The West News (West, Tex.), Vol. 51, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, May 30, 1941 Page: 3 of 10
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THE WEST NEWS
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ltemi I Never Knew .. ,
*Til Now
I But which you knew all along))
Rob’t Sherwood's fine play,
■“There Shall Be No Night,” won
the Pulitzer Prize, which should
have happened a year ago. This is
Tegarded as highly encouraging to
the theater In general—having the
Pulitzers only one year behind the
parade.
Billy Gilbert has named his es
tate “Gezunt Heights.”
Ned Russell, of the United Press,
was given a 3-week vacation in Dub-
lin, and came back with a story
which shows the extreme eagerness
and the extreme ends to which the
Irish Free State is going to pre-
serve its neutrality. The Irish navy
(consisting of two torpedo motor-
boats) was ordered out on maneu-
vers, and their instructions read:
"You will proceed from the harbor
to sea, where you will meet and
engage either the Hood or the
Schamhorst . . ."
James Gleason plans his sixteenth
newspaper managing editor on the
screen in the soon-due "Affection-
ately Yours." (That’s either a rec-
ord or a rut!)
At Fort Williams, there is a Pri-
vate William Williams, who comes
from Williams Street, Williamson,
W. Va. (Or, to put it briefly, where
there's a Williams, there's a Wil-
liams.)
Dusty King and Lew Cordon wer* Joint
owners of the vast King-Cordon range which
stretches from Texas to Montana When
building up this string of ranchos, they con-
tinually had lo light the unscrupulous Ben
Thorpe. He rivaled King-Gordon In wealth
CHAPTER VII
A discussion was In progress
about democracy, and one of the
group seemed to think his ancestry
entitled him to a dogmatic view on
everything. "I think,” he smirked,
“that she argument on America
should end with my views. After all
—my ancestors came “over on the
Mayflower” ... "You're lucky,” was
soprano Genevieve Rowe’s com-
ment, “after all, the immigration
laws are a bit stricter now."
The Amerlea First outfit claims
in its ads that it hasn’t wealthy
backers ... A few months ago
that group was asked for a list of
iU backers, but refused to give it.
Finally they gave a partial list—
which Included many wealthy men
and women . . . Why have they
such short memories T
According to Wilfred J. Funk, the
average pet dog has a vocabulary
of 80 words. (That’s the number of
words it undersstands.)
In the new book, "Men and Poli-
ties,” the author says: “Germany
has no unemployment But nei-
ther has a prison.”
According to the Open Book,
whether a black cat following is
bad luck depends on whether you're
a man or a mouse.
You can tell the difference be-
tween a Nazi and a British plane
by their sounds. Nazi bombers
sound like this: “Voom, voom,
voom. Vooma-doom-voom” . . .
British planes sound like: “Yowzer-
yowzeryowzeryowzer” ... Or so
returning correspondents are telling
the Stork Clubbers, at any rate.
When It was rumored Marshal
Goering might receive on Austrian
Knighthood, Punch suggested his
new title be: “Sir Cumlerence.”
Memo* of a . . .
Girl Friday:
Dear W. W.: After two months of
trailing Jan Valtin, Steve Birming-
ham (the Dies Committee sleith)
caught up with him in the parking
lot opposite The Algonk and served
him with a summons . . . Jimmy
Walker evened things with certain
Hollywood people (formerly of
Broadway) at the Jack Benity af-
fair. Jimmy called to the spotlight
man and said: "Please turn off
the light so I can see the people
who couldn't see me the last four
years.”
The Nat’l Defense Organization is
sponsoring R. H. Markham's excit-
ing reply to Anne Lindbergh's book.
He calls his: "The Wave of the
Past!” Be sure and readl
Just get a button reading: “I'm
a Copperhead." It ia the emblem of
a West coast outfit whose meetings
are attended regularly by most Bund
members out there. The head of it
ia the chairman at the Save America
First meetings in L. A. . . . Quentin
Reynolds sent a cable to friends
saying: “The Saturday blitz and the
arrival of Hess took Londoners'
minds off the war!"—Your Girl fri>
day.
Private Paper« ...
Of a Cub Reporter:
Jimmy Dorsey kept the gagging
going when he relayed the one about
the same dictators who were argu-
ing over the division of spoils . . .
Hitler, of course, was conceding
nothing to his very Junior Axis part-
ner in crime . . . Finally, Benito
could stand the humiliation no long-
and he blurted: “Listen, Hitler.
These men whom Roper now gath-
ered about him hated a particular
man, not only as lawless as them-
selves, but a man who was more
than one man. Ben Thorpe was a
thousand men; operating under
Cleve Tanner in the south, and Walk
Lasham in the north, his innumer-
able retainers filamented the plains
from the Rio Grande to the Big
Horn. That Roper’s men hated Ben
Thorpe was no coincidence; Roper
had picked men of personal grudge.
Most of them had first been out-
lawed because they had not suited a
single organization — the organiza-
tion of Ben Thorpe.
Up and down and across half of
Texas, constantly in the saddle, Bill
Roper threaded his new organiza-
tion. Sometimes Dry Camp Pierce
was with him; more often he trav-
eled alone. These famous gunfight-
ers and outlawed men whom Roper
gathered were just youngsters, most-
ly. Some of them were true killers;
some merely reckless kids who had
got off on the wrong foot. All of
them were badly wanted by what
little law there was.
One night in early June, Dry Camp
Pierce and Bill Roper sat in the
back room of a saloon, deep in
Texas.
Look," Dry Camp Pierce said.
“I've stole cows until I could pave
my way to hell with their hides.
But—I don’t know—to steal rows for
Dusty's kid—”
Bill Roper's teeth flashed clean in
his grin. "Whose cows?”
“I've stole cows—”
“You're going to steal cows that
belong to me, now.”
“Figure you own these cows?”
“I'm half of King-Gordon, now
split. I've taken, out of King-Gor-
don, seven camps without cows; now
I’m claiming the cows that Thorpe
took from Dusty King. And from
some other men that we're going to
lend a hand to, pretty soon.”
Dry Camp Pierce—he was called
that because he hated to camp too
near to water—went to work for
Bill Roper as he had never worked
before; and thus the king of cow
thieves, the brand changer extraor-
dinary, for once aligned on the side
of the law that was not.
Ten rustlers’ camps hooked into
Thorpe-Tanner territory . . .
But Dry Camp also helped in oth-
er ways.
A hot June dusk, five days after
the meeting at Whipper Forks, found
Bill Roper at the Dry Saddle Cross-
ing, where he was to meet Lee Hat
nish; and this meeting, too, was ar-
ranged by Dry Camp Pierce, though
by this time Pierce was already far
away.
Here ran the broad, many-chan
neled river, dividing two countries—
a river whose split wanderings made
two miles of intermittent shallows.
At this border of a vast, impercepti-
bly rolling prairie stood a narrow
string of adobe shacks. That was
the Dry Saddle Crossing.
Two men—Bill Roper and Lee
Harnish—sat in front of one of those
abandoned shacks, and tried to get
together.
"I've always understood,” Roper
said, "that you were acquainted
some, belbw the line."
Harnish's hard eyes studied Rop-
er, and for a little while nothing
could be heard except the mourn
ing of doves in the willow scrub by
the water. Next to Dry Camp Pierce,
Lee Harnish was the oldest of those
to join Roper; he was twenty-eight.
He was tall and lank, sun-baked al-
most to the color of an Indian; his
green eyes were curiously blank, inv
penetrable, and he liked to look his
man in the eye with the peculiar
fixity seen in the gaze of hawks.
“I’ve been down there some,” he
admitted. "I've made a few drives
into Chihuahua; one drive to Mex
ico City.”
“If you had a big wet herd run
to you just below the line, would
you know ho to get rid of it?”
“I can't make out your hand,”
Harnish said. "King-Gordon never
swung the long rope yet, that I
heard of." .
“I'm not King-Gordon now. My
stunt is to smash Cleve Tanner; and
I don’t care what it costs.”
“What's wrong with backing him
into a shoot-out, if that’s what you
want?”
“That comes later. If 1 bust Tan-
ner I can bust Thorpe. But if Tan-
ner ia gunned before he’s busted,
Thorpe will take over in Texas, and
the chance to break up his Texas
layout will be gone."
“You ain't going to bust him by
running off a few head of cattle.
This river crossing is alow work,
kid.”
“I figure to cross five thousand
head within the next three months,”
Roper told him.
“Five thousand bead won't even
scratch the hide of Thorpe and Tan-
INSTALLMENT S
THE STORY SO PAR!
and power, but had gained his position
through wholesale cattle rusUlns and gun-
play. One afternoon King was hilled by
Thorpe and his two assistants, Cleve Tan-
ner and Walk Lasham. King's adopted eon.
Bill Roper, decided to start a cattle war
e • <
"And you want me to take 'em
on the other side—is that the idee?”
“I want three dollars a head,
American gold, paid off as the cat-
tle come out of the water . . ."
Roper's ways of gathering his wild
bunch were diverse, as diverse as
the saddle men he gathered. One
way or another, picking up a man
here, three more there, he got all
he needed, and more.
But certain other things had to be
done, in order that the wild bunch
would have work to do, planned in
such a way that something would
be accomplished that would stay ac-
complished.
On a steamy afternoon early in
July, Bill Roper sat in Fred Max-
im's San Antonio law office. Maxim
was an attorney who, some thought,
had worked under a different name,
somewhere before; but here, assur-
edly he was in no one's pay.
“I’m not asking the likes of'you
what's what,” Bill Roper said. “I
Roper’s ways of gathering his
wild bunch were diverse.
pw
againrt Thorp* In Texas. He mad* tbl* de-
cision against th* strong opposition at Me
partner. Lew Gordon. Bill's sweetheart.
Jody Gordon, pleaded frantically with
him to turn back, but could not change
hla grim determination.
•
“I guess you already know Bob
Graham,” Roper said. "You know
how a warrior gang of Cleve Tan-
ner’s jumped down on him, on some
thin excuse, and run him off his
range. They even took over his
house and bis windmill and his cor-
rals. Now, I aim to hand back that
range to Bob Graham; he’s waiting
in Bigspring for the word. Your part
of the job is simple enough—you
just go and take it away from the
Tanner bunch.”
"Simple, huh? Just how do you
figure this simple trick is to be
done?”
"A lawyer in San Antonio kept
the Rangers off when Tanner
lumped Graham. Now we’ve got an-
other better lawyer in San Antonio
to keep them off when Graham
umps Tanner. The only question is,
who's got enough salt to grab that
range—and then hang onto it?”
And what do we get out of all
this?” ,
“Graham takes over the outfit and
runs it. You hang around and help
him, and see that he doesn't get
run off again. For that you get a
half interest in the outfit. You split
it among you any way you see fit.
I'U back Graham with cattle, and
what other stuff he needs.”
Nate Liggett said, "Bill, I don’t
see where we come in for no ad-
vantage.”
"if you're satisfied with the lone
wolf stuff you’ve been pulling, I
haven't got anything to offer you,”
Roper admitted. “But I’U teU you
this—the boys that string with me
now will see the day when they’U
run Texas; and Cleve Tanner, and
Ben Thorpe, too, wiU be busted up
and forgot!”
'It’s a hefty order!”
‘Maybe.it is. This Graham busi-
ness is a kind of experiment; it'U
work if you make it work. But if
it goes through okay—it's only the
beginning, you hear me? You string
with me a little while: and maybe,
by God, we'U show a couple of peo-
ple something ...”
WRIGHT A .
PATTERSON
Flowery New Slip Cover
Beautifies a Worn Sofa
chapter vni
want to know who actually owns
range rights on the Graham stand.
The hard-bitten little man acros
the desk from Roper was stiU cadgy
"When it comes to ousting a man
from possession—”
'You know who 'ousted' Bob Gra-
ham and his family from possession.
Cleve Tanner took over that outfit
by main horse-and-gun power, with
out decent cause or reason. Every-
body knows that. I’m asking you
now—”
"Taylor and Graves are already
doing everything that can be done
to regain possession of Graham's
outfit,” Maxim said, smiling.
It was the smile that Roper liked
"Suppose I hold the Bob Graham
lands, and Bob Graham’s family
are living on it.
"Bob Graham hasn’t got posses-
sion,” Maxim said.
"Suppose he did have?”
“Never could happen. Ben
Thorpe"
“Shut up a minute," Roper said.
“I’m not asking you to put Graham
back in possession of his range. I'm
not asking you to save him from
being put off again in the way he
was before. What I want to know is,
can you head off some cooked-up
legal interference with Graham, aft-
er he's in possession again?"
Fred Maxim thought it over. “1
can only promise you that I can
cause considerable delay,” be said.
“Months of delay?”
“Providing you can show posses-
sion—I'll keep you clear until hell
freezes.”
“That's all I want ...”
Still July, at Willow Creek—
A barren range of hills, sand hills;
golden in the dawn, purple in the
twilight, barren always. Beneath
them, what had been the Willow
Creek camp of the old King-Gordon.
In the bunkhouse nearest the river,
five men lounging around a little
room.
“All right, you hard guys,” Bill
Roper said; “you knew who told you
to come here. Dry Camp Pierce
told you to come here. Maybe he
told you what you could look for
here, huh?”
These four gunflghters who met
Roper here were none of them older
than Bill; yet each was famous as a
killer in his own right Of them all
Bill Roper alone had no name, no
reputation. Yet in respect for the
name of Dusty King, they bad come
to hear him out
Nate Liggett, a round-faced kid
with eyelashes that looked as if they
had been powdered with white dust
said, “Wei!, what seems to be your
offer?"
Hot, dry days of early August—
As the first sun struck with a red
heat across the plains, the Tanner
men who held the Graham ranch
were already saddling. All over
Texas, cowmen were throwing to-
gether the last trail herds of the
year; it was time for these Tanner
men to roll their chuck wagons
again, to round up the last of the
trail-fit stock that remained In the
herds which had belonged to Bob
Graham.
Out from what had been the Gra-
ham corral, three riders swept
through the dusty dawn; but they
had hardly left the pole fences be-
hind when six other riders confront-
ed them, rising into their saddles
like Comanches, out of the brush.
The strangers closed in a semi-cir-
cle, unhurriedly, their carbines in
their hands. In another minute or
two the three Tanner riders were
grouped in a defensive knot, while
from the semi-circle of the raiders
Nate Liggett jogged forward to talk
it over.
“I don't think you want to go on,”
he said. "1 don’t even think you
want to work for this outfit any
more."
UtelMMd by W**t*rn N*w«pap*r Union. I
SHOULD BE DIRECT,
NOT INDIRECT TAX
WHEN WE TAX business we tax
production and distribution. When
we tax production and distribution,
we tax the consumer. This is the
hidden tax we hear about.
Taxes are a part of the cost of
production and distribution. They
are a part of the cost of a product.
That additional cost is added to the
selling price of the product, or pre-
vents a lowering of the price if econ-
omies of production would otherwise
lower it.
If business—production and dis-
tribution—did not pass on to the
consumer the increased cost occa-
sioned by taxes, business would
soon be bankrupt and the consumer
would lose by a loss of jobs.
We are all a part of American
business and all are dependent on
its continued operation. All of us
are concerned directly or indirectly
with production and distribution.
When the politicians tax business
directly they tax all of us in-
directly as much, or more, than any
direct tax would have amounted to.
Politicians looking to their per-
sonal future—a continuance of their
jobs—attempt to mislead the mass
of Americans by boasting of their
intention to take from business the
money needed to pay for the extrav-
agances of government, and they
succeed in putting over such a mis-
leading idea.
Men well versed in finance and
industry, well qualified to speak on
the subject, teU us that before we
are through with the present world
holocaust the federal government
will be facing an indebtedness of
$150,000,000,000, a sum so great that
it is impossible to conceive what
it means. In the face of such a
prospect, congress does not attempt
any economies in the normal opera-
tions of the government.
Despite the fact that more than
a million men are now in the armed
forces of the nation, that industries
engaged In providing implements of
preparedness for ourselves and war
materials for England are provid-
ing work at high wages for millions
of men, and seeking more help,
our relief costs do not come down.
We are still spending billions for
relief.
The politician is not willing to say
to those who prefer the meager liv-
ing a government dole provides to
working for a better living that they
must either work or starve. The re-
ceivers of relief vote, and the poli-
tician will not jeopardize that
vote.
We must prepare for defense. We
must have battleships, airplanes,
tanks, merchant ships, all the Im-
plements needed for war. But
we must also prepare for the future
and it will be a dark future if we
are to face a national indebted-
ness of $150,000,000,000.
Congress should economize in
every practical and possible way,
and it should levy an honest tax and
collect it in an honest way so each
individual may know what he pays
—a direct instead of an indirect tax.
OOW lovely that “impossible”
11 old sofa becomes when vou
put a bright new slip cover on itl
And you can easily make, your-
self, the smartest of slip covers.
* • •
Exact detail* of cutting anti **wln* till*
•Up cover *r* described and diagrammed
In our H.pag* booklet. Also t*Ua bow to
cover and trim dtHerent tjrp** of chain.
Tip* on fabric*, colon. Send for row
copy to:
“I know that as well as you. What
it will do, it’ll draw Tanner to throw
his warriors onto the border. That’s
what 1 want. Because by then I'll
be working
Two nights later, one hundred and /S/ty
miles away—
With the approach of dusk, a pe-
culiar light lay upon the valley of
the Potreros. In a reach of open
grass a herd of five hundred head
bunched loosely—tame, heavy cat-
tle. already well removed by breed-
ing from the old, wild, long-horn
strain. But they had not bunched
voluntarily. They shuffled restless-
ly, watching the brush! something
was happening around them that
they did not understand.
As the light tailed, the figures of
horsemen emerged from the brush,
cutting mile-long shadows into the
flat rays of sunset; the huge, heavy-
shouldered man who signaled to his
spread-out cowboys by turning his
horse this way or that, in Indian
horse language, was Dave Shannon.
They did not harass the cattle.
Only, between sunset and the next
daylight, no cow took a step other
than in the direction of the Mexi
can border . . .
_
mhHBI
Dry-grass
he hot sa
J Texas worthed by
All across the southern ranges a
peculiar thing was happening. As
word spread from twenty points of
disturbance, certain of the older cat-
tleman began to sense that there
was a curious, almost systematic
order to what in itself seemed a
widespread disruption. All over the
Big Bend country, eastward almost
to the well settled Nueces, west-
ward beyond the barren Ptcoe,
PIONEER SPIRIT
STILL ALIVE
ORANGE, CALIF., is a little city
of 8,000 people, typical of the Golden
state. It was founded by pioneers
who stopped there when it was but
a crossing place of trails. Many of
its first generation of settlers are
still living. They knew it when the
spot on which the city stands and
all the surrounding country was a
sandy desert. Their children see it
today as a modern small American
city, enjoying all the advantages
America offers and surrounded
by well-kept, prosperous farms,
ranches and orange groves.
But the younger element is not
permitted to forget its pioneer origin.
I witnessed the parade that is a
part of each annual harvest festival.
The outstanding features of that
parade were the covered wagons of
the pioneers, the prospector and his
burro, the cart of the pioneer ped-
dler and handyman—every possible
display of the hardships and simple
pleasures of the pioneer as the
foundation on which the city was
built. Interspersed with these were
the brightly uniformed bands, many
of them from the various county
high schools, each led by high-step-
ping girl majorettes, and with mod-
em floats representative of city in-
dustries and institutions.
But it was the evidence* of the
pioneer day* that appealed to th*
people and caught and held th*
crowds. These display* represented
the spirit that is back, not of Orange
«ily, but of all the towns and
small cities of the West. That pio-
neer spirit is not dead, and will not
die. It is the American spirit
northward to the fever line, was
a spotty wave of raids of
an unparalleled boldness. Far apart
but almost simultaneously, hell bad
busted loose in a great number ct
bolt of
OUR DEBT
THEY TELL US that to maintain
a democracy it is essential that th*
citizen* be informed. One of the
thing* we should tike to be accu-
rately Informed about is what wa
owe nationally, including the liabili-
ties of toe numerous corpora-
tions and administrations we have
financed and whoa* debts w* ha**
READRR HOMX SERVICE
SU list* Avne* Maw Task CRy
Enclose 10 cents tn coin ior your copy
at HOW TO MAKE SUP COVERS.
MraERWArj
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rod sruw \tnmiM.
HE INVENTED THE
FIRST ryftWRITSK.
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CONffMHMM WE TO LACK OF
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CORRECT THE CAUSE OF 1WE
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AMMWNK REHTY j
OFWWER.
Criticism With Ease
Criticism comes easier than
craftsmanship.—Zeuxis.
•sormtfilWBi
Conquerors Two
Patience and fortitude conquer
all things.—Emerson.
FEMALE Pfiltti
WITH WEAK, CRANKY
NERVOUS FEELINGS -
You women who *u«*r p»ln at brat-
ular periods »nd an nacrous cranky
due to monl
j monthly functional dlsturb-
abould find Lydia X. Pink.
ham'* V*c*table Compound stsantg
marvelous to ratter* mob annoying
Plnkham's Compound I* mad*
**p«ei*lly for women tn belp ratter*
such distnaatnf feeim** and Una
bar* reported
WORTHTRYDrai Any
WNU-L
22—41
lilllllllllllillj
HOW MUCH
We Can All Be
EXPERT
BUYERS
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to price* that ate* tele9 naked to*
■ htead tn key, end e* te Sw
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Webb, Leonard. The West News (West, Tex.), Vol. 51, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, May 30, 1941, newspaper, May 30, 1941; West, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth589407/m1/3/: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting West Public Library.