2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

36 pected Kramer was doing the same thing for another motive. Maybe at night he would sneak to the wagon tongue and find food. As long as the Judge orated around the camp fires he was reasonably safe. When they were following a river he could trap fish in a wicket trap’ he wove, using his river skills. Once he left a mess of sunfish-for the girl. She left him journeybread and cold fry, and a note telling him to go away before he was captured. She seemed so agonized about him that he re- treated, allowing the train to proceed without him. But at a great distance he followed. Once the caravan was delayed in quicksands in a stream and he dared show himself long enough to instruct the bull drivers in how to double their ox-power and pull out. Then the trace left the re- gion. of streams ind entered an un- broken world of grass. It enabled Windy to keep closer to the train, watching for the trick when Judge Bradshaw’s wagons would be the last in line. He rode against the horizon, knowing the girl would see him soon or late. She would hate him but she would know he was there. One day the outfit broke into two sections. That morning it was late getting in motion, and Windy knew there had been a row and half the wagons were deserting Judge Brad- shaw’s authority. Rebellion frequently took place in the caravans, he had heard, though when the broken pieces came to In- dian country they usually made peace and joined together against the com- mon enemy. Windy decided which half didn’t have the Judge in it, and boldly joined it. Near sundown one evening the lead unit arrived at a big fat muddy riv- er. Lots of flood eddied in it. There had been rains in the distant moun- tains, lying day by day against the sky; and this water was boiling down. The wagons drew up in park to camp for the night. There was a pot- bellied ferryman here who also ran a jerkwater sawmill. He had prime cottonwood planks he would sell the _ travelers to mend their wagon bodies. The price was five dollars-per board. 2-GUN WESTERN There was slab wood from the saw. ° For this he “asked fifty cents per piece. He would set the outfit across in his rickety ferry boat for two dol- lars per wagon and fifty cents per head of stock. Gold. He had no truck with any other sort of money. The men gathered hastily. “It’s rob- bery! Whoever heard of such outra- geous prices?” Some were in favor of lynching the ferryman. But more _ conservative council prevailed. They would sit down and outwait him. Or else they’d wait for the river to go down and ford it. There were, of course, quick- sands. Quicksands or no quicksands, they wouldn’t be robbed. Just the same, time was draining. Nobody wanted to be caught along the trail in dead of winter. Terrible tales had drifted back about men who had to eat their companions to survive. The loutish ferryman sat on his fat hams and let the emigrants quar- rel it out. Windy projected along the river bank. In a growth of willows there were some Indian canoes. Be- yond that he found nothing of inter- est, not even driftwood for fires. That night the camp was dark. The next day the other half, with Judge Bradshaw in authority, came up and parked on the far side of the trail. The Judge, as a man of presence, dickered with the ferryman. “Set you ones acrost for two dol- lars a wagon, fifty cents for the beast- ies, in gold.” “Why, you robber! I'll have you hanged!” “IT ain’t been hanged yet,” the fer- ryman said significantly. The Judge fumed and called his men into caucus. The others joined. A vote’was taken. Both halves voted overwhelmingly not to pay the exor- bitant toll. “The river will go down,” the men said. “We'll wait.” But Windy could have told them the river was rising. He could tell by the chaff and drift and bubbles in the eddies. The Judge was in a terrible swivet. He had to get where he was going. Windy made one shrewd guess why. When the population in Oregon grew COPMICLOOOKS (E)