The half-breed was listening intently now. He had ceased his work about the camp, and was standing, with hands clenched and head thrust forward, eyeing Andy so narrowly that the cowboy paused in his narrative.
"What's the matter, Jim?" he asked; "Bill didn't take any of them thousand-dollar things from you, did he?"
"Mebbe not, and mebbe so," enigmatically answered the half-breed. "Go on and tell me the rest."
When he had completed his story of the robbery at Talpers's store, Andy tilted his enormous sombrero over his eyes, and, leaning back in the shade, fell asleep. The half-breed worked silently about the camp, occasionally going to a near-by knoll and looking about for some sign of life in the sagebrush. He made some biscuits and coffee and fried some bacon, after which he touched Andy none too gently with his moccasined foot and told the cowboy to sit up and eat something.
After one or two ineffectual efforts to start conversation, the visitor gave up in disgust. The meal was eaten in silence. Even the obtuse Andy sensed that something was wrong, and made no effort to rouse the half-breed, who ate grimly and immediately busied himself with the dish-washing as soon as the meal was over. Andy soon took his departure, the half-breed directing him to a route that would lessen the chances of his discovery by the Indian police.
After Andy had gone the half-breed turned his attention to the bottle which had been sent by Talpers. He visited the knoll occasionally, but nothing alive could be discerned in the great wastes of sage. When the shadows deepened and the chill of evening came down from the high altitudes of the near-by peaks, McFann staked out his ponies in better grazing ground. Then he built a small camp-fire, and, sitting cross-legged in the light, he smoked and drank, and meditated upon the perfidy of Bill Talpers.
McFann was astir at dawn, and there was determination in every move as he brought in the horses and began to break camp.
The half-breed owned a ranch which had come down to him from his Indian mother. Shrewdly suspecting that the police had ceased watching the ranch, Jim made his way homeward. His place was located in the bottom-land along a small creek. There was a shack on it, but no attempt at cultivation. As he looked the place over, Jim's thoughts became more bitter than ever. If he had farmed this land, the way the agent wanted him to, he could have been independent by now, but instead of that he had listened to Talpers's blandishments and now had been thrown down by his professed friend!
Jim took off his pack and threw his camping equipment inside the shack. Then he turned his pack-animal into the wild hay in the pasture he had fenced off in the creek bottom. He had some other live stock roaming around in the little valley—enough steers and horses to make a beginning toward a comfortable independence, if he had only had sense enough to start in that way. Also there was good soil on the upland. He could run a ditch from the creek to the nearest mesa, where the land was red and sandy and would raise anything. The reservation agriculturist had been along and had shown him just how the trick could be done, but Bill Talpers's bootlegging schemes looked a lot better then!
The half-breed slammed his shack door shut and rode away with his greasy hat-brim pulled well over his eyes. He paid little attention to the demands he was making on horseflesh, and he rode openly across the country. If the Indian police saw him, he could outdistance them. The thing that he had set out to do could be done quickly. After that, nothing mattered much.
Skirting the ridge on which Helen and Lowell had stood, Jim made a détour as he approached the reservation line and avoided the Greek Letter Ranch. He swung into the road well above the ranch, and, breasting the hill where the murder had taken place on the Dollar Sign, he galloped down the slope toward Talpers's store.
The trader was alone in his store when the half-breed entered. Talpers had seen McFann coming, some distance down the road. Something in the half-breed's bearing in the saddle, or perhaps it was some inner stir of guilty fear, made Talpers half-draw his revolver. Then he thrust it back into its holster, and, swinging around in his chair, awaited his partner's arrival. He even attempted a jaunty greeting.
"Hello, Jim," he called, as the half-breed's lithe figure swung in through the outer doorway; "ain't you even a little afraid of the Injun police?"
McFann did not answer, but flung open the door into Bill's sanctum. It was no unusual thing for the men to confer there, and two or three Indians on the front porch did not even turn their heads to see what was going on inside. Talpers's clerk was out and Andy Wolters had just departed, after reporting to the trader that the half-breed had seemed "plumb uneasy out there in the brush." Andy had not told Bill the cause of McFann's uneasiness, but on that point the trader was soon to be enlightened.
"Bill," said the half-breed purringly, "I hear you've been having your safe cracked."
Something in the half-breed's voice made the trader wish he had not shoved back that revolver. It would not do to reach for it now. McFann's hands were empty, but he was lightning in getting them to his guns.
The trader's lips seemed more than usually dry and cracked. His voice wheezed at the first word, as he answered.
"Yes, Jim, I was robbed," he said. Then he added, propitiatingly: "But I've got a new safe. Ain't she a beauty?"
"She sure is," replied McFann, though he did not take his eyes off Talpers. "Got your name on, and everything. Let's open her up, and see what a real safe looks like inside."
Talpers turned without question and began fumbling at the combination. His hands trembled, and once he dropped them at his side. As he did so McFann's hands moved almost imperceptibly. Their movement was toward the half-breed's hips, and Talpers brought his own hands quickly back to the combination. The tumblers fell, and the trader swung the door open.
"Purtier 'n a new pair of boots," approved the half-breed, as a brave array of books and inner drawers came in view. "Now them inside boxes. The one with the thousand-dollar bill in it."
"Why, what's gittin' into you, Jim?" almost whined Talpers. "You know I ain't got any thousand-dollar bill."
"Don't lie to me," snapped the half-breed, a harsh note coming into his voice. "You've made your talk about a thousand-dollar bill. I want to see it—that's all."
Slowly Talpers unlocked the inner strong box and took therefrom a roll of money.
"There it is," he said, handing it to McFann. A thousand-dollar bill was on the outside of the roll.
"I ain't going to ask where you got that," said McFann steadily, "because you'd lie to me. But I know. You took it from that man on the hill. You told me you'd jest found him there when I come on you prowling around his body. You said you didn't take anything from him, and I was fool enough to believe you. But you didn't get these thousand-dollar bills anywhere else. You double-crossed me, and if things got too warm for you, you was going to saw everything off on me. Easy enough when I was hiding out there in the sagebrush, living on what you wanted to send out to me. I've done all this bootlegging work for you, and I covered up for you in court, about this murder, all because I thought you was on the square. And all the time you had took your pickings from this man on the hill and had fooled me into thinking you didn't find a thing on him. Here's the money, Bill. I wouldn't take it away from you. Lock it in your safe again—if you can!"
The half-breed flung the roll of bills in Talpers's face. The trader, made desperate by fear, flung himself toward McFann. If he could pinion the half-breed's arms to his side, there could be but one outcome to the struggle that had been launched. The trader's great weight and grizzly-like strength would be too much for the wiry half-breed to overcome. But McFann slipped easily away from Talpers's clutching hands. The trader brought up against the mailing desk with a crash that shook the entire building. The heat of combat warmed his chilled veins. Courage returned to him with a rush. He roared oaths as he righted himself and dragged his revolver from the holster on his hip.
Before the trader's gun could be brought to a shooting level, paralysis seemed to seize his arm. Fire seared his side and unbearable pain radiated therefrom. Only the fighting man's instinct kept him on his feet. His knees sagged and his arm drooped slowly, despite his desperate endeavors to raise that blue-steel weapon to its target. He saw the half-breed, smiling and defiant, not three paces away, but seemingly in another world. There was a revolver in McFann's hand, and faint tendrils of smoke came from the weapon.
Grimly setting his jaws and with his lips parted in a mirthless grin, Talpers crossed his left hand to his right. With both hands he tried to raise the revolver, but it only sank lower. His knees gave way and he slid to the floor, his back to his new safe and his swarthy skin showing a pale yellow behind his sparse, curling black beard.
"Put the money away, Bill, put it away, quick," said McFann's mocking voice. "There it is, under your knee. You sold out your pardner for it—now hide it in your new safe!"
Talpers's cracked lips formed no reply, but his little black eyes glowed balefully behind their dark, lowering brows.
"You're good at shooting down harmless Indians, Bill," jeered McFann, "but you're too slow in a real fight. Any word you want to send to the Indian agent? I'm going to tell him I believe you did the murder on the Dollar Sign road."
A last flare of rage caused Talpers to straighten up. Then the paralysis came again, stronger than before. The revolver slipped from the trader's grasp, and his head sank forward until his chin rested on his broad chest.
McFann looked contemptuously at the great figure, helpless in death. Then he lighted a cigarette, and, laughing at the terror of the Indians, who had been peeping in the window at the last of the tragedy, the half-breed walked out of the store, and, mounting his horse, rode to the agency and gave himself up to Lowell.
Lowell consulted with Judge Garford and Sheriff Tom Redmond, and it was decided to keep Jim McFann in jail at the agency until time for his trial for complicity in the first murder on the Dollar Sign road.
Sheriff Redmond admitted that, owing to the uncertainty of public sentiment, he could not guarantee the half-breed's safety if McFann were lodged in the county jail. Consequently the slayer of Bill Talpers remained in jail at the agency, under a strong guard of Indian police, supplemented by trustworthy deputies sent over by Redmond.
The killing of Talpers was the excuse for another series of attacks on Lowell by the White Lodge paper. Said the editor:
The murder of our esteemed neighbor, William Talpers, by James McFann, a half-breed, is another evidence of the necessity of opening the reservation to white settlement.This second murder on the Dollar Sign road is not a mystery. Its perpetrator was seen at this bloody work. Furthermore, he is understood to have coolly confessed his crime. But, like the first murder, which is still shrouded in mystery, this was a crime which found its inception on the Indian reservation. Are white residents adjacent to the reservation to have their lives snuffed out at the pleasure of Government wards and reservation offscourings in general? Has not the time come when the broad acres of the Indian reservation, which the redskins are doing little with, should be thrown open to the plough of the white man?
The murder of our esteemed neighbor, William Talpers, by James McFann, a half-breed, is another evidence of the necessity of opening the reservation to white settlement.
This second murder on the Dollar Sign road is not a mystery. Its perpetrator was seen at this bloody work. Furthermore, he is understood to have coolly confessed his crime. But, like the first murder, which is still shrouded in mystery, this was a crime which found its inception on the Indian reservation. Are white residents adjacent to the reservation to have their lives snuffed out at the pleasure of Government wards and reservation offscourings in general? Has not the time come when the broad acres of the Indian reservation, which the redskins are doing little with, should be thrown open to the plough of the white man?
"'Plough of the white man' is good," cynically observed Ed Rogers, after calling Lowell's attention to the article. "If those cattlemen ever get the reservation opened, they'll keep the nesters out for the next forty years, if they have to kill a homesteader for every hundred and sixty acres. So far as Bill Talpers's killing is concerned, I can't see but what it is looked upon as a good thing for the peace of the community."
It seemed to be a fact that Jim McFann's act had appealed irresistibly to a large element. Youthful cowpunchers rode for miles and waited about the agency for a glimpse of the gun-fighter who had slain the redoubtable Bill Talpers in such a manner. None of them could get near the jail, but they stood in picturesque groups about the agency, listening to the talk of Andy Wolters and others who had been on more or less intimate terms with the principals in the affair.
"And there was me a-snoozin' in that breed's camp the very day before he done this shootin'," said Andy to an appreciative circle. "He must have had this thing stewin' in his head at the time. It's a wonder he didn't throw down on me, jest for a little target practice. But I guess he figgered he didn't need no practice to get Bill Talpers, and judgin' from the way things worked out, his figgerin' was right. Some artist with the little smoke machine, that boy, 'cause Bill Talpers wasn't no slouch at shootin'! I remember seein' Bill shoot the head off a rattlesnake at the side of the road, jest casual-like, and when it come to producin' the hardware he was some quick for a big man. He more than met his match this time, old Bill did. And, by gosh! you can bet that nobody after this ever sends me out to any dry camps in the brush to take supplies to any gunman who may be hid out there. Next time I might snooze and never wake up."
All was not adulation for Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. Talpers was not loved, but the killing of any white man by some one of Indian ancestry was something to fan resentment without regard to facts. Bets were made that McFann would not live to be tried on the second homicide charge against him, many holding the opinion that he would be hanged, with Fire Bear, for the first murder. Also wagers were freely made that Fire Bear would not be produced in court by the Indian agent, and that it would be necessary to send a force of officers to get the accused Indian.
Lowell apparently paid no attention to the rumors that were flying about. A mass of reservation detail had accumulated, and he worked hard to get it out of the way before the trial. He had made changes in the boarding-school system, and had established an experimental farm at the agency. He had supervised the purchase of livestock for the improvement of the tribal flocks and herds. In addition there had been the personal demands that shower incessantly upon every Indian agent who is interested in his work.
Reports from the reservation agriculturists, whose work was to help the Indians along farming lines, were not encouraging. Drought was continuing without abatement.
"The last rain fell the day before the murder on the Dollar Sign road," said Rogers. "Remember how we splashed through mud the day we ran out there and found that man staked down on the prairie?"
"And now the Indians are saying that the continued drought is due to Fire Bear's medicine," observed Lowell. "Even some of the more conservative Indians believe there is no use trying to raise crops until the charge against Fire Bear is dismissed and the evil spell is lifted."
In spite of the details of reservation management that crowded upon him, Lowell found time for occasional visits to the Greek Letter Ranch to see Helen Ervin. He told her the details of the Talpers shooting, so far as he knew them.
"There isn't much that I can tell about the cause of the shooting," said Lowell, in answer to one of her questions. "I could have had all the details, but I cautioned Jim McFann to say nothing in advance of his trial. But from what I have gathered here and there, Jim and Talpers fell out over money matters. A thousand-dollar bill was found on the floor under Talpers's body. It had evidently been taken from the safe, and might have been what they fought over."
Helen nodded in comprehension of the whole affair, though she did not tell Lowell that he had made it clear to her. She guessed that in some way Jim McFann had come into possession of the facts of his partner's perfidy. She wondered how the half-breed had found out that Talpers had taken money from the murdered man and had not divided. She had held that knowledge over Talpers's head as a club. She could see that he feared McFann, and she wondered if, in his last moments, Talpers had wrongfully blamed her for giving the half-breed the information which turned him into a slayer.
"Anyway, it doesn't make much difference what the fight was over," declared Lowell. "Talpers had been playing a double game for a long time. He tried just once too often to cheat his partner—something dangerous when that partner is a fiery-tempered half-breed."
"Is this shooting of Talpers going to have any effect on McFann's trial for the other murder?" asked Helen.
"It may inflame popular sentiment against both men still further—something that never seems to be difficult where Indians are concerned."
Lowell tried in vain to lead the talk away from the trial.
"Look here," he exclaimed finally, "you're worrying yourself unnecessarily over this! I don't believe you're getting much of any sleep, and I'll bet Wong will testify that you are eating very little. You mustn't let matters weigh on your mind so. Talpers is gone, and you have the letter that was in his safe and that he used as a means of worrying you. Your stepfather is getting better right along—so much so that you can leave here at any time. Pretty soon you'll have this place of tragedy off your mind and you'll forget all about the Indian reservation and everything it contains. But until that time comes, I prescribe an automobile ride for you every day. Some of the roads around here will make it certain that you will be well shaken before the prescription is taken."
Lowell regretted his light words as soon as he had uttered them.
"This trial is my whole life," declared the girl solemnly. "If those men are convicted, there can never be another day of happiness for me!"
On the morning set for the opening of the trial, Lowell left his automobile in front of his residence while he ate breakfast. To all appearances there was nothing unusual about this breakfast. It was served at the customary time and in the customary way. Apparently the young Indian agent was interested only in the meal and in some letters which had been sent over from the office, but finally he looked up and smiled at the uneasiness of his housekeeper, who had cast frequent glances out of the window.
"What is it, Mrs. Ruel?" asked Lowell.
"The Indian—Fire Bear. Has he come?"
"Oh, that's what's worrying you, is it? Well, don't let it do so any more. He will be here all right."
Mrs. Ruel looked doubtful as she trotted to the kitchen. Returning, she stood in the window, a steaming coffee-pot in her hands.
"Tell me what you see, Sister Annie," said Lowell smilingly.
"Nawthin' but the kids assemblin' for school. There's old Pete, the blacksmith, purtendin' to be lookin' your machine over, when he's just come to rubber the way I am, f'r that red divvle. They're afraid, most of the agency folks, that Fire Bear won't show up. I wouldn't take an Injun's word f'r annythin' myself—me that lost an uncle in the Fetterman massacree. You're too good to 'em, Mister Lowell. You should have yanked this Fire Bear here in handcuffs—him and McFann together."
"Your coffee is fine—and I'll be obliged if you'll pour me some—but your philosophy is that of the dark ages, Mrs. Ruel. Thanks. Now tell me what traveler approaches on the king's highway."
Mrs. Ruel trotted to the window, with the coffee-pot still in her hands.
"It's some one of them educated loafers that's always hangin' around the trader's store. I c'n tell by the hang of the mail-order suit. No, it ain't! He's climbin' off his pony, and now he's jumped into the back of your automobile, and is settin' there, bold as brass, smokin' a cigarette. It's Fire Bear himself!"
"I thought so," observed Lowell. "Now another cup of coffee, please, and a little more of that toast, and we'll be off to the trial."
Mrs. Ruel returned to the kitchen, declaring that it really didn't prove anything in general, because no other agent could make them redskins do the things that Mister Lowell hypnotized 'em into doin'.
Lowell finished his breakfast and climbed into his automobile, after a few words with Fire Bear. The young Indian had started the day before from his camp in the rocks. He had traveled alone, and had not rested until he reached the agency. Lowell knew there would be much dancing in the Indian camp until the trial was over.
Driving to the agency jail, Lowell had McFann brought out. The half-breed, unmanacled and without a guard, sat beside Fire Bear in the back seat. Lowell decided to take no policemen from the reservation. He was certain that Fire Bear and McFann would not try to escape from him. The presence of Indian policemen might serve only to fan the very uncertain public sentiment into disastrous flames.
White Lodge was crowded with cattlemen and homesteaders and their families, who had come to attend the trial. A public holiday was made of the occasion, and White Lodge had not seen such a crowd since the annual bronco-busting carnival.
As he drove through the streets, Lowell was conscious of a change in public feeling. The prisoners in the automobile were eyed curiously, but without hatred. In fact, Jim McFann's killing of Talpers, which had been given all sorts of dramatic renditions at camp-fires and firesides, had raised that worthy to the rank of hero in the eyes of the majority. Also the coming of Fire Bear, as he had promised, sent up the Indian's stock. As Lowell took his men to the court-room he saw bets paid over by men who had wagered that Fire Bear would not keep his word and that he would have to be brought to the court-room by force.
The court-house yard could not hold the overflow of spectators from the court-room. The crowd was orderly, though there was a tremendous craning of necks when the prisoners were brought in, to see the man who had killed so redoubtable a gunman as Bill Talpers. Getting a jury was merely a matter of form, as no challenges were made. The trial opened with Fire Bear on the stand.
The young Indian added nothing to the testimony he had given at his preliminary hearing. He told, briefly, how he and his followers had found the body beside the Dollar Sign road. The prosecuting attorney was quick to sense a difference in the way the Indian's story was received. When he had first told it, disbelief was evident. Today it seemed to be impressing crowd and jury as the truth.
The same sentiment seemed to be even more pronounced when Jim McFann took the stand, after Fire Bear's brief testimony was concluded without cross-examination. Audience and jury sat erect. Word was passed out to the crowd that the half-breed was testifying. In the court-room there was such a stir that the bailiff was forced to rap for order.
The prosecuting attorney, seeing the case slipping away from him, was moved to frantic denunciations. He challenged McFann's every statement.
"You claim that you had lost your lariat and were looking for it. Also that you came upon this dead body, with your rope used to fasten the murdered man to stakes that had been driven into the prairie?" sneered the attorney.
"Yes;" said McFann.
"And you claim that you were frightened away by the arrival of Fire Bear and his Indians before you had a chance to remove the rope?"
"Yes; but I want to add something to that statement," said the half-breed.
"All right—what is it?"
"There was another man by the body when I came there looking for my rope."
"Who was that man?"
"Talpers."
A thrill ran through the court-room as the half-breed went on and described how he had found the trader stooping over the murdered man, and how Talpers had shown him a watch which he had taken from the victim, but claimed that was all the valuables that had been found. Also he described how Talpers had prevailed upon him to keep the trader's presence a secret, which McFann had done in his previous testimony.
"Why do you come in with this story, at this late day?" asked the attorney.
"Because Talpers was lying to me all the time. He had taken money from that man—some of it in thousand-dollar bills. I did not care for the money. It was just that this man had lied to me, after I had done all his bootlegging work. He was playing safe at my expense. If it had been found that the dead man was robbed, he was ready to lay the blame on me. When I heard of the money he had hidden, I knew the game he had played. I walked in on him, and made him take the dead man's money from his safe. I threw the money in his face and dared him to fight. When he tried to shoot me, I killed him. It was better that he should die. I don't care what you do with me, but how are you going to hang Fire Bear or hang me for being near that body,when Bill Talpers was there first?"
Jim McFann's testimony remained unshaken. Cast doubt upon it as he would, the prosecuting attorney saw that the half-breed's new testimony had given an entirely new direction to the trial. He ceased trying to stem the tide and let the case go to the jury.
The crowd filed out, but waited around the court-house for the verdict. The irrepressible cowpunchers, who had a habit of laying wagers on anything and everything, made bets as to the number of minutes the jury would be out.
"Whichever way it goes, it'll be over in a hurry," said Tom Redmond to Lowell, "but hanged if I don't believe your men are as good as free this minute. Talpers's friends have been trying to stir up a lot of sentiment against Jim McFann, but it has worked the other way. The hull county seems to think right now that McFann done the right sort of a job, and that Talpers was not only a bootlegger, but was not above murder, and was the man who committed that crime on the Dollar Sign road. Of course, if Talpers done it, Fire Bear couldn't have. Furthermore, this young Injun has made an awful hit by givin' himself up for trial the way he has. To tell you the truth, I didn't think he'd show up."
Lowell escaped as soon as he could from the excited sheriff and sought Helen Ervin, whom he had seen in the court-room.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come to get you, on account of having to bring in the prisoners," said Lowell, "but I imagine this is the last ride to White Lodge you will have to take. The jury is going to decide quickly—or such is the general feeling."
Lowell had hardly spoken when a shout from the crowd on the court-house steps announced to the others that the jury had come in.
Lowell and Helen found places in the court-room. Judge Garford had not left his chambers. As soon as the crowd had settled down, the foreman announced the verdict.
"Not guilty!" was the word that was passed to those outside the building. There was a slight ripple of applause in the court-room which the bailiff's gavel checked. Lowell could not help but smile bitterly as he thought of the different sentiment at the close of the preliminary hearing, such a short time before. He wondered if the same thought had come to Judge Garford. But if the aged jurist had made any comparisons, they were not reflected in his benign features. A lifetime among scenes of turbulence, and watching justice gain steady ascendancy over frontier lawlessness, had made the judge indifferent to the manifestations of the moment.
"It's just as though we were a lot of jumping-jacks," thought Lowell, "and while we're doing all sorts of crazy things, the judge is looking far back behind the scenes studying the forces that are making us go. And he must be satisfied with what he sees or our illogical actions wouldn't worry him so little."
Fire Bear and McFann took the verdict with customary calm. The Indian was released from custody and took his place in Lowell's automobile. The half-breed was remanded to jail for trial for the Talpers slaying. Lowell, after saying good-bye to the half-breed, lost no time in starting for the agency. On the way he caught up with Helen, who was riding leisurely homeward. As he stopped the machine she reined up her horse beside him and extended her hand in congratulation.
"You're not the only one who is glad of the acquittal," she exclaimed. "I am glad—oh, I cannot tell you how much!"
Lowell noticed that her expression of girlishness had returned. The shadow which had fallen upon her seemed to have been lifted miraculously.
"Wasn't it strange the way things turned out?" she went on. "A little while ago every one seemed to believe these men were guilty, and now there's not a one who doesn't seem to think that Talpers did it."
"There's one who doesn't subscribe to the general belief," answered Lowell.
"What do you mean?"
Lowell was conscious that she was watching him narrowly.
"I mean that I don't believe Bill Talpers had anything to do with murdering that man on the Dollar Sign road!"
"There's one thing sure in all cases of crime: If people would only depend more on Nature and less on themselves, they'd get results sooner."
Lowell and his chief clerk were finishing one of their regular evening discussions of the crime which most people were forgetting, but which still occupied the Indian agent's mind to the complete exclusion of all reservation business.
"What do you mean?" asked Rogers, from behind smoke clouds.
"Just the fact that, if we can only find it, Nature has tagged every crime in a way that makes it possible to get an answer."
"But there are lots of crimes in which no manifestation of Nature is possible."
"Not a one. What are finger-prints but manifestations of Nature? And yet for ages we couldn't see the sign that Nature hung out for us. No doubt we're just as obtuse about a lot of things that will be just as simple and just as plain when their meaning is finally driven home."
"But Nature hasn't given a hint about that Dollar Sign road crime. Yet it took place outdoors, right in Nature's haunts."
"You simply mean that we haven't been able to comprehend Nature's signals."
"But you've been over the ground a dozen times, haven't you?"
"Fifty times—but all that merely proves what I contend. If I go over that ground one hundred times, and don't find anything, what does it prove? Merely that I am ninety-nine times stupider than I should be. I should get the answer the first time over."
Rogers laughed.
"I prefer the most comfortable theory. I've settled down in the popular belief that Bill Talpers did the killing. Think how easy that makes it for me—and the chances are that I'm right at that."
"You are hopeless, Ed! But remember, if this thing goes unsolved it will only be because we haven't progressed beyond the first-reader stage in interpreting what Mother Nature has to teach us."
For several days following the acquittal of Fire Bear and McFann, Lowell had worked almost unceasingly in the hope of getting new evidence in the case which nearly everybody else seemed willing to forget. A similar persistency had marked Lowell's career as a newspaper reporter. He had turned up several sensations when rival newspaper men had abandoned certain cases as hopeless so far as new thrills were concerned.
Lowell had not exaggerated when he told Rogers he had gone over the scene of the murder fifty times. He had not gone into details with his clerk. Rogers would have been surprised to know that his chief had even blocked out the scene of the murder in squares like a checkerboard. Each one of these squares had been examined, slowly and painfully. The net result had been some loose change which undoubtedly had been dropped by Talpers in robbing the murdered man; an eagle feather, probably dropped from acoupstick which some one of Fire Bear's followers had borrowed from an elder; a flint arrowhead of great antiquity, and a belt buckle and some moccasin beads.
Far from being discouraged at the unsuccessful outcome of his checkerboarding plan, Lowell took his automobile, on the morning following his talk with Rogers, and again visited the scene of the crime.
For six weeks the hill had been bathed daily in sunshine. The drought, which the Indians had ascribed to evil spirits called down by Fire Bear, had continued unbroken. The mud-holes in the road, through which Lowell had plunged to the scene of the murder when he had first heard of the crime, had been churned to dust. Lowell noticed that an old buffalo wallow at the side of the road was still caked in irregular formations which resembled the markings of alligator hide. The first hot winds would cause these cakes of mud to disintegrate, but the weather had been calm, and they had remained just as they had dried.
As he glanced about him at the peaceful panorama, it occurred to the agent that perhaps too much attention had been centered upon the exact spot of the murder. Yet, it seemed reasonable enough to suppose, no murderer would possibly lie in wait for a victim in such an open spot. If the murder had been deliberately planned, as Lowell believed, and if the victim's approach were known, there could have been no waiting here on the part of the murderer.
Getting into his automobile, Lowell drove carefully up the hill, studying both sides of the road as he went. Several hundred yards from the scene of the murder, he found a clump of giant sagebrush and greasewood, close to the road. Lowell entered the clump and found that from its eastern side he could command a good view of the Dollar Sign road for miles. Here a man and horse might remain hidden until a traveler, coming up the hill, was almost within hailing distance. The brush had grown in a circle, leaving a considerable hollow which was devoid of vegetation. Examining this hollow closely, Lowell paused suddenly and uttered a low ejaculation. Then he walked slowly to his automobile and drove in the direction of the Greek Letter Ranch.
When he arrived at the ranch house Lowell was relieved to find that Helen was not at home. Wong, who opened the door a scant six inches, told him she had taken the white horse and gone for a ride.
"Well, tell Mister Willis Morgan I want to see him," said Lowell.
Wong was much alarmed. Mister Morgan could not be seen. The Chinese combination of words for "impossible" was marshaled in behalf of Wong's employer.
Lowell, putting his shoulder against the Greek letter brand which was burnt in the panel, pushed the door open and stepped into the room which served as a library.
"Now tell Mister Morgan I wish to see him, Wong," said the agent firmly.
The door to the adjoining room opened, and Lowell faced the questioning gaze of a gray-haired man who might have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty. One hand was in the pocket of a velvet smoking-jacket, and the other held a pipe. The man's eyes were dark and deeply set. They did not seem to Lowell to be the contemplative eyes of the scholar, but rather to belong to a man of decisive action—one whose interests might be in building bridges or tunnels, but whose activities were always concerned with material things. His face was lean and bronzed—the face of a man who lived much in the outdoors. His nose was aquiline, and his lips, though thin and firm, were not unkindly. In fact, here was a man who, in the class-room, might be given to quips with his students, rather than to sternness. Yet this was the man of whom it was said.... Lowell's face grew stern as the long list of indictments against Willis Morgan, recluse and "squaw professor," came to his mind.
The gray-haired man sat down at the table, and Lowell, in response to a wave of the hand that held the pipe, drew up opposite.
"You and I have been living pretty close together a long time," said Lowell bluntly, "and if we'd been a little more neighborly, this call might not be so difficult in some ways."
"My fault entirely." Again the hand waved—this time toward the ceiling-high shelves of books. "Library slavery makes a man selfish, I'll admit."
The voice was cold and hard. It was such a voice that had extended a mocking welcome to Helen Ervin when she had stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the Greek Letter Ranch-house. Lowell sneered openly.
"You haven't always been so tied up to your books that you couldn't get out," he said. "I want to take you back to a little horseback ride which you took just six weeks ago."
"I don't remember such a trip."
"You will remember it, as I particularize."
"Very well. You are beginning to interest me."
"You rode from here to the top of the hill on the Dollar Sign road. Do you remember?"
"What odds if I say yes or no? Go on. I want to hear the rest of this story."
"When you reached a clump of tall sage and grease wood, not far below the crest of the hill, you entered it and remained hidden. You had a considerable time to wait, but you were patient—very patient. You knew the man you wanted to meet was somewhere on the road—coming toward you. From the clump of bushes you commanded a view of the Dollar Sign road for miles. As I say, it was long and tedious waiting. It had rained in the night. The sun came out, strong and warm, and the atmosphere was moist. Your horse, that old white horse which has been on the ranch so many years, was impatiently fighting flies. Though you are not any kinder to horseflesh than you are to human beings who come within your blighting influence, you took the saddle off the animal. Perhaps the horse had caught his foot in a stirrup as he kicked at a buzzing fly."
The keen, strong features into which Lowell gazed were mask-like in their impassiveness.
"Soon you saw something approaching on the road over the prairie," went on the agent. "It must be the automobile driven by the man you had come to meet. You saddled quickly and rode out of the sagebrush. You met the man in the automobile as he was climbing the hill. He stopped and you talked with him. You had violent words, and then you shot him with a sawed-off shotgun which you had carried for that purpose. You killed the man, and then, to throw suspicion on others, conceived the idea of staking him down to the prairie. It would look like an Indian trick. Besides, you knew that there had been some trouble on the reservation with Indians who were dancing and generally inclined to oppose Government regulations. You had found a rope which had been dropped on the road by the half-breed, Jim McFann. You took that rope from your saddle and cut it in four pieces and tied the man's hands and wrists to his own tent-stakes, which you found in his automobile.
"Your plans worked out well. It was a lonely country and comparatively early in the day. There was nobody to disturb you at your work. Apparently you had thought of every detail. You had left a few tracks, and these you obliterated carefully. You knew you would hardly be suspected unless something led the world to your door. You had been a recluse for years, hated by white men and feared by red. Few had seen your face. You could retire to this lonely ranch and live your customary life, with no fear of suffering for the crime you had committed. To be sure, an Indian or two might be hanged, but a matter like that would rest lightly on your conscience.
"Apparently your plans were perfect, but you overlooked one small thing. Most clever scoundrels do. You did not think that perhaps Nature might lay a trap to catch you—a trap in the brush where you had been hidden. Your horse rolled in the mud to rid himself of the pest of flies. You were so intent on the approach of your victim that you did not notice the animal. Yet there in the mud, and visible to-day, was made the imprint of your horse's shoulder,bearing the impression of the Greek Letter brand!"
As Lowell finished, he rose slowly, his hands on the table and his gaze on the unflinching face in front of him. The gray-haired man rose also.
"I suppose," he said, in a voice from which all trace of harshness had disappeared, "you have come to give me over to the authorities on account of this crime."
"Yes."
"Very well. I committed the murder, much as you have explained it, but I did not ride the white horse to the hill. Nor am I Willis Morgan. I am Edward Sargent. Morgan was the man whom I killed and staked down on the prairie!"
Helen Ervin rode past the ranch door just as the gray-haired man made his statement to Lowell.
"You are Edward Sargent, the man who was supposed to have been murdered?" repeated the Indian agent, in astonishment.
"Yes; but wait till Miss Ervin comes in. The situation may require a little clearing, and she can help."
Surprise and anxiety alternated in Helen's face as she looked in through the open doorway and saw the men seated at the table. She paused a moment, silhouetted in the door, the Greek letter on the panel standing out with almost startling distinctness beside her. As she stood poised on the threshold in her riding-suit, the ravages of her previous trip having been repaired, she made Lowell think of a modernized Diana—modernized as to clothes, but carrying, in her straight-limbed grace, all the world-old spell of the outdoors.
"Our young friend has just learned the truth, my dear," said the gray-haired man. "He knows that I am Sargent, and that our stepfather, Willis Morgan, is dead."
Helen stepped quickly to Sargent's side. There was something suggesting filial protection in her attitude. Sargent smiled up at her, reassuringly.
"Probably it is better," he said, "that the whole thing should be known."
"But in a few days we should have been gone," said Helen. "Why have all our hopes been destroyed in this way at the last moment? Is this some of your work," she added bitterly, addressing Lowell—"some of your work as a spy?"
Sargent spoke up quickly.
"It was fate," he said. "I have felt from the first that I should not have attempted to escape punishment for my deed. The young man has simply done his duty. He worked with the sole idea of getting at the truth—and it is always the truth that matters most. What difference can it make who is hurt, so long as the truth is known?"
"But how did it become known," asked Helen, "when everything seemed to be so thoroughly in our favor? The innocent men who were suspected had been released. The public was content to let the crime rest at the door of Talpers—a man capable of any evil deed. What has happened to change matters so suddenly?"
"It was the old white horse that betrayed us," said Sargent, with a grim smile. "It shows on what small threads our fates hang balanced. The Greek letter brand still shows in the mud where the horse rolled on the day of the murder on the Dollar Sign hill. When our young friend here saw that bit of evidence, he came directly to the ranch and accused me of knowledge of the crime, all the time thinking I was Willis Morgan."
"Let me continue my work as a spy," broke in Lowell bitterly, "and ask for a complete statement."
"Willis Morgan was my twin brother," said Sargent. "As Willard Sargent he had made a distinguished name for himself among the teachers of Greek in this country. He was a professor at an early age, his bent toward scholarship being opposite to mine, which was along the lines of invention. My brother was a hard, cruel man, beneath a polished exterior. Cynicism was as natural to him as breathing. He married a young and beautiful woman, who had been married before, and who had a little daughter—a mere baby, Willard's wife soon died, a victim of his cynicism and studied cruelty. The future of this helpless stepdaughter of my brother's became a matter of the most intimate concern to me. My brother was mercenary to a marked degree. I had become successful in my inventions of mining machinery. I was fast making a fortune. Willard called upon me frequently for loans, which I never refused. In fact, I had voluntarily advanced him thousands of dollars, from which I expected no return. A mere brotherly feeling of gratitude would have been sufficient repayment for me. But such a feeling my brother never had. His only object was to get as much out of me as he could, and to sneer at me, in his high-bred way, while making a victim of me.
"His success in getting money from me led him into deep waters. He victimized others, who threatened prosecution. Realizing that matters could not go on as they were going, I told my brother that I would take up the claims against him and give him one hundred thousand dollars, on certain conditions. Those conditions were that he was to renounce all claim to his little stepdaughter, and that I was to have sole care of her. He was to go to some distant part of the country and change his name and let the world forget that such a creature as Willard Sargent ever existed.
"My brother was forced to agree to the terms laid down. The university trustees were threatening him with expulsion. He resigned and came out here. He married an Indian woman, and, as I understand it, killed her by the same cold-hearted, deliberately cruel treatment that had brought about the death of his first wife.
"Meantime Willard's stepdaughter, who was none other than Helen, was brought up by a lifelong friend of mine, Miss Scovill, at her school for girls in California. The loving care that she was given can best be told by Helen. I did not wish the girl to know that she was dependent upon her uncle for support. In fact, I did not want her to learn anything which might lead to inquiries into her babyhood, and which would only bring her sorrow when she learned of her mother's fate. My brother, always clever in his rascalities, learned that Helen knew nothing of my existence. He sent her a letter, when Miss Scovill was away, telling Helen that he had been crippling himself financially to keep her in school, and now he needed her at this ranch. Before Miss Scovill had returned, Helen, acting on the impulse of the moment, had departed for my brother's place. Miss Scovill was greatly alarmed, and sent me a telegram. As soon as I received word, I started for my brother's ranch. I happened to have started on an automobile tour at the time, and figured that I could reach here as quickly by machine as by making frequent changes from rail to stage.
"When Helen arrived at the ranch, it can be imagined how the success of his scheme delighted Willis Morgan, as my brother was known here. He threatened her with the direst of evils, and declared he would drag her beneath the level of the poorest squaw on the Indian reservation. Fortunately she is a girl of spirit and determination. The Chinese servant was willing to help her to escape. She would have fled at the first opportunity, in spite of my brother's declaration that escape would be impossible, but it happened that, during the course of his boasting, her captor overstepped himself. He told her of my existence, and that I had really been the one who had kept her in school. He had managed to keep a thorough system of espionage in effect, so far as Miss Scovill and myself were concerned. He had known when she left San Francisco, and he also knew that I was coming, by automobile, to take Helen from the ranch. He laughed as he told her of my coming. All the ferocity of his nature blazed forth, and he told Helen that he intended to kill me at sight, and would also kill her.
"Desirous of warning me, even at risk of her own life, Helen mailed a letter to me at Quaking-Asp Grove, hoping to catch me before I reached that place. In this letter she warned me not to come to the ranch, as she felt that tragedy impended. Talpers held up the letter and read it, and thought to hold it as a club over Helen's head, showing that she knew something of the murder.
"I rode through Quaking-Asp Grove and White Lodge and the Indian agency at night. I had a breakdown after going past Talpers's store—a tire to replace. By the time I climbed the hill on the Dollar Sign road it was well along in the morning. I saw a man coming toward me on a white horse. It was my brother, Willard Sargent, or Willis Morgan. He looked much like me. The years seemed to have dealt with us about alike. I knew, as soon as I saw him, that he had come out to kill me. We talked a few minutes. I had stopped the car at his demand, and he sat in the saddle, close beside me. There is no need of going into the details of our conversation. He was full of reproaches. His later life had been more of a punishment for him than I had suspected. His voice was full of venom as he threatened me. He told me that Helen was at the ranch, but I would never see her. He had a sawed-off shotgun in his hand. I had no weapon. I made a quick leap at him and threw him from his horse. The shotgun fell in the road. I jumped for it just as he scrambled after it. I wrested the weapon from him. He tried to draw a revolver that swung in a holster at his hip. There was no chance for me to take that from him. It was a case of his life or mine. I fired the shotgun, and the charge tore away the lower part of his face.
"Strangely enough, I had no regret at what I had done. It was not that I had saved my own life—I had managed to intervene between Helen and a fate worse than death. I weighed matters and acted with a coolness that surprised me, even while I was carrying out the details that followed. It occurred to me that, because of our close resemblance to each other, it might be possible for me to pass myself off as my brother. I knew that he had lived the life of a recluse here, and that few people knew him by sight. We were dressed much alike, as I was traveling in khaki, and he wore clothes of that material. I removed everything from his pockets, and then I put my watch and checkbook and other papers in his pockets. I even went so far as to put my wallet in his inner pocket, containing bills of large denomination.
"I had heard that there was some dissatisfaction among certain young Indians on the reservation—that those Indians were dancing and making trouble in general. It seemed to me that such a situation might be made use of in some way. Why not drag my brother's body out on the prairie at the side of the road and stake it down? Suspicion might be thrown on the Indians. I had no sooner thought of the plan than I proceeded to carry it out. I worked calmly and quickly. There was no living thing in sight to cause alarm. I took a rawhide lariat, which I found attached to the saddle on the old white horse, and used it to tie my brother's ankles and wrists to tent-stakes which I took from my automobile.
"After my work was done, I looked it over carefully, to see that I had left nothing undone and had made no blunder in what I had accomplished. I obliterated all tracks, as far as possible. Although it had rained the night before, and there was mud in the old buffalo wallows and in the depressions in the road, the prairie where I had staked the body was dry and dusty.
"After I had arranged everything to my satisfaction, I mounted the old white horse and rode to the ranch, merely following the trail the horse had made coming out. When I arrived here and made myself known to Helen, you can imagine her joy, which soon was changed to consternation when she found what had been done. But my plan of living here and letting the world suppose that I was Willard Sargent, or Willis Morgan, seemed feasible. Wong was our friend from the first. We knew we could depend on his Oriental discretion. But we were not to escape lightly. Talpers's attitude was a menace until, through a fortunate set of circumstances, we managed to secure a compensating hold over him. Undoubtedly Talpers had been first on the scene after the murder. He had robbed my brother's body, and was caught in his ghoul-like act by his partner, Jim McFann. The half-breed believed Talpers when the trader told him that a watch was all he had found on the dead man. The later discovery that Talpers had deceived him, and had really taken a large sum of money from the body, led the half-breed to kill the trader.
"I decided to await the outcome of the trial. It would have been impossible for me to let Fire Bear or McFann go to prison, or perhaps to the gallows, for my deed. If either one, or both, had been convicted, I intended to make a confession. But matters seemed to work out well for us. The accused men were freed, and it seemed to be the general opinion that Talpers had committed the crime. Talpers was dead. There was no occasion for me to confess. I had thoughts of going away, quietly, to some place where I could begin life over again. Miss Scovill is in possession of a will making Helen my heir. This will could have been produced, and thus Helen would have been well provided for. I had kept in seclusion here, and had even feigned illness, in order that none might suspect me of being other than Willis Morgan. But if any one had seen me I do not believe the deception would have been discovered, so close is my resemblance to my brother. Always having been a passable mimic, I imitated my brother's voice. It was a voice that had often stirred me to wrath, because of its cold, cutting qualities. The first time I imitated my brother's voice, Wong came in from the kitchen looking frightened beyond measure. He thought the ghost of his old employer had returned to the ranch.
"But of what use is all such planning when destiny wills otherwise? A trifling incident—the rolling of a horse in the mud—brought everything about my ears. Yet I believe it is for the best. Nor do I believe your discovery to have been a mere matter of chance. Probably you were led by a higher force than mere devotion to duty. Truth must have loyal servitors such as you if justice is to survive in this world. I am heartily glad that you persisted in your search. I feel more at ease in mind and body to-night than I have felt since the day of the tragedy. Now if you will excuse me a moment, I will make preparations for giving myself up to the authorities—perhaps to higher authorities than those at White Lodge."
Sargent stepped into the adjoining room as he finished talking. Helen did not raise her head from the table. Something in Sargent's final words roused Lowell's suspicion. He walked quickly into the room and found Sargent taking a revolver from the drawer of a desk. Lowell wrested the weapon from his grasp.
"That's the last thing in the world you should do," said the Indian agent, in a low voice. "There isn't a jury that will convict you. If it's expiation you seek, do you think that cowardly sort of expiation is going to bring anything but new unhappiness toherout there?"
"No," said Sargent. "I give you my word this will not be attempted again."
Space meeting space—plains and sky welded into harmonies of blue and gray. Cloud shadows racing across billowy uplands, and sagebrush nodding in a breeze crisp and electric as only a breeze from our upper Western plateau can be. Distant mountains, with their allurements enhanced by the filmiest of purple veils. Bird song and the chattering of prairie dogs from the foreground merely intensifying the great, echoless silence of the plains.
Lowell and Helen from a ridge—theirridge it was now!—watched the changes of the panorama. They had dismounted, and their horses were standing near at hand, reins trailing, and manes rising and falling with the undulations of the breeze. It was a month after Sargent's confession and his surrender as the slayer of the recluse of the Greek Letter Ranch. As Lowell had prophesied, Sargent's acquittal had been prompt. His story was corroborated by brief testimony from Lowell and Helen. Citizens crowded about him, after the jury had brought in its verdict of "Not guilty," and one of the first to congratulate him was Jim McFann, who had been acquitted when he came up for trial for slaying Talpers. The half-breed told Sargent of Talpers's plan to kill Helen.
"I'm just telling you," said the half-breed, "to ease your mind in case you're feeling any responsibility for Talpers's death."
Soon after his acquittal Sargent departed for California, where he married Miss Scovill—the outcome of an early romance. Helen was soon to leave to join her foster parents, and she and Lowell had come for a last ride.
"I cannot realize the glorious truth of it all—that I am to come soon and claim you and bring you back here as my wife," said Lowell. "Say it all over again for me."
He was standing with both arms about her and with her face uptilted to his. No doubt other men and women had stood thus on this glacier-wrought promontory—lovers from cave and tepee.
"It is all true," Helen answered, "but I must admit that the responsibilities of being an Indian agent's wife seem alarming. The thought of there being so much to do among these people makes me afraid that I shall not be able to meet the responsibilities."
"You'll be bothered every day with Indians—men, women, and babies. You'll hear the thumping of their moccasined feet every hour of the day. They'll overrun your front porch and seek you out in the sacred precincts of your kitchen, mostly about things that are totally inconsequential."
"But think of the work in its larger aspects—the good that there is to be done."
Lowell smiled at her approvingly.
"That's the way you have to keep thinking all the time. You have to look beyond the mass of detail in the foreground—past all the minor annoyances and the red tape and the seeming ingratitude. You've got to figure that you're there to supply the needed human note—to let these people understand that this Government of ours is not a mere machine with the motive power at Washington. You've got to feel that you've been sent here to make up for the indifference of the outside world—that the kiddies out in those ramshackle cabins and cold tepees are not going to be lonely, and suffer and die, if you can help it. You've got to feel that it's your help that's going to save the feeble and sick—sometimes from their own superstitions. There's no reason why we can't in time get a hospital here for Indians, like Fire Bear, who have tuberculosis. We're going to save Fire Bear, and we can save others. And then there are the school-children, with lonely hours that can be lightened, and with work to be found for them in the big world after they have learned the white man's tasks. But there are going to be heartaches and disillusionments for a woman. A man can grit his teeth and smash through some way, unless he sinks back into absolute indifference as a good many Indian agents do. But a woman—well, dear, I dread to think of your embarking on a task which is at once so alluring and so endless and thankless."
Helen put her hand on his lips.
"With you helping me, no task can seem thankless."
"Well, then, this is our kingdom of work," said Lowell, with a sweep of his sombrero which included the vast reservation which smiled so inscrutably at them. "There's every human need to be met out there in all that bigness. We'll face it together—and we'll win!"
They rode back leisurely along the ridge and took the trail that led to the ranch. The house was closed, as Wong was at the agency, ready to leave for the Sargents' place in California. The old white horse, which Helen rode, tried to turn in at the ranch gate.
"The poor old fellow doesn't understand that his new home is at the agency," said Helen. "He is the only one that wants to return to this place of horrors."
"The leasers will be here soon," replied Lowell. "They are going to put up buildings and make a new place all told. The Greek letter on the door will be gone, but, no matter what changes are made, I have no doubt that people will continue to know it as Mystery Ranch."