CHAPTER XXITHE SIGNAL
A WEARY party of horsemen rode from the mountains toward Squawtooth about eleven o’clock the following morning. Squawtooth Canby, a despairing man, rode in the lead, with his son Martin at his side.
The dogs had failed to arrive because of the storm, and doubtless would have proved useless anyway. Because of the storm, too, the Indian trailers had failed; for the wind had scattered pine needles and leaves and flattened dry grass until the slightest evidences of the fugitives’ flight had been obliterated. The missing pinto mare and the roan colt, together with their saddles and bridles, were all that the search party had found.
“Ain’t that there a machine, son?” asked Squawtooth, pointing ahead as they neared the ranch.
“Maybe the sheriff’s there, pa,” Mart suggested by way of a reply.
“There’s another one,” added Squawtooth presently as a slight change of course showed the rear wheels of a second car beside the first.
Mrs. Ehrhart met the returning men, a question in her eyes.
“Nothin’, Mrs. Ehrhart,” Squawtooth answered it shortly. “We’re here for a bite, then we’ll get out ag’in. Rain in the mountains ruined pretty near all our grub. The boys’ll be in when they’ve ’tended to the stock. Just throw together what ye can find. Mart’ll help ye. Who’s here in the machines?”
Mrs. Ehrhart wiped her eyes with her blue-and-white checked apron. “One of ’em’s the sheriff’s,” she said. “And Mr. Demarest come in the big one. He’s here now. His outfit went through this mornin’.”
“Thought I saw somethin’ new movin’ up through the buttes. Martie, you get cleaned up and help Mrs. Ehrhart to feed the boys. I’ll have to go and see Mr. Demarest and the sheriff.”
He found Demarest, Spruce, and the wizened Fred Glenn, sheriff of the county, in the parlor of the old adobe.
Philip Demarest rose hastily and stepped to meet the cowman when he saw him entering.
“Canby, by George, it’s good to see you again, even if we find you in trouble. What an infernal mess! Heavens to Betsy! Any news at all?”
Squawtooth Canby gripped the main contractor’s hand and fought hard to appear cheerful and hospitable. He was introduced to Mr. Everett Spruce. He nodded briefly at the sheriff.
“Now, don’t pay any attention to Spruce and me,Canby,” urged Demarest. “We would have gone on, but your housekeeper said you’d likely be in soon. So we stayed to find out if there was any good news to report or if we could be of any help. We’ve a bunch of men and animals and supplies to put at your disposal. Just say the word, Canby. There, there, now! Cheer up; everything’ll come out all right. It always does. I’ll personally help you hang that upstart of a pot-walloper when we get him. I’ll put the noose around his infernal neck, and you pull the rope, and I’ll kick the son of a gun as he’s goin’ up! Now have your conference with the sheriff—we’ll wait and talk everything over afterward.”
“I thank ye kindly,” said Squawtooth, and motioned the sheriff to follow him to the veranda.
“Well, Fred, ye didn’t get up to us,” he began as they seated themselves.
“It snowed like the mischief on the other side o’ the range,” the sheriff explained. “’Twouldn’t ’a’ been so bad, maybe, if the wind hadn’t blowed all the snow into the gaps in the road. We was in a car with the pups an’ got stalled, o’ course. Hadta go back. Meant to put the pups on the train and bring ’em through the pass to the desert side; but we like to never made it back to Sycamore Grove even. Didn’t till late this mornin’.”
“Yes, I knew how the gaps would be, once she begun to snow,” Squawtooth exonerated him.“Dogs wouldn’t been no good, anyway, once the storm set in. Did ye take Halfaman Daisy to the county seat?”
The sheriff scraped his feet. “No,” he replied, seeming to the other to be a bit uneasy. “He’s still in the lockup at Opaco. Funny business!”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Him bein’ pinched and all. I had a talk with ’im comin’ through. He said he’d just as soon stay locked up a little while longer, if it would do any good.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Well, I never meant to have that boy arrested, Squawtooth. Ner that other fella, either. Dave Denmore took that all on ’imself the minute I’d started for the inside. Course I left Dave in authority. He didn’t know what I was workin’ on, and when the evidence that he did know about begun pilin’ up against this pair, he thought he’d take no chances, and pinched Daisy.”
“Course he did! Wouldn’t you ’a’ done the same?”
Fred Glenn shook his head. “That boy’s only a harmless nut,” he maintained. “He’s wrote the craziest stuff you ever read all over the walls o’ his cell. Somethin’ about Moses and Aaron and some more of ’em—one o’ these religious cranks, I reckon.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that, Fred, but I know his tie was found in the mountains, and——”
“Yes, he told me about that tie. It was hisn. Owned up right pronto. Said him and t’other fella’d been in the mountains lookin’ to buy a couple spans o’ mules, belongin’ to a party in Sycamore Grove. They was up there on pasture. I telephoned to Sycamore Grove from Opaco when he’d told me that, and, sure enough, it all happened just like he said. I know the man that’s holdin’ them mules for sale.”
“And when ye left here ye didn’t suspicion him and t’other fella?”
“No,” replied Glenn. “Just the same, I knew it was his tie, ’cause I found where a tie’d been charged to him on the books o’ the Mangan-Hatton camp, and the clerk showed me a box o’ ties just like that un. But I was workin’ on another trail altogether, Squawtooth. And Dave Denmore hadn’t oughta took things in his own hands like he did. It was plumb loco to think of arrestin’ them two, when they’d just come in with a string o’ mules and things worth half o’ the sum stole from the stage. They wouldn’t ’a’ beat it and left behind that much prop’ty, would they? So why take ’em up?”
“Course I thought of all that,” admitted Squawtooth. “But everything pointed to this pair as the guilty ones, and for my part I hadn’t no time toreason things out. It was my girl I was thinkin’ of most. And so you don’t think them boys are guilty after all?”
The sheriff shook his head. “I was on another trail altogether,” he repeated. “Guess I oughta told my dep’ties more; but I got a way o’ keepin’ things to myself till I get the come-alongs on my man. I’ve found it the safest way.”
“Yes; yes—o’ course. But who was ye lookin’ up?”
“Well, us sheriffs get inside information sometimes when a bad actor drifts into our county, just like city policemen do. I already knew they was a couple o’ tough nuts at this here Stlingbloke—more’n a couple, I reckon, for that matter. But I’d been sent word about these two, and I was lookin’ ’em up and tryin’ to connect ’em with the pink tie. I had the foot measurements, you know; they was taken right where the holdup was pulled off. I’d already measured a pair o’ shoes belongin’ to this Falcon fella at Mangan-Hatton’s, and they didn’t fit either measurement. Then at Opaco to-day I measured Daisy’s shoes. Nothin’ doin’ again.
“But when I rode to Stlingbloke and on up the line, time your boy Mart was chasin’ me, I nosed it out that one o’ the other parties I was investigatin’ had rode with a water wagon over to a desert water hole west o’ the line that same day. So I thought maybe he’d get off over there, andmaybe there’d be some o’ his tracks in the mud about the water. That’s why I rode over there; but I didn’t find any tracks.
“Then I decided to go on to the inside with my measurements and wire ’em to the San Francisco police, who’d first sent me word that these bad actors had drifted down here to Stlingbloke. They got their records up there.
“So I stopped at a little camp below Stlingbloke for that night, intendin’ to go up in the mountains next mornin’ and bring down the boys to have ’em ready for the arrest, then go on to the inside and send my wire. And while I was at this camp that night your boy, who’d been tryin’ to run me down, rode in and give me the cover off the cigarette papers. You know ’bout that.”
“O’ course. Somethin’ funny wrote on it, kinda like you said this Daisy’d wrote in the jail.”
“What’s that?” The sheriff was eying Squawtooth in surprise.
Squawtooth explained as best he could.
“M’m-m—who told you that, Squawtooth?”
“Why, Mart did, for one. And all your dep’ties was talkin’ about it, but nobody could remember just what it was that was written on the cover. But since I’ve heard that this fella Daisy’s always writin’ somethin’ like that everywhere he goes. Seems he’s got a Bible name, and—oh, I didn’t get it all straight. I was too worried, you see.”
“O’ course. But nothin’ like that was wrote on the cover that Mart give me. And the writin’ ain’t anything like the same as this fella done in the jail.”
“That’s funny. What was wrote on ’er, then, Fred?”
From his vest pocket Fred Glenn removed a blue pasteboard cigarette-paper cover and silently passed it to Canby.
“Keep still about it,” he cautioned.
Canby opened the cover and read:
Blacky Silk, Blacky Silk, Blacky Silk.
Blacky Silk, Blacky Silk, Blacky Silk.
“Why, that’s plumb foolishness,” he decided. “What’s Blacky Silk mean?”
But before the sheriff could make reply the cowman was half out of his chair, the bit of pasteboard held before him, his eyes wide and fastened on it.
“Why, Fred!” he cried. “That—that looks like my little girl’s writin’! It sure is. Why, man alive, Manzanita wrote that!”
It required some time for Squawtooth Canby to convince the sheriff that his troubles had not deranged his mind. Even then the sheriff would not believe until the cattleman had brought from the house a packet of treasured letters, written to him by his daughter while she was in boarding school in Los Angeles. Then Glenn became convinced.
“Canby,” he said, “I’m more up a tree than ever now. Why, this here is plumb loco! Get the boy, Squawtooth, and le’s hear what he’s got to say.”
Some of the search party that had accompanied Squawtooth from the mountains were at dinner now, and Mart, with a piece of bread and butter in his hand, was dragged from the table.
On the veranda he was shown the bit of pasteboard, and under a battery of accusatory eyes he gazed at it open-mouthed.
“That wasn’t wrote on it when I give it to the sheriff!” he cried.
“Who’s writin’ is this?” demanded his father.
A moment and Mart’s jaw was sagging lower still. “Why, pa, that’s Little Apple’s writin’, ain’t it?”
“That’s what me and Glenn’s decided,” replied his father grimly. “Now, you set down here, son, and come clean. Tell the sheriff everything that happened about your bringin’ this pasteboard down and all.”
Mart obeyed, and when his narrative reached the point where he had passed the cover to his sister at dusk on the desert, and she had dropped it, the sheriff stopped him.
“Canby,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me, that girl o’ yours is a reg’lar little devil! I thought she had somethin’ up her sleeve when I run into her at Stlingbloke—the mare all lathered up and her actin’ kinda worriedlike. She slipped the kid a packagewhen he handed her that pasteboard cover. Up until then he had the cover the boys found, but what they clawed outa the sand was one she’d fixed up for him to give to me—this one here. And she’d wrote ‘Blacky Silk’ in it three times. That’s what; that’s all’s to it! Now why? But wait! You go back to yer dinner, kid. Yer pa and me’ll thrash this thing out.”
“I don’t want no more now,” objected Mart.
“Git!” cried his father.
Mart’s appetite suddenly returned.
“Glenn, what’s the meanin’ o’ this?”
“Simple, ain’t it? Your girl knew the kid had somethin’ in that first pasteboard that would go agin’ her feller, and——”
“Don’t call ’im that!”
“Well, that’s what she calls ’im, seems. Anyway, she didn’t want it to get into my hands, so she puts up a job on the kid. I see all that clear enough. But that ain’t the funny part now. The funny part is how she come to write ‘Blacky Silk.’ What did she know ’bout Blacky Silk?”
“He’d just been pesterin’ her, accordin’ to Mart,” replied Canby. “Wait’ll I set eyes on this Jasper, Fred. I’ll horsewhip ’im outa the country. But that’s neither here ner there. Maybe she couldn’t think o’ nothin’ else to write. Or maybe, bein’ sore on this hombre, she was tryin’ to make you think he was one o’ the fellas that pulled off theholdup. ’Tain’t like her, though, to try to hand a man the worst of it just ’cause she’s sore on ’im fer sumpin else.”
“The devil of it is,” remarked the sheriff thoughtfully, “that she’s right. But how in thunder did she know! That’s ’at gets me!”
“What? He’s the man ye got yer eye on?”
“Him and his pardner, Kid Strickland—a couple o’ bad ones all around. Here was me tryin’ my best to hang it on Blacky Silk and t’other un, when here comes your boy and give me that cover with Blacky’s name on it. Then, o’ course, I had more dope—or judged I had. And that helped send me inside; I wanted to find out if the Frisco police knew anything about his handwritin’. If they did, I was gonta mail the cover to ’em. Course I thought Blacky’d wrote his name in it, like a fella might do, ye know, just loafin’ about some time. But the police up there hadn’t any record, so I didn’t send ’er.
“Now, looky here: How’d your girl know Blacky Silk helped stick up the stage, Canby?”
Canby shook his head in mystification.
“Then tell me this: Who telephoned me yesterday afternoon that maybe a little after noon to-day your girl andthatfeller—would come from hidin’?”
“What’s that? You got a message like that?”
“I sure did. Over long distance from Squawtooth.”
“Didn’t ye get the name?”
“O’ course. Brown. Who’s Brown?”
“Dunno ’im.”
“Sounds phony to me. Who’d phone from here except you folks?”
“Most anybody in this country. Squawtooth’s headquarters for this neck o’ the woods.”
“Would your housekeeper know?”
“Likely; we’ll see.”
Squawtooth Canby stepped inside, and returned presently with the redeyed Mrs. Ehrhart. The sheriff questioned her.
“Why, Mr. Demarest and Mr. Spruce was here two or three times yesterday,” she said. “And once there was two more men with ’em. Then several folks was here throughout the day. It’s always that way. This is pretty near a hotel, you know, Mr. Glenn.”
“Anybody phone?”
“Yes—two or three times. But I was in the kitchen mostly. I never paid any attention.”
“But ye’d have to O. K. a long-distance call, wouldn’t ye, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“And afterward find out the charge and collect from whoever was callin’?”
“Yes—I do that with strangers. But folks about here they just ask the operator at Opaco how much it is, and then come in the kitchen and handit to me. And when they tell the operator their name she don’t ask me to O. K. it always. She knows everybody about here.”
“Anybody pay you for a long-distance call yesterday, ma’am?”
“No, sir; no one.”
“Uh-huh. Guess I’ll call up the Opaco operator and see what she’s got to say about this here Brown call.”
The sheriff returned presently from the telephone.
“She says the call was from Harry Brown, bookkeeper for Mangan-Hatton. It was charged to Squawtooth Ranch.”
“Mr. Brown’s the bookkeeper at Mangan-Hatton’s,” Mrs. Ehrhart told him. “But he wasn’t here yesterday. If he was, he come right in and phoned, and I didn’t see him. He phones every day or so, but he always knocks and comes and pays me for the call.”
“Uh-huh—I see. Any strangers here?”
“Only the two men with Mr. Demarest and Mr. Spruce.”
“What’d they look like, ma’am?”
“Well, one of ’em was Mr. Demarest’s driver. He was——”
“The other un, please, ma’am?”
“A slim, black-lookin’ fella with a little pointed black mustache. He——”
“That’s plenty, ma’am; thank ye kindly. We won’t trouble ye any more.”
Canby looked into the eyes of the wizen-faced sheriff after Mrs. Ehrhart had returned to her arduous duties.
“That’s Blacky Silk,” said Glenn. “Ye see, knowin’ we’re after this feller o’ yer girl’s—er—this feller, I mean—he’s doin’ all he can to help us arrest ’im, to throw suspicion offen ’imself and The Kid. But how in thunder does he know them two are comin’ out to-day?”
“Guess I ain’t gettin’ head ner tail of none of it,” complained the cattleman.
The sheriff consulted his watch. “It’s fifteen minutes after noon now,” he said. “If the boys are through eatin’ maybe ye’d better snatch a bite and get out with ’em, to meet your girl an’ this feller if they do show up. You’ll want to see ’em, o’ course, even though the boy ain’t guilty o’ the holdup. Can’t tell ye where’bouts to look, ’cept that whoever telephoned said they’d be comin’ outa the mountains and makin’ for Squawtooth. That was Blacky. What’s the big idea I don’t savvy—or how he knows they’re comin’. But I got nothin’ to do with them. I’ll get the dep’ties, and we’ll go for Mr. Blacky and The Kid. Them’s the hombres I want, ’cause Frisco wired me, just before I come out here, that the measurements I sent ’em are the same as Blacky’s. That’s why Ileft that Moses-an’-Aaron boy in jail at Opaco, so long’s he didn’t seem to mind. That would make this other pair feel safe, ye see, and they wouldn’t be thinkin’ o’ makin’ their get-away. I’ll find ’em at Stlingbloke, I guess. Can I get a hoss?”
The two men arose and were about to part when Ed Chazzy, in chaps and spurs, came around the house and stepped on the veranda.
“What was the signal for Squawtooth?” he asked.
“What signal?” Squawtooth shot back.
“Why, a red blanket—looked like she was—was wavin’ from the big cottonwood in the corral as I was ridin’ across from the mountains.”
“I don’t know anything about any signal. What ye talkin’ about? How long ago?”
“Twenty minutes maybe. It was way up high in the tree—a big red square cloth o’ some kind.”
“Le’s look into this,” said the sheriff quickly. “Everybody was at the table, wasn’t they, Squawtooth? Couldn’t ’a’ been none o’ them.”
They hurried out to the stable and the corrals, and searched all about, but found no one. Men were resting in the yard when they returned, and others were on the back veranda. Every man was questioned, but all professed ignorance of any sort of signal.
“Ed,” said Squawtooth to his vaquero, “you’re cock-eyed.”
Ed shook his head. “I seen it plain,” he defended. “Thought maybe the strays had been found and roped and that that was a signal callin’ folks in, that I hadn’t heard anything about.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to Stlingbloke,” announced the sheriff. “Signals ain’t worryin’ me. I want Blacky Silk and The Kid. See ye later, Canby.”