Bill Talpers's return to sobriety was considerably hastened by alarm after the trader's words with Lowell. As long as matters were even between Bill Talpers and the girl, the trader figured that he could at least afford to let things rest. The letter in his possession was still a potent weapon. He could at least prevent the girl from telling what she seemed to know of the trader's connection with the murder. He had figured that the letter would be the means of bringing him a most engaging bride. It would have done so if he had not been such a fool as to drink too much. Talpers usually was a canny drinker, but when a man goes asking—or, in this case, demanding—a girl's hand in marriage, it is not to be wondered at if he oversteps the limit a trifle in the matter of fortifying himself with liquor. But in this case Bill realized that he had gone beyond all reasonable bounds. That fall had been disastrous in every way. She was clever and quick, that girl, or she never would have been able to turn an incident like that to such good advantage. Most girls would have sniveled in a corner, thought Bill, until he had regained his senses, but she started right in to look for that letter. He had been smart enough to leave the letter in the safe at the store, but she had found plenty in that watch!
Another thought buzzed disturbingly in Bill's head. How did she know just how much money had been taken from Sargent's body? Also, how did she know that the watch was Sargent's, seeing that it had no marks of identification on it? If there had been so much as a scratch on the thing, Talpers never would have worn it. She might have been making a wild guess about the watch, but she certainly was not guessing about the money. Her certainty in mentioning the amount had given Bill a chill of terror from which he was slow in recovering. Another thing that was causing him real agony of spirit was the prominence of Lowell in affairs at the Greek Letter Ranch. It would be easy enough to hold the girl in check with that letter. She would never dare tell the authorities how much she knew about Talpers, as Bill could drag her into the case by producing his precious documentary evidence. But the agent—how much was he learning in the course of his persistent searching, and from what angle was he going to strike? Would the girl provide him with information which she might not dare give to others? Women were all weaklings, thought Bill, unable to keep any sort of a secret from a sympathetic male ear, especially when that ear belonged to as handsome a young fellow as the Indian agent! Probably she would be telling the agent everything on his next trip to the ranch. Bill had been watching, but he had not seen the young upstart from the agency go past, and neither had Bill's faithful clerk. But the visit might be made any day, and Talpers's connection with the tragedy on the Dollar Sign road might at almost any hour be falling into the possession of Lowell, whose activity in running down bootleggers had long ago earned him Bill's hatred.
Something would have to be done, without delay, to get the girl where she would not be making a confidant of Lowell or any one else. Scowlingly Bill thought over one plan after another, and rejected each as impractical. Finally, by a process of elimination, he settled on the only course that seemed practical. A broad fist, thudding into a leather-like palm, indicated that the Talpers mind had been made up. With his dark features expressing grim resolve, Bill threw a burden of considerable size on his best pack-animal. This operation he conducted alone in the barn, rejecting his clerk's proffer of assistance. Then he saddled another horse, and, without telling his clerk anything concerning his prospective whereabouts or the length of his trip, started off across the prairie. He often made such excursions, and his clerk had learned not to ask questions. Diplomacy in such matters was partly what the clerk was paid for. A good fellow to work for was Bill Talpers if no one got too curiously inclined. One or two clerks had been disciplined on account of inquisitiveness, and they would not be as beautiful after the Talpers methods had been applied, but they had gained vastly in experience. Some day he would do even more for this young Indian agent. Bill's cracked lips were stretched in a grin of satisfaction at the very thought.
The trader traveled swiftly toward the reservation. He often boasted that he got every ounce that was available in horseflesh. Traveling with a pack-horse was little handicap to him. Horses instinctively feared him. More than one he had driven to death without so much as touching the straining animal with whip or spur. Nothing gave Bill such acute satisfaction as the knowledge that he had roused fear in any creature.
With the sweating pack-animal close at the heels of his saddle pony, Talpers rode for hours across the plains. Seemingly he paid no attention to the changes in the landscape, yet his keen eyes, buried deeply beneath black brows, took in everything. He saw the cloud masses come tumbling over the mountains, but, like Lowell, he knew that the drought was not yet to be ended. The country became more broken, and the grade so pronounced that the horses were compelled to slacken their pace. The pleasant green hills gave place to imprisoning mesas, with red sides that looked like battlements. Beyond these lay the foothills—so close that they covered the final slopes of the mountains.
It was a lonely country, innocent of fences. The cattle that ran here were as wild as deer and almost as fleet as antelope. Twice a year the Indians rounded up their range possessions, but many of these cattle had escaped the far-flung circles of riders. They had become renegades and had grown old and clever. At the sight of a human being they would gallop away in the sage and greasewood.
Once Talpers saw the gleam of a wagon-top which indicated the presence of a wolf hunter in the employ of the leasers who were running cattle on the reservations and who suffered much from the depredations of predatory animals. By working carefully around a hill, the trader continued on his way without having been seen.
Passing the flanking line of mesas, Bill pushed his way up a watercourse between two foothills. The going became rougher, and all semblance of a trail was lost, yet the trader went on unhesitatingly. The slopes leading to the creek became steeper and were covered with pine and quaking aspen, instead of the bushy growths of the plains. The stream foamed over rocks, and its noise drowned the sound of the horses' hoofs as the animals scrambled over the occasional stretches of loose shale. With the dexterity of the born trailsman, Talpers wormed his way along the stream when it seemed as if further progress would be impossible. In a tiny glade, with the mountain walls rising precipitously for hundreds of feet, Talpers halted and gave three shrill whistles. An answer came from the other end of the glade, and in a few minutes Talpers was removing pack and saddle in Jim McFann's camp.
Since his escape from jail the half-breed had been hiding in this mountain fastness. Talpers had supplied him with "grub" and weapons. He had moved camp once in a while for safety's sake, but had felt little fear of capture. As a trailer McFann had few equals, and he knew every swale in the prairie and every nook in the mountains on the reservation.
Talpers brought out a bottle, which McFann seized eagerly.
"There's plenty more in the pack," said the trader, "so drink all you want. Don't offer me none, as I am kind o' taperin' off."
"Did you see any Indian police on the way?" asked the half-breed.
"No—nothin' but Wolfer Joe's wagon, 'way off in the hills. I guess the police ain't lookin' for you very hard. That ain't the fault of the agent, though," added Talpers meaningly. "He's promised he'll have you back in Tom Redmond's hands in less'n a week."
The half-breed scowled and muttered an oath as he took another drink. Talpers had told the lie in order to rouse McFann's antagonism toward Lowell, and he was pleased to see that his statement had been accepted at face value.
"But that ain't the worst for you, nor for me either," went on the trader. "That girl at the Greek Letter Ranch knows that you and me took the watch from the man on the Dollar Sign road."
"How did she know that?" exclaimed McFann in amazement.
"That's somethin' she won't tell, but she knows that you and me was there, and that the story you told in court ain't straight. I'm satisfied she ain't told any one else—not yet."
"Do you think she will tell any one?"
"I'm sure of it. You see, she sorter sprung this thing on me when I was havin' a little argyment about her marryin' me. She got spiteful and come at me with the statement that the watch I was wearin' belonged to that feller Sargent."
Bill did not add anything about the money. It was not going to do to let the half-breed know he had been defrauded.
McFann squatted by the fire, the bottle in his hand and his gaze on Talpers's face.
"She mentioned both of us bein' there," went on the trader. "She give the details in a way that I'll admit took me off my feet. It's an awkward matter—in fact, it's a hangin' matter—for both of us, if she tells. You know how clost they was to lynchin' you, over there at White Lodge, with nothin' so very strong against you. If that gang ever hears about us and this watch of Sargent's, we'll be hung on the same tree."
Talpers played heavily on the lynching, because he knew the fear of the mob had become an obsession with McFann. He noticed the half-breed's growing uneasiness, and played his big card.
"I spent a long time thinkin' the hull thing over," said Talpers, "and I've come to the conclusion that this girl is sure to tell the Indian agent all she knows, and the best thing for us to do is to get her out of the way before she puts the noose around our necks."
"Why will she tell the Indian agent?"
"Because he's callin' pretty steady at the ranch, and he's made her think he's the only friend she's got around here. And as soon as he finds out, we might as well pick out our own rope neckties, Jim. It's goin' to take quick action to save us, but you're the one to do it."
"What do you want me to do?" asked McFann suspiciously.
"Well, you're the best trailer and as good a shot as there is in this part of the country. All that's necessary is for you to drop around the ranch and—well, sort of make that girl disappear."
"How do you mean?"
Talpers rose and came closer to McFann.
"I mean kill her!" he said with an oath. "Nothin' else is goin' to do. You can do it without leavin' a track. Willis Morgan or that Chinaman never'll see you around. Nobody else but the agent ever stops at the Greek Letter Ranch. It's the only safe way. If she ever tells, Jim, you'll never come to trial. You'll be swingin' back and forth somewheres to the music of the prairie breeze. You know the only kind of fruit that grows on these cotton woods out here."
Jim McFann had always been pliable in Talpers's hands. Talpers had profited most by the bootlegging operations carried on by the pair, though Jim had done most of the dangerous work. Whenever Jim needed supplies, the trader furnished them. To be sure, he charged them off heavily, so there was little cash left from the half-breed's bootlegging operations. Talpers shrewdly figured that the less cash he gave Jim, the more surely he could keep his hold on the half-breed. McFann had grown used to his servitude. Talpers appeared to him in the guise of the only friend he possessed among white and red.
Jim rose slowly to his moccasined feet.
"I guess you're right, Bill," he said. "I'll do what you say."
The trader's eyes glowed with satisfaction. The desire for revenge had come uppermost in his heart. The girl at the ranch had outwitted him in some way which he could not understand. Twenty-four hours ago he had confidently figured on numbering her among the choicest chattels in the possession of William Talpers. But now he regarded her with a hatred born of fear. The thought of what she could do to him, merely by speaking a few careless words about that watch and money, drove all other thoughts from Talpers's mind. Jim McFann could be made a deadly and certain instrument for insuring the safety of the Talpers skin. One shot from the half-breed's rifle, either through a cabin window or from some sagebrush covert near the ranch, and the trader need have no further fears about being connected with the Dollar Sign murder.
"I thought you'd see it in the right light, Jim," approved Talpers. "It won't be any trick at all to get her. She rides out a good deal on that white horse."
Jim McFann did not answer. He had begun preparations for his trip. Swiftly and silently the half-breed saddled his horse, which had been hidden in a near-by thicket. From the supply of liquor in Talpers's pack, Jim took a bottle, which he was thrusting into his saddle pocket when the trader snatched it away.
"You've had enough, Jim," growled Talpers. "You do the work that's cut out for you, and you can have all I've brought to camp. I'll be here waitin' for you."
McFann scowled.
"All right," he said sullenly, "but it seems as if a man ought to have lots for a job like this."
"After it's all done," said Talpers soothingly, "you can have all the booze you want, Jim. And one thing more," called the trader as McFann rode away, "remember it ain't goin' to hurt either of us if you get a chance to put the Indian agent away on this same little trip."
Jim McFann waved an assenting sign as he disappeared in the trees, and the trader went back to the camp-fire to await the half-breed's return. He hoped McFann would find the agent at the Greek Letter Ranch and would kill Lowell as well as the girl. But, if there did not happen to be any such double stroke of luck in prospect, the removal of the Indian agent could be attended to later on.
When he reached the mesas beyond the foothills, the half-breed turned away from the stream and struck off toward the left. He kept a sharp lookout for Indian police as he traveled, but saw nothing to cause apprehension. Night was fast coming on when he reached the ridge on which Lowell and Helen had stood a few hours before. Avoiding the road, the half-breed made his way to a gulch near the ranch, where he tied his horse. Cautiously he approached the ranch-house. The kitchen door was open and Wong was busy with the dishes. The other doors were shut and shades were drawn in the windows. Making his way back to the gulch, the half-breed rolled up in his blanket and slept till daybreak, when he took up a vantage-point near the house and waited developments. Shortly after breakfast Wong came out to the barn and saddled the white horse for Helen. The half-breed noticed with satisfaction that the girl rode directly toward the reservation instead of following the road that led to the agency. Hastily securing his horse the half-breed skirted the ranch and located the girl's trail on the prairie. Instead of following it he ensconced himself comfortably in some aspens at the bottom of a draw, confident that the girl would return by the same trail.
If McFann had continued on Helen's trail he would have followed her to an Indian ranch not far away. A tattered tepee or two snuggled against a dilapidated cabin. The owner of the ranch was struggling with tuberculosis. His wife was trying to run the place and to bring up several children, whose condition had aroused the mother instinct in Helen. Though she had found her first efforts regarded with suspicion, Helen had persisted, until she had won the confidence of mother and children. Her visits were frequent, and she had helped the family so materially that she had astonished the field matron, an energetic woman who covered enormous distances in the saddle in the fulfillment of duties which would soon wear out a settlement worker.
The half-breed smoked uneasily, his rifle across his knees. Two hours passed, but he did not stir, so confident was he that Helen would return by the way she had followed in departing from the ranch.
McFann's patience was rewarded, and he tossed away his cigarette with a sigh of satisfaction when Helen's voice came to him from the top of the hill. She was singing a nonsense song from the nursery, and, astride behind her saddle and clinging to her waist, was a wide-eyed Indian girl of six years, enjoying both the ride and the singing.
Here was a complication upon which the half-breed had not counted. In fact, during his hours of waiting Jim had begun to look at matters in a different light. It was necessary to get Helen away, where she could not possibly tell what she knew, but why not hide her in the mountains? Or, if stronger methods were necessary, let Talpers attend to them himself? For the first time since he had come under Talpers's domination, Jim McFann was beginning to weaken. As the girl came singing down the hillside, Jim peered uneasily through the bushes. Talpers had shoved him into a job that simply could not be carried out—at least not without whiskey. If Bill had let him bring all he wanted to drink, perhaps things could have been done as planned.
Whatever was done would have to be accomplished quickly, as the white horse, with its double burden, was getting close. Jim sighted once or twice along his rifle barrel. Then he dropped the weapon into the hollow of his arm, and, leading his horse, stepped in front of Helen.
The parley was brief. McFann sent the youngster scurrying along the back trail, after a few threats in Indian tongue, which were dire enough to seal the child's lips in fright. Helen was startled at first when the half-breed halted her, but her composure soon returned. She had no weapon, nor would she have attempted to use one in any event, as she knew the half-breed was famous for his quickness and cleverness with firearms. Nor could anything be gained by attempting to ride him down in the trail. She did not ask any questions, for she felt they would be futile.
The half-breed was surprised at the calmness with which matters were being taken. With singular ease and grace—another gift from his Indian forbears—Jim slid into his saddle, and, seizing the white horse by the bridle, turned the animal around and started it up the trail beside him. In a few minutes Jim had found his trail of the evening before, and was working swiftly back toward the mountains. When Helen slyly dropped her handkerchief, as an aid to any one who might follow, the half-breed quietly turned back and, after picking it up, informed her that he would kill her if she tried any more such tricks. Realizing the folly of any further attempts to outwit the half-breed, Helen rode silently on. Not once did McFann strike across a ridge. Imprisoning slopes seemed to be shutting them in without surcease, and Helen looked in vain for any aid.
As they approached the foothills, and the travel increased in difficulty, McFann told Helen to ride close behind him. He glanced around occasionally to see that she was obeying orders. The old white horse struggled gamely after the half-breed's wiry animal, and McFann was compelled to wait only once or twice. Meanwhile Helen had thought over the situation from every possible angle, and had concluded to go ahead and not make any effort to thwart the half-breed. She knew that the reservation was more free from crime than the counties surrounding it. She also knew that it would not be long before the agent was informed of her disappearance, and that the Indian police—trailers who were the half-breed's equal in threading the ways of the wilderness—would soon be on McFann's tracks. After her first shock of surprise she had little fear of McFann. The thought that disturbed her most of all was—Talpers. She knew of the strange partnership of the men. Likewise she felt that McFann would not have embarked upon any such crime alone. The thought of Talpers recurred so steadily that the lithe figure of the half-breed in front of her seemed to change into the broad, almost misshapen form of the trader.
The first real fear that had come to her since the strange journey began surged over Helen when McFann led the way into the glade where he had been camped, and she saw a dreaded and familiar figure stooped over a small fire, engaged in frying bacon. But there was nothing of triumph in Talpers's face as he straightened up and saw Helen. Amazement flitted across the trader's features, succeeded by consternation.
"Now you've done it and done it right!" exclaimed the trader, with a shower of oaths directed at Jim McFann. "Didn't have the nerve to shoot at a purty face like that, did you? Git her into that tent while you and me set down and figger out what we're goin' to do!"
The half-breed helped Helen dismount and told her to go to his tent, a small, pyramid affair at one end of the glade. Jim fastened the flaps on the outside and went back to the camp-fire, where Talpers was storming up and down like a madman. Helen, seated on McFann's blanket roll, heard their voices rising and falling, the half-breed apparently defending himself and Talpers growing louder and more accusative. Finally, when the trader's rage seemed to have spent itself somewhat, the tent flaps were opened and Jim McFann thrust some food into Helen's hands. She ate the bacon and biscuits, as the long ride had made her hungry. Then Talpers roughly ordered her out of the tent. He and the half-breed had been busy packing and saddling. They added the tent and its contents to their packs. Telling Helen to mount the white horse once more, Talpers took the lead, and, with the silent and sullen half-breed bringing up the rear, the party started off along a trail much rougher than the one that had been followed by McFann and the girl in the morning.
It was fortunate that Helen had accustomed herself to long rides, as otherwise she could not have undergone the experiences of the next few hours in the saddle. All semblance of a trail seemed to end a mile or so beyond the camp. The ride became a succession of scrambles across treacherous slides of shale, succeeded by plunges into apparently impenetrable walls of underbrush and low-hanging trees. The general course of the river was followed. At times they had climbed to such a height that the stream was merely a white line beneath them, and its voice could not be heard. Then they would descend and cross and recross the stream. The wild plunges across the torrent became matters of torture to Helen. The horses slipped on the boulders. Water dashed over the girl's knees, and each ford became more difficult, as the stream became more swollen, owing to the melting of near-by snowbanks. One of the pack-horses fell and lay helplessly in the stream until it was fairly dragged to its feet. The men cursed volubly as they worked over the animal and readjusted the wet pack, which had slipped to one side.
After an hour or two of travel the half-breed took Talpers's place in the lead, the trader bringing up the rear behind Helen and the pack-horses. Two bald mountain-peaks began to loom startlingly near. The stream ran between the peaks, being fed by the snows on either slope. As the altitude became more pronounced the horses struggled harder at their work. The white horse was showing the stamina that was in him. Helen urged him to his task, knowing the folly of attempting to thwart the wishes of her captors. They passed a slope where a forest fire had swept in years gone by. Wild raspberry bushes had grown in profusion among the black, sentinel-like trunks of dead trees. The bushes tore her riding-suit and scratched her hands, but she uttered no complaint.
Under any other circumstances Helen would have found much in the ride to overcome its discomforts. The majesty of the scenery impressed itself upon her mind, troubled as she was. Silence wrapped the two great peaks like a mantle. An eagle swung lazily in midair between the granite spires. Here was another plane of existence where the machinations of men seemed to matter little. Almost indifferent to her discomforts Helen struggled on, mechanically keeping her place in line. The half-breed looked back occasionally, and even went so far as to take her horse by the bridle and help the animal up an unusually hard slope.
When it became apparent that further progress was an impossibility unless the pack-horses were abandoned, the half-breed turned aside, and, after a final desperate scramble up the mountain-side, the party entered a fairly open, level glade. Helen dismounted with the others.
"We're goin' to camp here for a while," announced Talpers, after a short whispered conference with the half-breed. "You might as well make yourself as comfortable as you can, but remember one thing—you'll be shot if you try to get away or if you make any signals."
Helen leaned back against a tree-trunk, too weary to make answer, and Talpers went to the assistance of McFann, who was taking off the packs and saddles. The horses were staked out near at hand, where they could get their fill of the luxuriant grass that carpeted the mountain-side here. McFann brought water from a spring near at hand, and the trader set out some food from one of the packs, though it was decided not to build a fire to cook anything. Helen ate biscuits and bacon left from the previous meal. While she was eating, McFann put up the little tent. Then, after another conference with Talpers, the half-breed climbed a rock which jutted out of the shoulder of the mountain not far from them. His lithe figure was silhouetted against the reddening sky. Helen wondered, as she looked up at him, if the rock had been used for sentinel purposes in years gone by. Her reflections were broken in upon by Talpers.
"That tent is yours," said the trader, in a low voice. "But before you turn in I've got a few words to say to you. You haven't seemed to be as much afraid of me on this trip as you was the other night at your cabin."
"There's no reason why I should be," said Helen quietly. "You don't dare harm me for several reasons."
"What are they?" sneered Talpers.
"Well, one reason is—Jim McFann. All I have to do to cause your partnership to dissolve at once is to tell Jim that you found that money on the man who was murdered and didn't divide."
Talpers winced.
"Furthermore, this business has practically made an outlaw of you. It all depends on your treatment of me. I'm the collateral that may get you back into the good graces of society."
Talpers wiped the sweat beads off his forehead.
"You don't want to be too sure of yourself," he growled, though with so much lack of assurance that Helen was secretly delighted. "You want to remember," went on the trader threateningly, "that any time we want to put a bullet in you, we can make our getaway easy enough. The only thing for you to do is to keep quiet and see that you mind orders."
Talpers ended the interview hastily when McFann came down from the rock. The men talked together, after shutting Helen in the tent and reiterating that she would be watched and that the first attempt to escape would be fatal. Helen flung herself down on the blankets and watched the fading lights of evening as they were reflected on the canvas. She could hear the low voices of Talpers and McFann, hardly distinguishable from the slight noises made by the wind in the trees. The moon cast the shadows of branches on the canvas, and the noise of the stream, far below, came fitfully to Helen's ears. She was more at ease in mind than at any other time since Jim McFann had confronted her with his rifle over his arm. She felt that Talpers was the moving spirit in her kidnaping. She did not know how near her knowledge of the trader's implication in the Dollar Sign tragedy had brought her to death. Nor did she know that Talpers's rage over Jim McFann's weakening had been so great that the trader had nearly snatched up his rifle and shot his partner dead when the half-breed brought Helen into camp.
As a matter of fact, when Talpers had realized that Jim McFann had failed in his mission of assassination, the trader had been consumed with alternate rage and fear. A kidnaping had been the last thing in the world in the trader's thoughts. Assassination, with some one else doing the work, was much the better way. Running off with womenfolk could not be made a profitable affair, but here was the girl thrown into his hands by fate. It would not do to let her go. Perhaps a way out of the mess could be thought over. McFann could be made to bear the brunt in some way. Meantime the best thing to do was to get as far into the hills as possible. McFann could outwit the Indian police. He had been doing it right along. He had fooled them during long months of bootlegging. Since his escape from jail the police had redoubled their efforts to capture McFann, but he had gone right on fooling them. If worst came to worst, McFann and he could make their getaway alone, first putting the girl where she would never tell what she knew about them. Across the mountains there was a little colony of law-breakers that had long been after Talpers as a leader. He had helped them in a good many ways, these outlaws, particularly in rustling cattle from the reservation herds. It was Bill Talpers who had evolved the neat little plan of changing the ID brand of the Interior Department to the "two-pole pumpkin" brand, which was done merely by extending another semicircle to the left of the "I" and connecting that letter and the "D" at top and bottom, thus making two perpendicular lines in a flattened circle.
The returns from his interest in the gang's rustling operations had been far more than Bill had ever secured from his store. In fact, storekeeping was played out. Bill never would have kept it up except for the opportunity it gave him to find out what was going on. To be sure, he should have played safe and kept away from such things as that affair on the Dollar Sign road. But he could have come clear even there if it had not been for the uncanny knowledge possessed by that girl. The thought of what would happen if she took a notion to tell McFann how he had been "double-crossed" by his partner gave Talpers something approaching a chill. The half-breed was docile enough as long as he thought he was being fairly dealt with. But once let him find out that he had been unfairly treated, all the Indian in him would come to the surface with a rush! Fortunately the girl was proving herself to be close-mouthed. She had traveled for hours with the half-breed without telling him of Talpers's perfidy. Now Bill would see to it that she got no chance to talk with McFann. The half-breed was too tender-hearted where women were concerned. That much had been proved when he had fallen down in the matter of the work he had been sent out to do. If she had a chance the girl might even persuade him to let her escape, which was not going to do at all. If anybody was to be left holding the sack at the end of the adventure, it would not be Bill Talpers!
With various stratagems being brought to mind, only to be rejected one after another, Talpers watched the tent until midnight, the half-breed sleeping near at hand. Then Bill turned in while McFann kept watch. As for Helen, she slept the sleep of exhaustion until wakened by the touch of daylight on the canvas.
With senses preternaturally sharpened, as they generally are during one's first hours in the wilderness, Helen listened. She heard Talpers stirring about among the horses. It was evident that he was alarmed about something, as he was pulling the picket-pins and bringing the animals closer to the center of the glade. McFann had been looking down the valley from the sentinel rock. She did not hear him come into camp, as the half-breed always moved silently through underbrush that would betray the presence of any one less skilled in woodcraft. She heard his monosyllabic answers to Talpers's questions. Then Bill himself pushed his way through the underbrush and climbed the rock. When he returned to the camp he came to the tent.
"I don't mind tellin' you that Plenty Buffalo is out there on the trail, with an Injun policeman or two. That young agent don't seem to have had nerve enough to come along," said Talpers, producing a small rope. "I'll have to tie your hands awhile, just to make sure you don't try gittin' away. I'm goin' to tell 'em that at the first sign of rushin' the camp you're goin' to be shot. What's more I'm goin' to mean what I tell 'em."
Talpers tied Helen's hands behind her. He left the flaps of the tent open as he picked up his rifle and returned to McFann, who was sitting on a log, composedly enough, keeping watch of the other end of the glade where the trail entered. Helen sank to her knees, with her back to the rear of the tent, so she could command a better view. The tent had been staked down securely around the edges, so there was no opportunity for her to crawl under.
Apparently the two men in the glade, as Helen saw them through the inverted V of the open tent flaps, were most peacefully inclined. They sat smoking and talking, and, from all outward appearances, might have been two hunters talking over the day's prospects. Suddenly they sprang to their feet, and, with rifles in readiness, looked toward the trail, which was hidden from Helen's vision.
"Don't come any nearer, Plenty Buffalo," called Talpers, in Indian language. "If you try to rush the camp, the first thing we'll do is to kill this girl. The only thing for you to do is to go back."
Then followed a short colloquy, Helen being unable to hear Plenty Buffalo's voice.
Evidently he was well down the trail, hidden in the trees, and was making no further effort to approach. The men sat down again, watching the trail and evidently figuring out their plan of escape. There was no means of scaling the mountain wall behind them. Horses could not possibly climb that steep slope, covered with such a tangle of trees and undergrowth, but it was possible to proceed farther along the upper edge of the valley until finally timber-line was reached, after which the party could drop over the divide into the happy little kingdom just off the reservation where a capable man with the branding-iron was always welcome and where the authorities never interfered.
Helen listened for another call from Plenty Buffalo, but the minutes dragged past and no summons came. The silence of the forest became almost unbearable. The men sat uneasily, casting occasional glances back at the tent, and making sure that Helen was remaining quiet. Finally Plenty Buffalo called again. There was another brief parley and Talpers renewed his threats. While the talk was going on, Helen heard a slight noise behind her. Turning her head, she saw the point of a knife cutting a long slit in the back of the tent. Then Fire Bear's dark face peered in through the opening. The Indian's long brown arm reached forth and the bonds at Helen's wrists were cut. The arm disappeared through the slit in the canvas, beckoning as it did so. Helen backed slowly toward the opening that had been made.
The talk between Plenty Buffalo and Talpers was still going on. Helen waited until both men had glanced around at her. Then, as they turned their heads once more toward Plenty Buffalo's hiding-place, she half leaped, half fell through the opening in the tent. A strong hand kept her from falling and guided her swiftly through the underbrush back of the tent. Her face was scratched by the bushes that swung back as the half-naked Indian glided ahead of her, but, in almost miraculous fashion, she found a traversable path opened. Torn and bleeding, she flung herself behind a rock, just as a shout from the camp told that her disappearance had been discovered. There was a crashing of pursuers through the underbrush, but a gun roared a warning, almost in Helen's ear.
The shot was fired by Lowell, who, hatless and with torn clothing, had followed Fire Bear within a short distance of the camp. Helen crouched against the rock, while Lowell stood over her firing into the forest tangle. Fire Bear stood nonchalantly beside Lowell. Helen noticed, wonderingly, that there was not a scratch on the Indian's naked shoulders, yet Lowell's clothes were torn, and blood dripped from his palms where he had followed Fire Bear along the seemingly impassable way back of the camp.
One or two answering shots were fired, but evidently Talpers and his companion were afraid of an attack by Plenty Buffalo, so no pursuit was attempted.
The Indian turned, and, motioning for Lowell and Helen to follow, disappeared in the undergrowth along the trail which he and the agent had made while Plenty Buffalo was attracting the attention of Talpers and the half-breed. Helen tried to rise, but the sudden ending of the mental strain proved unnerving. She leaned against the rock with her eyes closed and her body limp. Lowell lifted her to her feet, almost roughly. For a moment she stood with Lowell's arms about her and his kisses on her face. Her whiteness alarmed him.
"Tell me you haven't been harmed," he cried. "If you have—"
"Just these scratches and a good riding-suit in tatters," she answered, as she drew away from him with a reassuring smile.
Lowell's brow cleared, and he laughed gleefully, as he picked up his rifle.
"Well, there's just one more hard scramble ahead," he replied, "and perhaps some more tatters to add to what both of us have. I'd carry you, but the best I can do is to help you over some of the more difficult places. Fire Bear has started. Have you strength enough to try to follow?"
He led her along the trail taken by Fire Bear—a trail in name only. The Indian had waited for them a few yards away. How much he had seen and heard when Lowell held her in his arms Helen could only surmise, but the thought sent the blood into her cheeks with a rush.
It was as Lowell had said—another scramble. At times it seemed as if she could not go on, but always at the right time Lowell gave the necessary help that enabled her to surmount some seemingly impassable obstacle. As for Fire Bear, he made his way over huge rocks and along steep pitches of shale with the ease of a serpent. At last the way became somewhat less difficult to traverse, and, when they came out on the trail by the stream, Helen realized that the tax on her physical resources was ended.
A short distance down the trail they met Plenty Buffalo with two Indian policemen. One of the police had been wounded in the arm by a shot from Talpers. The trader and McFann had hurriedly packed and made their escape, leaving the white horse, which Plenty Buffalo had brought for Helen.
After a hasty examination of the Indian's arm it was decided to hurry back to the agency for aid.
"I've sent out a call for more of the Indian police," said Lowell. "They'll probably be there when we get back to the agency. We just picked up what help we could find when we got word of your disappearance."
When Helen looked around for Fire Bear, the Indian had disappeared.
"We never could have done anything without Fire Bear," said Lowell, as he swung into the saddle preparatory to the homeward ride. "He is the greatest trailer I ever saw. Probably he's gone back to his camp, now that this interruption in his religious ceremonies is over."
Plenty Buffalo led the way back to the agency with the wounded policeman. Lowell had examined the man's injury and was satisfied that it was only superficial. The policeman himself took matters with true Indian philosophy, and galloped on with Plenty Buffalo, the most unconcerned member of the party.
Lowell rode with Helen, letting the others go on ahead after they had reached the open country beyond the foothills. He explained the circumstances of the rescue—how Wong had brought a note signed "Willis Morgan," telling of Helen's disappearance. At the same time Fire Bear had come to the agency with the news that one of his young men had seen McFann and Helen riding toward the mountains. Fire Bear was convinced that something was wrong and had lost no time in telling Lowell. With Plenty Buffalo and one or two Indian policemen who happened to be at the agency, a posse was hurriedly made up. Fire Bear took the trail and followed it so swiftly and unerringly that the party was almost within striking distance of the fugitives by night-fall. A conference had been held, and it was decided to let Plenty Buffalo parley with Talpers and McFann from the trail, while Fire Bear attempted the seemingly impossible task of entering the camp from the side toward the mountain.
Helen was silent during most of the ride to the agency. Lowell ascribed her silence to a natural reaction from the physical and mental strain of recent hours. After reaching the agency he saw that the wounded policeman was properly taken care of. Then Lowell and Helen started for the Greek Letter Ranch in the agent's car, leaving her horse to be brought over by one of the agency employees.
"Do you intend to go back and take up the chase for Talpers and McFann?" asked Helen.
"Of course! Just as soon as I can get more of the Indian police together."
"But they'll hardly be taken alive, will they?"
"Perhaps not."
"That means that blood will be shed on my account," declared Helen. "I'll not have it! I don't want those men captured! What if I refuse to testify against them?"
Lowell looked at her in amazement. Then it came to him overwhelmingly that here was the murder mystery stalking between them once more, like a ghost. He recalled Talpers's broad hint that Helen knew something of the case, and that if Bill Talpers were dragged into the Dollar Sign affair the girl at the Greek Letter Ranch would be dragged in also.
"There is no need of the outside world knowing anything about this," went on Helen. "The Indian police do not report to any one but you, do they?"
"No. Their lips are sealed so far as their official duties are concerned."
"Fire Bear will have nothing to say?"
"He has probably forgotten it by this time in his religious fervor."
"Then I ask you to let these men go."
"If you will not appear against them," said Lowell, "I can't see that anything will be gained by bringing them in. But probably it would be a good thing to exterminate them on the tenable ground that they are general menaces to the welfare of society."
The girl's troubled expression returned.
"On one condition I will send word to Talpers that he may return," went on Lowell. "That condition is that you rescind your order excluding me from the Greek Letter Ranch. If Talpers comes back I've got to be allowed to drop around to see that you are not spirited away."
Talpers was back in his store in two days. Lowell sent word that the trader might return. At first Talpers was hesitant and suspicious. There was a lurking fear in his mind that the agent had some trick in view, but, as life took its accustomed course, Bill resumed his domineering attitude about the store. A casual explanation that he had been buying some cattle was enough to explain his absence.
Bill's recent experiences had caused him to regard the agent with new hatred, not unmixed with fear. The obvious thing for Lowell to have done was to have rushed more men on the trail and captured Talpers and McFann before they crossed the reservation line. It could have been done, with Fire Bear doing the trailing. Even the half-breed admitted that much. But, instead of carrying out such a programme, the agent had sent Fire Bear and Plenty Buffalo with word that the trader might come back—that no prosecution was intended.
Clearly enough such an unusual proceeding indicated that the girl was still afraid on account of the letter, and had persuaded the agent to abandon the chase. There was the key to the whole situation—the letter! Bill determined to guard it more closely than ever. He opened his safe frequently to see that it was there.
As a whole, then, things were not breaking so badly, Bill figured. To be sure, it would have cleared things permanently if Jim McFann had done as he had been told, instead of weakening in such unexpected and absurd fashion. Bringing that girl into camp, as Jim had done, had given Talpers the most unpleasant surprise of his life. He had come out of the affair luckily. The letter was what had done it all. He would lie low and keep an eye on affairs from now on. McFann would have no difficulty in shifting for himself out in the sagebrush, now that he was alone. Bill would see that he got grub and even a little whiskey occasionally, but there would be no more assignments for him in which women were concerned, for the half-breed had too tender a heart for his own good!
The Indian agent stopped at Bill's store occasionally, on his way to and from the Greek Letter Ranch. Their conversation ran mostly to trade and minor affairs of life in general. Even the weather was fallen back upon in case some one happened to be within earshot, which was usually the case, as Bill's store was seldom empty. No one who heard them would suspect that the men were watching, weighing, and fathoming each other with all the nicety at individual command. Talpers was always wondering just how much the Indian agent knew, and Lowell was saying to himself:
"This scoundrel has some knowledge in his possession which vitally affects the young woman I love. Also he is concerned, perhaps deeply, in the murder on the Dollar Sign road. Yet he has fortified himself so well in his villainy that he feels secure."
For all his increased feeling of security, Talpers was wise enough to let the bottle alone and also to do no boasting. Likewise he stuck faithfully to his store—so faithfully that it became a matter of public comment.
"If Bill sticks much closer to this store he's goin' to fall into a decline," said Andy Wolters, who had been restored to favor in the circle of cowpunchers that lolled about Talpers's place. "He's gettin' a reg'lar prison pallor now. He used to be hittin' the trail once in a while, but nowadays he's hangin' around that post-office section as if he expected a letter notifyin' him that a rich uncle had died."
"Mebbe he's afraid of travelin' these parts since that feller was killed on the Dollar Sign," suggested another cowboy. "Doggoned if I don't feel a little shaky myself sometimes when I'm ridin' that road alone at night. Looks like some of them Injuns ought to have been hung for that murder, right off the reel, and then folks'd feel a lot easier in their minds."
The talk then would drift invariably to the subject of the murder and the general folly of the court in allowing Fire Bear to go on the Indian agent's recognizance. But Talpers, though he heard the chorus of denunciation from the back of the store, and though he was frequently called upon for an opinion, never could be drawn into the conversation. He bullied his clerk as usual, and once in a while swept down, in a storm of baseless anger, upon some unoffending Indian, just to show that Bill Talpers was still a man to be feared, but for the most part he waited silently, with the confidence of a man who holds a winning hand at cards.
The same days that saw Talpers's confidence returning were days of dissatisfaction to Lowell. He felt that he was being constantly thwarted. He would have preferred to give his entire attention to the murder mystery, but details of reservation management crowded upon him in a way that made avoidance impossible. Among his duties Lowell found that he must act as judge and jury in many cases that came up. There were domestic difficulties to be straightened out, and thieves and brawlers to be sentenced. Likewise there was occasional flotsam, cast up from the human sea outside the reservation, which required attention.
One of those reminders of the outer world was brought in by an Indian policeman. The stranger was a rough-looking individual, to all appearances a harmless tramp, who had been picked up "hoofing it" across the reservation.
The Indian policeman explained, through the interpreter, that he had found the wanderer near a sub-agency, several miles away—that he had shown a disposition to fight, and had only been cowed by the prompt presentation of a revolver at his head.
"Why, you 're no tramp—you're a yeggman," said Lowell to the prisoner, interrupting voluble protestations of innocence. "You're one of the gentry that live off small post-offices and banks. I'll bet you've stolen stamps enough in your career to keep the Post-Office Department going six months. And you've given heart disease to no end of stockholders in small banks—prosperous citizens who have had to make good the losses caused by your safe-breaking operations. Am I bringing an unjust indictment against you, pardner?"
A flicker of a smile was discernible somewhere in the tangle of beard that hid the lineaments of the prisoner's face.
"If I inventoried the contents of this bundle," continued Lowell, "I'd find a pretty complete outfit of the tools that keep the safe companies working overtime on replacements, wouldn't I?"
The prisoner nodded.
"There's no use of my dodgin', judge," he said. "The tools are there—all of 'em. But I'm through with the game. All I want now is enough of a stake to get me back home to Omaha, where the family is. That's why I was footin' it acrost this Injun country—takin' a short cut to a railroad where I wouldn't be watched for."
"I'll consider your case awhile," remarked Lowell after a moment's thought. "Perhaps we can speed you on your way to Omaha and the family."
The prisoner was taken back to the agency jail leaving his bundle on Lowell's desk. About midnight Lowell took the bundle and, going to the jail, roused the policeman who was on guard and was admitted to the prisoner's cell.
"Look here, Red," said Lowell. "Your name is Red, isn't it?"
"Red Egan."
"Well, Red Egan, did you ever hear of Jimmy Valentine?"
The prisoner scratched his head while he puffed at a welcome cigarette.
"No? Well, Red, this Jimmy Valentine was in the business you're quitting, and he opened a safe in a good cause. I want you to do the same for me. If you can do a neat job, with no noise, I'll see that you get across the reservation all right, with stake enough to get you to Omaha."
"You're on, judge! I'd crack one more for a good scout like you any day."
Three quarters of an hour later Red Egan was working professionally upon the safe in Bill Talpers's store. The door to Talpers's sleeping-room was not far away, but it was closed, and the trader was a thorough sleeper, so the cracksman might have been conducting operations a mile distant, so far as interruption from Bill was concerned.
As he worked, Red Egan told whispered stories to a companion—stories which related to barriers burned, pried, and blown away.
"I don't mind how close they sleep to their junk," observed Red, as he rested momentarily from his labors. "Unless a man's got insomnier and insists on makin' his bed on top of his safe, he ain't got a chance to make his iron doors stay shut if one of the real good 'uns takes a notion to make 'em fly apart. There she goes!" he added a moment later, as the safe door swung open.
"All right, Red," came the whispered reply, "but remember that I get whatever money's in sight, just for appearances' sake, though it's letters and such things I'm really after."
"It goes as you say, boss, and I hope you get what you want. There goes that inside door."
In the light of a flash-lamp Lowell saw a letter and a roll of bills. He took both, while Red Egan, his work done, packed up the kit of tools.
Lowell had recognized Helen's handwriting on the envelope, and knew he had found what he wanted.
"You've earned that trip to Omaha, Red," said Lowell, after they had gone back to their horses which had been standing in a cottonwood grove near by. "When we get back to the agency I'll put you in my car and drive you far enough by daybreak so that you can catch a train at noon."
"You're a square guy, judge, but if that's the letter you've been wantin' to get, why don't you read it? Or maybe you know what's in it without readin' it."
"No, I don't know what's in it, and I don't want to read it, Red."
Red's amazed whistle cut through the night silence.
"Well, if that ain't the limit! Havin' a safe-crackin' job done for a letter that you ain't ever seen and don't want to see the inside of!"
"It's all right, Red. Don't worry about it, because you've earned your money twice over to-night. Don't look on your last job as a failure, by any means."
A few hours later the Indian agent, not looking like a man who had been up all night, halted his car at Talpers's store, after he had received an excited hail from Andy Wolters.
"You're jest in time!" exclaimed Andy. "Bill Talpers's safe has been cracked and Bill is jest now tryin' to figger the damage. He says he's lost a roll of money and some other things."
Lowell found Talpers going excitedly through the contents of his broken safe. It was not the first time the trader had pawed over the papers. Nor were the oaths that fell on Lowell's ears the first that the trader had uttered since the discovery that he had been robbed as he slept.
It was plain enough that Talpers was suffering from a deeper shock than could come through any mere loss of money. Not even when Lowell contrived to drop the roll of bills, where the trader's clerk picked it up with a whoop of glee, did Talpers's expression change. His oaths were those of a man distraught, and the contumely he heaped upon Sheriff Tom Redmond moved that official to a spirited defense.
"I can't see why you hold me responsible for a safe that you've been keeping within earshot all these years," retorted Tom, in answer to Talpers's sneers about the lack of protection afforded the county's business men. "If you can't hear a yeggman working right next to your sleeping-quarters, how do you expect me to hear him, 'way over to White Lodge? I'll leave it to Lowell here if your complaint is reasonable. I'll do the best I can to get this man, but it looks to me as if he's made a clean getaway. What sort of papers was it you said you lost, Bill?"
"I didn't say."
"Well, then, I'm asking you. Was they long or short, rolled or flat, or tied with pink ribbon?"
"Never mind!" roared Talpers. "You round up this burglar and let me go through him. I'll get what's mine, all right."
Redmond made a gesture of despair. A man who had been robbed and had recovered his money, and was so keen after papers that he wouldn't or couldn't describe, was past all fooling with. The sheriff rode off, grumbling, without even questioning Lowell to ascertain if the Indian police had seen any suspicious characters on the reservation.
Bill Talpers's mental convolutions following the robbery reminded Lowell of the writhing of a wounded snake. Bill's fear was that the letter would be picked up and sent back to the girl at the Greek Letter Ranch. Suspicion of a plot in the affair did not enter his head. To him it was just a sinister stroke of misfortune—one of the chance buffets of fate. One tramp burglar out of the many pursuing that vocation had happened upon the Talpers establishment at a time when its proprietor was in an unusually sound sleep. Bill gave himself over to thoughts of the various forms of punishment he would inflict upon the wandering yeggman in case a capture were effected—thoughts which came to naught, as Red Egan had been given so generous a start toward his Omaha goal that he never was headed.
As the days went past and the letter was not discovered, Bill began to gather hope. Perhaps the burglar, thinking the letter of no value, had destroyed it, in natural disgust at finding that he had dropped the money which undoubtedly was the real object of his safe-breaking.
If Talpers had known what had really happened to the letter, all his self-comfortings would have vanished. Lowell had lost no time in taking the missive to Helen. He had found affairs at the Greek Letter Ranch apparently unchanged. Wong was at work in the kitchen. Two Indians, who had been hired to harvest the hay, which was the only crop on the ranch, were busy in a near-by field. Helen, looking charming in a house dress of blue, with white collar and cuffs, was feeding a tame magpie when Lowell drove into the yard.
"Moving picture entitled 'The Metamorphosis of Miss Tatters,'" said Lowell, amusedly surveying her.
"The scratches still survive, but the riding-suit will take a lot of mending," said Helen, showing her scratched hands and wrists.
"Well, if this very becoming costume has a pocket, here's something to put in it," remarked Lowell, handing her the letter.
Helen's smile was succeeded by a startled, anxious look, as she glanced at the envelope and then at Lowell.
"No need for worry," Lowell assured her. "Nobody has read that letter since it passed out of the possession of our esteemed postmaster, Bill Talpers, sometime after one o'clock this morning."
"But how did he come to give it up?" asked Helen, her voice wavering.
"He did not do so willingly. It might be said he did not give it up knowingly. As a matter of fact, our friend Talpers had no idea he had lost his precious possession until it had been gone several hours."
"But how—"
"'How' is a word to be flung at Red Egan, knight of the steel drill and the nitro bottle and other what-nots of up-to-date burglary," said Lowell. "Though I saw the thing done, I can't tell you how. I only hope it clears matters for you."
"It does in a way. I cannot tell you how grateful I am," said Helen, her trembling hands tightly clutching the letter.
"Only in a way? I am sorry it does not do more."
"But it's a very important way, I assure you!" exclaimed Helen. "It eliminates this man—this Talpers—as a personal menace. But when you are so eager to get every thread of evidence, how is it that you can give this letter to me, unread? You must feel sure it has some bearing on the awful thing—the tragedy that took place back there on the hill."
"That is where faith rises superior to a very human desire to look into the details of mystery," said Lowell. "If I were a real detective, or spy, as you characterized me, I would have read that letter at the first opportunity. But I knew that my reading it would cause you grave personal concern. I have faith in you to the extent that I believe you would do nothing to bring injustice upon others. Consequently, from now on I will proceed to forget that this letter ever existed."
"You may regret that you have acted in this generous manner," said the girl. "What if you find that all your faith has been misplaced—that I am not worthy of the trust—"
"Really, there is nothing to be gained by saying such things," interposed Lowell. "As I told you, I am forgetting that the letter ever existed."
"Do you know," she said, "I wish this letter could have come back to me from any one but you?"
"Why?"
"Because, coming as it has, I am more or less constrained to act as fairly as you believe I shall act."
"You might give it back to Talpers and start in on any sort of a deal you chose."
"Impossible! For fear Talpers may get it, here is what I shall do to the letter."
Here Helen tore it in small pieces and tossed them high in the air, the breeze carrying them about the yard like snow.
"In which event," laughed Lowell, "it seems that I win, and my faith in you is to be justified."
"I wish I could assure you of as much," answered Helen sadly. "But if it happens that your trust is not justified, I hope you will not think too harshly of me."
"Harshly!" exclaimed Lowell. "Harshly! Why, if you practiced revolver shooting on me an hour before breakfast every morning, or if you used me for a doormat here at the Greek Letter Ranch, I couldn't think anything but lovingly of you."
"Oh!" cried Helen, clapping her hands over her ears and running up the porch steps, as Lowell turned to his automobile. "You've almost undone all the good you've accomplished to-day."
"Thanks for that word 'almost,'" laughed Lowell.
"Then I'll make it 'quite,'" flung Helen, but her words were lost in the shifting of gears as Lowell started back to the agency.
That night Helen dreamed that Bill Talpers, on hands and knees, was moving like a misshapen shadow about the yard in the moonlight picking up the letter which she had torn to pieces.
Sheriff Tom Redmond sat in Lowell's office at the agency, staring grimly across at the little park, where the down from the cottonwood trees clung to the grass like snow. The sheriff had just brought himself to a virtual admission that he had been in the wrong.
"I was going to say," remarked Tom, "that, in case you catch Jim McFann, perhaps the best thing would be for you to sort o' close-herd him at the agency jail here until time for trial."
Lowell looked at the sheriff inquiringly.
"I'll admit that I've been sort of clamoring for you to let me bring a big posse over here and round up McFann in a hurry. Well, I don't believe that scheme would work."
"I'm glad we agree on that point."
"You've been taking the ground that unless we brought a lot of men over, we couldn't do any better than the Injun police in the matter of catching this half-breed. Also you've said that if wedidbring a small army of cattlemen, it would only be a lynching party, and Jim McFann'd never live to reach the jail at White Lodge."
"I don't think anything could stop a lynching."
"Well, I believe you're right. The boys have been riding me, stronger and stronger, to get up a posse and come over here. In fact, they got so strong that I suspected they had something up their sleeves. When I sort o' backed up on the proposition, a lot of them began pulling wires at Washington, so's to make you get orders that'd let us come on the reservation and get both of these men."
"I know it," said Lowell, "but they've found they can't make any headway, even with their own Congressmen, because Judge Garford's stand is too well known. He's let everybody know that he's against anything that may bring about a lynching. So far as the Department is concerned, I've put matters squarely up to it and have been advised to use my own judgment."
"Well, I never seen people so wrought up, and I'm free to admit now that if Jim McFann hadn't broke jail he'd have been lynched on the very day that he made his getaway. The only question is—do you think you can get him before the trial, and are you sure the Injun'll come in?"
"I'm not sure of anything, of course," replied Lowell, "but I've staked everything on Fire Bear making good his word. If he doesn't, I'm ready to quit the country. McFann's a different proposition. He has been too clever for the police, but I have rather hesitated about having Plenty Buffalo risk the lives of his men, because I have had a feeling that McFann might be reached in a different way. I'm sure he's been getting supplies from the man who has been using him in bootlegging operations."
"You mean Talpers?"
"Yes. If McFann is mixed up in anything, from bootlegging to bigger crimes, he is only a tool. He can be a dangerous tool—that's admitted—but I'd like to gather in the fellow who does the planning."
"By golly! I wish I had you working with me on this murder case," said Redmond, in a burst of confidence. "I'll admit I never had anything stump me the way this case has. I'm bringing up against a blank wall at every turn."
"Haven't you found out anything new about Sargent?"
"Not a thing worth while. He lived alone—had lots of money that he made by inventing mining machinery."
"Any relatives?"
"None that we can find out about."
"Have you learned anything through his bank?"
"He had plenty of money on deposit; that's all."
"Did he have any lawyers?"
"Not that we've heard from."
"Does any one know why he came on this trip?"
"No; but he was in the habit of making long jaunts alone through the West."
"What sort of a home did he have?"
"A big house in the suburbs. Lived there alone with two servants. They haven't been able to tell a thing about him that's worth a cuss."
"Would anything about his home indicate what sort of a man he was?"
"The detectives wrote something about his having a lot of Indian things—Navajo blankets and such."
"Indians may have been his hobby. Perhaps he intended to visit this reservation."
"If that was so, why should he drive through the agency at night and be killed going away from the reservation? No, he was going somewhere in a hurry or he wouldn't have traveled at night."
"But automobile tourists sometimes travel that way."
"Not in this part of the country. In the Southwest, perhaps, to avoid the heat of the day."
"Well, what do you think about it all, Tom?"
"That this feller was a pilgrim, going somewhere in a hurry. He was held up by some of your young bucks who were off the reservation and feeling a little too full of life for their own good. A touch of bootleg whiskey might have set them going. Mebbe that's where Jim McFann came in. They might have killed the man when he resisted. The staking-out was probably an afterthought—a piece of Injun or half-breed devilment."
"How about the sawed-off shotgun? I doubt if there's one on the reservation."
"Probably that was Sargent's own weapon. He had traveled in the West a good many years. Mebbe he had used sawed-off shotguns as an express messenger or something of the sort in early days. It's a fact that there ain't any handier weapon ofdeefense than a sawed-off shotgun, no matter what kind of a wheeled outfit you're traveling in."
"It's all reasonable enough, Tom," said Lowell reflectively. "It may work out just as you have figured, but frankly I don't believe the Indians and McFann are in it quite as far as you think."
"Well, if they didn't do it, who could have? You've been over the ground more than any one else. Have you found anything to hang a whisper of suspicion on?"
Lowell shook his head.
"Nothing to talk about, but there are some things, indefinite enough, perhaps, that make me hesitate about believing the Indians to be guilty."
"How about McFann? He's got the nerve, all right."
"Yes, McFann would kill if it came to a showdown. There's enough Indian in him, too, to explain the staking-down."
"He admits he was on the scene of the murder."
"Yes, and his admission strengthens me in the belief that he's telling the truth, or at least that he had no part in the actual killing. If he were guilty, he'd deny being within miles of the spot."
"Mebbe you're right," said the sheriff, rising and turning his hat in his hand and methodically prodding new and geometrically perfect indentations in its high crown, "but you've got a strong popular opinion to buck. Most people believe them Injuns and the breed have a guilty knowledge of the murder."
"When you get twelve men in the jury box saying the same thing," replied Lowell, "that's going to settle it. But until then I'm considering the case open."
Jim McFann's camp was in the loneliest of many lonely draws in the sage-gray uplands where the foothills and plains meet. It was not a camp that would appeal to the luxury-loving. In fact, one might almost fall over it in the brush before knowing that a camp was there. A "tarp" bed was spread on the hard, sun-cracked soil. A saddle was near by. There was a frying-pan or two at the edge of a dead fire. A pack-animal and saddle horse stood disconsolately in the greasewood, getting what slender grazing was available, but not being allowed to wander far. It was the camp of one who "traveled light" and was ready to go at an instant's notice.
So well hidden was the half-breed that, in spite of explicit directions that had been given by Bill Talpers, Andy Wolters had a difficult time in finding the camp. Talpers had sent Andy as his emissary, bearing grub and tobacco and a bottle of whiskey to the half-breed. Andy had turned and twisted most of the morning in the monotony of sage. Song had died upon his lips as the sun had beaten upon him with all its unclouded vigor.
Andy did not know it, but for an hour he had been under the scrutiny of the half-breed, who had been quick to descry the horseman moving through the brush. McFann had been expecting Talpers, and he was none too pleased to find that the trader had sent the gossiping cowpuncher in his stead. Andy, being one of those ingenuous souls who never can catch the undercurrents of life, rattled on, all unconscious of the effect of light words, lightly flung.
"You dig the grub and other stuff out o' that pack," said Andy, "while I hunt an inch or two of shade and cool my brow. When it comes to makin' a success of hidin' out in the brush, you can beat one of them renegade steers that we miss every round-up. I guess you ain't heard about the robbery that's happened in our metropolis of Talpersville, have you?"
The half-breed grunted a negative.
"Of course not, seein' as you ain't gettin' the daily paper out here. Well, an expert safe-buster rode Bill Talpers's iron treasure-chest to a frazzle the other night. Took valuable papers that Bill's all fussed up about, but dropped a wad of bills, big enough to choke one of them prehistoric bronks that used to romp around in these hills."
McFann looked up scowlingly from his task of estimating the amount of grub that had been sent.
"Seems to me," went on Andy, "that if I got back my money, I wouldn't give a durn about papers—not unless they was papers that established my rights as the long-lost heir of some feller with about twenty million dollars. That roll had a thousand-dollar bill wrapped around the outside."
The half-breed straightened up.
"How do you know there was a thousand-dollar bill in that roll?" he demanded, with an intensity that surprised the cowboy.
"Bill told me so himself. He had took a few snifters, and was feelin' melancholy over them papers, and I tried to cheer him up by tellin' him jest what I've told you, that as long as I had my roll back, I wouldn't care about all the hen-tracks that spoiled nice white paper. He chirked up a bit at that, and got confidential and told me about this thousand-dollar bill. They say it ain't the only one he had. The story is that he sprung one on an Injun the other day in payment for a bunch o' steers. There must be lots more profit in prunes and shawls and the other things that Bill handles than most people have been thinkin', with thousand-dollar bills comin' so easy."