"SECOND TIME WEST"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1938, Page 10

"SECOND TIME WEST"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

COPYRIGHT

BY

T. C. BRIDGES

(Author of “Watching Eyes,” “Seven Years’ Sentence,” etc.)

CHAPTER VII. —(Continued). “That’s the idea,” Jim said. “I’ve only known you a few hours, but you strike me as a useful chap in a tight place, and there’s a chance of trouble if I go to New York.” “With that fat crook, sir?” Jim nodded. “If he’s fat he’s useful in a scrap,” he said. “Gimme an eighteen-inch spanner I’ll lay he won’t give no more trouble to you or anyone else,” Trant declared. Jim laughed. “Here’s ten pounds. Take the car back and settle for it and come and see me in the morning.” “I’ll be . here,” Trant promised and Jim went in to write a full account of his doings to Bill and another, not quite so full, to Nita. Forty-eight hours later he and Trant were aboard the Berlin steaming down channel. Not wanting to run into acquaintances Jim booked second cabin under the name of Freeland. After dinner he was enjoying a pipe in the smoking room when he noticed a long gaunt' American sitting at a table at a little distance. There was something vaguely familiar about the man and Jim was looking at him when the other turned and saw Jim. He stared a moment then got up and strode across the room.

"Dog-gope if it ain’t Jim Preston,” he drawled. “Jim, don’t say you’ve forgot Ward Haskell.” “It’s the boiled shirt put me off,” said Jim as he shook hands cordially. “Last time we met you were wearing blue overalls, a pair of Blucher boots and a Stetson that had seen better days.” Haskell nodded. “Down at the Loomis cattle pens. Hot as hell and you was helping load two hundred head of stock into box cars. Gee, but I can hear ’em bawling. Them were good days.” He turned and beckoned a steward. “This here meeting calls for something special. What’ll be, Jim?” “Whisky and soda, Ward.” “What about a bottle o’ bubbly?” Jim shook his head. “Not at this hour of the night.” Rather regretfully Haskell ordered two highballs. Jim spoke. “What brings you over here, Ward.” “Business, Jim. I’ve got on right smart last few years. I been burying Hereford bulls. Prize stock. Paid up to three thousand ‘dollars apiece but, by gum, they’re worth it. I’ve a ranch of my own now, the old S. Bar S. Remember it?” “Rather! I congratulate you, Ward.” Haskell raised his glass. “Here’s how, Jim.” He drank, then laid down his glass and looked hard at Jim. “But you ain’t going back to New Mex,” he said in a changed tone. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Jim confessed.

“Don’t you dare to think of going back that way,” said Haskell sharply. “Grant Garnett is still sheriff, the durned crook, and he ain’t forgot you. Let him get his dirty hands on you and your life ain’t worth that.” He snapped his strong bony fingers. Jim was silent a moment or two. He liked Haskell and trusted him and it seemed that the best thing was to tell him the whole story. “I don’t want' to go back to Loomis, Ward,” he said, “but it’s on the cards I may have to. You remember Joan Chandler?” “I’d say I do. A fine girl that. I saw her no more’n six months ago—and pretty Jim! Why you wouldn’t believe that long-legged freckled kid could change so. She’s a beauty.” “I know. I saw her less than a week ago. Now listen.” If Nita had been listening she would have reversed her verdict as to Jim being a rotten story teller. Anyhow Haskell forgot to drink and let his cigar go out, he was so interested. “So you see, Ward,” Jim ended. “It’s up to me to save her from those two crooks.” Haskell nodded ly“That’s a fact, Jim. You couldn’t do nothing else. She’s a fine girl and she’s had a crooked deal. That land of her’s didn’t go dry by any act of God.” Jim’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” “That Pronghorn Spring. You remember. Came out of the limestone like a river.” “I remember. I’ve been up there dozens of times. There was enough water to irrigate half the country.” “Jest so. And the water comes out of a sink way back in the hills. Farne or one of his gang dynamited the bank of that sink and let every drop o’ water out. It’s running down the Eastern Divide into Elbow Creek.” “What a foul trick! And Joan doesn’t know?” “Hasn’t a notion. I only got to know jest before I sailed. Kay Warner, one of my hands, was hunting a lobo up in them hills and he come on the dry sink. I don’t need tell you what they’re after. Farne aims to marry Joan and arter that he’ll fill in the sink, run the water back and it’s all his for nothing.” He paused, took another drink, re-lit his cigar and went on. “See here, Jim. You don’t need to go there at all. Joan will have had your cable and be waiting for you in New York. You take her back to England.” He paused again and looked at Jim. “You aiming to marry her?” he asked abruptly. CHAPTER VIII.

The question gave Jim a jolt, but he did not hesitate with his answer. “I am already engaged, Ward, but Miss Vaughan, my fiancee, is as keen as I that Joan should be got away from Bignal and Farne.” “And what do you reckon to do with her back in England?” “Find her work that she will like. I’m a rich man, Ward, and I think I can find her a job that will suit her and make her independent. All the same I hate to think of her being swindled out of her property in America.” , , . “Maybe you could send out an agent to buy up that land of hers, said Haskell shrewdly. •••• “What would be the use? She could not live there.” “Not right now.” Haskell told mm, ‘•But that Garnett ain’t going to last for ever. The West’s moving, Jim. They got fine motor roads right down through the South East and decent folk ain’t going to stand for being bossed by a gang of crooks. It’ll maybe take time, for Loomis is away back in the hills, but, take my word for it, there’ll be a bust-up sooner or later. Maybe sooner.” “I’d like to be there when it comes, said Jim. “And I’d like to have you alongside when, it do come,” Haskell declaied.

“Anyways I’ll keep you posted.” The two talked till late and next day Haskell got moved to Jim’s table. He also met Trant, and the two men, so utterly unlike, took to one another at once. “You done well, Jim,” said Haskell, “when you took on that bozo. He’s the sort will go through hell and high water.” “I’ve no ambition to go through either,” said Jim with a laugh. “The sooner I get back to my place in Scotland, the better I’ll be pleased. I’ve some Highland cattle that that you’d like, Ward, and nearly two thousand sheep.” Ward looked horrified. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned sheep man!” Jim laughed again. “Sheep are all right on their native hills. We don’t despise them in Scotland as you do in the West. It was very good for Jim to have Haskell with him. It kept him from thinking too much and Jim’s thoughts when alone were not happy ones. The image of Joan was always in his mind. Jim was, at bottom, a simple, straightforward soul, and felt it was disloyal to' Nita to think so much of Joan. He didn’t sleep too well during that crossing.

The night before they reached New York, Haskell asked Jim about his plans, and Jim told him he. meant to go straight to the Broadway Office of Franlyn Slatter, Bissetts New York agent. “In my cable I asked Joan to leave a note there, and tell me where I could see her,” he said.’ “What I’m hoping is that she has cut loose from her step-father and that I shall be able to take her straight back.” “I sure hope so,” said Haskell with unusual gravity. “You don’t want to run into Murray Farne again. He’s poison.” Jim’s only baggage was a suitcase and when they docked at ten in the morning Haskell agreed to take it with him to the Brevoort, where he was staying. Trant, too, would go with Haskell. Jim was to meet them there later. Meantime Jim took a taxi to Slatter’s office which was on the 17th flooi- of a tall building to which Jim was shot up in a fast elevator, and Slatter proved to a large, genial man who sat in his shirt sleeves in a large airy room at a desk of appropriate size. He gave Jim a powerful grip. “I been expecting you, Sir James. My partner cabled me you were coming. Yes, J got the letter you were expecting. Read it right away,” he added. “I guess I know just how you are feeling.” Jim stared doubtfully at the envelope. This queer, childish hand in which the address was written was not in the least like Joan’s. He tore it open hastily. The letter was short and written in the same unformed writing. This is what he read.

“Dear Jim—l have had a fall and sprained my right wrist. I am trying to write with my left hand. I told you not to bother about me, but since you have come so far, I cannot refuse to see you. I will meet you at four on Thursday afternoon at Mr Slatter’s office. —Cordially, Joan.” Jim saw Slatter watching him anxiously. “It’s all right, Mr Slatter,” he said. “The writing bothered me, but Miss Chandler explains that she has sprained her right wrist, and that she will meet me here this afternoon at four. Will that suit you?” “Sure, Sir James! Anything I can do for you now?” “Not a thing at present, thank you. I have to get to my hotel and meet a friend who came over in the Berlin. He is a cattle man, Ward Haskell— l knew him in New Mexico, and he’s given me a deal of useful information about the state of things down there.” “I guess I needn’t tell you to be careful, Sir James,” said Slatter. “You’re up against a tough crowd.” “I’ll be very careful,” Jim assured him and left. He drove straight to the Brevoort and told Haskell about Joan’s letter.

“Sprained her wrist, eh?” said Haskell, “you’re sure she wrote that letter?” “It reads just as she would have written it, and, anyhow, I can’t come to any harm if I’m meeting her in Slatter’s office.” “That’s a fact,” Haskell agreed. “I’ve booked our rooms, and Trant’s getting acquainted with the staff. Say, he takes to it all like a duck to water. Guess it’s lunch-time, and I’m hungry.” Jim was not hungry; he was too anxious, and the hours dragged badly till it was time to return to Slatter’s office. “Same floor, suh?” said the negro attendant, recognizing Jim as he entered the lift. “Seventeenth,” Jim answered. The lift started, the bell rang, and it stopped at the seventh, where two men got in Jim paid no special attention to them; he was too engrossed with the idea of meeting Joan again. The lift started again, and suddenly Jim felt something hard prodding him in the ribs. “Better stand right still, mister, if you wants to live,” came a nasal voice in his ear. It was an automatic that he held thrust against Jim’s side, and one glance was enough to show that the second man and the lift attendant were both accomplices. CHAPTER IX. A man without experience of America might easily have made the mistake of resenting the gunman’s ugly sarcasm. Jim knew a killer when he saw one, and made no such mistake. He stood perfectly quiet as the lift shot up past the seventeenth and finally came to a stop at the thirtieth, the top floor of the building. His captor spoke. “Get out and walk between the two of us. “Don’t get the notion I won’t shoot if you make any trouble. There’s a silencer on this gat and there’s ain’t a soul would hear through one of these doors.” Jim knew that the man meant exactly what he said, and that his life hung on a thread, so, although he was seething inwardly at having once more been trapped, did as he was ordered, and walked down a long passage between me two men. Even if anyone had come out —and no one did —they would not have noticed anything out of the way. At the end was a door opening upon a short flight of stairs. The second man opened the door and went ahead of Jim. The man with the gun walked up behind him. At the head of the stairs they were on the flat lead roof on the building some to hundred and fifty feet above the street. They could not be seen from below because of the parapet wall surrounding the roof. In the centre of the great expanse of leads! was a small building of the sort known

as a pent-house. Into this Jim was lead and marched into a room furnished with a couch, chairs, table and a gas stove. “Put up your hands,” the man ordered and stood by with his pistol still against Jim’s ribs while his companion tied Jim’s wrists with a length of blind cord. Jim was then ordered to lie down on the couch and his ankles were tied. A gag was produced and for the time since his capture Jim spoke. “I don’t know what you are being paid for this, but I’ll pay double if you let me go.” The hard-eyed man grinned sourly. “Nothing doing, pal. Pete and me, when we take a job, we finish it. There’s a gent wants a heart-to-hea_rt talk with you, and we’ve fixed you right for him. Open your mouth if you don’t want me to pry it with a knife.” There was no help for it. Jim was gagged as well as tied and lay helpless as. a baby. “That’s right, Pete,” said the first man. “Guess we’ll do. So long, pal. Glad for your sake you didn't try to get gay for we had orders to bump you off if you did.” They left and Jim at once began to try to free himself. It was no use. These men had known their job far too well and blind cord does not stretch like some other forms of rope. It was the first time in his life that Jim had ever been tied like this and his impotence filled him with such fury that he struggled until he was exhausted At last he was forced to lie still and then his thoughts tortured him. Yet he did not see that he could blame himself. It had not occurred to him or even to that wise bird, Ward Haskell, that there could be any danger in visiting Slatter’s office.