Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

blanket—eaten off the same plate. How about joining up with me again?" "No, Jeff," Dick Allen answered, shaking his head. "I'm standin' pat, and liking it. After the war, I came pretty near to starvin:?. Then I met up with Sid, and ever since I've been on Easy Street." "I see," Jeff murmured. "Well, I'm afraid we're in different armies this time." Recovering something of his care-free geniality, Dick I'egarded him with a whimsical air "You think there'll be a rope around my neck some day, feller?" he inquired. "Maybe," Jeff said, and as he pro- nounced that hj'pothetical word MoUie Monahan entered into the discussion again. "Sure, now," she began, "this is a crazy way for two friends to be saying ' hallo' And then she was interrupted—inter- rupted by an exclamation from Jeff's Mexican colleague. Fiesta, who, together with Leach Overmile, had been hovering close to the ex-captain. "Hey, look!" Fiesta cried, commanding the attention of the entire complement of passengers in the dining-car. "An Injun boy—he race the Iron Horse." The Mexican was pointing through a window on the right, and, following the direction indicated, the inmates of the car saw a lone Redskin galloping alongside the train—a youth in his teens and a mem'oer of the Pawnee tribe, with whom a peace treaty had recently been made. The young Indian was urging on his mustang sportively, and was waving every now and then to the people whom he could see in the train's carriages. At the rrtoment he seemed to have every chance of outstripping that train, for he was a magnificent rider and was mounted on an exceptionally fine-looking pony—and in those days there was little to choose be- tween the speed of a heavily burthened locomotive and that of a horse travelling at full stretch. One of the passengers in the dining-car opened a vviruiow and started to call to the Indian boy in terms of friendly encouragement, and soon many other individuals in the coach were applauding the youthful Redskin's efforts. Indeed, the coach was resounding with appreciative shouts when all at once Campcau's asso- ciate Brett drew out a six-gun and nudged the man known as Cordray. "I'll bet you five dollars I get that Indian with my first shot," he said. "You're on," Cordray instantly rejoined. Brett lifted his revolver and took aim. Campeau made no effort to restrain him, and the doll-faced sa-loon girl, who answered to the name of Belle, merely stuck her forefingers in her ears and shut her eyes tightly, affecting to be timorous of gunplay and bloodshed. None of the other occupants of the dining-car noticed Brett, being too in- trigued in the race that the Pawnee youth was running, and thus the sudden blast of Bretts ' iron' took all but the rogue's immediate companions utterly by surprise. The shot discharged by the gambler sped straight and true to its mark— drilled the Indian boy through the shoul- der and knocked him to the ground, his mustang swerving affrightedly as he fell. Then, with the echoes of the report still reverberating through the dining-car, Brett turned to Cordray. "Pay up!" he commanded. Cordray fished into his hip-pocket, pro- duced a wad of notes and peeled off a five- dollar bill which he held out to Brett, but ere the money had changed hands a stalwart figure had pounced on the winner of the cruel wager and laid hold of him by the lapels of his coat. It was the figure of Jeff Butler, and, his handsome countenance suffused with rage, Jeff wrenched Brett to his feet and then .sent the bunched knuckles of his right fist crashing into the gunman's ugly face. Down went Brett, sprawling his length in the gangway of the car, and as he fell Cordray started up with an oath and Octol)cr 2aUi, I'J.'iD. BOY'S CINEMA reached inside his jacket to snatch a Colt from a holster that was strapped close to his arm-pit. Before he could use that weapon, however, Jeff ripped his right into action again, belting him in the jaw, and next second Cordray was collapsing in his seat. Campeau now made as if to rise belli- gerently, but out of the tail of his eye he saw Leach Overmile and Fiesta were covering the forward portion of the dining- car with then- guns, and he elected to sit down again. "That's right. Mister Campeau," Leach Overmile drawled then. "Jest stay where y'are. An' keep yore hands in sight." "Si," added Fiesta, "an' that goes for everybody else." Even as the Mexican voiced that state- ment he detected an untoward movement on the part of a shifty-looking fellow on the left-hand side of the aisle. He was one of Campeau's minions—Cookie by name—and with a deft gesture Cookie plucked out a pearl-handled revolver and tried to train it on Jeff Butler. Fiesta was too quick for him, but did not use his gun to deal with Cookie. In- stead, he lashed out with the stock-whip he was carrying, and, snapping through the air, the long rawhide thong encircled Cookie's neck as cleanly as a noose. Next second Fiesta yanked on the whip with all his might, and Cookie was jerked incongruously to the floor, his six-shooter flying from his grasp as he fell. No one else in the car attempted to show fight, excepting Brett. He on his part was struggling up with a murderous glare In his eyes, and, spitting out blood and broken teeth, he hurled himself at Jeff—only to run smack into a ramrod left that drove him tottering backwards through a doorway at the fore-end of the carriage. He finished up on a communicating plat- form between the dining-car and the coach ahead of it, and was swaying there when Jeff came out through the doorway after him and banged home a right- hander to the point of his chin. Brett went tumbling over one of a pair of safety-chains that served as handrails for the platform, and, plunging from the train, landed on a steep embankment and went rolling down the declivity in a smother of dust. He had been left well to the rear, and was lying in a heap at the foot of the embankment when Jeff turned and walked back into the dining-car, and, passing intd that coach again, the trouble shooter saw that a uniformed conductor had entered it from the carriage immediately to the rear. Campeau was appealing to the official vehemently. "Stop the train!" he was insisting inv impassioned tones. "I tell you one of my men got thrown off!" The conductor reached for a bell-cord in order to transmit an emergency signal to the engine-driver of the locomotive, but Jeff checked him. "Don't pull that cord!" he rapped out. The official looked at him dully. "But Campeau says " "This train doesn't stop!" Jeff an- nounced with emphasis, and at that the conductor let his hand drop to his side. Campeau launched a savage glance at Jeff. "Look here, Butler," he snarled, "why should you get so hot under the collar on account of an Indian bein' plugged? The Army's been shootin' up Redskins for years." "Listen, Campeau," Jeff said tersely, "that bullet your side-kicker fired didn't just hurt an Indian. It may lead to an uprising. It may lead to the massacre of a lot of white folks—the killing, scalping and torturing of innocent men, women and children. "And another thing, Campeau," he went on. "The Army doesn't shoot Indians for fun. The Army only goes in for shooting when it's stark necessary." He paused, and his steel-grey eyes seemed to bore into the saloon-owner. Every Tuesday "I don't think you let your side-kicker knock off that Indian boy just for fm:, either," he stated, in a voice that was charged with meaning. Across the aisle, Dick Allen spoke to Mollie Monahan in a whisper. Through- out the brief fracas that had been staged in the dining-car he had sat tight and remained neutral, his allegiance to the Campeau gang offset by his long-standing friendship with the railroad's trouble shooter. "Jeff's sure gonna be unpopular," he told Mollie, marking the vicious glances that were being directed at the ex-captain by Campeau and liis cronies. The girl by Dick Allen's side was study- ing Jeff Butler appreciatively. " Not with me, he isn't!" she rejoined. DUKE RINQ THE Union Pacific's new camp had been established in the vicinity of Chey- enne, which was at that time one of a chain of crude settlements and frontier- posts that extended across the West on the old Pony Express trails. Here Campeau and his party set up their trans- portable saloon and gambling-den and did roaring business for a month or two, fleecing the railroad labomers of such money as those industrious but spend- thrift workmen possessed. Here, too, Campeau did his best to hold up the construction of the line by various stratagems. But in that respect he was not wholly successful, for, aided by Fiesta and Leach Overmile, Jeff Butler did much to counterbalance the saloon-owner's sly activities. Diligent as Jie was in his role of trouble shooter, Jeff, nevertheless, had time to improve his acquaintance with Mollie Monahan, to whom he found himself becoming more and more attracted as the days went by. As for Dick Allen, he took every opportunity of seeing Mollie as well, and, Jeff soon giving him to understand that he was interested in the girl, Dick accepted hmi without rancour as a rival for the han^ of the enchanting Irish post- mistress. Headstrong and in many ways unprin- cipled Dick Allen undoubtedly was, but to give him his due he was not the one to bear ill-will, and he showed no resentment over the attentions Jeff paid to Mollie— not even when he began to suspect that Mollie was more drawn to Jeff than to him. Then one day news reached Jeff that a disturbance had occurred at a locality where an advance gang of railroad navvies had been breaking ground out beyond the "End of Track." It appeared that a malcontent known as Duke Ring had been primarily respon- sible for the disturbance—a great hulk of a man who had gained notoriety as a swaggering bully—and it appeared that, after a quarrel during which he had half- killed the foreman in charge of the diggers, Duke Ring had harangued the navvies and induced them to "down tools," using threats as well as argument in order to persuade them to take strike action. Possessing a shrewd notion that Duke Ring was a paid agitator in the hire of Campeau. Jeff Butler set off for the locality in question; and, travelling alone in a buckboard drawn by a couple pf trace- horses, he reached his destination to dis- cover Duke Ring holding forth to a crowd of workmen, who seemed to be impressed by what he was saying, notwithstanding the fact that they were looking at him with a good deal of apprehension. Six foot four inches in height and built on a massive scale, with a mane of ginger hair and a pair of eyes that were blazing maniacally, Duke Ring was clutching a big axe with which he had obviously smashed up a fair amount of company property. For a number of broken shovels and pick-axes were lying around him, and the remains of half a dozen shattered wheelbarrows were also visible in the fore- ground.