Still, clear moonlight lay upon the land, with the far hills like a painted back drop against the stars when Bud, having ridden far and fast, jogged wearily into town and dropped reins before the bank, where a light shone faintly through the curtained windows and figures were to be seen moving occasionally behind the green shades. He knocked, and after a hushed minute Delkin himself admitted him. Bud walked from force of habit to the grilled window and leaned his fore-arms heavily upon the shelf, his cameo-pinned hat pushed back on his head as he pressed his forehead against the bronze rods of the barrier.
"Well, I rode the high lines," he announced huskily because of the dryness in his throat. "I saw the bunch from town go fogging along the trail across the river, but I was back on the bench, following a mess of horse tracks that took off toward the hills.
"There's something darn funny about this deal, Mr. Delkin." Delkin had retreated again behind the partition as if that was what his office required of him. "Here's how she lies, but I don't pretend to understand it. I got my horse and rode back up here and out behind the bank, so as to pick up any trail they had left. The only horses that had stood for any length of time near the bank was a pack outfit that had been on the vacant lot back here all afternoon, by the sign. It was Bat Johnson had it—he works for Palmer. He rode away just as I came around the corner of the bank, thinking I could get in at the side door, and I overhauled him at the ford. He'd taken that stock trail through the willows, back here, and he told me he'd got a glimpse of three or four horses loping down through the draw to the ford ahead of him. He hadn't seen any one leave the bank by the side door, he said, for he was over to the blacksmith shop for a while and came and got his horses just as I came in sight around the corner. He hadn't seen any one that acted suspicious, but he hadn't been paying any attention, he said.
"I rode back up the draw and picked up the trail of four horses, shod all around. Your town posse crossed the river while I was in the draw, and I followed the four horses across. The riders ahead of me didn't pay any attention to the tracks. I suppose," he added scornfully, "they were looking for masked men with white sacks full of money in their arms! They just loped down the road, all in a bunch, as if they were headed for a dance." Bud cleared his throat; this painstaking report was dry work.
"Well, Mr. Delkin, those four horses—shod all around—took straight across the bench beyond the Smoky, heading for the hills. Here's the funny part, though: They didn't hunt the draws where they could keep out of sight, but sifted right along in a beeline, across ridges and into hollows and out again, until the tracks were lost where they joined a bunch of range stock that's running back there on the bench about eight miles. From there on I couldn't get a line on anything at all. I tried to ride up on the bunch, but my horse was tired and they're pretty wild, and they broke for the hills. There were shod horses among them, and I'm sure that no one had time to catch up fresh horses out of that band and leave the four—and, Mr. Delkin, those four horses didn't travel as if they had riders. I'd swear they were running loose, and beat it straight from town to join their own bunch of range horses."
"And that's all you found out?" Delkin's voice was flat and old and hopeless.
"That's the extent of it. It was a blind trail, I believe, and your holdups went some other way. Perhaps that posse will pick up some sign, though if they do it will be an accident."
The other men there asked a few questions, their manner as hopeless as Delkin's. They were the directors and other officers of the bank, and Bud sensed their feeling of helplessness before this calamity. The body of the cashier had been removed, and these were staying on the scene simply because they did not know what else to do.
"How's the bank? Cleaned out?" Bud was still conscious of his own personal responsibilities.
"Everything." Delkin waved an apathetic hand. "We're so far from other banks, and Charlie slept right here—so in spite of the fact that we sometimes didn't have more than a dozen customers in here all day, we kept more cash on hand than was safe. At least we had more on hand right now than usual. With the bookkeeper sick, Charlie was alone here part of the time. Near closing time especially. So few people came in, along in the afternoon. We did most of our business during the forenoons." He moistened his lips and looked away. "It looks as if Charlie had just set the time lock and was getting ready to close the vault when—it happened. Another half hour, perhaps, and they'd have had to blow open the vault, and some one would have heard. Maybe five minutes before you came—I can't see how they got away without being seen."
"Well, I can't do any more to-night, Mr. Delkin. My horse and I are both about all in. Of course you 'phoned for the sheriff."
"Right after it happened. He'll be here with a posse of his own before morning."
Outside Bud almost collided with young Brunelle, who caught him by the arm with an impulsive gesture.
"I recognized your horse. Come over to our cabin, won't you, Mr. Larkin? You see I've discovered what your name is. I've been watching for you to come back, for I knew you'd be hungry; and Marge—my sister Margaret—has supper all ready for you. We're pretty lonely," he added wistfully. "People here seem to be very clannish and cool toward strangers."
"That's because they're roughnecks and know it," said Bud, and picked up the reins of his horse. "If you'll wait until I put my horse in the stable I'll be right with you. Only I'm liable to clean you out of grub if I once start eating. There's over six feet of me, Lightfoot, and I'm all hollow."
"That'll be all right," smiled the other. "It's yours while it lasts—and that may not be long if the bank is really closed for good. We haven't any money to buy more."
Delkin's hostler took charge of the Meadowlark horse and the two men walked on to where a light shone through a cabin window, set back from the main street in an open space that gave a close view of the bluff. Bud very likely did not grasp the imminent poverty of his host, probably because he was not paying much attention to his last sentence; and that his ready acceptance of the invitation to supper was caused chiefly by a too intimate knowledge of the hotel cuisine.
"My sister," Brunelle explained on the way, "is an author of short stories. She has had one printed in the paper back home, and the editors of several Eastern magazines have given her quite a good many puffs on the stories she sent them. They were very sorry they couldn't use them and said it wasn't because there was anything wrong with the stories. I know all our friends at home are very anxious that she should make that her life work. But back in our home town there never seemed to be anything to write about, and Marge felt the need of going where there would be interesting subjects. So when mother died we decided to come right out West and write up some cowboy stories, and I could illustrate them with pictures drawn from life. Western stories are all the go now, and these ought to take pretty well with the editors, I should think—though of course one needs to have a pull to get right in. Still, these will be done right on the spot with pictures of the real characters, and that will make a hit with the editors, I should think.
"So that's the real reason why we came to Smoky Ford. We aren't telling every one, because we don't want to make people self-conscious in our presence. We want to win the confidence of the people. That's why I danced in the saloon when they asked me to.
"We let it be known that my sister is out here for her health. That isn't so far off, either, because she was all worn out with taking care of mother, and the doctor advised her to go away somewhere for a while. So we sold the property—and every dollar we have we put in the bank here. We thought it would show our confidence in the town and help us get in with the right people."
"There aren't any right people to get in with; not to amount to anything," Bud told him bluntly. "Not in Smoky Ford. Delkin and—well, there are four or five pretty nice men, but I don't know what kind of wives they've got. Gossipy old hens, most of them, I suppose. I'd drift to some other range, I believe, if I wanted to feel confidence in my neighbors."
Budlike, he wondered if the sister was pretty and young. Tired as he was, interest picked up his feet and pulled the sag out of his shoulders when they neared the open doorway and he caught a glimpse of the girl called Marge. He took off his hat and held it so that the cameo brooch was hidden within the palm of his left hand, and gave his rumpled brown hair a hasty rub with the other as he entered—silent, positive proof that the young woman had already caught his roving young masculine attention.
He ought to be hurrying on to the ranch that night. He told them so, and then permitted himself to be persuaded into staying all night and sharing the bed of his host, whom he persisted in calling Lightfoot in spite of one or two corrections.
"Oh, I know why you call Lawrie that," cried Marge, who had been studying closely this young cowboy, the very first one she had met on friendly footing. "It's a custom of cowboys to give names to strangers, just as the Indians do. You know, Lawrie, Indians name their young and also strangers after the first thing that strikes their notice, the names for adults usually being suggested by some mark or trait in the individual that sets him apart from his fellows. Lawrie told me how he danced in the saloon while you played for him, and of course your custom demanded that you name him after his dancing. Don't you see, Lawrie? He has already given you your tribal, cowboy name—Lightfoot. I rather like it, I believe. So now you, at least, are initiated into the tribe—made a member of the tribe of cowboys!"
She had a pretty, eager way of speaking, and her eyes were the sparkly kind when she talked, yet Bud looked at her with a smoldering indignation in his eyes. Living next door to the Belknap reservation, he did not think much of Indians—less of their customs; he having known them long and too well. Nor did he approve of any one calling cowboys a tribe. He had barked knuckles on a man's cheek for less cause before now, and he set his teeth into his lower lip to hold in a retort discourteous. But Marge was a pretty girl, as has been plainly intimated; her gray eyes sparkled like stars on a frosty night, her skin was soft and whiter than any range girl could ever hope to attain, and her mouth was red and provocative, daring male lips to kisses.
"Well, then, what are you going to call me?" she challenged fearlessly, as girls do who have been fed with flattery all their lives.
"I think perhaps I'll call you—Early," drawled Bud, a faint twitching at the corners of his mouth.
A range girl would have taken warning and let well enough alone after that. But Marge was not a range girl.
"But you aren't sure, so I can't accept that as final. And now, there's something I've been dying to ask you, Mr. Larkin. Just why do cowboys wear their sombreros pinned back like that? You know, I'm gathering local color of the cattle ranges, and I like to get right at the meaning of things." And with that, she pulled a notebook from her pocket and held pencil point to her lips. "Is it some special mark—an insignia of something? An insignia is a mark showing some certain rank," she explained kindly.
"Well, I guess it's an insignia, then," Bud confessed. "But it's a secret and I can't exactly explain. You won't see many wearing this particular badge—insignia." He rolled the word as if it were a new one and he liked the sound.
"Can't you even tell the name of the society or order?"
"Well—I can't go into details," said Bud gravely. "All I can say is it's the range sign of the golden arrow." (He thought she must surely see through that; she must certainly have read about that terrible young god, Cupid, who shot arrows of gold for love and arrows tipped with lead for hate. Surely she would remember that!)
But she didn't.
"The Golden Arrow? I don't—did you ever hear of that secret order, Lawrie?"
"No," said Lawrie indifferently, "not that I remember. But Mr. Larkin and I were going over to see if that posse has caught those bandits, Marge. If the bank doesn't get that money back, and has to close its doors, we're in a fix!"
"I know—but I want to find out about this secret society among the cowboys, Lawrie. It's important that I study cowboys when I get the chance, or how can I write about them realistically? And this Golden Arrow stuff is something no author of Western stories has ever mentioned. Can't you tell me a tiny bit more about it, Mr. Larkin?"
"Well, I know it's about the oldest society on earth," Bud elucidated gravely. "I believe the very first savage—"
"Why, of course! How stupid of me not to see at once that the Golden Arrow must be pure Indian!"
"Well, I dunno how pure it is, but I guess—"
"And you're a member! But what I can't understand, Mr. Larkin, is why that cameo pin should be an emblem of the Golden Arrow."
"Why," said Bud, looking at her with soft, dark eyes that simply couldn't lie, "the cameo pin is recognized everywhere as the paleface sign."
"Of course!" cried Marge, and wrote it down in her book.
Bud went out, holding his lips carefully rigid and unsmiling, though he made strange gulping sounds in his throat all the way down town.
The volunteer man hunters had returned much soberer though no wiser than they had set out, and with them came Bat Johnson, who declared that his trip could be postponed until after the inquest, which would be held as soon as the sheriff and coroner arrived from the county seat. In the meantime Delkin had sent frantic word by telephone to the nearest points, and men were riding into town on sweaty horses, curious to see the corpse of the cashier and eager to join in the chase.
"For half a cent I'd borrow a horse and take the trail alone, with grub enough for a couple of days," Bud confided restlessly to his companion. "I'd do it, only Delkin says we'll be wanted at the inquest to-morrow; and after that the sheriff will be on the job and running things to suit himself. Seems mighty queer, the way those bandits plumb disappeared and never left a trace. Bat Johnson claimed to me that he was sure four riders went down the draw and crossed the river ahead of him, but now he admits that he only got a glimpse of the horses' rumps and can't swear to any riders. But what in thunder would range horses be doing right here in town almost? The whole thing's off color. I wish Lark was here—my uncle. He's pretty good at figuring out the other fellow's game."
"There must be some way to catch the murderers and get the money back," Brunelle worried. "Of course catching them won't help the cashier, but the money makes a big difference. This really does leave Marge and me in an awful fix, Mr. Larkin. All you people have homes and property, but here we are—perfect strangers; and a little over five dollars to face the world with! We didn't think it would be safe to keep any money in the house, out in this wild country, so every dollar we had was in the bank—where it would be safe!" He laughed a bit wildly. "Of course, I'll go to work at once. We both will. I wonder how much the robbers got?"
Bud shook his head.
"Delkin doesn't know, exactly; or if he does he isn't telling until he has to. He says Charlie Mulholland took care of everything while the other fellow has been sick, and all he or any of the others did was go in and act as teller while Charlie wrote letters and worked on the books forenoons. It's just a little whiddledig of a bank—plenty of money, but not many depositors. All the cattlemen and some horse raisers used it, and put in great wads when they sold off some stock, and checked it out in driblets. I could have run the whole works myself, almost. If the bank's busted, the robbers got a plenty. It's going to hit a lot of us, but it sure is too bad you folks got caught. What kind of work did you think of doing?"
"Well, Marge could teach school, of course. And once she gets a stand-in with the editors, she can sell all the pieces she writes, and I can sell the pictures to go with them. I can get a job as a cowboy for a while, I suppose, until we get on our feet again." His jaw squared. "We'll never go back, that's one thing sure; not even if we had the train fare. All the neighbors said we'd make a fizzle of things if we left there. I suppose there's a school somewhere that Marge can teach, isn't there?"
"I don't know of—wel-l—come to think of it, the Meadowlark sure needs a school teacher." Bud had caught another disturbing sight of Marge sitting with bowed head by the table, lamplight shining through loose locks of hair.
Tired as he was, bedtime came too soon for Bud that night.
Marge would go to the inquest next morning, though Bud warned her that it would not be exciting and that she would only get herself talked about. These things could not daunt her. She must go, she said, because she was going to need murders and posses and sheriffs right along in her Western stories, and this was a wonderful opportunity to study the types at close range. She could not understand why Bud laughed.
So to the inquest she went, and thereby shocked the sober citizens of Smoky Ford, who liked their womenfolk shy and retiring. She mistook the big blacksmith for the sheriff, who was small and very quiet and kept his badge hidden under his vest. She was much disappointed in the coroner, who was pot-bellied and chewed tobacco frankly and untidily and spat where he pleased. Moreover, the corpse was in a back room out of sight, and Marge could not bring herself quite to the point of walking deliberately in to see how a man looks who has been murdered. She was the only woman present, and the room was crowded with men who stared at her; not even her notebook could furnish cause sufficient for her presence.
Then, after a few tedious preliminaries, they all trooped off to the bank to take a look around and left Marge all by herself in the empty storeroom. It did not help her temper any to have Bud ask her afterwards how she liked the wild, wild West as far as she had got.
"That man Palmer, who deposited five thousand dollars just before he came into the saloon, looked at you very queerly when you were giving an account of finding the cashier," Brunelle observed irrelevantly, thinking it best to change the subject before Marge said something sarcastic.
"He can't help that. He was born queer," Bud retorted. "Meanest old skinflint in the country. Took a quirting from my uncle before the whole town, and never has made a move to get back at Lark for it. Maybe that's why he looks queer when he sees some one from the Meadowlark."
"But he sneered as if he thought you were lying," Lawrie persisted.
"Well, so did I sneer as if I thought he were lying when he told about depositing five thousand dollars in the bank. I bet he keeps his money buried back of the barn or some other good place."
"I wish we'd buried ours," Marge sighed. "Or the editors would wake up and buy a story or something. We'll have to hunt some work to do, Lawrie—"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Marge. Mr. Larkin knows of a school you can teach. He says the Meadowlark school needs a teacher. And perhaps I can get a job somewhere close, as a cowboy. Do you think I could, Mr. Larkin?"
"How do we get there?" Marge began to untie her apron as if she meant to start within the next five minutes. Bud caught his breath and opened his mouth to explain, to temporize. But Marge was already beginning to pack her books, and her eyes were the brightest, dancingest gray eyes he had ever looked into. His own kindled while he gazed.
So that is how it happened that young Bud Larkin, leaving his own tall sorrel in Delkin's stable as hostage of a sort, drove blithely out to the Meadowlark with a hired team and a spring wagon and two passengers squeezed into the front seat with him and three trunks piled high and tied there with Bud's good grass rope.
When the hired rig from Smoky Ford swung through the gate and on up to the very porch of the house, with Bud grinning impudently at his world from the driver's seat and a strange young woman wedged in between him and a young man who bore all the earmarks of a pilgrim, and three huge trunks lashed to the back of the vehicle to say that the visitors had come to stay, Lark stood in the doorway and stared dazedly, with never a word of welcome for the strangers.
But Maw did not hesitate or question. Instead, she hurried out—walking erect under Lark's braced arm in the doorway with plenty of room to spare—and waddled to the edge of the porch, smiling unabashed. Marge almost screamed at sight of her.
"Get right down and come on in," Maw cried. "Supper's about ready. As luck would have it, I killed that speckled hen that wanted to set and cooked her with dumplings. We're almost ready to sit down, and I'll bet you're hungry!"
Bud had swung his long legs out over the wheel and landed beside her, and Marge was shocked to see him lift the misshapen creature clear of the ground and kiss her on each leathery cheek before he set her down again and turned to help Marge out.
"Maw, this is Miss Brunelle. She's going to teach school here. And this is her brother, Lightfoot. He's going to be a cowboy. Hello, Lark. Say, I promised Lightfoot that you'd give him a job so he can be with his sister while she teaches school. Where's Skookum?"
"Oh, he went down to feed the cougar. I'm so glad we're going to have a school," cried Maw, without batting an eye or waiting for Lark to struggle through a sentence. "Larkie's real glad too. Of course he'll put Mr. Lightfoot right to work. Now, come right in, folks, and take off your things while I put on a couple more plates. Buddy, I'm afraid we haven't a room ready for Mr. Lightfoot—"
"He can bunk with me to-night," Bud interrupted, glancing up from unroping the trunks. "Say, Lark, the bank was robbed yesterday and the cashier killed. That's why I didn't get in quicker. I had to stay for the inquest this morning. No sign of the bunch that did it." The trunks thudded one by one to the porch. "It happened just before I went to cash that check. Say, Maw, Lightfoot's name is Brunelle, same as his sister, if you want to Mister him."
He stepped on the hub of the front wheel and went up, unwrapping the lines from around the whipstock as he did so. Lark came to life then and climbed in and stood behind the seat while Bud drove back to the stable.
Sprawled before the bunk house, the Meadowlark riders were taking in the smallest details of the amazing arrival and trying not to appear curious, or even interested. But Jake, permanently crippled in one leg from lying out all one night under his dead horse, got up and limped leisurely down to the stable to help take care of the team. Lark saw him coming and hastened his speech.
"Bud, where in the name of Jonah did you pick up them pilgrims? And what's this here joke about a school teacher fer the Meddalark? Where'd you git 'em—and theirtrunks?" The last three words sounded very much like a groan.
"Say, I didn'tsteal'em," Bud flashed back meaningly.
"No—I'll bet you didn't git the chancet. I bet they grabbed you—"
Bud whirled on him, straight brows pulled together. If he began to see the foolishness of his impulsive hospitality, he never would admit it.
"Look here, Lark, these are nice folks, and they were up against it when the bank was robbed and they couldn't get a two-bit piece of their money out. Strangers, fresh from the East somewhere; came out here with the wild idea they can write and illustrate stories of the West and sell them to magazines. Maybe they can do it, but they sound too darned amateurish to me. And they werebroke, I tell you!
"So she wanted to teach school or something—and you know darned well, Lark, that Skookum ought to be learning to read before he's sent off to school. All the kids would guy the life out of him if he landed without having some kind of a start in schooling at his age. And as for Lightfoot, he won't be the first tenderfoot that had to learn which end of a horse is the front." He stopped and glanced toward the house, where Maw was calling through the dusk that supper was all on the table. "And my thunder, Lark," he added as a clincher, "you never leave the Basin without bringing back something to take care of and feed; even if you have to steal him. You'd have done this yourself."
Lark lifted his hat, pawed absently at his hair and set the hat at a different angle as they started back to the house, waving their hands before their faces to keep off the mosquitoes whose droning hum was audible throughout the Basin after sundown when the dew began falling.
"Shore you'd 'a' done it, Bud, if the girl had been cross-eyed?" he thrust slyly at Bud's well-known liking for pretty faces.
"No, I don't know as I would," Bud admitted with shameless candor. "She isn't any prettier than Bonnie Prosser, though—and she hasn't the brains that Bonnie has, and no sense of humor whatever. I'll bet, if you pinned her right down to it, she'd admit that she thinks cowboys eat grass when they're on the range. You ought to hear the questions she asked about us, coming out.
"Lightfoot's all right, though. He'll break in and be human long before she will. You'll like Lightfoot, even if he is green; one good thing, he knows it. And Marge is a darn pretty girl, all right, even if she did get all her brains out of books. She can teach Skookum and get him ready for school—"
"Oh, all right, all right!" Lark yielded wearily to end the argument. "But if this habit of hauling in the helpless is going to run in the family, son, we'll have to start in ridin' with a long rope and a runnin' iron, to feed 'em all. And what'll Bonnie say, Bud, when she hears about it? And a dozen other girls that have kept their dads broke buyin' hair ribbons for you to decorate yore bridle with?"
"Say, there aren't a dozen girls in the country; not white ones, and I don't take to color," Bud retorted equably. "And as for Bonnie—I'm not halter-broke yet, if you want to know, Lark."
At the porch Marge stood looking out over the dusky Basin to where the moon was beginning to gild the clouds on the hilltops beyond the Little Smoky.
"You know, I never dreamed that you had frogs away out West in Montana!" she cried in her pretty, eager way when the two approached. "They sound exactly like the frogs back in Iowa, too."
"Well, they're Iowa frogs, that's why," Bud explained matter-of-factly. "Way it happened was this: When the first white woman came with her husband and settled in this country, she had to teach the kids herself and she was a real conscientious mother. Whenever she sung them that song about 'There was a frog lived in a well, humble-jumble-jerry-jum,' they kept asking her what frogs were. So the next time a trainload of beef went to Chicago she had the cowboys stop off in Iowa and catch a few jars of pollywogglers and bring back with them. There were twice as many as she needed, so she sent a jar over to the Meddalark. They've done real well," he added, stopping to listen to the steady singsong chorus down in the meadow. "One trouble is, they brought in mosquitoes same time. Said the farmers back in Iowa told them frogs wouldn't live where they couldn't get mosquitoes in season. The boys sure brought a plenty—or else our breed of frogs are light eaters. We've got more mosquitoes than we need right now."
"Well," said Marge, all unsuspecting, "of course I knew the frogs must have come fromsomewhere, and I noticed that they sounded exactly like our frogs back home."
That is why Lark kept eyeing the girl curiously all through supper.
But the unexpected addition to the Meadowlark family could not crowd from Lark's mind the startling news of the tragedy in Smoky Ford; nor from the uneasy thoughts of Bud, who felt keenly that he had failed Lark in a certain important matter.
The two gravitated together without a word or look that signified intention and strolled silently out away from the house to a bowlder fallen from the crown of the bluff and lying solitary and conveniently out of earshot yet within sight of everything. Even in Lark's tempestuous youth the bowlder had been called the Council Rock because of its frequent occupation when confidences were to be exchanged. A faint trail led toward it through the sparse grass at the base of the bluff, proof that it was still popular. Bud climbed up to the broad, flat top and sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the gray rock while he produced tobacco and papers.
"That check—Lark, I feel that I owe you fifteen hundred dollars," he began abruptly. "I was so darned thirsty and hot when I came down off the reservation that I didn't go straight to the bank as I should have done. I stopped at the Elkhorn for a glass of beer. Lightfoot was in there and let himself be bullied into dancing for Steve Godfrey's bunch of souses, and I played the mouth-harp for him. I guess I wasted nearly half an hour altogether before I started to the bank. At that," he added, pausing to run the tip of his tongue along the edge of the filled paper, "I was in time—or I would have been if the bank had been left alone. But if I had gone there at first I'd have been in time to prevent a murder and cash your check."
"Damn' expensive beer the Elkhorn's sellin'," Lark commented dryly. "What about the Fryin' Pan?"
"They've sure got a lot of dandy horses, Lark," Bud told him, relieved at the change of subject. "I had to do a lot of jewing on the price, but I got the promise of a hundred head for fifteen hundred dollars; forty young mares, and the rest geldings two and three years old. Just right to break, most of them are. You might be able to stand Kid off for the money, seeing the bank was robbed, but I don't know. I told him it would be cash down. Kid said he never bothered with checks at all—you had the right hunch there. He hinted strongly for gold too. Said he'd burned a thousand dollars of paper money by accident once, and he's nervous about having it around."
"Yeah, I wouldn't be su'prised if he is!" Lark laughed to himself. "My Jonah, I shore do want that bunch of horses! You say the bank's put out of business?"
"That's what Delkin said. They may get organized again after a while—or they may get the money back, of course. I'd have wondered if the Frying Pan didn't know something about that affair—" He stopped and emptied his lungs of smoke. "But I saw the whole outfit at the ranch. Butch Cassidy's working for them this summer. I wish we could get those horses some way. They promised to hold the bunch close in, because I told them you'd be right over. I expect they're watching the trail for us right now."
"Too bad." Lark absently reached for his own "makin's." "Forty young mares, you say. Bud, I expect my old man would just about peel the hide off me if he was alive, but I'll be darned if I can set still and let that bunch of horses git out from under the old Meddalark iron. I'm goin' to hit the trail fer Glasgow and borry a couple or three thousand dollars. That'll run us till shippin' time if Delkin don't open up agin. First time the Meddalark ever borried, but I plumb got to have them horses!"
"I'll give you a bill of sale of a thousand head of my cattle, Lark. I'll feel better about the whole business if you'll use my stock for security on a loan, and it will save the Meadowlark from having a mortgage plastered on it."
"You keep what cattle you got, son. I'll make out all right. Can't tell how soon you might wanta set up fer yourself. The marryin' notion hits kinda sudden when she strikes—"
"Say, I'll sell out the whole bunch if you don't shut up. I want you to borrow on my cattle if you must get a loan, and I suppose that's the only way out. Those Frying Pan horses are sure dandies. There's one favor I want to ask if you do get them, Lark. I'd like to have a couple of the geldings to break for my own string. There are two blacks, dead ringers for each other, that are beauts. I want them both. Half brothers, I'd say; going on four; clean-limbed and short-coupled, with forequarters like a lion, and their eyes are plumb human. They'd make a peach of a matched driving team, but I want them to ride. Butch says he got a saddle on one and started to ride him, and it bucked, high, wide and handsome, until it was a relief to get thrown clean over the fence. But I'll bet I can gentle the two of them so they'll be like pet dogs. Lark, I want them!"
"Yeah, I kinda thought mebbe you did," Lark chuckled. "All right, son. I'll take the bill of sale and use it for security on a loan (I know where I can get money in Glasgow without the hull darn country knowin' the Meddalark's borryin' money), and you can have your two black bronchs fer keeps. I'll give you the papers for 'em, and you can put the one-legged Meddalark on 'em to show they're yourn. That'll be for int'rust on the use of your stock for a few months. How's that strike yuh?"
"Fine and dandy, Lark. Maybe you'll want to back down on your bargain when you've seen them, but I'll hold you to it. Kind of low-down, but darn it, I fell in love with those blacks, and I'd have to fight the boys away from them if they got a sight of them before any promise passed. And I had a long, hot ride in the wind, going to the Frying Pan, and talked myself black in the face getting the hundred head at that price. Kid was asking two thousand even for the bunch, but I made him see where the cash in his hand was worth something, and I told him fifteen hundred was your limit. Any other outfit would probably stand him off for part of it, and that's what turned the trick. And by the way, Lark, you'd better go prepared to bring back the gold, because Kid might be persuaded to throw in a few yearlings extra. They've got some good-looking colts over there. Most of the mares have got sucking colts, by the way."
"I'll borry three thousand, and get it all in gold," Lark planned. "I'll take a valise along, and carry the weight easy enough without it being noticed. I'll likely stay over a day in Glasgow, anyway."
"Make it as quick a trip as you can, Lark. You must bear in mind that Kid expects us to-night, and I wouldn't want the deal to fall through because he got tired of waiting. He's touchy as the devil—and if I don't get those two black bronchs, I'll die!"
When he sauntered down from the Council Rock in the full flood of moonlight, left Lark to enter the house alone and continued to the bunk house, where the boys still lingered by the doorway, Bud did not look like a man whose life depends upon getting a pair of black bronchos into his possession. His walk and his softly whistled tune betokened care-free youth.
Cigarettes pricked little, red stars in the line of shadow before the long, low-roofed building where the riders of the Meadowlark were housed and fed to their complete content. The murmur of voices dwindled so that the frog chorus came sharp to the ears as Bud came up and squatted on his boot-heels alongside a man whom he identified even in the shadow as his particular friend, Frank Gelle—called Jelly with a frank disregard for proper pronunciation.
"Have a good trip, Bud?" Not for a top horse would Gelle have betrayed his curiosity over the mysterious visitors.
"Pretty fair. Hot as blazes riding across the reservation yesterday. Oh, by the way, Rosy, I didn't get those socks you wanted if I rode back through town. I meant to, but when the bank was robbed—"
"Get out!" Gelle exclaimed, as an expression of surprise. "Some of these days, Bud, somebody's goin' to lose his patience all of a sudden. He'll just kill you and drag you off somewhere and leave you. I hate to do it, but you won't be human till somebody asks the question, so who's the girl you brought in?"
"The girl? Oh, she's Lightfoot's sister. She's going to teach our school, Jelly."
"School?" chorused six shaken voices.
"Now Iknowyou're lying, Bud," Gelle mourned. "I've got to have a serious talk with you, I kin see that. This habit of lyin' where there ain't no cause or provocation—if you'll walk awn over to the Rock with me now, Bud, I'll tell you what I think about it."
"It's him that'll do the tellin', and that right now," a voice broke in ominously. "They's a certain Meddalark that won't have a damn' chirp left in 'im, time we git the pinfeathers plucked out. Us fellers have stood about all we're goin' to from Bud."
"Just another prophet in his own country," sighed Bud, reaching out a hand for Gelle's tobacco sack because he was too lazy to reach into his pocket for his own. "SheisLightfoot's sister. And the bankwasrobbed, and Charlie Mulholland was killed. I discovered him myself—"
Half an hour went to the telling of the story to the smallest detail, accurately as if he were talking before a jury. For when all the jokes were done, Bud appreciated the hunger these young men felt for news of their world after plugging hard on round-up. They were sick of their own stale company and they craved action, even the vicarious excitement of Bud's experiences. He gave them all he knew, and by the time he had exhausted his store of impressions each man there could visualize the whole affair so far as Bud knew it.
They discussed at length the mystery of its quiet perpetration on the edge of banking hours while forty or fifty men foregathered within gunshot of the place. Then Tony Scarpa, more American than his name implied, swung to the more immediate event.
"Who's Lightfoot and who's his sister, and what's the joke about teaching our school?"
"Straight goods." In the narrowing shadow as the moon swam higher they could see Bud's eyes gleam with mischief. "Lightfoot's a pilgrim; an artist, so he says. I know he's a darn good dancer, for I saw him dance. His sister's a pilgress. They went broke when the bank did, and had to rustle jobs—being perfect strangers in the country and having a bad habit of eating every day. She wanted a school to teach. That's the first and only thing a girl from the East ever thinks of when she comes West; that and marrying some cattle king and wearing diamonds. He wanted to be a cowboy—and I, being an accommodating cuss, gave them both jobs. I recalled the fact that there's a lot you fellows don't know yet, and while you're acquiring useful knowledge she can study your types. You see—"
"Study ourwhat?" A man leaned forward so that the moon shone fully and clearly on his astonished face.
"Study your types. She's an amateur author and she means to write stories about cowboys. So she's looking for good types."
"Sa-ay!" Tony's irrepressible drawl cut musically through the amazed silence. "Loan me your type, will yuh, Bob? I lost mine back there where I bulldogged that roan steer."
"I will not! I'm goin' to need all the type I got. Is she purty, Bud?"
"She sure is." Bud glanced up at the moon and softly rhapsodized, "Big, devilish gray eyes—they'd drown a man's troubles so deep he'd swear he never had one. Her mouth—if her mouth has never been kissed it should be."
"It's goin' to be," Tony murmured, and made a motion of rising to his feet. Big Bob Leverett yanked him down.
"You ain't in this, Tony. Bud's givin'methe dope. You gwan to bed. You ain't got no type, and there ain't nothin' to set up for!"
"Law-zee,boss!" cried a tall young man with unbelievably small feet thrust straight out before him into the moonlight. "Here's one scholar that'll sure never be tardy!"
"I'm goin' to whisper an' stick out my tongue at you pelicans, and git to stay after school," Gelle declared.
"You—you fellers can go to her darned old school, but I won't," a young, rebellious voice cried from within the open door.
"Skookum?" Bud leaned and peered into the dark. "Come on out here, pardner. Why aren't you in bed?"
"How'd the kid git in?" Gelle swung his lean body sidewise, reached a long arm into the house and plucked the boy expertly by his middle. "Here he is, Bud. Clumb through the window, I reckon."
Skookum wriggled free and sat down in the dirt, crossing his legs and folding his arms in exact imitation of Bud's favorite pose when at ease among his fellows. He glanced up and down the row of cowpunchers leaning against the wall, and the moonlight gilded his hair like a halo and made of his eyes two deep, dark pools.
"I don't like her," he stated flatly. "She turned up her nose at—at Maw, and she asked her brother if he s'posed that hid-hid-e-ous creature was any relation to—to Bud. She said she couldn't bear to—to eat Maw's cookin' 'cause it was 'pulsive. And it was chicken dumpluns and—and pie!"
Dead silence for a space; then Gelle spoke diffidently, uncertain between apology and resentment.
"We get you, Skookum. But you see, Maw—well, she needs to be took kinda gradual, right at first. You know Maw's a kinda hard looker till you git used to her—"
"Maw's the purtiest woman in—in Montana!" Skookum declared hotly. "She's cute and—and sweet. When I get big, I'm agoin' to—to marry Maw. I asked her, and she said she—she would. You shut up about Maw. She's purtier than that darned old girl! Ain't she, Bud?"
"Handsome is as handsome does makes Maw the most beautiful woman in the world. You're right about that, pardner." Bud's voice had a queer note in it. "You stand up for Maw, Skookum, and I'm right with you. But I don't believe Maw would want you to pass up a chance to learn something. She thought it would be just fine to have a school here. It's that, or go to a boarding school where all the boys would laugh at you, and I don't believe Maw could stand that, pardner. It seems to me that your duty to Maw would make you want to learn just as fast as you can from Miss Brunelle."
"I don't care! She's a mean old—"
"Careful, Skookum. Never call a woman names—and besides, in this case it isn't fair. Miss Brunelle's an orphan, and she's among strangers, and she was all tired out—and you know yourself that even Lark can't stand it to see Maw with her teeth out and laid up on a shelf somewhere. I couldn't get her off to one side and speak to her about it before strangers, and neither could Lark. But Maw ought to have thought of it herself and put in her teeth when she saw company coming."
"Well, maybe she's purtier with—with her teeth on. But I bet if that old girl's teeth wabbled like—like Maw's teeth do, she wouldn't wear 'em, either. They tip up on the side and—and pinch. Maw showed me!"
"Well, then, we'll let Maw suit herself about it. Miss Brunelle will gentle down and get used to her, teeth or no teeth. It's like a horse getting accustomed to a yellow slicker," he went on. "He always stampedes at first. He'll pitch and strike and raise Cain generally—but there always comes a time when that same old yellow slicker feels mighty good spread over his back when he's humped up in a cold rain. We won't say a word, pardner. We'll just go along as if we didn't notice anything, and you'll see how soon Miss Brunelle will learn to love Maw."
"And—and Maw needn't wear her teeth if—if she don't want to," Skookum stipulated earnestly, "unless Lark ketches her w-without 'em."
"That's the idea, exactly," Bud assured him as man to man. "You see, Lark feels sensitive about Maw's teeth, because he took a beeswax impression himself and sent it to a dentist that advertised pretty extensively and wrote that teeth could be made by what Lark called absent treatment. He'd hate like thunder to admit he'd made a fizzle of the job, and Maw wouldn't for the world hurt his feelings by telling him straight out that they don't fit. So there you are, and we'll just have to let them manage the affair themselves, and show Miss Brunelle what we think of Maw, teeth or no teeth."
Skookum nodded acquiescence, heaving a great sigh of relief.
"I was goin' to—to tell Maw what that girl said. But—but I'm glad I never."
"Real men don't repeat things that may cause hard feelings. You remember that, Skookum. If you'd gone tattling that, Maw would have felt badly and cried."
In the moonlight they could see how the boy's big eyes brimmed suddenly.
"Maw does—every time I change my shirt. It's where grandpa quirted me, and—and the marks is there."
"Grandpa—hunh! I'll grandpa that old devil if I ever run across him," Frank Gelle rapped out viciously.
"You leave grandpa alone! I'm waitin' till—till I get big as Bud, and then grandpa's—my meat!"
"There's Maw calling you to go to bed," Bud reminded him hastily—and unnecessarily, since Maw's voice was full size and not to be ignored. "Come on—I feel like rolling in, myself. Let's go pound our ears, as Shakespeare says."
But when Skookum had been safely delivered to Maw, Bud strolled back to the Council Rock, which was usually free from the humming hordes of mosquitoes, and where the acrid smoke of the smudges were but a pleasantly faint aroma. Thinking was not a popular pastime with young Bud Larkin as a rule, but nevertheless there were times when he felt the need of a quiet hour to meditate upon late impressions and events, especially when they came thick and fast, as the last two days had brought them.
For one thing, he was depressed over the murder of the bank cashier and he felt more responsibility in the matter than he had owned to Lark. There was no getting around the fact that he might have prevented the whole thing had he gone straight to the bank instead of stopping at the Elkhorn. When he thought how that one glass of beer had cost a man's life, Bud felt as if he never wanted another drink. He rolled and smoked a cigarette while he recalled each incident of yesterday afternoon.
Palmer's peculiar look when Bud had first tried to open the saloon door, for instance. Did that mean anything more than a natural enmity toward a Meadowlark man and a malicious satisfaction in knowing that the door was locked? According to his own voluntary statement at the inquest, Palmer had just come from the bank where he had made a deposit of five thousand dollars, the price of a herd of cattle which he had sold to the Government for the Indians; so he said, and two men present had borne out the statement regarding the sale. The pass book which he exhibited showed the amount, in Charlie's meticulous figures—perhaps the last he had written. Palmer, of course, couldn't have robbed the bank, for Bud felt sure that Charlie had not been dead so long when he discovered him.
The locking of the saloon door might have been a suspicious circumstance, but there also Bud felt baffled by the plausibility of the incident. Steve Godfrey frequently "bought" whatever place he chanced to celebrate in after a sale of stock that made him feel rich for a day or two. He too had sold cattle for use on the reservation. Buying a place in which to entertain all the loose men in town was merely a figurative purchase, meaning that all drinks were free for an hour or two, and that Steve would pay double for everything and waken next morning with a head the size of a barrel—according to his belief—and would forswear strong drink for a month or two thereafter.
No, Bud decided, the locking of the Elkhorn door had been merely a coincidence that facilitated the murder and robbery.
But there was the mysterious incident of the four shod horses which had no riders, galloping out across the river to mingle unrecognizably with the herd on the high plateau, mostly saddle horses and half-broken bronchos turned loose after the spring round-up to fatten on the sweet bunch grass of the higher ground until September brought shipping time and another strenuous season of work.
The Meadowlark horses had grazing grounds across the river, and so had several other outfits. Bud had not won close enough to read the brands on the herd which the four had joined, but he felt certain that they were not Meadowlark horses. Indeed, he could recognize their own herd as far as he could distinguish the individual animals.
But why had four riderless horses left the outskirts of town at that particular time and scurried out across the range to the west? To hide for a time the route taken by the robbers, Bud was certain; and admitted that it was a clever ruse, spoiled only by the quick action he himself had taken. Or had the robbers ridden the horses out of town and turned them loose to seek their own herd later on, hiding themselves and their saddles in some rocky gulch where the tracks would not show? Bud wished that he had thought of that sooner, though it seemed a far-fetched possibility.
Then there was Bat Johnson, a Palmer man and the only person Bud had seen in the vicinity of the bank. But Bat had made no attempt to escape, and he had volunteered the information about the horses that crossed the river. Bat had not taken the trail through the dry wash back of town where the four horses must have been concealed, because, as he explained at the inquest, his pack horse was barefooted, which Bud knew was the truth. The wash was gravel and loose rocks, and Bat had taken the longer trail through the sand grass and the willows. According to his statement to Bud and at the inquest, Bat had a glimpse of the horses moving out of sight among the willows near the ford, and had taken it for granted that riders bestrode them. But his pack horse, a little pinto, was hard to lead at the beginning of a trip, and Bat had been busy arguing the matter—Bat's side of the argument being the end of the lead rope or a quirt, Bud shrewdly guessed.
"I guess that lets him out," Bud muttered finally. "And I can't sleuth it out to-night. But there's another day coming. Marge will have to be blindfolded, I expect, to get her into what we'll have to call a schoolroom. Hm-m-m. Asked me where the town is, when we started down the pass. Wonder what time Lark wants to start in the morning? Have to explain to Lightfoot what a horse is, in the morning, and initiate him into the mysteries of a saddle. I like that geezer, somehow. He's the stuff, even if he is green. Wel-l—I guess I'll go to bed."
This, merely to show you that Bud could smile into a pretty girl's eyes and still keep his head clear for other things, and go about his business untroubled by dreams and fancies.
Lark rode moodily up to the rim of the Basin and halted there, as was his habit, and gazed down upon meadow, field, small orchard and the chain of corrals, with the house and two or three cabins sitting back against the bold cliff that shut in the upper end of the river valley like a wall. Ages ago the river, then a glacial stream, no doubt, had gouged and dug at the hills until it had made a fair retreat just here along its bank; had shrunk as the climate changed and dried; left the valley a fertile place with seeds of trees and grasses and wild flowers imbedded in the soil. Birds had come there to nest, and in the spring the air was all vibrant with the sweet, rippling notes of the meadowlark and robin and the little wild canaries.
Old Bill Larkin had ridden into the valley by chance and had liked it well enough to appropriate it and build in it his home. Meadowlark Basin he called it—having come in the spring. Later he brought cattle and horses, when the pioneers were just awaking to the fact that Montana was an ideal grazing country. Some called old Bill a rustler—said his cattle and horses were mostly stolen. But they did not say it to his face, for old Bill was also called a killer. At any rate he owned a certain whimsical sentiment, for he fashioned the crude outline of a bird (though in the state brand book it was called the Half-moon-open-A) and stamped it deep in the hides of every hoof of stock he called his own. Moreover, he held his own against brand-blotters and prospered.
Now Lark stared glumly down into the Basin and wished his old dad was alive and able to take a hand in the fight he felt was coming. But old Bill lay deep in the grove of cottonwoods between the river and the house, and Lark glanced that way as he swung back into the road. Bud's horse—called the Walking Sorrel because of his gait—tilted his ears forward and picked up his feet with the springy, eager steps of a horse glad to be home after an absence. At the foot of the hill he broke into a gallop that Lark did not check until they reached the yard by the shed where the saddles were housed.
Lark slipped out of the saddle and was untying the valise from behind the cantle when Bud strolled down to greet him. He glanced over his shoulder, then handed the valise to Bud, who judged the weight of it and grinned.
"Got it, I see. You weren't held up then," he said. "I thought afterwards that you shouldn't have gone alone, but I see it was all right, after all."
Lark jerked off the saddle and led the horse to a gate and turned him through without speaking. The two started for the house, walking side by side up the roadway.
"Boys all here?" Lark spoke abruptly.
"Sure. They're eating supper. Butch Cassidy rode over from the Frying Pan yesterday to see why we hadn't come after the horses. I think Kid wants that fifteen hundred all right. Butch is waiting to ride back with us." Bud changed hands on the valise, for ten pounds added to the ordinary weight of a leather grip well filled is distinctly noticeable. "Have a good trip, and did you hear anything about the robbery?"
"Yeah, to both questions. Take that grip on into my room, son, and come over to the bunk house. I wanta talk to the boys."
"Oh—oh!" Bud exclaimed under his breath, and made off in a hurry. Lark in that mood promised action in plenty, and action meant joy in the heart of young Bud. He passed Marge without a word of teasing, which gave that young woman an uneasy half-hour, thinking she had somehow offended her perfect type of cowboy.
"Now's a good time to break the news to you pelicans," Lark began abruptly, when the preliminary greetings were over and Bud had arrived and sat down expectantly on the end of the long bench at the supper table. "Butch, it won't hurt nothin' for you to set in on this yoreself. Suspicions is like measles; once they start they spread through a hull neighborhood.
"To cut it short, they're tryin' their hell-darnedest, down Smoky Ford way, to pin that killin' and bank robbery on to the Meddalark. Soon as they find out where Bud come from that day they're liable to throw in the Fryin' Pan outfit fer luck. And my Jonah, I lost over fifteen thousand dollars to them thieves!"
"Pin it on us!" Bud voiced the incredulity of the group. "How do they make that out, Lark? I was in the Elkhorn—"
"Yeah—and Delkin told me they're sayin' that you was in there spottin' for the bunch that done the dirty work, son. You left the saloon and put straight fer the bank—to make sure it was all over and done without a hitch—and then you put out across the hills, mebbe for a blind, mebbe to help the get-away. Delkin don't believe nothin' like that, of course; but that's the story that's being circulated around town. He just give me the tip in a friendly way, so we'd know how to shape our plans."
"Pull in the corners, hunh?" Frank Gelle snorted.
"Pull in nothin'!" Lark's kindly hazel eyes hardened. "I'll tell you now, boys, I went on to Glasgow and borried some money to buy them Fryin' Pan horses and run the outfit on till the bank kinda pulls itself together again. Whilst the money lasts, I'm goin' to pay you rannies in gold. If yo're scared to show it, fer fear some one may think it's stole, you can go hide it under yore bunks. Delkin said he'd try and find out who's doin' all the gabbin' about us. He thinks it was started by somebody that's got a grudge agin the Meddalark—and, my Jonah! I can think of plenty that has! You dang pelicans go larry-whoopin' around the country, lickin' this one and that one, till the hull country's down on us, chances are!"
"Couldn't be somebodyyou'verun a sandy on, of course," Gelle hinted mildly, and lowered an eyelid at the others.
"Palmer, you mean? He's got as good cause as anybody." Lark made no attempt to hedge. "Could be. Still, there's somethin' happened that Palmer didn't have no hand in, that I don't savvy. Up in Harlem I was waitin' to git my ticket, and my grip was settin' on a bench behind me in the waitin' room, and two different jaspers sneaked up andheftedit. Didn't know I seen 'em, but I caught 'em out the tail of my eye.And that was goin' out!At the time I thought they was lookin' fer easy stealin' and lost their nerve; or mebbe was curious to know if I had a gun or a bottle cached inside. Now, I know they was jest heftin' to see if I had the bank loot, er some of it. There was a lot of gold in the vault, Delkin told me. Detectives on my trail, mebbe. When I come back, I was packin' about ten pounds more weight, but I never let that grip outa my hands, you might say. I told Delkin about it, after he'd spilled his news, and showed him where I'd borried some money—just in case the talk gits too dang loud. He swore the bank never sicked no detectives on to us, nor anybody else in particular. Them bank officers don't dare give a guess at who done it, looks like to me. Itcouldbe what they call an inside job, and they know it don't look too good fer the bank officers."
"The thing to do," Butch Cassidy advised, "is lay low till somebody tips their hands. They'll do it—never knowed it to fail." He grinned and reached for the sirup can. "Way Bud was tellin' me, I'd say that hold-up job was a strictly home product. What do you think, Lark?"
"My Jonah!" Lark gave an exasperated snort. "I ain't any artist in that line, Butch. Looks to me like a daylight robbery with murder throwed in is something that takes nerve, and them town roosters don't qualify, if you want my opinion."
Butch chewed and swallowed a huge bite of hot biscuit dripping with sirup, his eyes staring vacantly before him as if he visioned things afar. Lark was calling for a clean plate and a cup of coffee, his long ride having given him a clamorous appetite which the supper table only aggravated.
"Bud was tellin' me about a few head of loose horses bein' hazed outa town and across the river right after the job at the bank." Butch came out of his trance and turned again to Lark. "Looks to me like that was meant fer a blind. Otherwise, the feller that drove 'em wouldn't make no bones of tellin' about it.
"And here's another point you don't want to overlook, none of you: Smoky Ford sets wrong fer a bank robbery to be pulled off durin' the day. Bank's away down at the wrong end of the street, and them cutbanks and washes where the bench breaks off down to the river bottom ain't rideable, except along the road. A bunch raidin' the bank would have to ride back through town and either cross the river or foller up the road to the bench, and take out across the reservation or come up this way. The trail across the river could be reached, uh course, by ridin' out back of town, the way Bat Johnson went with his pack outfit, but three or four riders foggin' along there would take big chances, seems to me. A job like that would need at least three men; two inside and one on guard outside the bank, jest in case anybody happened along. And even then it wouldn't be no picnic, right in daytime. With the town jammed into a pocket in the hills like that, and only two get-away trails, and them either leadin' around town or through it, they'd have to want money worse'n what I do." He laughed dryly.
"Them loose horses shod all around and takin' out across the river to the hills—that looks too much like a blind trail to me. Nobody was seen ridin' through town, so after a play like that, what I'd guess they done was git to the river bank and drop on down river in a boat." Butch Cassidy, vaguely rumored to be something of an outlaw himself, spoke as one who knew the tricks of the trade.
"River's too dang treacherous, down below the ford," Lark objected, with his mouth full. "It could be done, mebbe, but nobody in a hurry would ever think of doin' it. Moreover, what with rapids and bars and quicksands, there ain't a boat on the river anywhere; not that I know of."
"My—my grandpa was—was makin' a boat," the eager voice of Skookum broke in upon them. "In a shed where—where calves was weaned."
"Palmer, hunh?" Butch turned and stared reflectively at the boy, whom no one had noticed in the bunk house. A silence followed; a startled pause, as if each mind there took hold of the statement and turned it about and eyed it with surprised attention. Only Butch's light blue eyes, set close together, held a peculiar gleam.
"When was this, kid?"
"That was 'fore I come here with—with Lark. And—and—"
"Here! Quit that stutterin', kid, and take yore time." Lark spoke sharply, his eyes darting inquiring glances at Bud and the others. "Tell it slow, Skookum, and be dang sure you tell it straight. It's liable to mean a lot. You say yore grandpa was makin' a boat. Did he say what for?"
Skookum shook his head, his eyes big and round with the thrill of giving information to all these gods and heroes whose deeds and lightest words were things to dwell upon.
"Bat Johnson was makin' it, and Ed White. When they caught me—peekin' in, Bat s-shook me and swore. And—he took me where grandpa—was. He said I was—sneakin' around where I didn't have no—business. And—and grandpa—" Skookum shut his eyes tightly for a moment. "If you please, I—can't tell it—please. It's when grandpa made them cuts—"
"You can skip all that," Lark gritted, while the others shuffled their feet uncomfortably, their faces going glum with anger against Palmer for his brutal beating of the boy. "And you needn't to worry; yore grandpa's got more marks than what you've got."
"He oughta be strung up by the heels over a slow fire," Tony muttered, with the exaggerated malevolence of one who indulges in strong figures of speech.
"Go on, kid. Did you hear what they was goin' to do with it?"
"No—only Bat said sinkin' it was easy."
"There's the clew to the robbery!" Bud leaned forward, the light of revelation in his eyes. "It's the last thing any one would think of, and about the easiest thing to do. Bat Johnson himself could have hazed those horses across the ford and come back after his pack horse. He could have done the murder and robbery too. If they had a boat hidden under the bank, he could have slipped out of the side door with all the plunder in a sack, packed it on his horse to the river, tossed it into the boat and gone on about his business—which was turning those horses loose and throwing them back across the river. I know where they were tied out of sight in the wash for an hour or two at least. It's so damned simple, Lark, it was practically safe!"
"It could be done," Lark agreed, "but they couldn't go on down river and stand a chance of getting anywhere."
"They wouldn't need to. Who would see a boat if it slipped down river from Palmer's place and went back the way it came? The farther bank is too rough to ride and too barren for stock to range close, and the current swings that way and cuts close to shore. This side it's boggy wherever you can get to the bank, so all the town stock waters at the ford, where there's a streak of gravel bottom. The willows are thick as the hair on a dog, most places—though of course a man could crowd through to the bank, close enough to throw a bag or two. Why, at three o'clock or a little before, even the kids were all in school down at the other end of town, and every footloose man was locked inside the Elkhorn!"
"Palmer was in town, you said." Butch Cassidy's eyes had squinted half shut as his mind focused upon the robbery and shuttled back and forth from scene to scene.
"You're darned right he was in town. It was Palmer who locked the saloon door, and it was Palmer who seemed to hate the idea of having it opened when I started to leave. Steve did all the bellowing, but Palmer's face gave him away; he wanted that door to stay shut. Of course, he had just deposited five thousand dollars in the bank, and he's been making quite a holler, I suppose—at least, he did at the inquest. But maybe he put that money in the bank for that very reason, to give him something to howl about. What do you think, Lark?"
"I'd bet on it," Lark answered sententiously, and with a three-tined fork turned over several pieces of beef fried so thoroughly that the meat was tender simply because it was too young to be tough under any mistreatment. He selected a particularly crisp piece, sawed off a corner with his knife and poised the morsel on the end of his fork.
"Oughta be some way to git the goods on that outfit. I've a dang good notion—"
"Better let it ride for a while," Butch counseled earnestly. "If it's them, they're bound to tip their hands; any mismove, and they'll be gone clean outa the country. Any of the bunch gone since it happened? What about Bat and his pack outfit? Did he leave with it?"
"Palmer sent him back home after the inquest. I overheard him telling Bat that some of them might have to join the manhunt and he'd better stay on the ranch in case he was needed," said Bud.
"None of 'em got out with the posse," Lark added. "Delkin told me the sheriff was handlin' it with his deppities, and said he didn't want the hull country messed up with tracks. Said it was time enough to make a general round-up when they picked up a trail of some kind. Good sense, too."
"How many men has Palmer got?" Butch wanted to know. "Not more'n three or four—he's too stingy to hire more'n he has to. Who works for yore gran'paw, kid?"
"Bat Johnson and Ed White, and—and Mex, and—and Blinker. But Blinker's no good. He—he's old and—and won't talk, and—and just whispers—to himself. He—he's afraid somebody's—comin' to—to kill him. And then there's the cook," Skookum added slightingly. "He's Sam, and—and he's a nigger."
"They're all to home," Gelle ended the discussion. "I and Bob met all three riders jest yeste'day drivin' a bunch of horses out towards the reservation."
"Got the stuff hid somewhere," Butch concluded. "That is, if they done the job. Thinkin' so ain't proof, we got to remember."
"Dang right it ain't," Lark agreed cynically. "They's folks in the country claims they thinkwedone it, fur as that goes. That Maw callin' supper, Bud? You tell her I've et. By Jonah, I can't git no comfort out of a meal with them two pilgrims settin' there watchin' every mouthful and criticizin' my manners. I'll eat Jerry's cookin' fer a spell."
"I'm goin' to—to eat here," Skookum announced firmly. "I can't git no comfort, either. That old girl's learnin' me table etiquette! She makes me hold my fork like—like this!" To make his argument strong, Skookum grasped a fork as no human being would naturally hold one.
"Say," drawled Tony, "send her over here to eat with us, and you two gwan where you belong. Me, I never did know how to hold a fork in m' life. Why, I can't even hold a hayfork proper! You tell her, Skookum, that there ain't a one of us that's got the hang of makin' peas ride our knives without rollin' off. Jelly claims it's proper to mash 'em so they lay flat, but I say they was made to ride straight up. Gwan, kid. You tell 'er they's certain ones that needs to be learnt manners, and learnt 'em quick. Tell her we got a pelican here that whistles his soup 'stead of blowin' it gentle and then gulpin' 'er down. Gwan, kid."
"Yeah. Tell her I want t' know whether it's proper to say, 'Pass me those m'lasses,' or just 'Hand me them m'lasses.'" Bob Leverett winked at the others. "Tell 'er I'm liable to be invited out to a party, some time, an' I'm liable to make a bad break. Gwan, kid. You tell 'er that."
"Say, kid, you tell 'er I got another type she oughta study. Tell her this one is a sure-enough dinger, and that it's got the smile of a he-angel and the heart of a demon. It's this here sow-ayve kind, you tell 'er—"
"Soo-ahve, you darned knot-head," Gelle corrected disgustedly.
"Bud can tell her," Skookum stated calmly, and straddled the long bench to sit beside Lark. "I'm goin' to eat here."
"And hurt Maw's feelings?" Bud paused in the doorway and sent a glance of surprised disapproval at the boy. "She'll think you don't like her cooking any more."
"Aw, shucks!" Skookum threw down his knife and straddled back across the bench.