BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 April 1939, Page 12

BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE.

CHAPTER XXVIII. (Continued). Ignoring his protest. Nancy walked, quickly across the room. She stopped to ask the head waiter where he could find a telephone. He directed her down a passage to a small room. ' She asked lor long distance. A voice came back to her presently. “Long distance.' "I want the chief of police at Toltec,” she said. A husky voce growled, “Police headquarters. "This is Nancy Graham. I'm with Bucky Cameron at ” The transmitter was snatched from her hand and slammed back on the nook. Into Toe small of her back something hard pressed painfully. “Yelp, and I’ll let you have it,” she was warned. The man tucked his arms under hers, an automatic resting close to her ribs. “Go along with me. Act like we're friends stepping outside for some air. Make a break, and hell will break loose." Nancy walked beside him out' of the back door at, the end of the passage. Bucky waited what seemed to him a reasonable time for Nancy's rcluiii. then decided to join Iter. When he did not find her at the phone lie concluded she had stepped into the ladies' room to freshen, up. The bell in front of him began to buzz. He could never tell later why ne decided to pick up the receiver. A voice asked, "Crest Inn?” "Yes,” Bucky answered. ‘■'Police headquarters, Toltec. Some one just called, the Chief—gave her name as Nancy Graham—said he was with Bucky Cameron. Before she gave her message she hung up. We traced the call. Nothing wrong up there?” “This is Bucky Cameron,” the owner of the name said. “Miss Graham thinks we have been followed here. She wanted to tell the chief so. I don’t know why she didn’t finish what she -had to say, unless ”

He broke oil abruptly, snatched into sudden fear. “She must have been stopped by some one out to get me. Tell the chief to get help to us as soon as he can. Miss Graham must have been seized while she was phoning.” As Bucky turned from the telephone into the corridor he met a woman coming ’out of the ladies’ room. “A girl in a tan sports suit isn't in the ladies’ room?” he askea. “No. She went out the back door with a man —about three minutes ago.” Dread flooded through Bucky. His enemies had taken her, to prevent her from telephoning. If'she got in their way, if it was necessary to wipe her cut because of what she had seen, they would not hesitate.

He dragged a waiter away front the table nearest the corridor and handed him five dollars. "I want to get out of here without being seem What is the nest way?” “How about this back door here?” “No. Some other way." "There's a servants' entrance. This way, mister.”

The waiter led him through a narrow hall, across a court, and to a narrow gate. Bucky lifted the latch very gingerly and opened the gate a few inches. It was dark outside. He listened intently, heard nothing, and slid through the gate. From its holster under the left armpit he drew a revolver. Within a minute or two his enemies would know he was missing from the inn. Then a search for him, and —-fireworks. That would be the programme, unless he anticipated it. The situation was complicated by the capture of Nancy. He could not attack nor could lie answer gunfire until he knew where she was. In front of him there was an immense cottonwood. On tiptoes he moved across to it, half expecting to hear a blast of guns shatter the stillness. None came. His car was parked to the right with a row of others. There were a dozen or more of them, all facing the rim of the great hill scarp which looked down into the valley. All of them but one. Bucky knew he would find one car with its radiator toward the road. The killers would want to get away in a hurry after they had done their job. Very likely Nancy was in the back seat of that, automobile under guard of one of the ruffians. From Hie shadows'of the cottonwood he crept across the open space between nim and the ears. He had reached the nearest car when a voice .snapped an order. “Stop right there, fellow, till. I look you over.'' Bucky kept going. The call came from the left —he swung sharply to the right. Behind him a gun crashed. He ducked between two automobiles, ran forward to Hie rim rock, and collided with a heavy-sot. fellow travelling fast. Bueky's arm lashed up and down. The barrel of his .31; struck the 'rim of his opponent's hat and sent him reeling against a’ radiator.

The mind of the hunted man worked in swift flashes. -lie could hear the thudding feet of a third man coming up from lhe right. The gunman who had challenged him had his retreat cut off. Tn front was lhe low stone wall built to keep cars from going over the precipice.

Bucky took the wall in his stride, struck the sleep slope, and plunged down on Ins shoulder. He rolled over and ov< r. was slopped by a large outcropping rock. From above a gun roared. Instantly Rocky got to his feet, lie was on one e,f the trails leading down to the ■eruli oaf: below. Recklessly he raced alone, the path. Two weapons were in action now. a bullet zipped against, a bouidi-r. Another cut. through the leaves of tile Ijushos just below him. He dodged around a corner formed by a huddle of rock.. i.rrvd logethm-. The revolver was siilt in iiis hand. He had clung to it as he hm-iled down the hill. The way of escape v.u open, he could keep moving down the had into Hie jungle of brush and lied .

cellent cover there. But he had to consider Nancy. They might decide pursuit was too dangerous and let him go. That would not do. He could not run away and leave her in the hands of these villains. He must keep them busy until Chief O’Sullivan’s men arrived.

Tt was time to be moving. He fired a shot into the air, to tell his enemies where he was. and before the echo of it. had died away he was stepping lightly along the path, towards a little field of rocks lower on the cliff. Cautiously they would storm the position

he had just left. Very likely he would nave to waste another shot. The moon came out from behind a cloud. He could see, vaguely bulked, the figures of men among the rocks above. In front of him lay a loose boulder about the size of his head. He sent it. crashing down the hill, as if by' accident. Again the blast of guns sounded. Bucky ran along the path to the point where it worked back to a lower level. Flying clouds obscured the moon once more. Unseen in the darkness, he took the lower arm of the angle elbow. ft could not have been more than forty yards from here that another trail ran into the one he had been following. It led upward. A’s silently as he could, Bucky moved along it. He heard the sound of a break twig. Frustrated, he stopped. Out of the darkness a figure came. Bucky said: "You’re covered. Don't, make a sound. Reach for the sky.” The panicky voice of a girl cried. "Oh, Bucky.'-Bucky!” A great relief lifted him. He caught Nancy by the hand and swept her into his arms. “How did you get away?” ne whispered. “The man who was watching me loft when the firing began. I knew you were down in the rocks on the- hillside. so I took the first trail I saw.” "You crazy girl,” he said, his* voice low and rough. “You might have been killed.” He felt her trembling. "When I heard all the shooting I thought —I wasafraid —” The voice of Nancy died away. She clung to him. desperately, her lovqr who had come back to her out, of the valley of the shadow. Even in that moment of peril he exulted in ner confession. She had come down that dangerous path to save him if she could. A woman does that for only one man in the world. He brought himself back to earth. “How many of them?” he asked. “I don’t know. One of them is ” A voice, too near for comfort, cut in, with rasping irritation! "He must be right around here somewhere.” (To be Continued.)