He answered her question with an- other: “What about trying to get out by El Capitan?” She started in spite of herself. would be certain death, Henry. | “I don't mean at the worst to try | to cross it til we get a glimpse of | daylight. But it’s quite a way over | there. The question is, Can we find @ trail up to where we want to go?" “1 know two or three,” she an- swered, “if they are only not flooded.” The storm seemed to have passed, but the darkness was intense, and fraz: above the northern Superstitions | came low tmutterings of thunder. Com- | pelled to strike out over the rocks to get up to any of the trails toward El | Capitan, Nan, helped by De Spain | when he could help, led the ascent toward the first ledge they could hope to follow on their dangerous course. The point at which the two climbed almost five hundred feet that night up Music mountain is still pointed out in the gap. No person, looking | at that confused wall, willingly be- lieves it could ever have been scaled in the dead of night. Torn, bruised and exhausted, Nan, handed up by her lover, threw herself at last prostrate on the ledge at the real beginning of their trail, and from that vantage point they made their way along the east- ern side of Music mountain for two miles before they stopped again to rest. It was already well after midnight. A favoring spot wus seized on by De Spain for the resting place he wanted. A dry recess beneath an overianging wall made a sheiter for the fire that he insisted on building to warm Nan in heP soaked clothing. It was duan- It must have been “Tt but they concealed the blaze as best they could and took the chance—a chance that more nearly than any that had gone before, cost them their lives. The mutterings above the moun- tains now grew rapidly louder, and while the two hovered over the fire, a thunder squall, rolling wildly down the eastern slope, burst over the gap. Nap knew even better than her com- panion the fickle nature of a range storm, and understood uncomfortably | well how a sudden shift might, at any moment, lay their entire path open to {ts fierceness. She warned De Spain | they must be moving, and, freshened | by the brief rest, they set out toward EB) Capitan. They had covered more than bulf seeming to rush in from the desert, burst above their heads. Drenched gerous, both realized, to start a fire, | The Two Refugees Looked Down on the Fivcaing Gap, knife-edge, and the mountain nearly vertical that it apr overhang the floor of the vall is so 's to They made half the stretch of this | angle with hardly 0 misstep, but the advance for # part of the way was a climb, and De Spain, turning once to speak to Nan, usked her for her rifle, that he might carry it with his own. What their story might have been had she given it to him, none can tell. But Nan, holding back, re- fused to let him relieve her. The dreaded angle which had haunted De Spain all night was safely turned on hands and knees, and, as they round- | ed it toward the east, clouds scudding over the open desert broke and shot the light of dawn against the beetling arete. De Spain turned in some relief to point to the coming day. As he did so a gust of wind, sweeping against the sheer wall, tipped him sidewise, and he threw himself on his knees to avoid the dizzy edge. His rifle, which lay under his hand on the rock, slipped from reach. In the next tn- stant he heard it bouncing from rock to rock, five hundred feet below. | Greatly annoyed and humiliated, he regained his feet and spoke with a laugh to reassure Nan. Just as she answered not to worry, a little sing- ing scream struck their ears; some- thing splashed suddenly close at hund against the rock wall; chips scattered between them. From below, the | Sound of a rifle report cracked against ‘the face of the cliff. They¥ were so startled, so completely amazed, that they stood motionless. De Spain looked down and over the uneven floor of the gap. The ranch- houses, spread like toys in the long perspective, lay peacefully revealed In the gray of the morning. He could discover no sign of life around any of the houses. But in another moment the little singing scream came again, | the blow of the heavy slug against the splintering rock wus repeated, the dis- tant report of the rifle foliewed. “Under fire,” muttered De Spain. He looked at Nan. “We'd better keep moving,” he sald. “Come! whoever is shooting can follow us a hundred yards elther way.” In front of De Spain a fourth bullet struck the rock. “Nan,” he muttered, “I've got you into a fix. If we can't stop that fellow, he is Hable to stop us. Can you see unything?” he asked, waiting for her to come up. “Henry!” She was looking straight down into the valley, and laid her hand ob De Spain's shoulder. “Is there any- thing moving on the ridge—over there —see—just east of Sassoon’s ranch- | house?” De Spain, his eyes bent on the point | gency, she stood at his side, his equal) with rain, they were forced to draw | Nan Indicated, drew her forward to a he knew, in courage, daring and re-/ hack onder a projecting rock. In an- | dip in the trail which, to one stretched | source, und answered his rapid ques- to The as possible guteways of escape. rain, which had {other moment the two storms, meet- ing in the gap, rushed together. As if ap unseen hand hud touched a thou- | flat, afforded a slight protection. Hi made her lie down, and just beyond {her refuge chose a point where the abating, now ceased, but from every | gand granite springs above the gap, | path, broadening a little and rising in- fissure in the mountains came the roar| eyery slender crevice spouted a stead of sloping toward the outer of rushing water, and little openings | stream that shot foaming out from | edge, gave him a chance to brace him- of rock and waterway that might have offered a chance when dry were now In fact, it was Nan's bellef that before morning wa- ter would be running over the main trail itself. “Yet,” said De Spain finally, “before morning we must be a long way from this particular spot, Nan. Sassoon bas posted men at the neck of the gap—that’s the first thing he would do, Yl tell you,” he said suddenly, as when after long uncertainty and anx- lous doubt one chooses an alternative und hastens to follow it. “Retreat is the thing for us, Nun. Let’s make for Music mountain and craw! into our cave till morning. Lefever will get in here some time tomorrow. Then we can connect with him.” Realizing that no time was to be lost, they set out on the iong journey. 2) ery foot of the troublesome way of- fered difficulties. Water impeded them continually. Nan picked their trail. But for her perfect familiarity with He! eyery foot of the ground, they could | qescent to the aspen grove. not have got to the mountain at all. When they got to the mountain trail itself they found their way swept by a mad rush of falling weter, its deafen- ing roar punctured by fragments of loosened rock which, swept downward from ledge to ledge, split and thun- dered as they dushed themselves against the mountainside. On a pro- tected floor the two stood for a mo- ment, listening to the roar of the cata- ract that had cut them off their refuge, “No use, Nan,” said “There isn’t any other the mountainsides. The sound of mov- ing waters rose in a dull, vast roar, broken by the unseen boom of distant falls, launching huge masses of water into caverns far below. laden wind tore and swirled among the crowded peaks, and above all the angry sky moaned and quivered in the rage of the elements. It was only the Inlls between the sharp squalls that enabled them to cover the trail before daylight. When they paused before El Capitan the fury° of the night seemed largely te have exhausted itself, but the over- charged air hung abcve the moun- tains, trembling and moaning like a bruised and stricken thing. Light- ning, playing across the inky heavens, blazed in constant sheets from end to end of the horizon. Under it all the two refugees, high on the moun- gap. Their flight was almost ended. Only the sheer cliff ahead blocked their Hardly moment after they had ta passed started until the eastern sky lightened | before the retreating storm, and with the first glimmer of daylight the two were at the beginning of the narrow foothold which lay for half u mile he- tween them and safety. The fnce of El Capitan presents, midway, a sharp convex. Just where jit is ‘own forward In this keen anule. w runs out almost te a The storm- | tainside, looked down on the flooding | | travel this country at all,” he re- | ‘self between two rocks. Flattened there like a target in midair, he threw ‘his hat down to Nan, and, resting on one knee, waited for the shot that should tumble him down El Capitan or betray the man bent on killing him. Another bullet, deliberately aimed, chipped the rock above him. Nun, agonizing in her suspense, cried out she must Join him and go with him if he went. He steadied her with a few words. A bullet struck again viciously close between them. De Spain spoke slowly: “Give me your} rifle.” Without turning his head, he held out his hand, keeping his eyes rigidly on the suspicious spot on the ridge. “How far is it to that road, Nan?” She looked toward the faint line that lay In the deep shadows below. , “Three hundred yards.” “Nan, if it wasn't for you, I couldn't marked with studious unconcern. | “Last time I had no aminunition—this you always have what's — _ heeded. How high are we, Nan?” time, no rifle—y “Seven hundred feet.” “Elevate for me, Nan, will you?” “Remember the wind,” she faltered, adjusting the sight as be hud asked. With the cautioning words she passed the burnished weapon, glitter- ing yet with the raindrops, into his hand. A flash cume from the distant ridge, Throwing his rifle to his shoul- der, De Spain covered a hardly per- ceptible black object on the trail mid- way between Sassoon’s ranch-house | lion doMars. |fore Nan could believe he had Mnedjam under orders.” J the sights. Once, twice, three times his hand fell and rose sharply on the lever, with every mark of precision, i yet so rapidly Nan could not under- |stand how he could discover what his ‘shots were doing. The fire «: liberately, without the of being affected by De “ust intimation She had never befe san | shooting to kill anothe very horror of watching De Spain, at bay | among the rocks, fascinated her. Since the first day they had anet she had hardly seen a rifle in his hands. She strove to k. The butt of the heat- | ing rille lay close aguinst the red- marked cheek she knew so well, and jto the tips of the fingers every pur- ticle of the mun's being was alive with strength and Son strange fascination drew her senses out toward him a& he knelt and threw ‘shot after shot at the distant figure resource. hidden on the ridge. She held out ther arms and clasped her hands [toward him in an uct of devotion. | | Then, while she looked, breathlessly, ‘he took his eyes an instant from the | sights. “He's running!” exclaimed De | Spain as the rifle butt went instantly back to his cheek, “Whoever he is, | God help him now!” | The words were more | Nan than an imprecation. He had | driven his enemy from the secant cover of a rut in the trail, and the man was | fleeing for new cover and for life. Bullet after bullet pitilessly led the | eseaping wretch. Suddenly De Spain | jerked the rifle from his cheek, threw back his head, and swept his left hand | across his straining eyes. Once more the rifle came up to place and flame fearful to “Whoever He Is, God Help Him.” shot again in the gray morning light from the hot muzzle. The rifle fell away frow the shoulder. The black speck running toward the ranchhouse stumbled, as if stricken by an ax, and sprawled headlong on the trail. Throw- ing the lever again like lightning. De Spain held the rifle back to his cheek. He did not fire. |} plensure. in’s return, | and a little bridge. Then he fired be-|a fight.’ Frank Elpas: muted. “I » waved his hand. “And J can’t do unything—” “But talk,” growled Frank Elpaso, not waving his hand. Lefever started hotly forward in his saddle. “Now look here, Frank.” He pointed nis finger at the objecting ranger. “I'm here for business, not for Any time I'm free you can ik to me—" “Not till somebody gags you, John,” interposed El ily. “Look he * demanded Le-! fever, spurrit se smartly te ward the Texan, re you looking for a! fight with me right here and now?" | “Yos, here und now,” declared EF! puso fiercely. \ Or, there snd then,” tnterposed; Kennedy, ironically, “some time, sone} where, or no time, nowhere. Having heard all of which, a hundred and fifty times from you two fellows, let ns have} peace. You've pulled it so often, over at Sleepy Cat, they've got it in double- fuced, red-seal records. Let's get started.” “Right you ure, Farrell,” assented Lefever, “but—-” \ “Second verse, John. You're boss bere; what are we going todo? That's all we want to know.” “Ienry’s orders were to wult here till ten o'clock this morning. There's been firing Inside twice since twelve o'clock last night. le told me to pay no attention to that. But if the whole place hadn't been under water all night, I'd have gone in, anyway. This last time it was two high-powered guns, picking at long range and, if 'm any judge of rifles and the m prob- ably behind them, som must have got hurt. It’s all a guess—hut I'm go- ing in there, peaceably if IT can, to look for Henry de Spain; if we are fired on —we've got to fight for it. And if there's any talking to be done—” “You can do it,” grunted Elpase. “Thank you, Frank, And T will do it T need not say that Kennedy will ride ahead with me, Elpaso and Wickwire with Tommie Meggeson.” Leaving Scott in the trees, the little party trotted smartly up the road, picking their way through the pools and across the brawling streams that tore over the trail toward Doke Mor- gan’s place. The condition of the trail thelr formation continnally and er, ip the circumstances, was not His only anxiety was to keep sorry, Elpaso from riding abead far enough to embroil them in a quarrel before he himself should come up. Half-way to Duke's bonse they found a small bridge bad gone out. It cut off the direct road, and, at Elpase's sug. gestion, they crossed over to foNow the ridge up the valley. Swimming thelr horses through the backwater that cov- ered the depression to the south, they gained the elevation and proceeded, unmolested, on thelr way. As they approached Sassoon's place, Elpaso, riding ahead, drew up bis borse and sat a moment studying the trail and cast- ing un occasional glance In the difrec- tion of the ranch-honse, whieh Jay un- der the brow of a bill ahead. When Lefever rode up to him, he saw the story that Ilpase wos reading in the roadway. It told of a man shot in his tracks as he was running toward Second after sec-| the house—nand, in the judgment of ond he waited. Nan watched the rifle | these men, fatally shot—for, while his and saw Without slowly come down, unfired. his drawn face slowly relax. taking his eyes off the sprawling speck, he rose stiffly to his feet. As if in a dream she suw bis hind stretched toward her and heard, as he looked across the far gulf, one word: “Come!” They reached the end of the trail De Spain, rifle in hand, looked back. The sun, bursting in splendor across the great desert, splashed the valley and the low-lying ridge with ribboned gold. Further up the gap horsemen, companions spread like a fan in front of him, Lefever got off his horse sand, bending Intently over the sudden page torn out of a man’s life, recast the scene that hud taken pls where he stood, half an hour earlie Some litte time Lefever spent patiently decipher- ing the story printed tp the rufted road, and murked by a wide crimson splash in the middle of it. He rose from his study at length and followed back the trail of the ronning feet that had been stricken at the pool. He steoped in stirred by the firing, were riding rap-/ front of a fragment of roek jutting up idly down toward Sassoon’s ranch- house. But the black thing In the sunshine lay quite still, CHAPTER XXV. Lefever to the Rescue. Lefever, chafing in the aspen grove | jin, under the restraint «f waiting in the storm, was ready long before daylight to break orders and ride in to find De Spain. With the first peep of dawn, and with his men facing him in their sad- dies, Lefever made a short explanation. “I don't want any man to go into the gap with me this morning under any misunderstanding or any false pre- tense,” he began cheerfully. Scott and Bull will stuy right here. If, way out while the rest of us are hunt- —three shots, Bob—or to ride in with out. Now, it’s like this,” he added, ad- dressing the others, “You, all of you ride down the dusty trail together. That, I take it, is their business, But her uncle, old Duke, and Gale, and the whole bunch, I bear, turned dead sore | on it, and have fixed it up to beat them, You all know the Morgans. They're some bunch—and they stick for one another like hornets, and all hold to- gether in a fight. So I don’t want any man to ride in there with me thinking | he’s going to a wedding, He isn't. He | may or muy not be going to a funeral, | but he’s not going to « shivaree.” | Frank Elpaso glanced sourly at bis! piece of rock buch the companions, is wise, John.” | “I kwow you ure, Frank,” retorted Lefever testily; “that’s all right. I'm! been carried down the round. only explaining. And I den’t want you , to get _sore_ on me_if I don) show you wae Sr reer eenegy “Bob | head that was hit that time. by any chance, De Spain makes his| j¢ gidn't secure me. De Spain to help carry the rest of us jan haquiry. know, or ought to know—everybody | not with Henry de Spain, beeause the *twixt here und the railroad knows— | other fellow, I think, was using soft- that De Spain and Nan Morgan have | posed pulieis. No white mon does that, fastened up to each other for the long | we onerman | titan beside the road, studied it a while and, looking about, pleked up a number of empty cartridge-shells, examined them, and tossed them away. Then he straightened up und looked searching- ly across the gap. Only the great, silent face of El Capitan eonfronted It told no tales, “If this was Henry de Spain,” mwut- tered Elpaso, when Lefever rejoined his companions, “he won't eare whether you join him now, or at ten o’elock, or never." ¢ “That is not Henry,” asserted Le fever with his usual cheer, “Not with- in forty rows of apple trees, It's not Henry’s gun, vot Henry's heels, not Henry's buir, and thereby, not Henry's But it was to a finish—nond blamed if at first J thought it might Hang it, get down and see be Henry. ing for him, you'll be here to signal 8} for yoursetves, boys.” Hipaso answered his invitation with Vho won this fellow fighting with?” “That, also, is a question. Certainly much less De Spain.” “Uniess he used another rifle,” sug- ted Kennedy, ell me how they cowd get his ova rifle away from him if he could fire « gun at alk I don’t put Henry quite as high with a rifle as with a revolver— if you want to split hairs—mind. I say, if you want to split hairs, But vo man that’s ever seen bim handle either would want to try to take any kind of a gun from him. Whoever tt was,” Le- fever got up inio his s “threw some ounces of lend yey tenho x! “I guess everybody here | don’t understand how anyone could see a man lying behind it. “Anyway, whoever was hit here try Sassoon’s ranch-honse if fire on us before weoget there” of food cnaerenotetAheRE NET K est