BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 May 1939, Page 10

BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE.

CHAPTER XXVIII. (Continued). CHAPTER XXIX. Bucky said, in Nancy’s ear, “We’ll drift.” They came to an intersection. Another trail cut across the one they trod. He caught an elbow of the girl. “Down,” he ordered. Without question she turned toward the valley. Circumstances had changed his plan. With her beside him he did not need to get back to the inn. It would be better to work down into the valley through the scrub oak. If they could escape unnoticed and reach a ranch nouse their troubles would be over. A figure appeared on the leg of the path above them. In the shadow of a bush Bucky dragged Nancy down beside him. The gunman came to the intersection. Would he go up or come down? Bucky counted, eternity in seconds before the felloW made up his mind and turned his back on them. “Now,” he murmured at last. They had to take a chance. He led the way swiftly across a long open stretch which brought them to a thick tangle of scrub oaks. ■ , , . Again the had swept the ciouds from the face of the moon. Her slim, pale beauty touched him. He understood that from the moment she had seen the evil looking face at the inn window she had drawn in feat at every breath and that most of her terror had been for him. She was still shaken and fear-filled. He said, lightly, “Three loud whispered cheers.” ' „ “Are we do you think . „ “They’ll never find us in the scrub,” he promis'ed. . A quarter of an hour later he pointed to a light. “There the owner of the Bar BL sits reading the “News,” unaware that he is about to entertain angels. “We’ll take it easy the rest of the way.” ■ Far above them came the far faint popping of crackers. “Enter Cnief O’Sullivan’s riot squad,” Bucky cheered. ‘We’ll let our friends the enemy do the worrying now, young fellow’.” She laughed tremulously. “It turned out to be the most exciting dance I ever attended.” “Some dance,” he’agreed. “With a swell ending. They lived happily ever afterward. By the way, were you ever engaged before?” ■ “Sort of,” she admitted, before she caught the implication of the last word he had used. “Didn’t you say you wanted to telephone Chief O’Sullivan?”

“Yes, but that can wait. I want to tell him how right his guess was once about me and a girl. That sore-of engagement of yours could not have been as thrilling as this one. 'lt wasn’t celebrated with so many fireworks, was it?” He took her in his arms, a gay excitement racing through him. “Now don’t make it an anti-climax by saying we’re not engaged, sweetheart." In the way that lovers have he convinced ner that they were.

From the ranch house Bucky talked with O'Sullivan at Toltec. “It turned out you were a prophet, Chief, when you guessed I was engaged to a certain young lady,” he said. “You may congratulate me.” The chief had a good deal to say, and he said it with sputtering explosive vehemance. He had never known such an infernal nuisance as Cameron. He had worries of his own without taking care of crazy idiots. Specifically, he was sore tonight because that fellow McCall had pulled off a gaol break oy holding up a guard. “He’s up here at Crest Inn,” Bucky told the officer. “At least I think it was her. I met him only once, the time you introduced us in his cell. If it’s any comfort to you, the riot squad have made contact with him and his friends. We heard a lot of shooting a while ago.” “Where are you—at the inn?” snapped O’Sullivan. “We’re at the Bar BL ranch, as far from the danger zone as we could get . . . Listen, Chief. I’ve bden promising you a break for quite some lime. Here it is. You’ve been hot as pepper to make an arrest, but you didn’t feel sure about wno you ought to put in your jug. Are you there?” “Of course, I’m here!” roared the chief. “Where the hell did you think I was —in Kalamazoo?”

“Then go out and get busy,” Bucky said, and gave him names'.

• From the hour the bandits left the house, just before dark, Kathleen did not have an easy moment until morning. They did not return. Nor did Mitchell, Had they murdered him? But he had warned her that his life depended upon her silence. She could not call up the chief of police. She was at tnc door to get the morning paper from the carrier. What the Headlines splashed across the page was amazing. Bucky had been brought into it after all. In spite of her effort to keep him out of more trouble he had walked into the thick of it. Nancy Graham had been with him. There was a picture of her in her nurse’s uniform, taken at graduation, a gay and smiling portrait of a girl very much alive. Beneath it was a caption mentioning that she was engaged to Bucky. ■ Kathleen looked at it a long time. She knew in her heart that Nancy was the girl for him. Even if it had been possible lo tear down permanently the barrier of: the family feud, Kathleen felt that she and Bucky were not temperamentally fitted for each other. It was not enough to feel a wild longing for a man. There had to be back of it all me gay and cheerful understanding that made the fife of a man and a woman together desirable. Before she put away the paper she had made up her mind to root out of her being this crazy passion for him. To begin with she would go to Europe and spend six months in travel.

She phoned, asking for an appointment with Chief O'Sullivan. There was something important she wanted lo tell filth, she told the desk sergeant. The newspaper story said that Mike Soretti had been killed by the police and his two companions captured. The name of Mitchell was not mentioned. What had these villains done with him? Had they killed him and flung his body over a cliff? If so, she was responsible for it. The sergeant told her to be at headquarters in half an hour.

O'Sullivan listenened to her story grimly. “What a life!” he exclaimed bitterly. "I’m. supposed to be in charge of the police in this city and nobody

ever tells me anything. If you had phoned to me 1 could nave- protected Mitchell. It’s only by the grace of God that young Cameron and his girl weren't rubbed out. These scoundrels knew he had helped catch McCall and they were out to get him. If you ever get in such a jam again try telling the cops what you know, miss. It didn’t matter what Mitchell said. The fact is he was scared stiff, and he figured he would play it the safe way. Well, he didn’t.” As Kathleen was leaving she met Bucky coming in. She shook hands, shakily, "I almost killed you,” she said. Astounded, he stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Ask -Chief O’Sullivan. He will tell you. My bad judgment may have killed another man. I’m not sure yet.” “It doesn’t make sense to me, Kathleen,” he said.

“Wait till you hear.” She stood up and said her little piece on another subject like a drum major. “I want to congratulate you, Bucky. Nancy Graham is one of the very nicest girls I know. You’re doing awfully well for yourself.” Bucky thanked her and said he thought he was. “I’ve just been through a dreadful experience,” she went on. “Chief O’Sullfvan knows about it. I can’t stand any more —not just now. I’m going to Europe for a year to study music.” The heart of the young man went out to her. Never before had he seen in her spirited face the look of the defeated. He knew that the increasing rumours of her father’s wrongdoing were distressing her greatly, and he guessed another cause for her despair. Kathleen’s unhappiness was temporary. He knew that. She was too vitally resilient to be broken. None the less he was glad she was going. There would be more talk about her father as the days passed. It was much better she should be far away. ' “It’s the best thing you can do,” he said. “When are you leaving?” “Tonight. I’ll be in New York a week or two.” She smiled.. “Long enough to buy a wedding present if the happy event is to be at once.” “We haven’t had time to talk of that . . . Happy hunting, Kathleen.” They shook ■ hands and Kathleen went on her’ way briskly. Chief O’Sullivan’s office was filling up. Sheriff Haskell was there, District Attorney Ashley and the editors of both the papers, as well and Tim Murphy and Judge Lewis. Mitchell walked in beside Sergeant Swensen, fwp or three other leading citizens were among those present. O’Sullivan looked at his watch: “Might as well begin,” he said. “I want to telk you gentlemen we have this whole business cleared up.” “Then you’ve done-wonders,” Ashley said. “I’ve had help,” the chief admitted. “Bucky Cameron has been invaluable so has Mr Mitchell. I may say that in a way we all worked together to solve the problem, though I didn’t get full co-operation from either of the gentlemen.” Bucky grinned and looked across at Mitchell. “Each of them was playing his own hand,” O’Sullivan continued. “Now I’m no talker, tsucky is a swell orator. So I’m going to let you listen to Bucky while he tells this story from his angle. A good deal of what he says will be cockeyed, but that doesn’t matter so long as he helped me to the right solution.” The chief lit a cigar and waved a hand at Bucky. "Shoot the works, I young fellow.” “It is nice of the Chief to hand out bouquets to me and Mr Mitchell,”. Bucky began, “but of course we all know he was the man that had this job in charge. I butted in to clear my uncle’s name. That is why I came back to Toltec. I knew he didn’t rob that bank. The chief didn’t believe it any more than 1 did, but I annoyed him a lot by sticking around and getting shot at. “From time to time I had various different suspects in my mind. There were our friends from the Red Rock country, always ready to do anything against the Camerons. Tim thought they were guilty, but this did not look to me like their kind of job, unless some one with brains put them up to it. One of them is dead now, and I wouldn’t go into that, except to say that I was looking for the man who gained most by the robbing of the bank. He might not be the guilty person, but then again he might.” “I don’t get you, Bucky, Haskell said. 'The fellow that got the dough must save gained most.” “Must he?” Bucky looked at the poliician steadily. “Think that over again, iheriff.” "Just one of Bucky’s .cockeyed deas,” O’Sullivan interposed. “You thought so then, Chief, but you lon’t now,” Bucky rapped back. “One if our first problems was .to find out what had become of Uncle Cliff, assuming that he had not robbed his own bank and decamped. That we have lust found out. I’ll come back to that point later.’ “You have found the body of Cliff Cameron?” Mitchell asked, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “That isn’t what I said,” Bucky replied, smiling at him. “I said we know what became of him. Let me tell this my own way, Mitchell.” (To be Continued.)