BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 March 1939, Page 10

BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE.

CHAPTER I, (Continued).

“Be seeing you later,” Bucky said, and moved with his bag to the desk. Jud Richman watched him go. A frown disturbed the childlike candour of his round face.

“Now what in hell did be come back for?” he asked. One of the other men said he was wondering that himself.

Kathleen heard her father’s explosive voice as she stepped out of the French window to the porch. “He’s come back to get killed.” “Looks like,” the heavy answer came, almost in a growl.., “I don’t aim to lie awake nights about that.” Garside slammed his fist down on the little table beside the chair in which he sat. “No. I don’t want him rubbed out.”

The girl stopped, held up abruptly by the significance of the moment. The man standing with straddled feet in front of her father was Dan West, a ruffian whom she detested. He was chewing tobacco, the quid standing out in his leathery cheek. Slate-coloured eyes, expressionless as those of a dead cod, rested on the banker.

“You struck up a friendship with the Camerons, Clem?” he asked.

The president of the Valley Bank brushed the sneer aside abruptly. “Not now or ever. But I expect to do business with him.” “So you don’t want him killed — yet?” “Don’t put words in my mouth, Dan,” Garside ordered. “What I’m saying is that I don’t want this boy killed.” “I heard you,” West answered sullenly. “Well, I’m not figuring on bumping him off right away. It was Brad served notice on him.” “Call him off.” 1

“How can I call him off? He gave the. kid twenty-four hours. Too late to run back now.”

Kathleen moved forward swiftly. “Who has come back to get killed?” she demanded. The dark eyes of the girl challenged her father. The other man she ignored. Garside was taken aback, but his poker face did not betray the fact. He and West had not been talking three minutes. How much had she heard?”

“Young Cameron,” he told her. “Got in on the Flyer this morning. I put my point too strong. He won’t be killed, unless the law does it. But he’s a fool to come back while the town is still so excited.” ' “What did he come back for?” she asked, her eyes shining. , “Looking for trouble,” West said, savagely. “What reason does he give?” The girl spoke to her father. For her, West was not on the map. “To clear Cliff’s name, he claims,” answered Garside. How can he do that? If Mr Cameron isn’t guilty, why did he run away? An innocent bank president wouldn’t do that, would he?” “Her father smiled, blandly malevColent. “You’ll have to ask Bucky Cameron. I haven’t learned the answers.”

West watched the young woman, resentfully—the slim figure beautifully posed, the lifted head with its clean — cut look of pride. A sultry fire stirred between the man’s heavy narrowed lids. Her contempt filled him with a sulky fury. “He never had any sense,” Kathleen said, the smooth brown of her cheeks tinged by a wave of underlying pink. “Always a show-off. I suppose that’s .why he has come back —to make everybody look at him and admire him for a wonder. The best way would be for nobody to pay any attention to him.

“You have to notice a mosquito buzzing around your head,” Clem said. “It would be silly to take him seriously. After all he has a right to be here.” “In jail,” her father added curtly. “Very well. In jail.” She frowned down at Garside, too disturbed to let the matter rest yet. “I can’t believe he is in any danger. Toltec is a civilised town now.”

Dan West laughed, and the sound of his evil mirth was not assuring.

“But if he is in danger somebody must look after him the law takes charge,” she said. "Why talk about the law?” West sneered. “It’s made to help fellows like him. He’ll hire some slick lawyer to get him off. Let the folks he has ruined cook his goose for him, I say.” “What you say isn’t important. Dan,” the banker said coldly. “Not when you talk like that?” Garside leaned back in the chair and looked up at his daughter. She was in riding breeches and boots. From the edge of the beret copper curls pushed out abundantly. The girl looked completely modern, with the Surface hardness of her sophisticated class and generation. Yet she was amazingly vivid. idem wondered by what trick of heredity he had for daughter this restless young creature so alien to the crude frontier life through which he had shouldered his ruthless way to success. He was a survival of the old days, a cattleman who had become in time a banker. His morals were far from puritanic, but her comments on life frequently startled him.

,“You asked me to nurse the Cameron brat?” he inquired. “Some one has to, it seems. Fools have to be protected from their folly. She tapped irritably one of her riding boots with the lash of her crop. “I don’t like him any better than you do. I think he*s detestable. But if his enemies mean to take advantage of. his unpopularity to kill him, you’ll have to slop it.” “None of my business.” “It is, too, since you’re a decent human being.” Kathleen added a rider. “Every one would say, because we’re not friendly with the Camerons, that you had stood aside and let the ruffians who Tiate him do this thing for you. It doesn’t matter that it wouldn’t 'be true. You’d be blamed just the same. I don’t have to tell you this, though. You know it already. I heard you say you wouldn’t let him be murdered.”

“There’s no danger of ihat, I’ve told you. Fools shoot off their jnouths. It doesn’t mean anything.” •"Doesn’t it?” West asked, menace in his grin.

Kathleen did not look at the man, but a horror of him crept over her. “We can’t leave it to chance,” she urged, imperiously. “Just because we don’t like him we have to protect him. Don’t you see that, Dad. It's up to us.”

“Suppose you keep out of this and let me play the hand,” Garside told his daughter bluntly. “Run along and roll your hoop. You attend to your golf score, and I’ll make out to manage my own business.” Kathleen knew when she had said enough. She made a friendly derisive face at him and walked away. “She’s certainly an up and coming young lady,” West said, his dead eyes following her.

The banker did not intend to discuss his daughter with this man. He picked his wide Stetson from the table, said shortly, “We’ll see Haskell.” Clem Garside was a big bulky man, red-faced and white-haired. He had the solid impressive look that befitted Toltec’s leading citizen. As he walked down the street there was heavy power in his stride. When he spoke to those he met, as he did constantly, his hearty voice boomed.- His direct and curt approach was effective.' It left the impression that there could be no guile in this fortright simple soul.

He turned in at the Toltec House. A man was at the hotel desk writing a telegram. The banker said to the clerk on duty, “Any arrivals this morning?” “Two—on the Flyer,” the clerk said. He lowered his voice and tilted his head toward the man with the telegraph blank. “This gentleman and Bucky Cameron.”

“Didn’t I tell you he was here?” West cut in.

• Garside lifted his eyebrows in the direction of the stranger, and the hotel employee understood he was suggesting an introduction. The clerk indicated the man at the desk filling out the yellow sheet. “This is Mr Mitchell —Mr Garside,” he said, and by way of explanation: “Mr Garside is our leading banker.” Mitchell stopped writing, transferred the pencil to his left hand, and offered the right. The banker gripped it firmly. “Pardon,” Garside boomed. “I’m looking for the other man who registered just now, but I’m glad to see any visitors to our town. A travelling man, may I ask?” “Not now. I have been. Just now I’m looking for a g’ood location for a specialty men’s clothing shop, one that will be up to date and strictly first class.”

The president of the Valley Bank observed that the stranger was a lighthaired smooth-faced young man in ultra modern city clothes, slender but well built. Garside was a booster for his city. He began to promote the town at once.

“Toltec is the place for you,” he said confidently. “I'll talk with yon about our advantages, Mr Mitchell. Call on me at the Valley Bank tomorrow at ten. Ask for Clem Garside, the President.”

Mitchell looked pleased at this attention from the local magnate, “I'll certainly look you up at ten, sir,” he promised. ' “Good. Do.” Garside caught sight of Richman and beckoned to him. He walked a few steps to meet him. “Well, there’s one born every minute,” he said.

“Referring to your friend who got in a little while ago?” asked Richman, beaming at him. “Did he say he was my friend?” demanded the banker curtly. “I didn’t hear him say so,” the plump man replied sauvely, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if he wouldn’t need a few friends soon.”

“Tell the Red Rock crowd to keep their hands off him, Jud.” “Why. I can tell them what you say, Clem, if I see any of them,” the other said, still smiling pleasantly. “I don’t suppose they would pay much attention to me, though.” “See they do. I understand Brad Davis has made threats. Get him out of town.” Garside stepped back- to the clerk. “Jim. have a boy take me up to Cameron’s room.” “Shall I call him up first, sir?” “No. I’ll announce myself. Wait here, West.” CHAPTER 11. Clem Garside took the elevator to the fifth floor and followed the bellhop along a corridor. The banker gave the boy a quarter and dismissed him.

At his knock a voice invited him to enter.

Bucky was shaving. He turned, razor poised, and looked at his visitor. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Honoured to have the great man of Toltec come io welcome me,” he said with a touch of irony. “Am I welcoming you?” “You tell me.”

“If a warning is a welcome. You were a fool to come back here so soon after what Cliff did.” “What did he do?”

Garside brushed the question aside as irrelevant. “Hot-heads are liable to jerk you up to a telegraph pole,” he said, frowning at the young man. “If it is put tin to them right.” Bucky agreed. “I’ll say this. In the first place. I'm not responsible for my uncle’s actions. In the second place, ho is the last man in the world to kill a book-keeper in his own bank to rob it. Cliff Cameron is a square-shooter. You've been his enemy twenty years, and yon know him from the ground, up. The town has gone crazy because its money has been looted from the bank But you’re not fooled a little bit. You know Uncle Cliff didn’t do it. There’s something back of this, and I in here to find out what it is.” The keen grev eyes nrobed at Bucky from under grizzled brows. “Did he send you back?” “No, he didn’t. I don't know where he is. or what has become of him.” The brown eyes meeting the grey ones had become hard as obsidian. “If I could ask a few ouestions and get true answers I would' know more about “Ask questions of Cliff?”

“Of his enemies.” Unwinkingly Garside stared at Buc]<<v “I see. I’m his enemy, and I Manned this to ruin him. Then I fixed it up with Cliff to light out so I could lav the blame on hirn. It makes a lot of sense.” . •■Did I name you, Mr Garside.

“You’d better not.” The arrogance of the older man boiled up. “I won’t stand for a whippersnapper like you making such insinuations about me. You haven't sense enough to pound sand in a rat hole. Toltec has figured you are in this crime with your uncle, and you come strutting back here inviting trouble. You’ll last about as long as a snowball in hell.” “Why does Toltec think I’m in this?” “Because your uncle left a letter in his desk —a letter from you, in which you told him to count you in on this deal.”

Buck thought swiftly—remembered the letter. “I mentioned robbing the bank, did I?”

“Practically. You said it was a dangerous business —and that you could see the penitentiary doors opening for you—but to count you in all the way from hell to breakfast.”

“I said too much or too little,” Bucky answered dryly. “It happens I was talking about another enterprise.” “So you say. Young fellow, you’re in a tight, as we used to say in the old days. I'm the only one can save you, and soon as I show up you start insulting me. If I walk through that door now you’re gone.” “Out of great friendship for me and my family you came to offor help,” Bucky said, a faint inflection of sarcasm in his voice. (To be Continued).