Free Milo Talon by Louis L’Amour Page B

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    .44 Winchester cartridges. 75¢ per box at the Boston Store.

    The Town Shooting Club will agree to a match of any six of its members … you pick ’em … against any equal number of men in the Territory, for any sum from $50 to $1,000. Toshoot at glass balls or pigeons, pistol or rifle, snap-shooting or wheel and fire at the word. Put up or shut up.

    ROBBERY OF OFFICE
    Sometime between 7:30 p.m. last night and 8 a.m. this morning the business office of Albro & Co. was broken into and the safe forced.
    John Cortland, bookkeeper, assures us the safe contained nothing of value. On the advice of Nathan Albro himself, contained in a note to his heirs, the safe had been emptied following his unexpected death, Friday last.

    Fitch & Cornwell’s

HUNKDORI
For the Breath
    So … somebody had started to move as soon as Nathan Albro died. The break-in did not sound like the work of an ordinary thief or cracksman, although the work might have been done by an expert. The safe had been opened because somebody had reason to believe it contained something of value.
    Irritably, I put down the clippings. Too much was at stake of which I knew nothing, and with every step I became more deeply involved. Worst of all, I had no idea who my enemies were nor what they wanted except that at least one man wanted Nancy Henry.
    Where was
she?
Jefferson Henry had implied that his son was dead, but what had happened to Stacy? Was she also dead? The Magoffins had apparentlybeen involved in some plot with Newton Henry to circumvent Newton’s father. No doubt each wanted the same thing. But what was it?
    Stacy had been advised to sign nothing. That implied she possessed something of value that could be signed away, and that made sense. Jefferson Henry, people said, loved power. Power in his world meant money, stock, control, leverage. Did Stacy hold stock they wanted? Had she possessed something in her own name that Jefferson wanted?
    What about the note to his heirs that Nathan Albro had left? Had he suspected something? If not, why would he leave such a note? Certainly, the heirs had acted swiftly—and fortunately—as it developed.
    Nothing in my life had prepared me to deal with activities in the business world. I knew a little of horses, dogs, and men, something less of women. I had handled cattle, worked in mines, and had seen a lot of town-site speculation as had everyone in the West. Beyond that I was an innocent.
    Jefferson Henry was a railroad man but with wide interests in other areas.
    To protect myself, and also the girl I was to find, I must learn a great deal and learn it fast. If there was time.
    What did I mean, protect the girl I was to find? Nothing in my arrangements with Henry said anything about that, yet already the feeling was strong that she would need protection, that she was a lamb among wolves.
    Penny Logan. She was a woman known to be bright about finance. She had handled her own property welland she kept the market quotations for the stockmen. Undoubtedly she heard much talk among those who came to her small shop, and there were several big stockmen in the area. She might be able to answer a few questions.
    Again I returned to what might be the most important question. Why had they hired me in the first place?
    Did they believe I had special knowledge? Did they, perhaps, believe that I
knew
where Nancy Henry was? Was the offer to spend fifty thousand dollars searching for her actually a bribe to tell where she was? Or to bring her in? Was I watched so that I might lead them to her?
    For a moment I ran over in my mind some of the girls I’d known, but none of them seemed to fit the bill. That is, I knew who they all were, where they lived, who their parents were, and like that.
    Another idea suddenly occurred. That break-in had