Evening Star Newspaper, April 6, 1930, Page 96

4 .. 1 THE. QIINNAV CTAD THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL MACITINTI7VIAAY w v 6, 1930. A Shot 1n the Dark. W hen Larry Took a Chance, Spurred by Love and Peril, He Set the Stage for a Good Story. BY ALAN LeMAY. ILVERTIP HUGHES hsi gone to the / stable to put up Old Snoop’s horses, : leaving Larry MacShane and Old Snoop alone. Even so, the young deputy wouid not have dared speak as he did had not the drone of the wind so filled the night that a man listening outside the lean-to could have heard nothing within. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, $he mcment that Silvertip had disappeared into the snow. “I told you to go back to town as soon as you had investigated the Magpie shaft.” “This blizzard—I figured I couldn’'t make it down to Underholt, MacShane. And this cabin bein’ on the way, and me knowin’ you'd already be here lookin’ for Silvertip Hughes—" «Blizzards!” scoffed Larry MacShane. “Well, t did you find at the Magpie?” WI‘I‘;othinz" Old Snoop, who would have been called Mr. Willis Jones if he had had his rights, had a scrawny figure, a scraggly mustache, and an ill-preserved look. No chin seemed to have been included. “Nothin’. Except, ¢’ course, Young's co! 4 D"gxouun'?' Mghane mocked him, “except Dad Young's—you old fool! How Wwas he Killed?” wgeemed like he might 'a’ died natural, Mac- *“Did you examine him?” “Not to no extent. I knowed you'd never be satisfied on my say-so; so I rigged a iravois and brung him along.” “You ‘brung him'—Oh, you infernal old idiot! Where is he now?” “Here.” Snoop shoved at a long canvas- wrapped bundle with his foot. “I put him here in the lean-to before I come in.” ACSHANE remembered now that noises in the lean-to, which he and Silvertip had attributed to wind and rats, had been audible for several minutes before Snoop’s unexpected appearance at the door of the cabin fteelf, Rage swept him as he flung open the cabin door and found, by the light from within, that Snoop'’s statement was verifiable. s “Here!” he ordered. “Help me heave him back in the corner! If Silvertip sees this— listen, you; I'm working on Silvertip on the grounds that Dad Young is alive, you hear?” “Alive?” said Snoop dimly. “But——" “The second he finds out I've been lying to him, it's a shoot-out, d'you understand?” “Lyin’ to him? You been lyin'?” “Didn’t you just hear me tell you?” “But I thought you figured Silvertip might *a’ killed Dad Young?” “Never mind what you thought I figured! You—" “You're the darndest feller ever I see,” said Snoop. “If Silvertop killed Dad Young, like I bet you think, I'd say he has cause to know Dad Young's dead, it stands to reason. And here you want to convince him different—and with the corpse right here in the house, at that!” “That last is your contribution,” snarled Mac- Shane. “Catch hold. Gosh, the old boy weighs & ton!” “Fact is,” said Snoop hesitantly, “there’s & reason. This—" “Where’s Midnight Zachary?” MacShane suddeniy recalled that the Negro mule-skinner whom he had sent with Snoop had not reap- peared. “I'm tellin’ you,” said Old Snoop with injury. “Midnight didn’t like this spooky business—he kept takin’ another drink. Finally he got so illuminated he couldn’t walk, and 1 piled him on top of the—the bundle on the travols. But he kept rollin’ off, and I see we wasn’t gettin’ no place, so finally, when a hard bump busted loose the lacin’ o' Dad Young's canvas, I jest laced Midnight inside the canvas, with Dad.” “Oh, gosh,” moaned MacShane. “Dad Young is the only dead man in the world that could spoil my game, and I suppose Midnight Zach- ary is the only Negro within 500 miles, and here you come and dump both of ’em onto me in the same sack! Say! We've got to get that fellow out of there before—" “Too late,” said Snoop stoically. oies—— 3 “Shut up! And stay shut up, you hear? Tl do the talking here!” The towering frame of Silvertip Hughes came stumping in as he spoke, but MacShane had to finish the cautioning command. “All right,” said Snoop. “Only—" “Shut up! I sent this old fool to Clear Springs,” he explained to Hughes, “to hand out a writ of attachment, but he has to get switched off and go hunting a bear he heard about. And to show what kind of an optimist he is, he borrows a mule to pack the hide and meat.” “Clear _ Springs?” said Snoop blankly. lABut ” “Arrgh!” said MacShane. He hunched his left shoulder significantly, so that his shoulder- Here holstered weapon shifted visibly under his brush jacket, and Snoop subsided. “Snoop’s a card all right,” Hughes agreed. He led the way into the cabin proper. His woolen shirt was now open part way down the front, and MacShane saw, with a sudden keen anticipation of action, that a shoulder-holster bulge, similar to that under his own left arm, had now appeared under Silvertip's arm as well. Silvertip was conspicuously tall in a country in which most men were tall, he had a mighty breadth of shoulder, and arms as powerful as legs. His eyes were slits, sleepy-looking and a little slanted. The violent beard and the veined, belligerent nose suggested that the eyes might be a fiery red. OLD Snoop fidgeted unhappily. He knew the makings of trouble when he saw them. Even without those unfortunate mysteries in the lean-to, which he himself had so inadvisedly introduced, Snoop could see that MacShane plus Silvertip added up to spell dynamite. Cowboys like Larry MacShane gave Snoop a distinct pain. The faintly melancholy philosophy always present in those reckless riders never prevented any of them from diving into danger with glad whoops, head- long and without reservation, like frogs into soup. This did not endear them to Snoop. ‘Whatever might be said against Snoop, he cer- tainly was not reckless, Unfortunately, Snoop’s only asset was a marked flair for nosing out facts that were none of his business—this, and a natural dog-like genius for the life of professional hanger-on. The worst possible luck had landed him in New Mexico in a day when direct action was more popular than discretion. And his temporary professional attachment to Deputy MacShane was the ultimate disaster in a life that had been one long series of Winters, MacShane'’s slight limp was a reminder to Snoop, if not to MacShane, that the cowboy deputy habitually put his horse headlong down steeps upon which practically no horse could be expected to live. The slight notch in Mac- Shane's left ear was permanent testimony that he would rather try to kick a gun out of a drunkard’s hand than actually have trouble. Worst of all, just now, was the speciously innocent look in MacShane’'s eye—a faintly entertained, faintly hopeful, faintly expectant look—that told Snoop more clearly than a thousand probably futile expianations that any moment might produce unfortunate surprises. MacShane was not the right company for an old gentleman who had long suspected himself of a weak heart. MacShane seemed to be waiting for Silvertip to open a conversational lead. Long minutes trailed away while Snoop fidgeted; while Mid- night Zachary, presumably, snored unheard in the lean-to, peacefully unaware of his pe- culiar bedfellow; and while MacShane smoked, apparently unconscious of them all. Old Snoop would have been horrified to know that Mac- Shane had chosen these uncertain moments to let his thought wander down-mountain to the little town of Underholt, and there focus on the daughter of Dad Young. Early that afternoon MacShane had been sitting in Underholt’s only boarding house. By letting his thought return there, he gave him- self a big advantage in the nervous game of waiting-out Silvertip Hughes. MacShane seemed to recall that he had absent-mindedly ladled a spoon of beans into his coffee-cup, His eyes had been elsewhere. The dining room in which he sat was run by valiant old Mrs. Minsterhoff, but table was waited on by Molly Young. Since old Dad Young had left his daughter in Mrs. Minsterhoff’s care, while he and Silvertip reopened the old Magpie shaft, business had flourished no end. “Anybody would think,” said Molly Young, “that law officers in this part of the country would have to be alert, wide-awake young men.” certain sharpness of tongue, which Molly had perhaps inherited along with her turned-up nose from an Irish mother, gave the cowboy deputy a pleasant sort of homesick sensation. “You sure have pretty eyes,” he offered. “They put me in mind of them blue flowers that come out all over the Cimarron hills in Spring.” At this point Old Snoop had come in, ob- viously bursting with news that he could not keep, yet was afraid to spill. “Somethin’s happened,” he said. a feller waitin’ to see you out here.” “Then you go keep him company,” Mac- Shane ordered. “I guess,” Snoop offered doubtfully, “I got to speak to the deputy alone, Miz Young.” “He’ll do nothing of the kind, Molly,” de- clared MacShane. “He certailny may,” said Molly Young. She whisked out. “Midnight Zachary’s out here,” said Snoop “There’s “Is it true,” she asked him, “that Silvertip Hughes—killed my father?” in sibilant whispers. “He's the nigger packer that prods & mule of grub up to Miz Young's paw, up at the Magpie every two weeks if sober. He’s jest come back. There's a dead feller up there, MacShane.” “Which one?” said Larry grimly. Old Snoop rolled an apprehensive eye to- ward the kitchen door. “Dad Young,” he said soundlessly. Shane gasped. “Of course,” said Snoop, “of the two it couldn't have been Silvertip Hughes. Dad Young shouldn’t have gone pardners with that feller. Who's goin’ to break the news to Molly? You?” “Not yet,” MacShane had decided. “Too bad about Molly,” said Snoop. “Left without a dime. Hughes ain't tried to conceal lately that the Magpie’s worthless, His own self, he calls it the Magpie Salt.” MacShane's eyes hardened. Somehow, even then—without evidence, and without knowl- edge of mining—ever then he had known that Hughes had lied, and that there was some- thing of value in the reopened Magpie shaft. Now as he sat in Silvertip’s cabin the job of tellizsg Molly about her father's death re- mained undone. He dreaded it a lot. He'd rather get shot in eight places than call up tears into those blue eyes. Nobody but Mid- night, Snoop and himself—and possibly Silver- tip?—knew that Dad Young lay dead. He was trying to find out just what Silvertip knew: that was his mission here tonight. His mind suddenly snapped back to the pres- ent as Silvertip spoke. “So,” said Silvertip, “you seen Dad Young, did you?” “Yes,” said MacShane, “I saw him.” “Today?” “No; yesterday.” - “You sure,” pressed Silvertip, “it was yes- terday?” 3 “Yeah, it was yesterday, all right,” Mac- Shane asserted. “I was surprised when I heard he was in town, because he hasn't been down to Underholt for so long.” Silvertip grunted. Another session of wait- ing seemed to be beginning. Silvertip could have outwaited him two to one, MacShane knew, but for the ease with which MacShane's thoughts turned to Molly Young, Mac- A!'I'ER Snoop’s news had dragged Mac- Shane out of ghe boarding house, the deputy had talked to Midnight Zachary. Zach- ary was chocolate brown, and of dignified de- portment. MacShane had led Zachary and Snoop into the back room of a bar. *“Mid- night, what's this story?” “This morning’, when I led my mule into the cabin up at the Magpie mine, thar lies Dad Young daid in his baid.” *See anything else, Midnight?” “Nossuh.” “Silvertip,” Old Snoop had put in, “is at the cabin at Big Cat Guich. It's 10 miles up— about 5 miles this side of the Magpie shaft. I saw him when I was huntin’. He didn’t see me, though. That was last week.” “I expect that’s right,” said Midnight Zach- ary. “I seen a sign of life at that shack, as I drawed nigh.” “You had to pass that shack on the way up to the Magpie,” MacShane told Midnight. “Did you see Silvertip?” “Nossuh, Big Cat Gulch is given to hants, Mr, MacShane. When I seen movement at that shack from afar off, I stopped and went round —way round.” “And coming back—did you go by that Cat Gulch shack again?” “Nossuh, Mr. MacShane. I went round.” “Snoop, saddle up, and go up to the Magpie. Go around that cabin where you saw Silvertip, just as Midnight did. Find out anything you can up there. Midnight—you go with Snoop and show him that way around that you know so much about. I'm going to ask some ques- tions here in Underholt. Then I'm going up and call on Silvertip. I'll see you when I ged back.” MacShane saw now that he had been mise taken on that last point, at least; his reunion with Old Snoop was at Silvertip's cabin after all, and poor Midnight's dread of the trip was justified, for he was sleeping it off laced in & tarpaulin with Dad Young himself. MacShane wondered nervously how soon Midnight, and consequently Silvertip, would find that out. Once more Silvertip broke the silence, ree calling MacShane to his immediate surround- ings. “I been worried about Dad's health for & long time,” Hughes began tentatively. “Somethin’ wrong with him?” “Fellers his age,” said Silvertip, “is terrible suckers for ‘theesis.’” “Come to think of it,” MacShane improvised, “he was looking peaked. L.ooked like a feller come out of the grave.” Silvertip said nothing, and MacShane ree calling that he was skating near the edge of mighty thin ice, decided it best to keep his gaze vacuously upon the stove. Certainly, he thought, Silvertip must know that old Dad Young was dead. If the deputy’s suspicions were correct, Silvertip had personally seen to Dad's demise. “Well,” said Silvertip slowly, “I'm glad to hear he made it to town. He's had a right bad cough. Me and him was just settlin’ down in this here cabin for the Winter, when Dad took it in his head to go down to town. We moved here from above because this is more sheltered.” “Well, anyway,” said MacShane, “I was glad to hear you fellers done so well up there.” CAUTIOUS. prying words, that might draw gunfire, pretty soon. MacShane drew & deep breath of pure tension. He had come to the point at last. Whether or not Silvertip had killed Dad Young was legally his primary cone cern, but he realized now that he did not much care. Dad Young was dead, and nothing that he or the law could do would bring him back, or make Molly Young less alone. What ree mained in the balance was the wealth that might or might not have been yieldled by the Magpie Salt. “There was rumors,” went on MacShane, “that you fellers got fooled on the Magpie; maybe you know some fellers call it the Magpie Salt. I certainly was relieved to hear they was wrong.” “Well,” Silvertip began, “‘that was a_funny thing—and seein’ as you was—is—a friend of Dad's, I don't mind tellin’ you how it was. I suppose he—said a little something’ about it himself?"” Silvertip paused, obviously praying for some enlightenment from MacShane that would give him his cue. “Oh,” said MacShane with just as fervent a prayer, “he did say a little something.” *Me and him—" said Silvertip: now, at last, something was coming out! “Me and him——"* From the lean-to came a peculiar noise, & sound more arresting than the impersonal whistle and grone of the wind in the spruce— a long moam, $0o human to be the voice of the wind, yet hamily human enough to be the voice of a man.. Silvertip’s voice choked off and he froze motionless. “Oh, gee!” moaned Old Snocp. Silvertip’s words came with more than usual deliberation: “What—was—that?" “I didn’t hear nothin’,” said MacShane none chalantly. Silently he was cursing Old Snoop and his baggage. “What was you saying?” the deputy prompted, his voice casual. “I,” said Silvertip slowly, ““forget what I was sayin'.” “We were speaking of the Magpie Salt® MacShane suggested. “Was we?” Stalemate., Once more a long silence. “I was talking to Molly Young" MacShane Continued on Seventh Page R ARRAARRIESITRTRI i TRdia Y\ - o N