March 6, 1944 (4 pages)

. jec’y: in. E. HARRIS i 1HE REXALL DRUG STORE * . THE v exalt DRUG STORE 4 ain Vitamins A, Bh, $9.59 in, 72 CAPSULES a Rexall propuct Eand G (B2) plus watotnenate. Vitam @ fiver ond Trot. Phone 100 “KEEP ’EM : : FLYING” ‘ @BUY @DEFENSE @STAMPS . —— @—Chamber of Commerce ‘ OFMIOH IN CITY HALL ; PHONE 575 : i ‘ent yours ar . ® muaagt City Nugget — Monday, March 6, to Dodge and Ogallala. CHAPTER I Even those names that meant so ; much have vanished now,.:so that you will look in vain for Ox-Bow or Dripping Spring or the valley of the Little Comanche on any recent map. And it is hard to believe that this . land where flashing beacons now guide the roaring course of planes by night, and by day motorcars dart “effortlessly across its endless miles, was then but a wild and rolling prairie of buffalo grass, and a journey of any length had no certain ending, and all of a restless nation seemed to be following the sun in a mad race set off by the ery, ‘‘Go West, young man, go West!”—not sixty years ago. This’ was a time of new and unbelievable happenings, Pullman’s Golden Palace cars were. running clear to the Pacific, with their red velvet curtained windows, their gas lamps that made ‘the coaches as brilliant as a ladies’ drawing room and their sleeping corppartments in which many women &till refused to undress when going to bed at night. Three thousand Negroes were marching afoot from. Alabama, with their women and children and halfstarved dogs, to claim the forty acres of land and the span of mules which the state of Kansas promised. Boxcar emigrant trains rolled out of the East one upon another, spewing settlers along the way, and the high-topped Pittsburg wagons lumbered West behind their ox teams, to meet—not a barren prairie—but the red swarms of Texas longhorns coming up from the South. For this was a time when the man in the saddle was king of the plains and prairie; all others were hoemen, beneath him, to be swept aside _ by the relentless march of his trail herds. Ten million Texas longhorns that had run wild since the Rebellion were finding a market in the a thousand cattle ranches were being made in the new lands of Montana and Wyoming, where cattle had never been before. Up that trail, twelve hundred miles long, unchecked by storm or drouth, by roving bands of Comanches or ‘the . barbed wire of the hoe-men, the great flood poured northward, a million head in a single year. This was a time of a young man’s opportunity. Whatever a man was going to be depended only upon himself, In the upper valley of the Little Comanche that night only one campfire pierced the blackness, a small “one, glowing faintly where high rimrock guarded a narrow entrance down from the vast empty reaches Y of the Staked Plain. Lew Burnet was cooking supper over a cautious blaze. He had laid his cottonwood twigs together at the ends, Indian fashion, spreading wheel. That way they burned with no smoke‘ ahd a small flame, but made an intense point of heat beneath his: pot of coffee. The coffee boiled .and he pushed the pot back, A comb. of antelope ribs, already braised, stood. propped against a rock. A pile of stick bread lay at his knee. He tore the antelope ribs apart and fell to eating with’ the hunger of a man who'd had nothing ' His was a young face, with sober strength in its long lines, but strangely marked from the tramng hoofs of an outlaw horse years 16. There was left now only ‘a ‘gurved crease from his right cheek. bone to his chin and a white crescent close to head. \ Yet those first years when “the wounds were raw and ugly had eft another mark. He had never ‘forwotten how the girls turned from forgotten the #4 underm. him, shocked, and he had A sensitive nature protects itself in deeply hidden ways, and (this early accident had made Lew Burnet, more than he realized, a: restless and lonely man. His work had ll ‘een man’s work, hard and danger5 ‘ous and single-hand?d; at twentyfive he had bossed three gréat herds of longhorns up ‘the trail from Texas Even the ‘new ranch he had established in Wyoming this past winter had risen in his vision as a place only for himyp ee had been too little information in Tom Arnold's letter. He wanted more, even. more, ‘perhaps, than Arnold could give. A month ‘ago he had mailed a letter of his own south from Wyoming, and late this afternoon, before céming down off the rimrock, he had stopped long enough to kindle a pillar of white smoke into the still air. He had whipped his rawhide coat across it twice, breaking it. If old Willy Nickle had received the letter and had stayed anywhere within twenty miles of the Little Comanche he would see that signal and know this eting place. < But be half-hour passed and the night’s hushed silence remained unbroken. By the simple process: of pulling off his coat and boots he was dic . ready for bed. He had turned into -and crouched there, waiting. It was shipping towns of the new railroads; . them outward like the spokes of a to the hairline of his fore-. aii LD CHANNING WI the dark toward his unrolled blankets when something sailed past him and fell with a soft thud. He stooped and pushed the unburned ends of cottonwood together . not until the little flame leaped up, shedding a wide circle of light, that a figure stepped from the shadows. Even then he didn’t*move. He sat . wholly: still, watching Willy Nickle, feeling as he always did that this was a ghost shape from out of a faroff past. He came forward silently on deerskin moccasins with high tops laced halfway to his knees, a small, thin, fragile-looking man, ageless. Long chestnut hair brushed: his shoulders, but his cheeks and chin were shaved clean: His face was very dark, yet oddly smooth and as gentle as a child’s except for the sharp, quick brightness of its small gray eyes. : “How are you, Willy?’’? Lew said and got no answer. His only greeting was a nod as the old man came from the shadows with an ancient needle gun cuddled like a baby across his thin chest. Always it was not until three deep puffs of kinnikinnick hit old Willy’s brain with their terrific force that talk seemed jolted out of him. Even then it was veiled talk of his own strange kind. You never learned anything from Willy Nickle by. bluntly asking questions. He took his three puffs and lifted his head and looked sharply all around him. “Well!” he said suddenly. ‘‘It: has been some. I do say!” His squinted gray eyes came back. “A year now come “A year in Lew nodded. calf time,’’ he said. in Ox i(Bow?’’ Wyoming ‘and they do say things have happened on the Little Comanche’ ‘since’ I’ve been ‘gone.’ “Sd I guess,” said Willy. “This nigger wouldn’t ‘know.’ . He knew allright. There were no lohger beaver to trap in the great South Park of Colorado,.nor shaggy herds of buffalo to follow north to the headwaters of the Yellowstone, and: the Mexican girls of Taos and ‘Santa’ Fe could not lure ‘old Willy ‘any. more. ey Lew. waited, smoking and feeling the kinnikinnick already start to spin his head. It often seemed a strange thing that he had’ been picked out for one’ of Willy Nickle’s few friends. But it was‘so,' a queer, loyal, unspoken friendship, which he knew he was going to need now more than ever. teat “‘Wyoming,’’ Willy mused across the fire. ‘“‘No place for a man now, but didn’t me and Bill Evans find beaver a ‘heap there that’ winter? I can tell you! A pretty smart lot of boys was camped on the Sweetwater and the way whisky flowed that time } was some.” “Still a good place, Wyoming,” , Lew said and then brought Willy’s wandering’ mind’ back ‘to ‘the’ Little Comanche. ‘They do tell me that Tom Arnold is moving his Cross T up there. Taking four thousand longhorns up the trail this month, all the way to the north. And I’ve a letter to trail boss for him. That’s the proposition. But there’s Clay Manning, Tom’s foreman now,’ who's been north once or twice himself and could lead. this herd maybe. Then what am ‘I here for? I don’t know. Things happen in a country when a man’s been gone a year.” “Well, they do!” said Willy. He smoked thoughtfully for a moment, , Pie ~ een re ¥ fies “4, 2 OY 4 2 ED fs 1 22% way ney Lf Sec if ih -~ by ba 3h Ser p N RE w. N.U.RECEASE . he could!” beaver this old coon never did cot-ton to, Clay ,Manning. Steve young ’un of Tom Arnold’s, was it him,night ridin’ up Crazy Woman-Creek not two hours after And that the bank was robbed? Him and-four strangers here? Seems like I was camped on Crazy Woman then.” Lew stared at him. ‘‘The bank in . Ox. Bow?” Willy nodded, ‘‘But was a man to hunt some trouble now he’d see why so many Cross T hgrses go loose. herded up Crazy Woman. That would be at nighttime, early.’” “Tonight?”’ “No, already. made it. Was some gunshot late this afternoon which must have hurried ’em, If. it was this nigger tomorrow going down the valley he’d keep to the east side. That’s talk, though. Maybe some sort wouldn’t listen.’ “Maybe he wouldn’t,’’ Lew agreed and smiled. ‘‘Maybe he’d like to know.” “He'll find tracks then,’ Willy offered. ‘‘They’re plain enough. But was it me I’d have old Silverbell shere ready.” He stroked the slender barrel of his needle gun. Through a little silent time, while Willy Nickle’s head drooped and he seemed to doze, Lew sorted out the old man’s information. P He felt a grimly troubled meaning in that none of these things had been in Tom Arnold’s letter. The bank in Ox Bow belonged to Arnold; its robbery, he knew, could be pretty bad. What puzzled him, wholly unexplainable, was this business of loose. horses being run up Crazy Woman to the Staked Plain. If it was rustling, Arnold or his foreman, Clay Manning, should be more on watch than that. The trail drive would need ‘every saddle animal the Cross T had. And Steve . “Willy,”? he asked, ‘‘you’re sure it was Steve riding that night of the robbery?”’ Old Willy opened one eye. tain,” he said and closed it. There was no. answer to that. Things happen’ in a year. Even twelve months ago, Lew remembered, Steve’s young rebellion had turned into violeht ways. ‘“‘CerHe was coming back, perhaps, : just in time. For he and Steve had grown up together in a close com‘} panionship, more confiding than between father and son. Everything Tom Arnold had built here in Texas was planned around his boy. Still there was. that antagénism between them, a reckless, high-strung nature fighting the strict, unsparing one of the man. : \ Inevitably Steve brought up his sister Joy. Lew bent forward and knocked his pipe out against his boot toe. ‘Behind all his thinking tonight was one question. He asked it now: “Willy, when did Tom’s girl marry Clay Manning?’’ 1s, a Willy’s head lifted. His gray eyes squinted ‘brightly. ‘‘Never did. There’s been ‘none of that on. the Cross T. Why not, this child couldn’t Say. .But there’s. somebody could make a better man for her. Well, “No,” Lew said. “It’s the sleek are aaa to, Willy: You know a Med “ ? 2 ¢ .In-a moment when the old man stood up to go he knew there was no use offering a bed here. Willy always slept alone. It might be ten miles frornm Dripping Spring of only off a hundred yards;’‘he wouldn’t know. ' re Standing with the ancient needle gun cuddled again across his chest, Willy took that quick glance all around him into the shadows. He stepped back. “Raise your smoke,” he said, ‘‘if you’ve a mind.” That was his promise and: Lew understood. He’d not stray far from-the Little Comanche for awhile. . . Lew broke camp in the dark next morning, saddled while his coffee daylight ‘he ‘was’ traveling sou This was ‘the’ end’ of a thonyion, . ing knowledge, and the red. mule with its white tarpaulin pack trotted ‘behind, needing no leash. The Little Comanche had changed of a year. Once:a-man could» ride sea of bluestem grass knee-deep on a horse. But Tom Arnold, like ev“ery cattleman in Texas now, had stocked his range beyond ‘its! limit in this mad race to supply the northern demand, The bluestem had: van‘ished, never to grow again. There was left only the short curly buffalo that showing great dusty patches. The Little Comanche could be wholly worthless in another five years. j At least, he thought, he had learned that lesson, and his own land in Wyoming came into the drifting gaze of his eyes. That was virgin now as this once had been, a sweet-grass. country, ten thousand acres he had got control of by plastering his homestead entries over every water hole and spring. The opportunity was there for a big lows. Then he. said, ‘That's one. e éia An boiled, and in'the cold sharp gray'of . . trail. ‘Even the tall black bene th . him stepped out: with a -home-com. . even more, he saw, “in ‘his absence . . down this. valley through a. waving. grass — nature’s last stand — even ranch, as big as Arnold’s Cross T.° ELD BY JAPS . WASHINGTON, D. C., March 6:— Rep. Clair Engle predicted today that congress would take favorable action on a bill he introduced recently calling for the creation of a commission to study methods of seeuring relief and release of U. citizens held by ‘the Japanese, and to arrange for the exchanige of nationals held by the two countries. Engle and Rep. Jack Anderson, introduced identical bills on the proposal in a bi-partisan move to concolidate congressional action in the House. A companion bill has béen introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dennis Chavez of New Mexico. » The pill provides that the commission shall be appointed by the Ss. 1944 —— — : Page Three point of the depression era, and: be; fore the period of the public works : program. : dtrend of the states, thongh at a slowThe commission is further authorized to utilize the services of Joseph Clark Grew former U. S. Ambassador to Japan and the offices of the State Department. « ; commission was emphasized by the recent report of Japanese brutality to American prisoners and the apparent necessity for more flexible methods of ‘handling the problem than the usual diplomatic’ means which ‘‘despite persistent effort on the part of the State ‘Department have met with little success.” “There are thousands of disloyal Japs in my district,” Engle declared, “and I think we should get rid of them as quickly as possible. I believe most of us will be glad to trade them off on a ratio of five to one or ese’ hands. No effort should or will be spared in rescuing them as soon as possible from the brutality and are mace aici ine meet STATE DEBTS ARE BEING CUT By PHOEBE ©. MAIN down ernment have scaled government levels. of other governmental units. standing is.also $20 million less than petter for our own people in Japaninhumanity of Japanese treatment.” In 1943, state debt totaled $2,862 million, which is a reduction of $643 million or 18 per cent from that of 1940. The current debt outthat reported in 1982° when the country was almost at ‘the lowest, president to serve without compen-. and local debt is almost negligible sation, except for traveling expenses. . by comparison. . . Engle pointed out that need for a It is with added interest ‘that the debt of state and local governments is being followed at this time. Reports that. individual states, cities, counties anid other local units of govtheir dert are now verified by a recent relea“e of the Bureau of the Census. Even more significant is the rapid. decline in the ratio that the state and’ local debt bears to that of all Total gross debt outstanding of the federal, state and. local governments amounted to $155,341 million at the close of the fiscal year 1943. Of this amount only 12 per cent, or $18,645 million, were obligations of the etace and local governments. Much of the large increases in federal expenditures ‘caused by the war has been borne by borrowings. Continued expansion of the national debt, along ‘the pattern that it has taken, is to be expected under our current fiscal policies. In striking contrast to. the growth of the federal debt is the re. duection in the amount of obligations . hereunto set m my official ‘eel units of government, too, same downward Local have followed the er pace. Their decline is particularly noticeable since 1941, when the debt level was $16,812 million. In the year 1943 it declined to $15,785 million, a decrease of six per cent. Prior to World War I almost three quarters of the obligations owed by all governments were those of local units. Borrowing for that war caused the federal government to usurp the first position and in 1922 it owvee ed two thirds of all owutstanding RE debt. Ten years later, in 1932, a contraction of the federal debt and. @xpansion of the state and local. debt resulted in an almost equal division. Since that time, however, the obli' fations of ‘the federal government have been successively higher than ose of the state and local units. >the federal debt so complies! dominates the picture that the state PURPLE HEART decoration awarded Cpl. Alex Zamojaki of Solvay, N. Y., at an evacuation hospital in Palermo is wrapped by a Red Cross hospital worker to. be sent home. bac CERTIFICATE OF COPARTNERSHIP FICTITIOUS NAME State of California County of Nevada. 86. Bi We, the undersigned, do hereb; certify that we are partners, trans— acting business in the County ctf. Nevada, State of Calffornia, unde the firm name and style of TWEE . CITY GRAVEL COMPANY; that thy names in full of all the members o* —. such copartnership °° are er: “RANCIS FISCHER and WIULIA}2. . HALE CAREY; ‘and that the places ‘of our respettive residences are sat ‘opposite our respective names -here‘o subscribed. . — i Peer IN WITNESS WHEREOF, w> have hereunto set our hands, this: 16th day of February 1944. Fischer, Nevada Elmer Francis City, California. nee William Hale Carey, Grass Valley, California. i State of California County of Nevada, «s ’ On this 16th day of, February, 1944, before me H. Ward: Sheldon, a Notary Public in and for the Courty of Nevada, ‘State. of California, residing’ therein, duly commissioned . and sworn, personally appeared, E'mer Francis Fischer andWilliay: Hale Carey,” known ‘to me to be th persons whose name are subscribe! to the foregoing’ certificate and acknowledged to me that they sr: the game. =.) ; Nevada, State of and year in this above written. (Seal) bs 0 eee PN GE ae Riga eae he et i ARE RENOWNED IN CALIFORNIA Name Price $12.00 Yi , pes ia at wag Saturday Issre, Delete ee ‘Sachin gor ‘ Introduc.2ry Offer, 6 Saturday Issues 25 Cents,

. jec’y: in. E. HARRIS i 1HE REXALL DRUG STORE * . THE v exalt DRUG STORE 4 ain Vitamins A, Bh, $9.59 in, 72 CAPSULES a Rexall propuct Eand G (B2) plus watotnenate. Vitam @ fiver ond Trot. Phone 100 “KEEP ’EM : : FLYING” ‘ @BUY @DEFENSE @STAMPS . —— @—Chamber of Commerce ‘ OFMIOH IN CITY HALL ; PHONE 575 : i ‘ent yours ar . ® muaagt City Nugget — Monday, March 6, to Dodge and Ogallala. CHAPTER I Even those names that meant so ; much have vanished now,.:so that you will look in vain for Ox-Bow or Dripping Spring or the valley of the Little Comanche on any recent map. And it is hard to believe that this . land where flashing beacons now guide the roaring course of planes by night, and by day motorcars dart “effortlessly across its endless miles, was then but a wild and rolling prairie of buffalo grass, and a journey of any length had no certain ending, and all of a restless nation seemed to be following the sun in a mad race set off by the ery, ‘‘Go West, young man, go West!”—not sixty years ago. This’ was a time of new and unbelievable happenings, Pullman’s Golden Palace cars were. running clear to the Pacific, with their red velvet curtained windows, their gas lamps that made ‘the coaches as brilliant as a ladies’ drawing room and their sleeping corppartments in which many women &till refused to undress when going to bed at night. Three thousand Negroes were marching afoot from. Alabama, with their women and children and halfstarved dogs, to claim the forty acres of land and the span of mules which the state of Kansas promised. Boxcar emigrant trains rolled out of the East one upon another, spewing settlers along the way, and the high-topped Pittsburg wagons lumbered West behind their ox teams, to meet—not a barren prairie—but the red swarms of Texas longhorns coming up from the South. For this was a time when the man in the saddle was king of the plains and prairie; all others were hoemen, beneath him, to be swept aside _ by the relentless march of his trail herds. Ten million Texas longhorns that had run wild since the Rebellion were finding a market in the a thousand cattle ranches were being made in the new lands of Montana and Wyoming, where cattle had never been before. Up that trail, twelve hundred miles long, unchecked by storm or drouth, by roving bands of Comanches or ‘the . barbed wire of the hoe-men, the great flood poured northward, a million head in a single year. This was a time of a young man’s opportunity. Whatever a man was going to be depended only upon himself, In the upper valley of the Little Comanche that night only one campfire pierced the blackness, a small “one, glowing faintly where high rimrock guarded a narrow entrance down from the vast empty reaches Y of the Staked Plain. Lew Burnet was cooking supper over a cautious blaze. He had laid his cottonwood twigs together at the ends, Indian fashion, spreading wheel. That way they burned with no smoke‘ ahd a small flame, but made an intense point of heat beneath his: pot of coffee. The coffee boiled .and he pushed the pot back, A comb. of antelope ribs, already braised, stood. propped against a rock. A pile of stick bread lay at his knee. He tore the antelope ribs apart and fell to eating with’ the hunger of a man who'd had nothing ' His was a young face, with sober strength in its long lines, but strangely marked from the tramng hoofs of an outlaw horse years 16. There was left now only ‘a ‘gurved crease from his right cheek. bone to his chin and a white crescent close to head. \ Yet those first years when “the wounds were raw and ugly had eft another mark. He had never ‘forwotten how the girls turned from forgotten the #4 underm. him, shocked, and he had A sensitive nature protects itself in deeply hidden ways, and (this early accident had made Lew Burnet, more than he realized, a: restless and lonely man. His work had ll ‘een man’s work, hard and danger5 ‘ous and single-hand?d; at twentyfive he had bossed three gréat herds of longhorns up ‘the trail from Texas Even the ‘new ranch he had established in Wyoming this past winter had risen in his vision as a place only for himyp ee had been too little information in Tom Arnold's letter. He wanted more, even. more, ‘perhaps, than Arnold could give. A month ‘ago he had mailed a letter of his own south from Wyoming, and late this afternoon, before céming down off the rimrock, he had stopped long enough to kindle a pillar of white smoke into the still air. He had whipped his rawhide coat across it twice, breaking it. If old Willy Nickle had received the letter and had stayed anywhere within twenty miles of the Little Comanche he would see that signal and know this eting place. < But be half-hour passed and the night’s hushed silence remained unbroken. By the simple process: of pulling off his coat and boots he was dic . ready for bed. He had turned into -and crouched there, waiting. It was shipping towns of the new railroads; . them outward like the spokes of a to the hairline of his fore-. aii LD CHANNING WI the dark toward his unrolled blankets when something sailed past him and fell with a soft thud. He stooped and pushed the unburned ends of cottonwood together . not until the little flame leaped up, shedding a wide circle of light, that a figure stepped from the shadows. Even then he didn’t*move. He sat . wholly: still, watching Willy Nickle, feeling as he always did that this was a ghost shape from out of a faroff past. He came forward silently on deerskin moccasins with high tops laced halfway to his knees, a small, thin, fragile-looking man, ageless. Long chestnut hair brushed: his shoulders, but his cheeks and chin were shaved clean: His face was very dark, yet oddly smooth and as gentle as a child’s except for the sharp, quick brightness of its small gray eyes. : “How are you, Willy?’’? Lew said and got no answer. His only greeting was a nod as the old man came from the shadows with an ancient needle gun cuddled like a baby across his thin chest. Always it was not until three deep puffs of kinnikinnick hit old Willy’s brain with their terrific force that talk seemed jolted out of him. Even then it was veiled talk of his own strange kind. You never learned anything from Willy Nickle by. bluntly asking questions. He took his three puffs and lifted his head and looked sharply all around him. “Well!” he said suddenly. ‘‘It: has been some. I do say!” His squinted gray eyes came back. “A year now come “A year in Lew nodded. calf time,’’ he said. in Ox i(Bow?’’ Wyoming ‘and they do say things have happened on the Little Comanche’ ‘since’ I’ve been ‘gone.’ “Sd I guess,” said Willy. “This nigger wouldn’t ‘know.’ . He knew allright. There were no lohger beaver to trap in the great South Park of Colorado,.nor shaggy herds of buffalo to follow north to the headwaters of the Yellowstone, and: the Mexican girls of Taos and ‘Santa’ Fe could not lure ‘old Willy ‘any. more. ey Lew. waited, smoking and feeling the kinnikinnick already start to spin his head. It often seemed a strange thing that he had’ been picked out for one’ of Willy Nickle’s few friends. But it was‘so,' a queer, loyal, unspoken friendship, which he knew he was going to need now more than ever. teat “‘Wyoming,’’ Willy mused across the fire. ‘“‘No place for a man now, but didn’t me and Bill Evans find beaver a ‘heap there that’ winter? I can tell you! A pretty smart lot of boys was camped on the Sweetwater and the way whisky flowed that time } was some.” “Still a good place, Wyoming,” , Lew said and then brought Willy’s wandering’ mind’ back ‘to ‘the’ Little Comanche. ‘They do tell me that Tom Arnold is moving his Cross T up there. Taking four thousand longhorns up the trail this month, all the way to the north. And I’ve a letter to trail boss for him. That’s the proposition. But there’s Clay Manning, Tom’s foreman now,’ who's been north once or twice himself and could lead. this herd maybe. Then what am ‘I here for? I don’t know. Things happen in a country when a man’s been gone a year.” “Well, they do!” said Willy. He smoked thoughtfully for a moment, , Pie ~ een re ¥ fies “4, 2 OY 4 2 ED fs 1 22% way ney Lf Sec if ih -~ by ba 3h Ser p N RE w. N.U.RECEASE . he could!” beaver this old coon never did cot-ton to, Clay ,Manning. Steve young ’un of Tom Arnold’s, was it him,night ridin’ up Crazy Woman-Creek not two hours after And that the bank was robbed? Him and-four strangers here? Seems like I was camped on Crazy Woman then.” Lew stared at him. ‘‘The bank in . Ox. Bow?” Willy nodded, ‘‘But was a man to hunt some trouble now he’d see why so many Cross T hgrses go loose. herded up Crazy Woman. That would be at nighttime, early.’” “Tonight?”’ “No, already. made it. Was some gunshot late this afternoon which must have hurried ’em, If. it was this nigger tomorrow going down the valley he’d keep to the east side. That’s talk, though. Maybe some sort wouldn’t listen.’ “Maybe he wouldn’t,’’ Lew agreed and smiled. ‘‘Maybe he’d like to

know.” “He'll find tracks then,’ Willy offered. ‘‘They’re plain enough. But was it me I’d have old Silverbell shere ready.” He stroked the slender barrel of his needle gun. Through a little silent time, while Willy Nickle’s head drooped and he seemed to doze, Lew sorted out the old man’s information. P He felt a grimly troubled meaning in that none of these things had been in Tom Arnold’s letter. The bank in Ox Bow belonged to Arnold; its robbery, he knew, could be pretty bad. What puzzled him, wholly unexplainable, was this business of loose. horses being run up Crazy Woman to the Staked Plain. If it was rustling, Arnold or his foreman, Clay Manning, should be more on watch than that. The trail drive would need ‘every saddle animal the Cross T had. And Steve . “Willy,”? he asked, ‘‘you’re sure it was Steve riding that night of the robbery?”’ Old Willy opened one eye. tain,” he said and closed it. There was no. answer to that. Things happen’ in a year. Even twelve months ago, Lew remembered, Steve’s young rebellion had turned into violeht ways. ‘“‘CerHe was coming back, perhaps, : just in time. For he and Steve had grown up together in a close com‘} panionship, more confiding than between father and son. Everything Tom Arnold had built here in Texas was planned around his boy. Still there was. that antagénism between them, a reckless, high-strung nature fighting the strict, unsparing one of the man. : \ Inevitably Steve brought up his sister Joy. Lew bent forward and knocked his pipe out against his boot toe. ‘Behind all his thinking tonight was one question. He asked it now: “Willy, when did Tom’s girl marry Clay Manning?’’ 1s, a Willy’s head lifted. His gray eyes squinted ‘brightly. ‘‘Never did. There’s been ‘none of that on. the Cross T. Why not, this child couldn’t Say. .But there’s. somebody could make a better man for her. Well, “No,” Lew said. “It’s the sleek are aaa to, Willy: You know a Med “ ? 2 ¢ .In-a moment when the old man stood up to go he knew there was no use offering a bed here. Willy always slept alone. It might be ten miles frornm Dripping Spring of only off a hundred yards;’‘he wouldn’t know. ' re Standing with the ancient needle gun cuddled again across his chest, Willy took that quick glance all around him into the shadows. He stepped back. “Raise your smoke,” he said, ‘‘if you’ve a mind.” That was his promise and: Lew understood. He’d not stray far from-the Little Comanche for awhile. . . Lew broke camp in the dark next morning, saddled while his coffee daylight ‘he ‘was’ traveling sou This was ‘the’ end’ of a thonyion, . ing knowledge, and the red. mule with its white tarpaulin pack trotted ‘behind, needing no leash. The Little Comanche had changed of a year. Once:a-man could» ride sea of bluestem grass knee-deep on a horse. But Tom Arnold, like ev“ery cattleman in Texas now, had stocked his range beyond ‘its! limit in this mad race to supply the northern demand, The bluestem had: van‘ished, never to grow again. There was left only the short curly buffalo that showing great dusty patches. The Little Comanche could be wholly worthless in another five years. j At least, he thought, he had learned that lesson, and his own land in Wyoming came into the drifting gaze of his eyes. That was virgin now as this once had been, a sweet-grass. country, ten thousand acres he had got control of by plastering his homestead entries over every water hole and spring. The opportunity was there for a big lows. Then he. said, ‘That's one. e éia An boiled, and in'the cold sharp gray'of . . trail. ‘Even the tall black bene th . him stepped out: with a -home-com. . even more, he saw, “in ‘his absence . . down this. valley through a. waving. grass — nature’s last stand — even ranch, as big as Arnold’s Cross T.° ELD BY JAPS . WASHINGTON, D. C., March 6:— Rep. Clair Engle predicted today that congress would take favorable action on a bill he introduced recently calling for the creation of a commission to study methods of seeuring relief and release of U. citizens held by ‘the Japanese, and to arrange for the exchanige of nationals held by the two countries. Engle and Rep. Jack Anderson, introduced identical bills on the proposal in a bi-partisan move to concolidate congressional action in the House. A companion bill has béen introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dennis Chavez of New Mexico. » The pill provides that the commission shall be appointed by the Ss. 1944 —— — : Page Three point of the depression era, and: be; fore the period of the public works : program. : dtrend of the states, thongh at a slowThe commission is further authorized to utilize the services of Joseph Clark Grew former U. S. Ambassador to Japan and the offices of the State Department. « ; commission was emphasized by the recent report of Japanese brutality to American prisoners and the apparent necessity for more flexible methods of ‘handling the problem than the usual diplomatic’ means which ‘‘despite persistent effort on the part of the State ‘Department have met with little success.” “There are thousands of disloyal Japs in my district,” Engle declared, “and I think we should get rid of them as quickly as possible. I believe most of us will be glad to trade them off on a ratio of five to one or ese’ hands. No effort should or will be spared in rescuing them as soon as possible from the brutality and are mace aici ine meet STATE DEBTS ARE BEING CUT By PHOEBE ©. MAIN down ernment have scaled government levels. of other governmental units. standing is.also $20 million less than petter for our own people in Japaninhumanity of Japanese treatment.” In 1943, state debt totaled $2,862 million, which is a reduction of $643 million or 18 per cent from that of 1940. The current debt outthat reported in 1982° when the country was almost at ‘the lowest, president to serve without compen-. and local debt is almost negligible sation, except for traveling expenses. . by comparison. . . Engle pointed out that need for a It is with added interest ‘that the debt of state and local governments is being followed at this time. Reports that. individual states, cities, counties anid other local units of govtheir dert are now verified by a recent relea“e of the Bureau of the Census. Even more significant is the rapid. decline in the ratio that the state and’ local debt bears to that of all Total gross debt outstanding of the federal, state and. local governments amounted to $155,341 million at the close of the fiscal year 1943. Of this amount only 12 per cent, or $18,645 million, were obligations of the etace and local governments. Much of the large increases in federal expenditures ‘caused by the war has been borne by borrowings. Continued expansion of the national debt, along ‘the pattern that it has taken, is to be expected under our current fiscal policies. In striking contrast to. the growth of the federal debt is the re. duection in the amount of obligations . hereunto set m my official ‘eel units of government, too, same downward Local have followed the er pace. Their decline is particularly noticeable since 1941, when the debt level was $16,812 million. In the year 1943 it declined to $15,785 million, a decrease of six per cent. Prior to World War I almost three quarters of the obligations owed by all governments were those of local units. Borrowing for that war caused the federal government to usurp the first position and in 1922 it owvee ed two thirds of all owutstanding RE debt. Ten years later, in 1932, a contraction of the federal debt and. @xpansion of the state and local. debt resulted in an almost equal division. Since that time, however, the obli' fations of ‘the federal government have been successively higher than ose of the state and local units. >the federal debt so complies! dominates the picture that the state PURPLE HEART decoration awarded Cpl. Alex Zamojaki of Solvay, N. Y., at an evacuation hospital in Palermo is wrapped by a Red Cross hospital worker to. be sent home. bac CERTIFICATE OF COPARTNERSHIP FICTITIOUS NAME State of California County of Nevada. 86. Bi We, the undersigned, do hereb; certify that we are partners, trans— acting business in the County ctf. Nevada, State of Calffornia, unde the firm name and style of TWEE . CITY GRAVEL COMPANY; that thy names in full of all the members o* —. such copartnership °° are er: “RANCIS FISCHER and WIULIA}2. . HALE CAREY; ‘and that the places ‘of our respettive residences are sat ‘opposite our respective names -here‘o subscribed. . — i Peer IN WITNESS WHEREOF, w> have hereunto set our hands, this: 16th day of February 1944. Fischer, Nevada Elmer Francis City, California. nee William Hale Carey, Grass Valley, California. i State of California County of Nevada, «s ’ On this 16th day of, February, 1944, before me H. Ward: Sheldon, a Notary Public in and for the Courty of Nevada, ‘State. of California, residing’ therein, duly commissioned . and sworn, personally appeared, E'mer Francis Fischer andWilliay: Hale Carey,” known ‘to me to be th persons whose name are subscribe! to the foregoing’ certificate and acknowledged to me that they sr: the game. =..) ; Nevada, State of and year in this above written. (Seal) bs 0 eee PN GE ae Riga eae he et i ARE RENOWNED IN CALIFORNIA Name Price $12.00 Yi , pes ia at wag Saturday Issre, Delete ee ‘Sachin gor ‘ Introduc.2ry Offer, 6 Saturday Issues 25 Cents,