MR. EDWARD B. SARGENT.
MR. EDWARD B. SARGENT.
The town that figured on the envelope was Quaking-Asp Grove, which was beyond White Lodge, on the main transcontinental highway. Slowly Bill took from the envelope a note which read:
Dear Uncle and Benefactor:I have learned all. Do not come to the ranch for me, as you have planned. Evil impends. In fact I feel that he means to do you harm. I plead with you, do not come. It is the only way you can avert certain tragedy. I am sending this by Wong, as I am watched closely, though he pretends to be looking out only for my welfare. I can escape in some way. I am not afraid—only for you. Again I plead with you not to come. You will be going into a deathtrap.Helen
Dear Uncle and Benefactor:
I have learned all. Do not come to the ranch for me, as you have planned. Evil impends. In fact I feel that he means to do you harm. I plead with you, do not come. It is the only way you can avert certain tragedy. I am sending this by Wong, as I am watched closely, though he pretends to be looking out only for my welfare. I can escape in some way. I am not afraid—only for you. Again I plead with you not to come. You will be going into a deathtrap.
Helen
Wong, the factotum from the Greek Letter Ranch, had brought the letter and had duly stamped it and dropped it in the box for outgoing mail, three days before the murder on the Dollar Sign road. Wong had all the appearance of a man frightened and in a hurry. Talpers sought to detain him, but the Chinese hurried back to his old white horse and climbed clumsily into the saddle.
"It's a long time sence I've seen that old white hoss with the big pitchfork brand on his shoulder," said Talpers. "You ain't ridin' up here for supplies as often as you used to, Wong. Must be gettin' all your stuff by mail-order route. Well, I ain't sore about it, so wait awhile and have a little smoke and talk."
But Wong had shaken his head and departed as rapidly in the direction of the ranch as his limited riding ability would permit.
The letter that Wong had mailed had not gone to its addressed destination. Talpers had opened it and read it, out of idle curiosity, intending to seal the flap again and remail it if it proved to be nothing out of the ordinary. But there were hints of interesting things in the letter, and Bill kept it a day or so for re-reading. Then he kept it for another day because he had stuck it in his pocket and all but forgotten about it. Afterward came the murder, with the name of Sargent figuring, and Bill kept the letter for various reasons, one of which was that he did not know what else to do with it.
"It's too late for that feller to git it now, any ways," was Bill's comfortable philosophy. "And if I'd go and mail it now, some fool inspector might make it cost me my job as postmaster. Besides, it may come useful in my business—who knows?"
The usefulness of the letter, from Bill's standpoint, began to be apparent the day after the murder, when Helen Ervin rode up to the store on the white horse which Wong had graced. The girl rode well. She was hatless and dressed in a neat riding-suit—the conventional attire of her classmates who had gone in for riding-lessons. Her riding-clothes were the first thing she had packed, on leaving San Francisco, as the very word "ranch" had suggested delightful excursions in the saddle.
Two or three Indians sat stolidly on the porch as Helen rode up. She had learned that the old horse was not given to running away. He might roll, to rid himself of the flies, but he was not even likely to do that with the saddle on, so Helen did not trouble to tie him to the rack. She let the reins drop to the ground and walked past the Indians into the store, where Bill Talpers was watching her greedily from behind his postmaster's desk.
"You are postmaster here, Mr. Talpers, aren't you?" asked Helen, with a slight acknowledgment of the trader's greeting.
Bill admitted that Uncle Sam had so honored him.
"I'm looking for a letter that was mailed here by Wong, and should be back from Quaking-Asp Grove by this time. It had a return address on it, and I understand the person to whom it was sent did not receive it."
Talpers leaned forward mysteriously and fixed his animal-like gaze on Helen.
"I know why he didn't git it," said Bill. "He didn't git it because he was murdered."
Helen turned white, and her riding-whip ceased its tattoo on her boot. She grasped at the edge of the counter for support, and Bill smiled triumphantly. He had played a big card and won, and now he was going to let this girl know who was master.
"There ain't no use of your feelin' cut up," he went on. "If you and me jest understand each other right, there ain't no reason why any one else should know about that letter."
"You held it up and it never reached Quaking-Asp Grove!" exclaimed Helen. "You're the real murderer. I can have you put in prison for tampering with the mails."
The last shot did not make Bill blink. He had been looking for it.
"Ye-es, you might have me put in prison. I admit that," he said, stroking his sparse black beard, "but you ain't goin' to, because I'd feel in duty bound to say that I jest held up the letter in the interests of justice, and turn the hull thing over to the authorities. Old Fussbudget Tom Redmond is jest achin' to make an arrest in this case. He wants to throw the hull Injun reservation in jail, but he'd jest as soon switch to a white person, if confronted with the proper evidence. Now this here letter"—and here Bill took the missive from his pocket—"looks to me like air-tight, iron-bound, copper-riveted sort of testimony that says its own say. Tom couldn't help but act on it, and act quick."
Helen looked about despairingly. The Indians sat like statues on the porch. They had not even turned their heads to observe what was going on inside the store. The old white horse was switching and stamping and shuddering in his constant and futile battle against flies. Beyond the road was silence and prairie.
Turning toward the trader, Helen thought to start in on a plea for mercy, but one look into Talpers's face made her change her mind. Anger set her heart beating tumultuously. She snatched at the letter in the trader's hand, but Bill merely caught her wrist in his big fingers. Swinging the riding-whip with all her strength, she struck Talpers across the face again and again, but he only laughed, and finally wrenched the whip away from her and threw it out in the middle of the floor. Then he released her wrist.
"You've got lots o' spunk," said Bill, coming out from behind the counter, "but that ain't goin' to git you anywheres in pertic'ler in a case like this. You'd better set down on that stool and think things over and act more human."
Helen realized the truth of Talpers's words. Anger was not going to get her anywhere. The black events of recent hours had brought out resourcefulness which she never suspected herself of having. Fortunately Miss Scovill had been the sort to teach her something of the realities of life. The Scovill School for Girls might have had a larger fashionable patronage if it had turned out more graduates of the clinging-vine type of femininity instead of putting independence of thought and action as among the first requisites.
"That letter doesn't amount to so much as you think," said Helen; "and, anyway, suppose I swear on the stand that I never wrote it?"
"You ain't the kind to swear to a lie," replied Bill, and Helen flushed. "Besides, it's in your writin', and your name's there, and your Chinaman brought it here. You can't git around them things."
"Suppose I tell my stepfather and he comes here and takes the letter away from you?"
Talpers sneered.
"He couldn't git that letter away from me, onless we put it up as a prize in a Greek-slingin' contest. Besides, he's too ornery to help out even his own kin. Why, I ain't one tenth as bad as that stepfather of yourn. He just talked poison into the ears of that Injun wife of his until she died. I guess mebbe by your looks you didn't know he had an Injun wife, but he did. Since she died—killed by inches—he's had that Chinaman doin' the work around the ranch-house. I guess he can't make a dent on the Chinese disposition, or he'd have had Wong dead before this. If you stay there any time at all, he'll have you in an insane asylum or the grave. That's jest the nature of the beast."
Talpers was waxing eloquent, because it had come to him that his one great mission in life was to protect this fine-looking girl from the cruelty of her stepfather. An inexplicable feeling crept into his heart—the first kindly feeling he had ever known.
"It's a dum shame you didn't have any real friends like me to warn you off before you hit that ranch," went on Bill. "That young agent who drove you over ought to have told you, but all he can think of is protectin' Injuns. Now with me it's different. I like Injuns all right, but white folks comes first—especially folks that I'm interested in. Now you and me—"
Helen picked up her riding-whip.
"I can't hear any more to-day," she said.
Talpers followed her through the door and out on the porch.
"All right," he remarked propitiatingly. "This letter'll keep, but mebbe not very long."
In spite of her protests, he turned the horse around for her, and held her stirrup while she mounted. His solicitousness alarmed her more than positive enmity on his part.
"By gosh! you're some fine-lookin' girl," he said admiringly, his gaze sweeping over her neatly clad figure. "There ain't ever been a ridin'-rig like that in these parts. I sure get sick of seein' these squaws bobbin' along on their ponies. There's lots of women around here that can ride, but I never knowed before that the clothes counted so much. Now you and me—"
Helen struck the white horse with her whip. As if by accident, the lash whistled close to Bill Talpers's face, making him give back a step in surprise. As the girl rode away, Talpers looked after her, grinning.
"Some spirited girl," he remarked. "And I sure like spirit. But mebbe this letter I've got'll keep her tamed down a little. Hey, you Bear-in-the-Cloud and Red Star and Crane—you educated sons o' guns settin' around here as if you didn't know a word of English—there ain't any spirits fermentin' on tap to-day, not a drop. It's gettin' scarce and the price is goin' higher. Clear out and wait till Jim McFann comes in to-morrow. He may be able to find somethin' that'll cheer you up!"
Sheriff Tom Redmond was a veteran of many ancient cattle trails. He had traveled as many times from Texas to the Dodge City and Abilene points of shipment as some of our travelers to-day have journeyed across the Atlantic—and he thought just as little about it. More than once he had made the trifling journey from the Rio Grande to Montana, before the inventive individual who supplied fences with teeth had made such excursions impossible. Sheriff Tom had seen many war-bonneted Indians looming through the dust of trail herds. Of the better side of the Indian he knew little, nor cared to learn. But at one time or another he had had trouble with Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Ute, Pawnee, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux. He could tell just how many steers each tribe had cost his employers, and how many horses were still charged off against Indians in general.
"I admit some small prejudice," said Sheriff Tom in the course of one of his numerous arguments with Walter Lowell. "When I see old Crane hanging around Bill Talpers's store, he looks to me jest like the cussed Comanche that rose right out of nowheres and scared me gray-headed when I was riding along all peaceful-like on the Picketwire. And that's the way it goes. Every Injun I see, big or little, resembles some redskin I had trouble with, back in early days. The only thing I can think of 'em doing is shaking buffalo robes and running off live stock—not raising steers to sell. I admit I'm behind the procession. I ain't ready yet to take my theology or my false teeth from an Injun preacher or dentist."
Lowell preferred Sheriff Tom's outspokenness to other forms of opposition and criticism which were harder to meet.
"Some day," he said to the sheriff, "you'll fall in line, but meantime if you can get rid of a pest like Bill Talpers for me, you'll do more for the Indians than they could get out of all the new leases that might be written."
"I've been working on Bill Talpers now for ten years and I ain't been able to git him to stick foot in a trap," was the sheriff's reply. "But I think he's getting to a point where he's all vain-like over the cunning he's shown, and he'll cash himself in, hoss and beaver, when he ain't expecting to."
When the sheriff arrived at the agency, with the warrant for Fire Bear in his pocket, he found a string of saddle and pack animals tied in front of the office, under charge of two of the best cowmen on the reservation, White Man Walks and Many Coups.
"I'll have your car put in with mine, Tom," said Lowell, who was dressed in cowpuncher attire, even to leatherchaparejos. "I know you're always prepared for riding. There's a saddle horse out there for you. We've some grub and a tent and plenty of bedding, as we may be out several days and find some rough going."
"I judge it ain't going to be any moonlight excursion on the Hudson, then, bringing in this Injun," observed Redmond.
Lowell motioned to the sheriff to step into the private office.
"Affairs are a little complicated," said the agent, closing the door. "Plenty Buffalo has turned up something that makes it look as if Jim McFann may know something about the murder."
"What's Plenty Buffalo found?"
"He discovered a track made by a broken shoe in that conglomeration of hoof marks at the scene of the murder."
"Why didn't he say so at the time?"
"Because he wasn't sure that it pointed to Jim McFann. But he'd been trailing McFann for bootlegging and was pretty sure Jim was riding a horse with a broken shoe. He got hold of an Indian we can trust—an Indian who stands pretty well with McFann—and had him hunt till he found Jim."
"Where was he?"
"McFann was hiding away up in the big hills. What made him light out there no one knows. That looked bad on the face of it. Then this Indian scout of ours, when he happened in on Jim's camp, found that McFann was riding a horse with a broken shoe."
"Looks as if we ought to bring in the half-breed, don't it?"
"Wait a minute. The broken shoe isn't all. Those pieces of rope that were used to tie that man to the stakes—they were cut from a rawhide lariat."
"And Jim McFann uses that kind?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where McFann is hanging out?"
"He may have moved camp, but we can find him."
The sheriff frowned. Matters were getting more complicated than he had thought possible. From the first he had entertained only one idea concerning the murder—that Fire Bear had done the work, or that some of the reckless spirits under the rebellious youth had slain in a moment of bravado.
"Well, it may be that McFann and Fire Bear's crowd had throwed in together and was all mixed up in the killing," remarked the sheriff. "A John Doe warrant ought to be enough to get everybody we want."
"We can get anybody that's wanted," said Lowell, "but you must remember one thing—you're dealing with people who are not used to legal procedure and who may resent wholesale arrests."
"You'll take plenty of Injun police along, I suppose."
"No—I'm not even going to take Plenty Buffalo. The whole police force and all the deputies you might be able to swear in in a week couldn't bring in Fire Bear if he gave the signal to the young fellows around him. We're going alone, except for those two Indians out there, who will just look after camp affairs for us."
"I dunno but you're right," observed Redmond after a pause, during which he keenly scrutinized the young agent's face. "Anyway, I ain't going to let it be said that you've got more nerve than I have. Let the lead hoss go where he chooses—I'll follow the bell."
"Another thing," said Lowell. "You're on an Indian reservation. These Indians have been looking to me for advice and other things in the last four years. If it comes to a point where decisive action has to be taken—"
"You're the one to take it," interrupted the sheriff. "From now on it's your funeral. I don't care what methods you use, so long as I git Fire Bear, and mebbe this half-breed, behind the bars for a hearing down at White Lodge."
The men walked out of the office, and the sheriff was given his mount. The Indians swung the pack-horses into line, and the men settled themselves in their saddles as they began the long, plodding journey to the blue hills in the heart of the reservation.
The lodges of Fire Bear and his followers were placed in a circle, in a grove somber enough for Druidical sacrifice. White cliffs stretched high above the camp, with pine-trees growing at all angles from the interstices of rock. At the foot of the cliffs, and on the green slope that stretched far below to the forest of lodgepole pines, stood many conical, tent-like formations of rock. They were even whiter than the canvas tepees which were grouped in front of them. At any time of the day these formations were uncanny. In time of morning or evening shadow the effect upon the imagination was intensified. The strange outcropping was repeated nowhere else. It jutted forth, white and mysterious—a monstrous tenting-ground left over from the Stone Age. As if to deepen the effect of the weird stage setting, Nature contrived that all the winds which blew here should blow mournfully. The lighter breezes stirred vague whisperings in the pine-trees. The heavy winds wrought weird noises which echoed from the cliffs.
Lowell had looked upon the Camp of the Stone Tepees once before. There had been a chase for a cattle thief. It was thought he had hidden somewhere in the vicinity of the white semicircle, but he had not been found there, because no man in fear of pursuit could dwell more than a night in so ghostly a place of solitude.
It had been late evening when Lowell had first seen the Camp of the Stone Tepees. He remembered the half-expectant way in which he had paused, thinking to see a white-clad priest emerge from one of the shadowy stone tents and place a human victim upon one of the sacrificial tablets in the open glade. It was early morning when Lowell looked on the scene a second time. He and the sheriff had made a daylight start, leaving the Indians to follow with the pack-horses. It was a long climb up the slopes, among the pines, from the plains below. The trail, for the greater part of the way, had followed a stream which was none too easy fording at the best, and which regularly rose several inches every afternoon owing to the daily melting of late snows in the mountain heights. It was necessary to cross and recross the stream many times. Occasionally the horses floundered over smooth rocks and were nearly carried away. All four men were wet to the waist. Redmond, with memories of countless wider and more treacherous fords crowding upon him, merely jested at each new buffeting in the stream. The Indians were concerned only lest some pack-animal should fall in midstream. Lowell, a good horseman and tireless mountaineer, counted physical discomfort as nothing when such vistas of delight were being opened up.
The giant horseshoe in the cliffs was in semi-darkness when they came in sight of it. Lowell was in the lead, and he turned his horse and motioned to the sheriff to remain hidden in the trees that skirted the glade. The voice of a solitary Indian was flung back and forth in the curve of the cliffs. His back was toward the white men. If he heard them, he made no sign. He was wrapped in a blanket, from shoulders to heels, and was in the midst of a long incantation, flung at the beetling walls with their foot fringe of stone tents. The tepees of the Indians were hardly distinguishable from those which Nature had pitched on this world-old camping-ground. No sound came from the tents of the Indians. Probably the "big medicine" of the Indian was being listened to, but those who heard made no sign.
"It's Fire Bear," said Lowell, as the voice went on and the echoes fluttered back from the cliffs.
"He's sure making big medicine," remarked the sheriff. "They've picked one grand place for a camp. By the Lord! it even sort of gave me the shivers when I first looked at it. What'll we do?"
"Wait till he gets through," cautioned Lowell. "They'd come buzzing out of those tents like hornets if we broke in now, in all probability."
The sheriff's face hardened.
"Jest the same, that sort of thing ought to be stopped—all of it," he said.
"Do you stop every fellow that mounts a soap box, or, what's more likely, stands up on a street corner in an automobile and makes a Socialist speech?"
"No—but that's different."
"Why is it? An Indian reservation is just like a little nation. It has its steady-goers, and it has its share of the shiftless, and also it has an occasional Socialist, and once in a while a rip-snorting Anarchist. Fire Bear doesn't know just what he is yet. He's made some pretty big medicine and made some prophecies that have come true and have gained him a lot of followers, but I can't see that it's up to me to stop him. Not that I have any cause to love that Indian over there in that blanket. He's been the cause of a lot of trouble. He's young and arrogant. In a big city he would be a gang-leader. The police and the courts would find him a problem—and he's just as much, or perhaps more, of a problem out here in the wilds than he would be in town."
The sheriff made no reply, but watched Fire Bear narrowly. Soon the Indian ended his incantations, and the tents of his followers began opening and blanketed figures came forth. Lowell and the sheriff stepped out into the glade and walked toward the camp. The Indians grouped themselves about Fire Bear. There was something of defiance in their attitude, but the white men walked on unconcernedly, and, without any preliminaries, Lowell told Fire Bear the object of their errand.
"You're suspected of murdering that white man on the Dollar Sign road," said Lowell. "You and these young fellows with you were around there. Now you're wanted, to go to White Lodge and tell the court just what you know about things."
Fire Bear was one of the best-educated of the younger generation of Indians. He had carried off honors at an Eastern school, both in his studies and athletics. But his haunts had been the traders' stores when he returned to the reservation. Then he became possessed of the idea that he was a medicine man. Fervor burned in his veins and fired his speech. The young fellows who had idled with him became his zealots. He began making prophecies which mysteriously worked out. He had prophesied a flood, and one came, sweeping away many lodges. When he and his followers were out of food, he had prophesied that plenty would come to them that day. It so happened that lightning that morning struck the trace chain on a load of wood that was being hauled down the mountain-side by a white leaser. The four oxen drawing the load were killed, and the white man gave the beef to the Indians, on condition that they would remove the hides for him. This had sent Fire Bear's stock soaring and had gained many recruits for his camp—even some of the older Indians joining.
Lowell had treated Fire Bear leniently—too leniently most of the white men near the reservation had considered. With the Indians' religious ceremonials had gone the usual dancing. An inspector from Washington had sent in a recommendation that the dancing be stopped at once. Lowell had received several broad hints, following the inspector's letter, but he was waiting an imperative order before stopping the dancing, because he knew that any high-handed interference just then would undo an incalculable amount of his painstaking work with the Indians. He had figured that he could work personally with Fire Bear after the young medicine man's first ardor in his new calling had somewhat cooled. Then had come the murder, with everything pointing to the implication of the young Indian, and with consequent action forced on the agent.
A threatening circle surrounded the white men in Fire Bear's camp.
"Why didn't you bring the Indian police to arrest me?" asked the young Indian leader.
"Because I thought you'd see things in their right light and come," said Lowell.
Fire Bear thought a moment.
"Well, because you did not bring the police, I will go with you," he said.
"You don't have to tell us anything that might be used against you," said the sheriff.
Fire Bear smiled bitterly.
"I've studied white man's law," he said.
Redmond rubbed his head in bewilderment. Such words, coming from a blanketed Indian, in such primitive surroundings, passed his comprehension. Yet Lowell thought, as he smiled at the sheriff's amazement, that it merely emphasized the queer jumble of old and new on every reservation.
"I'll ask you to wait for me out there in the trees," said Fire Bear.
Redmond hesitated, but the agent turned at once and walked away, and the sheriff finally followed. Fire Bear exhorted his followers a few moments, and then disappeared in his tent. Soon he came out, dressed in the "store clothes" of the ordinary Indian. He joined Redmond and the agent at the edge of the glade, and they made their way toward the creek, no one venturing to follow from the camp. At the bottom of the slope they found the Indian helpers with the horses.
"Fire Bear," said Lowell, as they paused before starting out, "there's one thing more I want of you. Help us to find Jim McFann. He's as deep or deeper in this thing than you are."
"I know he is," replied Fire Bear, "but it wasn't for me to say so. I'll help find him for you."
They had to fight to get Jim McFann. They found the half-breed cooking some bacon over a tiny fire, at the head of a gulch that was just made for human concealment. If it had not been for the good offices of Fire Bear on the trail, they might have hunted a week for their man. McFann had moved camp several times since Plenty Buffalo had located him. Each time he had covered his tracks with surpassing care.
Lowell, according to prearranged plan, had walked in upon McFann, with Redmond covering the half-breed, ready to shoot in case a weapon was drawn. But McFann merely made a headlong dive for Lowell's legs, and there was a rough-and-tumble fight about the camp-fire which was settled only when the agent managed to get a lock on his wiry opponent which pinned McFann's back to the ground.
"You wouldn't fight that hard if you thought you was being yanked up for a little bootlegging, Jim," mused Tom Redmond, pulling his long mustache. "You know what we've come after you for, don't you?"
McFann threshed about in another futile attempt to escape, and cursed his captors with gifts of expletive which came from two races.
"It's on account of that tenderfoot that was found on the Dollar Sign," growled Jim, "but Fire Bear and his gang can't tell any more on me than I can on them."
"That's the way to get at the truth," chuckled the sheriff triumphantly. "I guess by the time you fellers are through with each other we'll know who shot that man and staked him down."
On the day following the incarceration of Fire Bear and Jim McFann, Lowell rode over to the scene of the murder on the Dollar Sign road.
It seemed to the agent as if a fresh start from the very beginning would do more than anything else to put him on the trail of a solution of the mystery.
Lowell was not inclined to accept Redmond's comfortable theory that either Fire Bear or Jim McFann was guilty—or that both were equally deep in the crime. Nor did he assume that these men were not guilty. It was merely that there were some aspects of the case which did not seem to him entirely convincing. Circumstantial evidence pointed strongly to Fire Bear and the half-breed, and this evidence might prove all that was necessary to fasten the crime upon the prisoners. In fact Redmond was so confident that he prophesied a confession from one or both of the men before the time arrived for their hearing in court.
As Lowell approached Talpers's store, the trader came out and hailed him.
"I hear Redmond's arrested Fire Bear and Jim McFann," said Talpers.
"Yes."
"Well, as far as public opinion goes, I s'pose Tom has hit the nail on the head," observed Bill. "There's some talk right now about lynchin' the prisoners. Folks wouldn't talk that way unless the arrest was pretty popular."
"That's Tom Redmond's lookout. He will have to guard against a lynching."
Talpers stroked his beard and smiled reflectively. Evidently he had something on his mind. His attitude was that of a man concealing something of the greatest importance.
"There's one thing sure," went on Bill. "Jim McFann ain't any more guilty of a hand in that murder than if he wasn't within a thousand miles of the Dollar Sign when the thing happened."
"That will have to be proved in court."
"Well, as far as McFann's concerned I know Redmond's barkin' up the wrong tree."
"How do you know it?"
Talpers made a deprecating motion.
"Of course I don't know it absolutely. It's jest what I feel, from bein' as well acquainted with Jim as I am."
"Yes, you and Jim are tolerably close to each other—everybody knows that."
Talpers shot a suspicious glance at the agent, and then he reassumed his mysterious grin.
"Where you goin' now?" he asked.
"Just up on the hill."
"I've been back there a couple of times," sneered Bill, "but I couldn't find no notes dropped by the murderer."
"Well, there's just one thing that's plain enough now, Talpers," said Lowell grimly, as he released his brakes. "While Jim McFann is in jail a lot of Indians are going to be thirsty, and your receipts for whiskey are not going to be so big."
Talpers scowled angrily and stepped toward the agent. Lowell sat calmly in the car, watching him unconcernedly. Then Talpers suddenly turned and walked toward the store, and the agent started his motor and glided away.
Bill's ugly scowl did not fade as he stalked into his store. Lowell's last shot about the bootlegging had gone home. Talpers had had more opposition from Lowell than from any other Indian agent since the trader had established his store on the reservation line. In fact the young agent had made whiskey-dealing so dangerous that Talpers was getting worried. Lowell had brought the Indian police to a state of efficiency never before obtained. Bootlegging had become correspondingly difficult. Jim McFann had complained several times about being too close to capture. Now he was arrested on another charge, and, as Lowell had said, Talpers's most profitable line of business was certain to suffer. As Bill walked back to his store he wondered how much Lowell actually knew, and how much had been shrewd guesswork. The young agent had a certain inscrutable air about him, for all his youth, which was most disturbing.
Talpers had not dared come out too openly for McFann's release. He offered bail bonds, which were refused. He had managed to get a few minutes' talk with McFann, but Redmond insisted on being present, and all the trader could do was to assure the half-breed that everything possible would be done to secure his release.
Bill's disturbed condition of mind vanished only when he reached into his pocket and drew out the letter which indicated that the girl at Mystery Ranch knew something about the tragedy which was setting not only the county but the whole State aflame. Here was a trump card which might be played in several different ways. The thing to do was to hold it, and to keep his counsel until the right time came. He thanked the good fortune that had put him in possession of the postmastership—an office which few men were shrewd enough to use to their own good advantage! Any common postmaster, who couldn't use his brains, would have let that letter go right through, but that wasn't Bill Talpers's way! He read the letter over again, slowly, as he had done a dozen times before. Written in a pretty hand it was—handwriting befitting a dum fine-lookin' girl like that! Bill's features softened into something resembling a smile. He put the letter back in his pocket, and his expression was almost beatific as he turned to wait on an Indian woman who had come in search of a new shawl.
Talpers's attitude, which had been at once cynical and mysterious, was the cause of some speculation on Lowell's part as the agent drove away from the trader's store. Something had happened to put so much of triumph in Talpers's face and speech, but Lowell was not able to figure out just what that something could be. He resolved to keep a closer eye than customary on the doings of the trader, but soon all thoughts of everything save those concerned directly with the murder were banished from his mind when he reached the scene of the tragedy.
Getting out of his automobile, Lowell went over the ground carefully. The grass and even some of the sage had been trampled down by the curious crowds that had flocked to the scene. An hour's careful search revealed nothing, and Lowell walked back to his car, shaking his head. Apparently the surroundings were more inscrutable than ever. The rolling hills were beginning to lose their green tint, under a hot sun, unrelieved by rain. The last rain of the season had fallen a day or so before the murder. Lowell remembered the little pools he had splashed through on the road, and the scattered "wallows" of mud that had remained on the prairie. Such places were now all dry and caked. A few meadow-larks were still singing, but even their notes would be silenced in the long, hot days that were to come. But the distant mountains, and the little stream in the bottom of the valley, looked cool and inviting. Ordinarily Lowell would have turned his machine toward the line of willows and tried an hour or so of fly-fishing, as there were plenty of trout in the stream, but to-day he kept on along the road over which he had taken Helen Ervin to her stepfather's ranch.
As Lowell drove up in front of Willis Morgan's ranch-house, he noticed a change for the better in the appearance of the place. Wong had been doing some work on the fence, but had discreetly vanished when Lowell came in sight. The yard had been cleared of rubbish and a thick growth of weeds had been cut down.
Lowell marveled that a Chinese should be doing such work as repairing a fence, and wondered if the girl had wrought all the changes about the place or if it had been done under Morgan's direction.
As if in answer, Helen Ervin came into the yard with a rake in her hand. She gave a little cry of pleasure at seeing Lowell.
"I'd have been over before, as I promised," said Lowell, "and in fact I had actually started when I had to make a long trip to a distant part of the reservation."
"I suppose it was in connection with this murder," she said.
"Yes."
"Tell me about it. What bearing did your trip have on it?"
Lowell was surprised at the intensity of her question.
"Well, you see," he said, "I had to bring in a couple of men who are suspected of committing the crime. But, frankly, I thought that in this quiet place you had not so much as heard of the murder."
The girl smiled, but there was no mirth in her eyes.
"Of course it isn't as if one had newsboys shouting at the door," she replied, "but we couldn't escape hearing of it, even here. Tell me, who are these men you have arrested?"
"An Indian and a half-breed. Their tracks were found at the scene of the murder."
"But that evidence is so slight! Surely they cannot—they may not be guilty."
"If not, they will have to clear themselves at the trial."
"Will they—will they be hanged if found guilty?"
"They may be lynched before the trial. There is talk of it now."
Helen made a despairing gesture.
"Don't let anything of that sort happen!" she cried. "Use all your influence. Get the men out of the country if you can. But don't let innocent men be slain."
Lowell attempted to divert her mind to other things. He spoke of the changed appearance of the ranch.
"Your coming has made a great difference here," he said. "This doesn't look like the place where I left you not many days ago."
Helen closed her eyes involuntarily, as if to blot out some vision in her memory.
"That terrible night!" she exclaimed. "I—"
She paused, and Lowell looked at her in surprise and alarm.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is there anything wrong—anything I can do to help you?"
"No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only the recollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly."
"Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treating you all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputation around here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I brought you over here. But you know how people feel about minding their own affairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feel that we should speak."
"No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesickness for my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But I can't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to this place. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate—and dead! And then those few days that followed!"
She buried her face in her hands a moment, and then said, quietly:
"Did you know that my stepfather had married an Indian woman?"
"Yes. Do you mean that you didn't know?"
"No, I didn't know."
"What a fool I was for not telling you these things!" exclaimed Lowell. "I might have saved you a lot of humiliation."
"You could have saved me more than humiliation. He told me all about her—the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was going to kill me as he had killed her—by inches."
Lowell grew cold with horror.
"But this is criminal!" he declared. "Let me take you away from this place at once. I'll find some place where you can go—back to my mother's home in the East."
"No, it's all right now. I'm in no danger, and I can't leave this place. In fact I don't want to," said the girl, putting her hand on Lowell's arm.
"Do you mean to tell me that he treated you so fiendishly during the first few days, and then suddenly changed and became the most considerate of relatives?"
"I tell you I am being treated all right now. I merely told you what happened at first—part of the cruel things he said—because I couldn't keep it all to myself any longer. Besides, that Indian woman—poor little thing!—is on my mind all the time."
"Then you won't come away?"
"No—he needs me."
"Well, this beats anything I ever heard of—" began Lowell. Then he stopped after a glance at her face. She was deathly pale. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her hands trembled. It seemed to him that the school-girl he had brought to the ranch a few days before had become a woman through some great mental trial.
"Come and see, or hear, for yourself," said Helen.
Wonderingly, Lowell stepped into the ranch-house kitchen. Helen pointed to the living-room.
Through the partly open door, Lowell caught a glimpse of an aristocratic face, surmounted by gray hair. A white hand drummed on the arm of a library chair which contained pillows and blankets. From the room there came a voice that brought to Lowell a sharp and disagreeable memory of the cutting voice he had heard in false welcome to Helen Ervin a few days before. Only now there was querulous insistence in the voice—the insistence of the sick person who calls upon some one who has proved unfailing in the performance of the tasks of the sick-room.
Helen stepped inside the room and closed the door. Lowell heard her talking soothingly to the sick man, and then she came out.
"You have seen for yourself," she said.
Lowell nodded, and they stepped out into the yard once more.
"I'll leave matters to your own judgment," said Lowell, "only I'm asking two things of you. One is to let me know if things go wrong, and the other isn't quite so important, but it will please me a lot. It's just to go riding with me right now."
Helen smilingly assented. Once more she was the girl he had brought over from the agency. She ran indoors and spoke a few words to Wong, and came out putting on her hat.
They drove for miles toward the heart of the Indian reservation. The road had changed to narrow, parallel ribbons, with grass between. Cattle, some of which belonged to the Indians and some to white leasers, were grazing in the distance. Occasionally they could see an Indian habitation—generally a log cabin, with its ugliness emphasized by the grace of a flanking tepee. Everything relating to human affairs seemed dwarfed in such immensity. The voices of Indian herdsmen, calling to each other, were reduced to faint murmurs. The very sound of the motor seemed blanketed.
Lowell and the girl traveled for miles in silence. He shrewdly suspected that the infinite peace of the landscape would prove the best tonic for her overwrought mind. His theory proved correct. The girl leaned back in the seat, and, taking off her hat, enjoyed to the utmost the rush of the breeze and the swift changes in the great panorama.
"It isn't any wonder that the Indians fought hard for this country, is it?" asked Lowell. "It's all too big for one's comprehension at first, especially when you've come from brick walls and mere strips of sky, but after you've become used to it you can never forget it."
"I'd like to keep right on going to those blue mountains," said the girl. "It's wonderful, but a bit appalling, to a tenderfoot such as I am. I think we'd better go back."
Lowell drove in a circuitous route instead of taking the back trail. Just after they had swung once more into the road near the ranch, they met a horseman who proved to be Bill Talpers. The trader reined his horse to the side of the road and motioned to Lowell to stop. Bill's grin was bestowed upon the girl, who uttered a little exclamation of dismay when she established the identity of the horseman.
"I jest wanted to ask if you found anything up there," said Bill, jerking his thumb toward the road over which he had just ridden. It was quite plain that Talpers had been drinking.
"Maybe I did, and maybe not, Bill," answered Lowell disgustedly. "Anyway, what about it?"
"Jest this," observed Bill, talking to Lowell, but keeping his gaze upon Helen. "Sometimes you can find letters where you don't expect the guilty parties to leave 'em. Mebbe you ain't lookin' in the right place for evidence. How-de-do, Miss Ervin? I'm goin' to drop in at the ranch and see you and your stepfather some day. I ain't been very neighborly so far, but it's because business has prevented."
Lowell started the car, and as they darted away he looked in astonishment at the girl. Her pallor showed that once more she was under great mental strain. It came to Lowell in a flash that Bill's arrogance sprang from something deeper than mere conceit or drunkenness. Undoubtedly he had set out deliberately to terrorize the girl, and had succeeded. Lowell waited for some remark from Helen, but none came. He kept back the questions that were on the tip of his tongue. Aside from a few banalities, they exchanged no words until Lowell helped her from the car at the ranch.
"I want to tell you," said Lowell, "that I appreciate such confidence as you have reposed in me. I won't urge you to tell more but I'm going to be around in the offing, and, if things don't go right, and especially if Bill Talpers—"
There was so much terror in the girl's eyes that Lowell's assurances came to a lame ending. She turned and ran into the house, after a fluttering word of thanks for the ride, and Lowell, more puzzled than ever, drove thoughtfully away.
White Lodge was a town founded on excitement. Counting its numerous shootings and consequent lynchings, and proportioning them to its population, White Lodge had experienced more thrills than the largest of Eastern cities. Some ribald verse-writer, seizing upon White Lodge's weakness as a theme, had once written: