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Home My WebLink AboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1931-05-28, Page 3» THE EXETER I IMES-A&VOCATE I4M4 mriisoAY, mas aatii, las* TIGER EYE Babe studied the Kid for another ten seconds and gave a grunt that, seemed release a tension within his mind. “You come into' camp here, actin’ like you thought J dona jt,” he -stat’ ed calmly, lighting a match with his deliberately breaking while the Kid watch’ unblinking steadines his yellow right eye. I thought it, Babe.” it when you come to SIXTH INSTALMENT TBob Reeves, the kid, was nicknamed Tiger Eye by his friends down in the Brazos country because his “gun-eye was yellow. When his father, “Killer Reeves” died the Kid left Texas to avoid 'continu- his father’s feuds. Reaching Mon tana he is forced to draw on Nat Wheeler, an irate. In the ex change of shots Wheeler drops -dead, the Kid learning later that ' Bob Garner, who had also shot at the same time, really drilled Wheeler. ., Garner gets the Kid to’join the Poole outfit as a rim rider. The Kid succors Wheeler's widpw and is interrupted by Pete Gorham and some other nesters. He shoots ' Gorham through both ears for • coupling his name with Wheeler's widow. Later he rescues a girl Nellie and her dad from Gorham, wounding Pete again. The girl in spite of her belief the Kid is • an imported Texas killer, warns him the nesters will kill him. The Kid warns Garner the nesters are . planning an attack on the Poole • outfit.. He meets Jesse Market, a Texan, who is boss of the Poole wagon crew. . That night the kid shoots Mar k-el through both hands when the latter attempts to kill him for be ing the son of Killer Reeves. The rest of the gang approve of the kid’s action. While near Nellie’s home he hears the crack of a rifle . and finds her dad has been shot ' from ambush and helps carry the dead man into his house. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY The kid’s face was 'bleak and old ■when he turned from the bed and Nellie’s mother kneeling beside it, her arms thrown out and -clutching ilier dead with the tensity of despair. Nellie was holding herself culm in fipite of her horror. The kid saw her in the kitchen, dipping water into the wash basin on the bench beside the back. door. But a's he went out to wash her father’s life blood from llis hands, he remembered her words nnd halted, looking at her strangely. “What -call have yoh got to think I done it?” he demanded. “He was Shot in the back, from somewhere up awn the hill. I was awn the r-oad coming along by the old shack. Yo’all can go look at the hawse tracks and see fob yose-f.” “I don’t have to/ I know what made me say that. Mr.—-I know you didn’t do it.” “Reeves,” little. “B’cb Miss—” “Murray,” up a hand to shall we do?” She fighting back tears, crept into her cheeik’s kid’s grave look. “I’ll stay, heah, said the kid, flushing a Reeves is my name, said the girl, and put smooth her hair. ‘What bit her lips, and the color as she met the Miss Murray, while yo’all go fall help. I”d go my- se’f, but I couldn’t do no good. Some nestah would try and shoot me foh a Poole ridah, I reckon. If theah’s a hawse yo’all can ride—” “I eould ride Prince, but he’s up in the pasture, and he’s awful mean to #atch.” “I reckon I can get ’im. My hawse is plumb foolish ovah any ridalr but me, or I’d let yo’all take him.” “No, you’ll have to be ready to go before any one g,ets here. Prince is the sorrel with One white eye. Murry!0 He rode into the pasture and ed the sorrel with the white found a sidesaddle and put it on with meticulous care.'The giri looked at him, toward the cabin -where her mother was weeping in great, heavy, heartbreak ing sobs. “I’m— we’re much obliged, Mr. Reeves. You—you always come when I—'When we need help. Promise you won’t stay till they come back witli me.” “I promise to go—-but I kain’t promise I won’t come badkf. He watched her ride Off at a gal lop, her gingham skirt whipping out beside the horses’s flanks her yellow hair swinging in the breeze. His glance fell then to the trampl ed dirt under his feet, and the bleak look returned to his face. He turned and scanned the ridge. Its side was mostly brushy and with a stunted tree growing here and there, but at the top there was a rough outcrop ping of brown sandstone with rock slabs tilted this way and that. The kid was sure the killer had •waited behind those rocks; just as »ure.as if he had seen him there. Bttt he didn’t go- up right then to prove it. He went into1 the house instead and stood with his hat in his hand, looking down at the dead man and at the woman huddled on the floor beside the bed. ’The kid stood locik'ing down at her for a minute. He took the two tin water buckets and followed a“ path from the back door to va spring,, and brought back fresh water. .She looked at him then; looked at him long before she took the glass and drank. “You’re a good boy,” she said. “Where’s Nellie?” She stared around Jher» Oh, rop- eye, He told her. She did not seem to listen, but returned to her weep ing. The .kid wished she wouldn’t cry like that; she sounded so much like his mother when Pap lay on the bed under a sheet, Killers oughta 'be made to sit and listen to the wi dows of the men they back. The kid turned on and leaned his head in way, “Good-by, M'a’am,” he called soft ly. “Reckon "I’ll have to-be goin’ now.” “Good-bye,” she answered broken ly, “Look out them Poole killers don’t get you!” “Shoah will,” said the kid, Prom ised Nellie he’d go. Somehow it made a bond between them which the kid would never break. He was going because Nellie made him prom ise, And he was going to hunt down the killer, because it was Nellie’s old pappy he had shot. Insolence leered up at the kid from, every boot mark behind the tilted slabs of rock, The killer had not even tried to scuff out his tracks with a Sideways swipe of his foot. The kid’s eyes went seeking here and there. Killer as careless as this—and as sure of Poole protection -—.’pears like he might leave some sign more than boot traclks. Been smoking up here, too, The kid’s thoughts halted as ab ruptly as his body. Even his heart stopped dead' still in his chest; or at least if tfelt as if it had. The blood' froze in his veins so that his face had a pinched, old look, He pent stiff ly with a slow reluctance, utterly unlike himself, and picked up some thing here, over here another some thing, and he stood up, looking at them in the palm of his hand. Two pieces of broken match! Two ■pieces fitting together' match snap ped in the fingers and dropped. Babe! Babe, a Poole killer! Bus/hwhacking nesters from be hind rocks; that’s what he was doing Playing the kid for a sucker. Lay on the bunk, pretending he was read ing storybooks all evening—hell! Lay there planning how he’d go out next morning and dry-gulch poor devil of a nestah, that’s Baibe! ' Pecos had to use his hor.se and take the full respoiisiibility of getting back up on Big| Bench, for the kid just climbed into the saddle —his foot fumbling like a drunken man’s for the stirrup—and rode un- seeingly away from that hellish spot, where he had seen the fair face of friendship bracken and shrink to a grinning death’s-head before him. He ought to have known, that first day. He ought to have seen that Babe Garner had. fired that rifle shot nof to save the kid’s life, but because he wanted to make certain Nate Wheeler was dead. Up on the Bench there the other day, riding over to talk to Jess Mar kel. Ba’be lied and the kid knew he lied—and then had to go and swallow what Babe told him about that talk. Babe more’n likely Jess all about Tiger Eye Reeves, helped Jess plan 'how he could him. 7 blind, that! Kill more’n He remembered the look on Babe’s face as he stood outside the Poole mess house, watching Jess Markel go by with his bandagied hands. Babe had lighted a cigarette. He snapped the match in two—like these pieces, here in the kid’s palm —and looked at the Kid and said he’d rather be dead than crippled like Jhat. Tlie kid’s clenched hand rested on .the saddle horn and his head was bowed, his cl.eft chin resting ou the soft folds of his silk necik’er'chief. His eyes were staring. He saw Babe, in a new and terrible guise. He was seeing Babe standing by the kitchen table, looking down at his shattered knuckles, and lie was hearing Babe'say, “Put a bullet thro’ my damn’ brain, Tiger Eye! I’d rather be dead than like this.” He was seeing a bullet hole turn bluish in Babe’s forehead! The kid started and looked around like some one suddenly awakened from a nightmare. He w:as on the last slope of the ridge runninigl up to' the tiny walled-in basin where Babe’s cabin stood snugily sheltered against a split peak. Hb gave himself a little shakd, snapped back to clear pitiless think ing. He lifted his head, pursed his stiffened lips and whistled' the sig nal of all Poole riders. Babe pull ed open the door and stood there grinning as the kid rode up. The kid grinned back at Babe, but his eyes squinting and the 'amber right eye was opened full and had the baleful a tiger stalking his kill. yuh made it ahead of the Babe called cheerfully, as swung down 'at the door, yuh might get caught out, Goin’ to bo a rip-snort- snoot in the the doorstep at the door- some what' sense Damn’ fool-—let Babe lie A cold-blooded killer' told and get him like the kid some of these days, likely. ft stare of “Well, storm,” the kid “ 'Fraid Tiger Eye, er, when it gets here.” The kid turned and looked where a greenish-black cloud mass came coiling up from the southwest. He brushed past him and went in side, turning to face Babe. “What’s the matter, Tiger Eye? Anything happen?” “Yes, suh. Right smaht happen’ his ed, Babe. A nestah got killed.” Babe's c^ld gray eyes scrutinized the kid- He closed the door against a puff of wind, leaned his back against it, his thumbs hooked inside his cartridge belt- The kid’s vivid picture of him revised itself in cer tain details with pitiless accuracy. Babe would not fall between the stove and table, He would topple over toward the bunk, more’n likely, “Who was it, d'yuh know?” Or maybe yuli ain’t tellin.’ ” “Old Pappy Murray, shot in the back,” “Hunh, Well—” Babe hesitated “—he’s a neater and a cow thief. He had it pomin’, Tiger Eye.” “He nevah had it cornin', in front of his own door. The killah cach ed himself behind a ledge up awn the hill. Left his boot tracks theah —and a rifle shell.” “Yeah? Well—” “Left anotha sign, Babe.” “Yeah? What sign’s mat?” “Left this, Ba'be.” He opened palm. Babe locked, lifted his glance .to the bleak face of the kid,' and to that tiger stare of the yellow right eye. Babe’s teeth caught at his un derlip. HiS fingers quivered—ibut they did not go for his gun. They did not dare. Interruption- came. The Shrill, whistled sigln-al all Poole riders knew Babe’s eyes searched the ‘.kid’s face. He turned his back, pulled open the door, answered the call. ‘‘Supper ready, Babe?” The Poole foreman owned that voice. Nothing would happen while he was there. Flag of truce. Cards lay as they fell till the fore man left again. Meant to go, all right. Didn’t unsaddle his horse—’ meant to ride on to the Poole soon as he had his supper and the stonm was over. Straight, honest man, name of Joe Hale. The foreman talked while he a.te largely of the supper Babe had cook ed. Babe talked too, but not very much, Knew he’d have to face it, soon as Joe Hale was gone. Shoah storming. -So dark inside the kid got up and lighted the lamp. The foreman emptied his third cup of coffee, wiped his moustache with his handkerchief, hitched the box seat two inches back, and drew his tobacco and papers from his pocket. Soon as he had his smok’e. going, he would get up and leave. The- foreman reached thumb and forefinigier into the watch pocket of his vest, groped, there, taking his time. He finally drew a match from his pocket, looked at it, used it with little stabbing motions in the air to point his meaning while he talked td' Babe. Gosh, did he always talk that-a-way? It seemed to the kid that half -an hour passed before the cigarette was lighted, absently blew ped it in two, the floor and his hat. Babe lifted full at the kid. He loosen, saw them quiver as the kid’s eyes met his with shamed under standing. The kid sat down on the bunk, his arms resting on his knees and his face bent to the floor. Babe! He would have shot Babe just on the strength of a matchh If the fore man hadn’t come right when he did, he’d have killed Babe Garner— the best friend he ever had in his life. Babe! Clearing the table, scrap ing the plates just as if nothing! had happened. Stepping now to make himself a cigarette while the kid watched him from under his long eye lashes. “That feller that shot old Murray down in the valley ; yuh say he left ■broken match stubs where he waited Tiger Eye? Can’t go much by that. Lbts of fellers in a grass country break their match stubs in two be fore they throw ’em away. Less danger af fire.” With his big gray hat far back on his head and his liigh-lieeled hooked over the edge of the brushed stove hearth. “Yo’ll pulmb shoah ole Pappy Murray was shot a cow thief, Babe?’ “Shore he was! Why, hell, I told yuh a thousand times, Tiger Eye there ain’t an honest man in the hull 'valley. 'Not a one. Bay, bow’d you come to know he was shot,if you was oft’ over on the river side of the Bench where I sent you?” “Nevah did ride awn to the river, Baibe. Got right efirious about some thing in the valley, so I taken a jog down off the Bench to see fob m’- self.” “No biggah, chance than s-orne otha Poole ridah taken, ig.oing down to kill ole Pappy Murray.” “Flow’d you Iknow it was a Poole rider? You didn’t see ‘im, did yuh?’ “No suh, I nevah did see him.” “Flow’d you know it was a Poole rider, then?” jBabe flung down his book and sat up, eyeing the Kid sharply while he pulled his tobacco and papers, from his pocket. “Nesters ain’t above dry-gulchin’ each other if they’ve got a grudge and layin’ it to the Poole” “Nestah wouldn’t hit out foh the Bench aftah he done his killing.” “Which Way’d he go when he hit the rim?” “Kain’t say Babe. Plumb r, along the rim.” I out the dropped got up, The foreman match, snap- the pieces on reaching for his head and looked saw the Skid’s lips boots neatly bcky thumb-nail and the stub in two ed him with in the stare -of “Nevah -said “You looked camp.” “Kain’t tell a thing -by my looks,. Babe. This yellafi. eye of mine is plumb deceiving:, sometimes.” “What gets me, Tiger Eye, is how you come to take it to heart the way you do. Ain’t a bigger cow thief in. the country than old Murray. He was bound to get his sooner or later ’Nless he whs a p’ticular friend of yourn—” “Nevah was my friend of Babe.” “Well—they say he’s got a lookin' girl. You seen her?” “Wasn’t 'ho. girl theah, Babe, I rode along to the house. hands smashed the way you smash-, ed Jess Markers, So would nny mln that was a man.” “I isaid killahs, Babe.” Raeb shivered as jf a cold wind had struck his bare flesh, but he, didn’t say agaiu that he would ■rath er be dead than crippled. The Kid knew he thought though. The Kid’s eyebrows came together in a puzzled “frown while he, studied Babe at the window, peering’out into the faint moonlight, The Kid had counted on his be- 1 ing ssuare so a fellow could trust him. But if Babe had awaited like a coyote among the rocks and had shot Nellie's old pappy in the back he was just a mean, low-down kill er and nobody could trust him. A man like that would shoot his bhst friends in the back if he took the notion- Continued next week They Go Farther for the Same Money This is why we sell GOODYEARS 1, THE TREAD gives you wliat you want —long wear and safety, The thick, sharp, cut diamonds (in all weather) dig for a footing"—give sure road grip and safe traction to the last mile. mine, good- PRESENTATJON when Heard a W°man screaming and a-crying likp my mammy cried when Pap was bushwhacked. Killahs don’t think of the women, ‘pears like.” • “And as far as the women are concerned—” Babe arose from the bunk, hitching up his trousers’ belt as he sauntered over to. the water bucket and lifted the dipper with a jangle of tin. “They got to take their chance same as the men. There is always women cryin' over some man. There always will be, as long as there’s a man to cry albout. What yuh goin’ to do .about it? A man can’t set and roll his thumbs all his life, just so liis woman won’t have cause for tears. They bawl a lot— ■but they get over it.” “Recikon yo’re right, Babe.” “.Darn right, I’m right, You’ve been so growed up and steady, far as I’ve seen, I shore never expected you’d get chicken hreated over a nester all nt once.”1 “If every killah was fixed so he couldn’t shoot a. gun theah wouldn’t be no rnoah killing, Bab&” “I'd rather be dead than have my1 Worthy tribute was paid to Rev. R. C. McDermid and his wife and family when a farewell congrega tional social was held at Knox church, Goderich. Mr. McDermid has gone to Toronto where he has taken over the pulpit of St. Paul’s Presby terian church after a term of fifteen years -in Goderich. Mr, Andrew Porter, treasurer of the church pre sented Mr. McDermid with a hand some cheque from the congregation. The engagement is announced of Kathleen Frances, eldest daughter of Dr, and Mrs. Francis James Burrows, of 0ea forth, to Perley Benbury, of Winnipeg. The. marriage to take place early in June. The engagement is announced of Mary Anna, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. T, Amos, London, to Wilmot S. Gould, of Detroit, only son of Mr. and Mrs. Justice Gould, of St. Marys, the marriage to take place early in June. «■ 2. GOODYEARS COST NO MORE THE CARCASS There’s more life in Goodyear Supertwist carcass than in any other. The elastic Sup er twist with- 1 stands shocks that would break ordinary cord. Before buying test these reasons for yourself'. * Come in and see us. PHONE 109 9 Chevrolet presents Canada^ most complete line of lour-priced automobiles -wTwelve Attractive Aledels seats. Long, smart Fisher body. Driver’s seat adjustable. Broadcloth or mohair uphol- . stery Price CONVERTIBLE - CABRIOLETA comfortable THE COACH—An ideal car for the family. Roomy coupe or a racy roadster. 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A GENERAL TUNE IN“CANADAON PARADE" At-—- ...................... -..........- MILO SNELL, EXETER ASSOCIATE DEALERS: JOHN PASSMORE, HENSALL, ONT. C. FRITZ & SON, ZURICH, ONTARIO