Evening Star Newspaper, April 30, 1940, Page 30

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1940. -TRAILS END e WiLLiam MasLeop RAINE WOODWARD & LOTHROP When Carl Rogers, editor of the “Powder Horn Sentinel.” is killed from ambush in the land-grant feud by Russell Moseley's Hat T riders, Anne Eliot of Massillon, Ohio, his' niece. per. Ae she steps from the stagecoach at Blanco. there is a istol shot. Jim Silcott’s hat is whisked rom his red head, but the editor who succeeded Rogers recovers it _before ! running to a doorway. Buck Sneve, a Hat T rider. levels his gun again but he drops dead as a door closes behind Silcott. This fatal gun play had fol- lowed Bneve's appearance in the Trail's End with Jud Prentiss, his foreman, and other Hat T riders, Jud dragging Jesse Lamprey after him. ~ Jud accused Jess of double-crossing Mosely_in the feud, Jesse's younger brother Phil re- fused to leave without Jesse and when Jud started to hit Phil, Silcott, waiting for a game of poker. asked if Mosely's orders included beating up the boy. Angrily, Jud warned Jim he was on dangerous ground, plied his quirt on Jesse till he fell writhing to the floor, and left with the Hat T men. It was then that they lay in wait for Jim. o Jelks takes Anne to the Sentinel office and Jud takes his men to shoot it up but leave when Jim shouts that Anne is inside. Jim refuses to quit. saying he can't let Mosely drive him out. Sheriff Lawson comes to arrest Jim but Anne says she will cover the town with posters that tell the truth. Mosely offers to buy the Sentinel but Anne tells him she will run it herself. Anne had been engaged to Jesse Lamprey jn Massillon. She thanks Phil for asking if he can help her. CHAPTER VIII. Anne soon discovered that she liked working on a paper. Silcott had stayed on the job as her men- [ what I want. My crazy kid days are over.” “Mr. Silcott has reformed too. I expect you'll both be pillars of the church soon.” “Jim, he needs a lot more reform- ing than I do,” Rufe said. “Why, 1 just been reading in the ‘Sentinel’ how he got into an unfortunate shooting affair only this week. He’s sure a wild coot.” “I didn’t get into it because I wanted to,” Silcott justified him- self. “It was forced on me.” Keys’ Mosely Worried. “I'd never know it from reading what it says in the ‘Sentinel’ Jelks replied dryly. “I hear Russ Mosely was figuring on buying the paper. Maybe he has done bought it al- ready.” Anne agreed with him warmly. “That's what I told Mr. Silcott. I wrote an article that called a spade a spade, but he talked me into run- ning this milk-and-water one he cooked up. Now I wished I hadn't listened to him.” “Oh, T reckon Jim is right,” Rufe conceded. “Russ won't know why you held back. He’ll mill it over in his mind, and he’ll know that if ever tor. He taught her how to give a friendly gossipy tone to the “Senti- nel” news and impressed on her that even trivial events were worth recording to build up interest and goodwill. She found herself setting down that Hilary Benson, champion horseshoe pitcher of the Powder Horn country, had been challenged by Pete Yeager and had success- fully deferded his title by winning three games out of five. Bar Over- street, she wrote, had brought in to the editor a basket of the largest potatoes ever grown in the county. Everybody was pleased to know that little Bobby Simpson had re- covered from the measles and was back at school. Her advisor drilled into the young woman the impor- tance of getting as many names into the columns of the “Sentinel” as possible. She decided she should write the story of the Sneve killing and the | subsequent attack on the “Senti- nel” building, and took it to Silcott for criticism. After reading it, he slanted a warm friendly grin at her, white teeth flashing in the tanned face. “My, my, lady, this won’t do at all,” he told her. “You've turned & news story into an editorial. Just tell what took place. Don’t scold the Hat T boys. Be very brief and impartial. The only names you need to mention are Sneve's and mine. I think your story is much too indignant and much too long.” “But why?” Anne demanded hot- ly. “You had me write nearly half & column about the school enter- tainment. There isn’t much more than that here. Or isn't murder big news here?” Urges Factual Story. Jim’s evebrows lifted whimsically. “Murder?” he said. Then, “If this story had nothing to do with the ‘Sentinel’ I would say give it a big play. But it has everything to do with us. Folks will be expecting you to lambaste the Ha¢ T riders, and if you do they will discount all you say, figuring that you will be telling your side of the story. My idea would be to write a short, im- personal account, giving nothing but facts. This would be a complete surprise. You would gain ground a lot. Fair-minded people would see you are an editor not biased by your personal viewpoint.” “They would think I was afraid to tell what I thought.” “Not if your policy about local is- sues is firm. It doesn’t matter what you think about this killing. All that matters in a news story is just what happened.” He glanced through what she had written. “You say here, ‘Jud Prentiss and his ruffians rode into Blanco with lawlessness and murder in their hearts’” We don't know that. Any- how, it’s only an opinion.” “I suppose it’s only an opinion that they flogged Jess Lamprey and tried to kill you and came down here and shot into this building with me in it.” Anne Gives In. “Let me write the story,” he sug- gested. “You don’t have to use it. But it will give you a line on what I mean. It’s important folks should not think you are just an impulsive girl.” Again he gave her his cheer- ful smile. “We're going to show them a real editor.” Anne surrendered reluctantly. She liked what she had written, as most young writers do. But her judg- ment told her Jim was right. She ran the story exactly as Sil- eott wroit it, though she found a good deal of fault with what it left out. “You don’t even say they lay in wait to try to kill you,” she com- plained. “You speak about an un- fortunate shooting affray. That’s a nice way to talk about a bunch of murderers.” “Everybody in the country knows Just what took place,” Jim said. “We're not giving anybody informa- tion; we're just going on record as leaning over backward to be more than fair.” “It’'s funny about you,” Anne said, almost vindicatively. “From all I can learn, you are as wild as young men come.” “Used to be,” he corrected. “I'm a reformed character.” Later in the week Rufe Jelks drifted into the office, a copy of the “Sentinel” in his hand. “I drapped in with a news item, Miss Eliot,” he said. “That fine young character, Rufe Jelks, has bought the Longhorn Corral from old man Monk. He has done paid a dollar down and will settle the balance at some future date un- known after the mazuma begins to roll in.” “Good for you, Rufe,” Silcott said. *T didn’t know you were a capitalist.” ‘Won Mosely’s Money. “I wasn't till this morning. I had & run of luck at the Jumbo playing roulette. Couldn’t pick ’em wrong. ‘When I walked out in the gray dawn there was $1,342 of Mr. Russ Mosely’s dough packed away in my jeans. He won’t like that when he finds it out. Since I'm figuring on settling down soon”—he smiled blandly at Anne— “I decided to be a responsible busi- ness man who would be a catch for some nice girl.” “So you bought the Longhorn.” “I bought the Longhorn. And I want a nice little ad put in yore paper, Miss Eliot, about how all the friends of Rufe Jelks will be greeted hearty when they come to my wagon yard.” “Newspaper advertising is the life you get riled at him ybu can blast loose with the whole story.” “Would Mr. Mogly care much if I did?” “Considerable. He's bullheaded, and he’s going his own way regard- less. But he likes folks to think he’s a good citizen, the way the Big Mogul in the district ought to be. Kinda funny too. You wouldn't expect the boss of a hell-roaring outfit like the Hat T to be thin- skinned. But Russ isn’t any Jud Prentiss. When he pulls off his dirty work he likes it to be all nicely covered up..» Anne smiled. “You. don't like him much, do you?” “Not so you could notice it. How about you, Miss Eliot?” | “He’s very good-logking,” she said | Judicially. “And he told me him- self he was a good citizen.” From the buckboard he had justj driven into the Hat T plaza, Russell | Mosely descended and flung the| lines to a stable boy. | “Send Jud to me—and Pesky | Kennedy, if he is here.” | He strode to the main house, walked up the porch steps, and vanished inside the house, a long | low structure which occupied one side of the square. The bunkhouses of the men and the mess hall faced it. On one flank were the store, the balcksmith shop, and an old adobe building used for piling up saddles, bridles, harness, and ranch imple- ments. On the other, more adobe, shacks, the stables and back of | these a corral. | The Hat T home ranch was a squalid enough place, entirely with- out any attempt to make it present- able. Its owner had been too occu- pied with making money to have | any pride about keeping up appear- ances. Some day he meant to build | a big house, marry, and found a dynasty. But there was still plenty of time for that. He was not quite 33, and as yet had not found a chance to enjoy life. Sfnce the age of 10 he had been making his own way in the world, and it had been hammered into him that the way | to power and place in the land was | to hold large possessions in his grasp. Mosely Is Dissatisfied. For the first time today, as he had looked down on the ram-| shackle buildings and their desolate background from the road which dipped in a long slope to the ranch, there had risen in him a feeling of distaste for the ugliness of the scene. He was thinking of how it would appear to the eye of a young woman used to the neat houses and orderly lawns of a little Ohio town. The stable boy went to the black- smith shop where Prentiss was supervising the shoeing of a horse. As he approached, the boy heard the heavy voice of the foreman shouting at the man fitting the | shoes. “Anybody with a lick of sense knows how easy it is to ruin a good horse with shoes that don’t fit. I dunno. who ever told you that you | are a blacksmith, Dunn.” | ‘When the stable boy delivered his | message, Prentiss seemed to pay no | attention. He kept on roughly | criticizing the smith, then in his| heavy flat-footed way clumped | across the square to the house. “Mean as & bear with a sore paw today,” the wrangler said, his eyes following the heavy awkward figure. “Why ‘say today in particular?” Dunn wanted to know. “Did you ever know him in a decent temper? One of these days I'll let him have & hammer on that thick skull of his. To hear him you'd think we were all slaves.” The boy departed to get Pesky. He found the range rider in the bunk house. Pesky was a short, crook-nosed man with rusty hair and a sulky face. Decides to Wait. “What's Russ want with me now?” Kennedy was disturbed. “He’s got a kick about sometfing. That'’s & cinch. Darned if I stay on a ranch where you get hauled up on the carpet for every doggoned thing you do.” “Jud is with him,” the boy volun- teered. ‘The cowboy glanced at the bed- roll on the bunk which he had just brought in with him. There was something in it which might come in handy if they started to ride him (See TRAIL'S END, Page B-16) FORDS ENGINE HEADS WELDED WELDIT, INC. 516 1st St. NW. ME. 7944 T DESTROY ALL ROACHES Peterman’s Roach Food is absolutely safe to use but is quick death to roaches. It lures them from their nests. Kills eggs, too. Effective 24 hours & day. No odor. Guaranteed results. Pllctmomic-l. Olvderl:&m,ooo“um of etetfl_n?‘l sol year. At your druggist’s, 25¢. PETERMAN'S of trade, Mr. Jelks,” Anne said gravely. “Sure enough? 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