Refugio Timely Remarks and Refugio County News (Refugio, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 47, Ed. 1 Friday, September 14, 1934 Page: 7 of 8
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: The Refugio County Newspaper Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Dennis M. O’Connor Public Library.
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Friday, September 14, 1934
THE REFUGIO TIMELY REMARKS
ROBBERS’ ROOST
SYNOPSIS
Jim Wall, young; cowpuncher from
Wyoming-, in the early days of the cat-
tle industry, seeks a new field in Utah.
He meets Hank Hays, who admits be-
ing a robber, and tells Wall he is
working for an Englishman, Herrick,
who has located a big ranch in the
mountains. Herrick has employed a
small army of gun-fighters, and Hays
and others are plotting to steal their
employer’s cattle and money. Wall
saves Hank’s life by bluffing a gambler
out of shooting. With Hays and two
other rustlers, Happy Jack and Lin-
coln, Jim Wall goes to Herrick’s ranch.
CHAPTER III—Continued
i —4—
Herrick had selected as a site for
his home what was undoubtedly the
most picturesque point in the valley,
If not one that had the most utility
for the conducting of a ranch busi-
ness. Ten miles down from the head
iof the valley a pine-wooded bench,
almost reaching the dignity of a pro-
montory, projected from the great
slope of the mountain. Here where
the pines straggled down stood the
long, low cabin of peeled logs, yellow
In the sunlight. Below, on the flat,
extended the numerous barns, sheds,
corrals. A stream poured off the
mountain, white in exposed places, and
ran along under the bench and out to
join the main brook of the valley.
Somewhat apart from both the cor-
rals and outbuildings on the flat stood
a new log cabin, hurriedly built, with
chinks still unfilled. The roof extend-
ed out on three sides over wide
poaches, where Wall observed three or
four beds, a number of saddles and
other riders’ paraphernalia. The rear
t>f the cabin backed against the rocks.
Jim understood that Hays had thrown
up this abode, rather than dwell too
close to the other employees of Her-
rick. From the front porch one could
drop a stone into the brook, or fish for
trout. The pines trooped down to the
edge of the brook.
Naturally no single place in all that
valley could have been utterly devoid
of the charm and beauty nature had
lavished there, but this situation was
Ideal for riders. Hays even had a
private corral. As Jim rode up to this
habitation his quick eye caught sight
of curious, still-eyed men on the porch.
Also he observed that there was a
store of cut wood stowed away under
the porch.
“Wal, here we air,” announced Hays.
“An’ if you don’t like it you’re shore
hard to please. Finest of water, beef,
lamb, venison, bear meat. Butter for
our biscuits. An’ milk! An’ best of
all—not very much work. Haw!
Haw!”
‘‘Where do we bunk?” asked Jim,
presently.
‘‘On the porch. I took to the attic
myself.”
‘‘If you don’t mind I’ll keep my pack
Inside, but sleep out under the pines,”
responded Wall.
When at length Jim carried his effects
up on the porch Hays spoke up: ‘‘Jim,
here’s the rest of my outfit. . . . Fellers,
scrape acquaintance with Jim Wall,
late of Wyoming.”
That was all the introduction Hays
Volunteered. Jim replied: “Howdy,”
and left a return of their hard scru-
tiny until some other time.
Hays went at once into low-voiced
conference with these four men.
Happy Jack hauled up the supplies.
Brad Lincoln occupied himself with
his pack. Jim brought his own outfit
to a far corner of the porch. Then he
strolled among the pines . seeking a
satisfactory nook to unroll his bed.
Jim, from long habit, generated by a
decided need of vigilance, preferred to
sleep in coverts like a rabbit, or any
other animal that required protection.
At length he found a niche between
two rocks, one of which was shelving,
where pine needles furnished a soft
mat underneath and the murmur of
the brook just faintly reached him.
Jim would not throw his bed where
the noise of rushing water, or anything
else, might preclude the service of his
keen ears. There was no step on his
trail now, but he instinctively dis-
trusted Lincoln, and would undoubted-
ly distrust one or more of these other
men.
Hays exemplified the fact of honor
among thieves. Jim had come to that
conviction. This robber might turn
out big in some ways. But could even
he be trusted? Jim resolved to take
no chances.
Not until the following morning did
Jim Wall get a satisfactory scrutiny of
the four members of Hays’ outfit.
The eldest, who answered to the
name of Mac, was a cadaverous-faced
man, with eyes like a ghoul. *
“Whar you from?” he asked Wall.
“Wyoming, last,” replied Jim,
agreeably.
Jeff Bridges, a sturdy, tow-headed
man of forty or thereabouts, had a
bluff, hearty manner and seemed not
to pry under the surface.
“Glad Hank took you on,” he said.
“We need one cattleman in this outfit,
an’ thet’s no joke.”
Sparrowhawk Latimer, the third of
the four, greatly resembled a horse
thief Wall had once seen hanged.
Hays had said to Slocum, the fourth
member of this quartet: “Smoky, you
an’ Wall shore ought to make a pair
to draw to.”
“You mean a pair to draw on,” re-
torted the other. He was slight, wiry,
freckled of face and hands, with a
cast in one of his light, cold-blue eyes.
“No!” snorted the robber. “Not
on! . . . Smoky, do you recollect thet
gambler Stud Smith, who works the
stkge towns, an’ is somethin’ of a gun-
slinger?”
•»y ZANE GREY
Copyright.—WNTJ Service.
Jim Gleaned Information From
This Rancher.
But Smoky bobbin’ up again my new
man—thet’s serious. Now let’s lay the
cards on the table. . . . Jim, do you
want to declare yourself?”
“I’m willing to answer questions—
unless they get nasty,” replied Jim,
frankly.
“You got run out of Wyomin’?”
“No. But if I’d stayed on I’d prob-
ably stretched hemp.”
“Hold up a stage or somebody?”
“No. Once I helped hold up a bank.
That was years ago.”
“Bank robber! You’re out of our
class, Jim.”
“Hardly that. It was my first and
only crack at a bank. Two of us got
away. Then we held up a train—blew
open the safe in the express car.”
“Smoky, I call it square of Wall,"
spoke up Hays. “He shore didn’t need
to come clean as thet.”
“It’s all right,” agreed Slocum, as if
forced to fair judgment.
Hays plumped off the porch rail.
“Now, fellers, we can get to work.
Herrick puts a lot of things up to me,
an’ I ain’t no cattleman. Jim, do you
know the cattle game?”
“From A to Z,” smiled Wall.
“Say, but I’m in luck. We’ll run the
ranch now7.”
“What’ll I do, Hank?” asked Jim.
“Wal, you look the w7hole diggin’s
over.”
Jim lost no time in complying with
his first order from the superin-
tendent of Star ranch. What a mon-
strous and Incredible hoax w7as being
perpetrated upon some foreigner!
Evidently there had been ranchers
here in this valley before Herrick. Old
log cabins and corrals adjoining the
new ones attested to this.
Jim passed cowboys with only a
word or a nod. He talked with an old
man w7ho said he had ovrned a home-
stead across the valley, one of those
Herrick had gathered in.
Jim gleaned information from this
rancher. Herrick had bought out all
the cattle men in the valley, and on
round the foothill line to Limestone
Springs, where the big X Bar outfit
began. Riders for these small ranches
had gone to work for Herrick. He
Was told that Heeseman, with ten
men, was out on the range.
Presently Jim encountered Hays, ac-
companied by a tall, floridly blond
man, garbed as no westerner had ever
been. This, of course, must be the
Englishman. He was young, hardly
over thirty, and handsome in a fleshy
way.
“Mr. Herrick, this is my new hand I
“I ain’t forgot him.”
“Wal, we set in a poker game with
him one night. I was lucky. Stud
took his losin’ to heart, an’ he shore
tried to pick a fight. First he was
goin’ to draw on me, then shifted to
Jim. An’ Jim bluffed him out of
throwin’ a gun.”
“How7 ?”
“Jim just said for Stud not to draw,
as there wasn’t a man livin’ w7ho
could set at a table an’ beat him to a
gun.”
“Most obligin’ an’ kind of you, Wall,”
remarked Smoky, with sarcasm, as he
looked Jim over with unsatisfied eyes.
“If you was so all-fired certain of thet,
why’d you tip him off?”
“I never shoot a man just because
the chance offers,” rejoined Jim coldly.
There was a subtle intimation in
this, probably not lost upon Slocum.
The greatest of gunmen were quiet,
soft-spoken, sober individuals who
never sought quarrels. Jim knew that
his reply would make an enemy, even
if Slocum were not instinctively one on
sight. Respect could scarcely be felt
by men like Slocum. Like a weasel he
sniffed around Jim.
“You don’t, eh?” he queried. “Wal.
you strike me unfavorable.”
“Thanks for being honest, If not
complimentary,” returned Jim.
Hays swore at his lieutenant: “Un-
favorable, huh? Now why do you have
to pop up with a dislike for him?”
“I didn’t say it was dislike. Just
unfavorable. No offense meant.”
“Smoky,” said Hays, “I won’t have
no grudges in this outfit. I’ve got the
biggest deal on I ever worked out.
.There’s got to be harmony among us.
was tellin’ you about,” announced
Hays, glibly. “Jim Wall, late of
Wyomin’. . . . Jim, meet the boss.”
“How do you do, Mr. Wall,” returned
Herrick. “I understand you’ve had
wide experience on ranches?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been riding the range
since I was a boy,” replied Jim.
“Hays has suggested making you his
foreman.”
“That is satisfactory to me.”
“You are better educated than these
other men. It will be part of your
duties to keep my books.”
“I’ve tackled that job before.”
“So I was tellin’ the boys,” Inter-
posed Hays.
“As I understand ranching,” went
on Herrick, “a foreman handles the
riders. Now, as this ranching game Is
strange to me I’m glad to have a fore-
man of experience. My idea was to
hire some gunmen along with the cow-
boys. Hays’ name was given me at
Grand Junction as the hardest nut in
eastern Utah. It got noised about, I
presume, for other men with reputa-
tions calculated .to intimidate thieves
applied to me. I took on Heeseman
and his friends.”
“But you i7eally did not need go to
the expense—and risk, I might add—of
hiring Heeseman’s outfit.”
“Expense is no object. Risk, how-
ever—what do you mean by risk?”
“Between ourselves, I strongly sus-
pect that Heeseman is a rustler.”
“By Jove! You don’t say? This Is
ripping. Heeseman said the identical
thing about Hays.”
“Wal, Mr. Herrick, don’t you worry
none,” interposed Hays, suavely.
“Shore I don’t take kind to what
Heeseman called me to your face, but
I can overlook it for the present. You
see, if Heeseman is workin’ for you he
can’t rustle as many cattle as If he
wasn’t. Anythin’ come of that deal
you had on with the Grand Junction
outfit?”
“Yes. I received their reply the other
day,” rejoined Herrick. “By Jove,
that reminds me. I had word from
my sister, Helen. It came from St.
Louis. She is coming through Denver
and will arrive at Grand Junction
about the fifteenth.”
“Young girl—if I may ask?” added
Jim.
“Young woman. Helen is twenty-
two.”
“Cornin’ for a little visit?” asked
Hays.
“By Jove, it bids fair to be a life-
long one,” declared Herrick, as if
pleased. “She wants to make Star
ranch her home. We are devoted to
each other. If she can stick it out in
this bush I’ll be jolly glad. Can you
drive from Grand Junction in one
day?”
“Shore. Easy with a buckboard an’
a good team,” replied Hays.
Herrick resumed his walk with
Hays, leaving Jim to his own devices.
Jim strolled around the corrals, the
sheds, down the lane between the pas-
tures, out to the open range.
This Englishman’s sister—this Helen
Herrick—she would be coming to a re-
mote, wild and beautiful valley. What
would the girl be like? Twenty-two
years old, strong, a horsewoman, and
handsome—very likely blond, as was
her brother! And Jim made a mental
calculation of the ruffians in Herrick’s
employ. Eighteen!
After supper Hays leaned back and
surveyed the company. “Fellers, we’ve
a pow-wow on hand. Clear the table.
Fetch another lamp. We’ll lay out the
cards an’ some coin, so we can pre-
tend to be settin’ in a little game if
anybody happens along. But the game
we’re really settin’ in is the biggest
ever dealt in Utah.
“Talk low, everybody,” instructed
Hays. “An’ one of you step out on
the porch now an’ then. Heeseman
might be slick enough to send a scout
over here. ’Cause we’re goin’ to do
thet little thing to him. . . . Happy,
dig up thet box of cigars I’ve been
savin’.”
“Hank, trot out some champagne,”
jeered Brad Lincoln.
“Nothin’ to drink, fellers,” returned
Hays. “We’re a robber outfit. No ar-
guin’ or fightin’. . . . Any of yoq who
doesn’t like thet can walk out now.”
They were impressed by his cool
force.
“All right. Wal an’ good. We’re
set,” he went on. “Today I changed
my mind about goin’ slow with this
job.”
Jim Wall had a flash of divination
as to this sudden right-about-face.
“Herrick reckons there are upwards
of ten thousand bead of stock on the
range. Some of these ranchers he
bought out sold without a count. I
bought half a dozen herds for Herrick.
An’ I underestimated say, rough cal-
culatin’, around two thousand head.
So there’s twelve thousand good.
Thet’s a herd, fellers. Air there any
of you who wouldn’t care to play a
game for twelve thousand head of
cattle at forty dollars per?”
There did not appear to be a single
one.
“Ahuh. Wal, thet’s okay. Now, can
we drive such a big herd?”
“Boss, listen to this idee,” spoke up
Smoky. “Most of these Star cattle
range down the valley twenty miles be-
low herf. How’d it do for, say, five of
us to quit Herrick an’ hide below
somewhere? Meanwhile you go to
Grand Junction an’ arrange to have
your buyers expect a bunch of cat-
tle every week. A thousand to two
thousand head. We’d make the drives
an’ keep it up as long as it worked.
You’re boss, an’ Wall here is foreman.
You could keep the cowboys close to
the ranch.”
SO BE CONTINUED.
“Medics” Called On to
Cheek Toll of Suicide
Very little Is known about suicide,
In spite of the fact that the impulse
of self-destruction claims about 25,-
000 lives in the United States each
year. The customary attitude is to
attribute deaths from this cause to
the complexity of modern life and
assume that nothing can be done
about them.
Popular belief in a relationship
between economic conditions and
the number of suicides is to some
extent upheld by the findings of
Frederick L. Hoffman, consulting
statistician. The drop in the sui-
cide rate for 100 cities from 21.3 per
100,000 persons iu 1932 to 19.1 in
1933, he says, reflects improved cir-
cumstances “which has a direct
bearing on a measurable proportion
of the suicides due to the unemploy-
ment, business failures, general dis-
couragement, etc.”
Many other factors would have to
be considered, how7ever, to obtain a
full understanding of the problem.
In the h.eyday of prosperity the sui-
cide rate was only slightly lower
than it was last year. Excessive
rates in 1908, 1914-15, 1931-32 indi-
cate a direct relationship between
self - destruction and cataclysmic
events that tend to destroy social
stability. The prevalence of sui-
cides in post-war Austria and Ger-
many confirms this point. But when
it Is accepted much that is mysteri-
ous remains.
The highest ratios of suicide to
population are not found in the
large cities, where the strains of
modern life are supposed to be most
severe. Davenport, Iowa, 'In the
heart of our greatest agricultural
area, has a suicide rate nearly ten
times that of Troy, N. Y., an indus-
trial center. Washington residents
indulge in twice as much self-mur-
der (relatively, of course) as the
people of Chicago, Detroit and Phil-
adelphia. Carrying the anomaly a
step further, Switzerland has a sui-
cide rate of 25 per 100,000 persons.
FOOT IRRITATIONS
Blisters, cracked skin, itching or
burning soon relieved and healing
promoted with soothing
LKesinoL
while the Irish Free State maintains
a rate of about 3.4.
Perhaps ennui is as much a cause
of self-obliteration as is economic
failure. On a basis of ratio, suicide
may indeed be more prevalent in
the palaces of millionaires than in
the hovels of the unemployed. It
seems to result from a state of mind
that may afflict individuals In all
strata of society. Heredity and dis-
position are doubtless important fac-
tors. Suicide is often a result of
mental disease.
Medical science cannot be expect-
ed to bring forth a remedy for a
cause of death that is so complicat-
ed. But the suicide toll could be
greatly reduced by proper psycho-
logical analysis and treatment. It
offers a formidable challenge that
has not yet been fully accepted by
the medical profession.—Washing-
ton Post.
Church Anniversary
The First Congregational church,
Dover, N. H., has celebrated its three
hundredth anniversary. The site of
the original meeting house, a log
structure, is still owned by the par-
ish.
If you feel low-
don’t be discouraged—remember,
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appetite... and general run-down
condition quite often may be traced
directly to low blood strength—that
is, the red corpuscles and vital oxy-
gen-carrying hemo-glo-bin of the
blood are below normal.
S.S.S. is the great, scientifically*
tested medicine for restoring this
blood content. Its benefits are pro-
gressive ... accumulative... and en-
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[Unless your case is exceptional, yon
should soon enjoy again the satis-
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sleep... and renewed strength.
Do not be blinded by the efforts of a
few unethical dealers who may sug-
gest substitutes. You have a right to
insist that S.S.S. be supplied you on
, request. Its long years of preference
is your guarantee of satisfaction.
the world’s
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^medicine
KINDERGARTEN’S VALUE
“From my experience I have ob-
served that the socializing values of
the kindergarten are such as to com-
mend themselves to every right-think-
ing parent and educator. I believe
that it would be a pity if the present
tendency towards economy should
deprive our younger children of the
spiended opportunities afforded them
in the kindergarten.”—Emil Leffler,
President, Battle Creek college,
Michigan.
If there is no public school kinder-
garten for the little children of your
community write to the National
Kindergarten association, 8 West
Fortieth street, New York, for ad-
vice and free literature.
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District Salesmen
WA1H¥E1I
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Frequent Service
WNU—P
37—34
Mr. Coffee -Nerves . . .
the landlord forecloses onlwn/
Mil
LOOK HERE.JOHNSON...
I'M TIRED OF yoOR STALL-
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30 DAYS... OR l’LL FORECLOSE !
AW-CLAMP DOWN ON HIM
i RIGHT NOW.' RUN HIM OFF THE
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HiM A LESSON J
-3»
WELL- I GAVE JOHNSON SOMETHING j
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GET OFF!
BUT, JIM-aren't you BEING
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WHAT MAKES YOU SO CROSS
LATELY- IS IT BECAUSE VOu’RE
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«]
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m
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UNTIL MY PI6S ARE READY TO
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II
II
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T-
n
v
I
30 DAYS LATER____
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Jones, J. L. Refugio Timely Remarks and Refugio County News (Refugio, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 47, Ed. 1 Friday, September 14, 1934, newspaper, September 14, 1934; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1098828/m1/7/?q=divorce: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dennis M. O’Connor Public Library.