The Key West Citizen Newspaper, September 26, 1952, Page 10

Pege 0 THE KEY WEST CITIZEN Friday, September 26, 1952 BARNEY GOOGLE AND SNUFTY SMITH PUT TH’ CRITTER IN LEETLE EBENEEZER'S CRADLE! MAW HAW 1 €B (S BIG ENUFF ROOST WIF TH’ you! GOIN' TO SLEEP CHICKENS RIDDLES ? DO BE KEERFUL, EBENEEZER-- THEM'S YORE BABY ; j DONT | NEED THAT SUIT-I TOLD YOU TO PUT ON YOUR EVENING CLOTHES AS WE ARE GOING TO THE OPERA = hy SORRY, GIRLS.’ BUSINESS MEETING CAME UP.~ OUR DATE TO SHOW You THE CAMPUS IS OFF./— WE MEET THOSE CUTE Boys AFTER CLASS 2— WE 5. HAVE TO GO WITH HY o> Our FATHERS” b HATE TO DIS- > APPOINT You! SOMETIMES: 2ELATNES COME IN HANDY— BUT NOT OFTEN BESIDES- NOT ONLY THE MONEY WUZ IN THAT SUIT BUT ALSO TH’ OPERA TICKETS = HOW'S ABOUT CUTTIN' OW WE WILL JOIN POPEYE AND WIMPY AT ‘BLUE YONDER LAKE! OH, DAD /-wE UNDERSTAND- REALLY WE DO.’ ( DON'T MIND US /~ WE'LL FIND SOME- THE IciIOS WERE SuRE SWELL ABOUT IT.’ — AND AFTE THEY’D BEEN PLANNING ON GOING W!TH US, J NICK! YOU CAN HELP CISCO, WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?! MOST BY GETTING QUT OF THE WAY: s we PENNANT- ‘WINNING ~~ , RUNS | ZALEN CAME OFF TH BENCH . AND RAN TH’ \ ATTA BOY, ZIPS. NOW ME AN BUGBUH KIN COMMENCE KETCHIN’ UP ON * THRIDS BACK IN SHAP , AND AS FAST AS EVER? NOT YET, PAL .. YOU RE BOOKED AS Chapter 4 ER bland assumption of his co-operation was so certain that Clay stared at her in complete amazement before he could gather himself for a reply. Then he ex- ploded. “I've got a murder charge hang- ing over my head now, and if you think I’m going to complicate it with a little job of grave-rob- bing—” “But that’s just it,” she inter- rupted. “You don’t want that mur- der charge to come to rest on your shoulders right now, do you, But it might—if you don’t help me!” “By God!” he said slowly. “1 believe you mean that.” “I should think you'd be de- { lighted, Mr—Bennett,” she said softly. “After all, it isn’t every fugitive with a rope around his neck who has a chance to share a fortune while he’s running away.” Suddenly he laughed. He had only been half listening to her words, for he was suddenly aware that Sally was an uncommonly handsome woman and that there might be far worse things than an alliance with her. “Why,” he agreed sardonically, “now that you put it that way, it may be that you're right. I’ve been thinking of going into the Santa Fe trade. If I’m going on the trail anyway, I might as well look for the treasure along the way. You're suggesting that we share it equal- ly, of course?” She studied him appraisingly, finding in his broad shoulders and reckless eyes the same vibrant threat and promise that had at- tracted her to Blaine Shepley. But it was far too soon for that. “Equally? Well, we'll have to see about that. The question right now is whether or not you can find our friend Meisendorf’s money. You've never been over the trail, have you?” He shook his head slowly. “All I know about the Santa Fe trail is that it goes through about eight hundred miles of country that God made and then forgot—and there’s a town named Westport at this end and a place called Santa Fe at the other. How about your map? Can you tell anything from that?” Sally shrugged her white shoul- [TWO family house Clinton. Priced to LOST and FOUND 3 al) white fuary Gog Anrwere he mame Curley Phone 328-R Advertising Department ders helplessly. “It doesn’t tell me a lot,” she admitted. “However...” She fumbled in her reticule and brought up the soiled, crumpled Scrap of paper that had already Bn a men their lives. “Here it is. Clay unfolded it slowly and stu- died it carefully. s “Did Shepley or André tell you anything at all about where this Spot was located?” he asked. “A little,” she said, “but only a very little. Blaine said it was between the Arkansas and the Cimarron, at a place they call the Jornada del Muerto.” beats Clay grinned at her, eonsidering her information. “The Journey of the Dead,” he translated. “Well, it has a likely sound, anyway. I'll inquire around a little and see what I can find out. In the meantime, I'd keep this out of sight.” She returned the map to her reticule and rose to her feet, straightening her skirt and her petticoats about her. “It’s all arranged then, isn’t it?” she asked, smiling. “You are going to help me, and we'll both wind up very rich and famous in the new lands on the frontier?” He bowed meticulously over her outstretched hand and smiled back at her as he lifted his head. “We will undoubtedly ‘wind up,’” he agreed, but whether we'll be rieh and famous or only dead and notorious before the wind- ing’s completed I’m damned if I know.” you could hear Westport Land- ing before you could see it, for even before it came into view around the wide bend of the Mis- souri the noise of men talk- ing and shouting came floating across the water, occasionally and unexplainedly interspersed with strains of gay, half-barbaric music. Clay and Sally were leaning against the forward rail, watch- ing the dark brown water that rushed by on either side between the towering, heavily forested bluffs on the left and the flat river- bottom land on the right, which ran back to smooth-topped, roll- ing hills on the north. url Russell came up to stand beside them just as the narrow, Tock-ribbed levee came W2e per line for one day Ve per line for three days 10e per line for six days 9c per line for twelve days 8c per line for twenty-four days Minimum of 3 lines per insertion “Well,” he said, “there she is- Westport Landing, the beginning of the Santa Fe trail.” Clay turned his attention to the activities on the levee. It was more like a fair than a steamboat land- ing, for the narrow rock ledge was packed and jammed with people, horses, drays, covered wagons, blanket Indians, Negroes, carriages, and piles and bales of merchandise and pelts. A half- dozen three- and four-storied warehouses were set back into the fifty-foot bluff that towered above the river, and a few shabby houses and false-fronted wooden stores could be glimpsed crouching be- side the narrow, wavering roads that had been half dug and half chopped to ites a passageway across the bluff toward Westport. He looked down at Sally, to find her as wide-eyed and eager as a child. Her dark eyes were spark- ling and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. Now and then she stood on tiptoe, leaning over the rail to get a closer view of something that had caught her at- tention. “How do you like it, Sally?” he asked, a little puzzled’ by her ob- vious eagerness. She looked up at him with eyes that were suddenly very serious and mature. “I like it,” she said soberly. “I like the idea of being here where there isn’t any past— where it doesn’t matter at all what's al- ready happened. It's like starti: all over again. And that’s what need now, Clay.” Clay laughed at her gentty, feel- ing the soft warmth of her body pleasantly firm and yet yi against his. They joined Burl on the leves, and Clay asked, “Burl, what of arrangements can we make mitted ruefully. “I’m inclined believe the best bet for all of is Yost’s Tavern, a few miles south of here at West; _ Sally and Clay and Burl through a land that was still al- most a wilderness, their eyes upon the crooked road ahead, their minds intent wpon the gold of Santa Fe. (Fo be continued) The Key West Ci?:zen