Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Bvery Tuesday contaoting you. And, by the way, colonel, 1 wonder whether you'd do mo a favour?" Custer eyod him in a quizzical fashion. "What IS it, Jctr?" "Would you (:ret a couple of your inon to collect those furs thai, iiro in tlie cabin and take 'om to John Mason V" the handsome fronliois man requested. "They're all his and Idaho's now, and if thoy can make fresh arrangements to sell "em 1 ktiow the money will come in handy for them." Colonel Custer promising to send two of his troopers to the Mason wagon camp with the Celts, Jeff and Deadwood turned towards their rones. But Jeff had no sooner sot foot in stirrup than ho checked as if on an after- thought, and, bidding his pardner wait for him, he stepped down again and walked round to the side of the nearby cabin. He roturncd after the lapse of a few seconds with a disgruntled expression on his good-look- ing features. "It's gone," he muttered. "What's gone?" Deadwood wanted to knovv. "My somorero," Jeff told him. "I lost it when I took a header through the east window of that shack." Deadwood regarded liim whimsically. "Yeah?" he commented with grisly humour. " What do you need a hat for 1 Some Shoshone is liable to give you a hair-cut, anyhow." ROQUES IN COUNSEL ON the outskirts of the frontier township of Clearwater, a crowd of men and women were listening to a pronouncement which was being made by a tall, well-preserved individual of some fifty years of age. That personage was John Mason, organiser of the latest column of immigrants to pit them- selves against the hardships and hazards of the Oreeron trail, and his audience was composed of the resolute easterners who had accepted him as their leader. "Friends," he was saying, "I've just seen Mr. San Morgan, the fur-trader, and he's put me in.tou'ih with a man named Hackett—a trapper who's heading west and knows the route to Oregon as well as he knows the palm of his own hand. This man Hackett can guide us on our way, and I want you to break camp, for I've elected to push on." There were many among his listeners who applaud:-!d the decision, but others were not altogether in favour of it—for a reason which was voiced by a young and beautiful girl who was standing near John Mason. She was Mason's daughter Margaret, and, plucking at her father's sleeve, she addressed him in a tone of dismay. "Why, dad," she protested, "we can't push on yet. It wouldn't be fair to Jeff Scott and Deadwood Hawkins. They contracted to tak( us through to Oregon, and only went off intc the hills to hunt down that man Bragg in oui interests. And it would seem like rank ingrati tude if we left Clearwater without them ' Her father interrupted her. "Wait a minute, honey," he said. "I don'i intend that we should coolly dispense with" th( services of Jeff and Deadwood in favour of thii fellow Hackett. They can easily catch up with us and take over from Hackett, and I've asked Mr. Morgan to tell them so when they get back to town. I simply vi'ant to get moving without any further delay, for we can be a good many miles west of here by nightfall if we put in the rest of the day on trek—and, the way I look at it, every hour we stay at Clear- water increases the chances of our being snowed up in the high mountains." His words appeased Margaret and those settlers who had shared the sentiments she had expressed, and, reflecting that Jeff and Dead- wood would assuredly have no difficulty in ovor- t^iking the slow-moving- wagon train, they and the other immigrants proceeded to make ready for an early departure. "Breaking camp " entailed a good deal of work, however, and the Mason column had yel to pull out when two blue-uniformed dragoons rode in from the north-east. They were from Colonel Custer's detachment and were laden with the furs that had been discovered in the cabin where Biagg had cached them; and, after they had inquired lor John Mason and been presented to him, they de- posited the pelts on the ground beside him. BOY'S CiNEMA ''JeflF Scott .sent you those," one of Iho soldiers declared, "fie said ihoy belonged to you and a guy named Idaho Ike." "Where is Scott?" Mason asked quickly. "Up ill the fooihill.s with his pardner Dead- wood," the otiiei trooper put in. "They're lookiii' for Bull Hiagg." Margaret wa.s cliwe by. and with hor was a fresh-complcxioiied boy of about thirloon—little Jiminio Clark, orjili.ined son of an outrider who had perished as a result of the Ireacherous activities of Bragg and certain of th(! hitter's accomiiliees. " Is Jeff all right?" Margaret asked earnestly. "Sure he is, miss," the first soldier replied with a smile. " But I heard him kickin' because he'd lost his hat." Jinimie Clark spoke. "Whon d'you suppose Jeff'll get back to Clearwater, soldier?" "I couldn't rightly say, son," inurmured the dragoon who had answered Margaret's question. "Why, d'you miss him much?" "Of course we do," Jimmie averred. "He's the best scout in the whole world, an' this here wagon train couldn't get along without him." "No? Well, it seems like you're gonna try. Unless I miss my guess you're getting all set to hit the trail, aren't you?" "We are," John Mason interposed. "But we want Jeff and Deadwood to make up on us. I've left word to that effect with Mr. Morgan, the fur-trader." John Mason did not know it, but at that moment Sam Morgan was seated in the jlrivate room behind his store in Clearwater with two men whose presence there would have stag- gered the leader of the immigants if he could nave seen them. Those two men were none other than Bull Bragg and the half-blood known as Breed, and they were surveying Morgan complacently as he toyed with the Isrim of a black sombrero that was lying on his desk. Portly, immaculately-dressed, with pomaded hair and a generous moustache that tended to conceal the brutal thickness of his lips, Sam Morgan continued to finger the brim of that sombrero for an interval of thirty seconds, staring at it the while in a meditative silence. Then ne turned his shrewd eyes upon the ras- cally faces of his two visitors. "So Jeff Scott's handed in his checks, eh?" he said. "Well, that's the best news I've had in a long time. But what about those soldiers lU who showed up after you'd finiahed him, Breed? You don't i)iip|H)H(! they could have found their way to the maifi hide-out, do you ? You don't SMppoHU they might have arrived there after you and Bull paid off the ShoHhonw and headed south-woMt to oneuk into town?" Breed shook his head. "Not a ehuuee, Bo.t.s. Thoy miglita been able to follow our tracks for a mile or two, but we turned off' on to ground that was too hard an' stony to .show the mark of a hoof." Morgan seemed satisfied by thai response, but his brow clouded as he directed a glaii'i at a heap of furs that were piled by his desk. "About these pelts you brought in," he grunted. " Are you sure they're all that those friends of Idaho Ike had?" Bull Bragg and Breed betrayed no hint of uneasiness. "Of course," the former stated. "Why d'you ask ?" "They're a mighty poor lot," Morgan vouch •ga iKe safed. 'None of 'em are anything like as good as the one that was given to Margaret Mason by those trappers as a present. You fellows wouldn't keep any furs back from me—would you ?" He added the last words suspiciously, but, scanning his hirelings' countenances, detected no trace of guilt in the demeanour of either of them. . "Say, vou know we wouldn't do a thing like that. Boss," Bragg expostulated. He rose from his ohair, and, picking up the black sombrero that was lying on his desk, he crossed to a cupboard that was built into one of the room's walls. Opening the door of this cupboard, he hung the hat on a peg inside the recess, and then he turned to face Breed and Bragg again. " We'll keep Scott's sombrero as a memento," he said. "And listen, now that he's out of the way we're going to concentrate on destroy- ing the Mason outfit. That wagon train's not getting through to Oregon. No column of immigrants is getting through to Oregon, for if that territory were ever settled by hordes of whites our stranglehold on the fur trade woulo be broken." His accomplices stood up and moved across to him. "You got a plan in mind, Boss?" Breed queried. "Yeah. I got hold of Hackett and persuaded " There are the tracks of the killers we're after, and we'd better start following them while the trail's still hot " 1 ebruary- irtli,- 1U4U