CHAPTER VIII.STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES.
As if he knew he would be followed, the man who had borne off the body had struck rocky ground soon, so completely breaking his trail that to pursue it promised to be a work of great difficulty.
Buffalo Bill stopped.
“I don’t think I care to go farther just now,” he said. “Though, later, I want to come here and cipher this thing out. I’m going back to Blossom Range.”
“Waugh!” the trapper objected. “What fer? This hyar is ther place fer work ter be done right now.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Buffalo Bill, thoughtfully; “I’ll leave you and the baron to claw the tangles out of this thing; and I’ll try to join you before long. As you go along break a bush now and then, so that when I return I’ll have no trouble in finding you.”
“But what ye goin’ back fer?” Nomad asked, impatiently.
It seemed to him that to pick up the lost trail was the most important thing at the moment; at any rate, he could think of nothing more promising.
Because of the listening ears turned toward him, Buffalo Bill did not care to acquaint the trapper with the thoughts in his mind.
So he made a lame excuse, about having forgotten something; and turned about, leaving the trapper andthe baron to go on alone; as all of the town men turned back when Cody did.
“You can dig out that trail, Nomad, if any one on earth can,” he told the trapper. “So just hang to it, you and the baron—unless he wants to go back with me! When I return, I shall come with the expectation of finding that you have dug out something worth while.”
But the baron had no wish to return to Blossom Range at that time; it was his idea that the blind trail which Nomad was to try to spell out offered worlds of excitement, of the most surprising kind.
When Buffalo BillreachedBlossom Range, he took the officer and the coroner aside, after dismissing the other men.
“Perhaps you know all about those men who have been with you, and that they’re to be trusted,” he explained; “but I don’t know any of them, and the faces of one or two didn’t strike me favorably. What I want to do now is to have you go with me to the Casino and arrest there a woman called Vera Bright; she is with the show company that has been giving performances in the Casino the past week. After that, I shall ask you to go with me to Juniper Joe’s and place Juniper Joe and his wife under arrest.”
The officer and coroner stared at him.
“Not Juniper Joe!” gasped the officer.
“None other. If I am making a mistake, I will stand responsible for it. The man who was slain out there was the same that Juniper Joe tried to kill the night of his wedding; and this woman, Vera Bright, was with the murdered man shortly before daylight this morning, as I know through the testimony of the German, whowas watching the Casino at that time. He heard them quarreling. In addition, Mrs. Juniper Joe made that woman a visit yesterday.”
“If you back the thing, I’ll make the arrests,” said the officer, but reluctantly.
“I will back you!” the scout told him. “Or, if you don’t want to do it, I will make the arrests myself; yet I should prefer to have you to do that part of the work.”
He did not think it wise, being still rather hazy about some points himself, to tell these men all his conclusions; he preferred to let events speak for themselves.
When they got down to the Casino and called for Miss Vera Bright, they were informed that she was not there; that, in fact, she had left Blossom Range that morning, on the stage for Calumet Springs.
“Let me see the manager of the show,” Buffalo Bill requested.
The manager came down—a pale, blond, young fellow—and began to answer Buffalo Bill’s questions.
“I didn’t know she was going,” he declared; “and none of the company did. The first we knew, she had her things packed, and asked me for her salary. I wouldn’t pay it, of course, under the circumstances, as we expect to play here another week, and she was in the cast. She went away in a huff.”
“How long was she with your company?” was the scout’s next question.
The manager admitted that he had “picked her up” at Calumet Springs, when the company was there on its way to Blossom Range.
“She wanted to join us, and I let her do so, as I thought we could use her,” he explained.
“So you really know nothing about her?”
“Not a thing!”
When Buffalo Bill left the Casino, he sent a telegram to the marshal of Calumet Wells, requesting him to hold the woman until certain charges against her could be investigated.
“Now for Juniper Joe’s!” he said to the officer.
When they reached the cabin of Juniper Joe, they had somewhat the same experience; Juniper Joe was not there, neither was his wife. The cabin was locked.
The door which the scout had so recently splintered had been somewhat repaired, and was braced on the inside, as well as locked.
“This is queer!” was the officer’s comment.
“Just a little bit,” the scout agreed.
“Shall I break the door in?”
“That is my advice.”
When it was battered in and they entered, they found no one inside.
A warrant had been secured, authorizing the house and the mine to be searched. Therefore, the officer forced the door which led to the mine. The mine looked dark as a cave; so lights were secured, before they tried to enter it.
They examined the mine back of the cabin, the scout flashing the light curiously on the walls.
He made no remarks about his discoveries, and his examination was not a close one; but he commented freely enough on the fact that the couple must have departed by the front door.
“Yet it seemed to have been barred on the inside!” was the officer’s objection.
This was overcome, when a closer examination of the door was made. The bar of wood had been so arranged that it would drop down on the inside and so hold the door when it was closed from the outside. Hence the theory that it had been barred from the inside fell to the ground.
“This may be nothing but a mare’s nest, though,” the officer suggested; “Juniper Joe and his wife may be both downtown right now.”
“His wife was supposed to have been too badly hurt to leave the cabin,” the scout reminded.
“But she may have gone to some doctor’s office!”
Though this was true enough, the scout did not believe it.
After they had made sure that the mine and cabin were unoccupied, Buffalo Bill asked the men to return to the town and make a search for Juniper Joe and his wife, and to arrest them if they were found.
As for himself, as soon as the men set out, he turned about and started off, with the intention of rejoining Nomad and the baron.
“A water haul!” he said to himself, as he walked on swiftly. “But I think that at last we are making some progress.”
It was the scout’s opinion that the couple and Vera Bright had hastily left the town.
“Why?” was the question.
It seemed to him there could be but one answer.