“Let us know if he starts talkin’ sense, doc.”
The doctor nodded and they went back to the street.
“We’re goin’ back to the Buck Horn,” explained Bob, “and you let me do
the talkin’, Andy.”
“’F you don’t, I won’t know what we’re there for,” grinned Andy.
There had evidently been much conversation regarding them, because the
talk died quickly as they came in. Bob led the way over to the poker
table and turned to Kelly.
“Buck, will yuh fix the chairs like they was at the time of the
shootin’? We’ll need this for evidence when Splinter comes to trial,
don’tcha see?”
“Sure,” agreed Kelly, and proceeded to place the chairs around the
table.
“You was facin’ the back door, eh?” said Bob. “Mellody was facin’ the
front door and Splinter was kinda between yuh.”
“Yes, that’s the way we were sittin’.”
“Did Mellody fall backwards when he was shot?”
“No-o-o, he fell forward on the table.”
“I see,” muttered Bob, as he drew a chair away and peered under the
table.
Other men stooped and looked under the table, but Bob straightened up, a
queer expression in his eyes.
“I reckon that’s all I wanted to know, Buck,” he stated and turned
toward the door.
“What do you mean?” queried Kelly. “You talk like it wasn’t----”
“Got a right t’ talk, ain’t I?” demanded Bob. “I’m a deputy-sheriff.”
He laughed mirthlessly and went out the front door, while Andy plodded
along behind him.
“Whatcha find out?” asked Andy anxiously, as they crossed the street.
“Lemme in on it, Bob.”
“My ----, don’t bother me when I’m knittin’!” exploded Bob. “I might
drop a stitch.”
Bob went straight to a State map on the office wall and studied it
closely. He drew a penciled line from Searchlight to Bunch Grass and
compared it with the scale of miles on the map. Then he turned to
Andy.
“Say, we ain’t a ---- of a ways from Wyomin’, are we.”
“That,” said Andy disgustedly, “is a ---- of a thing to hear yuh say,
when I was looking to hear somethin’ worth listenin’ to.”
“Well, it ain’t much,” agreed Bob, “but it’s one of the stitches. Didja
ever consider that Comanche Cañon might be an easy pass across the main
divide?”
“I know danged well it is,” said Andy. “I’ve been up to the top, where I
could look into Wyomin’. Why, it’s a railroad grade all the way. Betcha
some day they’ll run trains through that pass.”
Bob nodded and studied the map again.
“What do we do now?” queried Andy.
“Oh yeah.” Bob scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose we
might as well go out and arrest Barr Wyeth.”
“Zasso? Just like that, eh? Yuh don’t suppose that Barr Wyeth would stay
in this country after he’d killed the sheriff, do yuh, Bob?”
“No-o-o, I don’t reckon he would, under them circumstances.”
“Then what do yuh mean?”
“Andy,” said Bob thoughtfully, “a crook is like a calf; if yuh give
’em enough rope they’ll tangle themselves. There ain’t never been an
outlaw yet, if he was left alone long enough, that didn’t wind up his
own little ball of yarn. Mebbe they figure that it’s hard luck that
stops ’em; mebbe they can look back and see where a little mistake
upset their game, and mostly always that little mistake was in goin’
too ---- far.
“That’s the trouble with ’em, Andy. The game looks so easy to beat that
they pyramid their bets. When yo’re right, there’s an element of luck,
but when yo’re wrong, yore luck is packin’ a hoodoo. The way I figure it
is this: Crime is a payin’ proposition--for the devil.”
Andy listened closely and nodded his head.
“Yeah, I betcha yo’re right, Bob; but I don’t know a ---- thing yo’re
talkin’ about. I _sabe_ the calf and the rope idea, but I dunno who
yo’re referrin’ to.”
“I ain’t sure myself,” grinned Bob, “but didn’t I say a lot of stuff,
like a temperance orator?”
“Yuh sure can use words, cowboy,” said Andy generously. “But I’d rather
have yuh tell me what yuh was lookin’ for under Buck’s poker-table.”
“Didn’t yuh see it?” queried Bob. “Yuh didn’t? There’s a bullet hole in
the floor, Andy.”
Andy rubbed his nose violently and caressed his sore jaw.
“Uh-h-h-huh. That’s the same bullet that nicked that cowboy’s boot-sole,
eh?”
Bob nodded thoughtfully.
“Yeah, the same bullet.”
“Now,” said Andy wonderingly, “who in ---- tried to shoot him in the
feet, Bob?”
“That nicked sole was just a little mistake that the devil put in, Andy.
I betcha he’s laughin’ right now.”
“I’ll betcha he is, but I don’t know what for,” confessed Andy
foolishly, as he got to his feet. “Let’s go and git some supper.”
* * * * *
After supper they ran into Windy Hart and Mark Ells, and Bob asked them
what they were doing.
“We’re still with the Lightnin’,” grinned Windy.
“Runnin’ it on yore own hook?”
“Well, yuh might say so,” agreed Windy. “We was goin’ to pull out,
’cause there wasn’t nobody to pay us a salary nor to tell us what to
do; but Buck Kelly sent that gabby-mouthed Pell out to tell us to
stay on the job. I reckon Kelly is goin’ to take over the outfit.”
“I s’pose,” nodded Bob seriously, and then, “Windy, I’m goin’ to ask you
a question, and I hope you’ll answer it straight. Does Barr Wyeth ride a
horse that wears a bar-shoe?”
Windy hesitated over the answer and looked closely at Mark Ells, who
rubbed his nose thoughtfully.
“He did,” said Mark slowly. “That hammer-headed sorrel wore a bar-shoe.”
“But that sorrel has been dead for a month,” stated Windy. “Got cut up
in the bob-wire and we had to shoot him.”
“I tell yuh where yuh can find the remains,” offered Mark. “Yuh know
where yuh hit the wire fence this side of the ranch? She kinda angles
along the hill? Well, that sorrel is in the first coulee off the road.
Likely the coyotes have packed it mostly all away, but yuh might take
a look.”
“I’m sure obliged to yuh,” said Bob. “I sure am.”
“First time I ever got thanked for a dead horse,” grinned Mark.
“What’s this stuff about the reward for Barr Wyeth?” queried Windy.
“Fifteen hundred, is it? Suppose they lynch him, who gets the reward?”
“There won’t be none paid,” said Andy flatly.
From there they went over to Doctor Knowles’ office to inquire regarding
the condition of Mellody. The doctor took them back into the bedroom and
they found Mellody fully conscious but very peevish.
“By ----, I hope you jaspers ain’t tongue-tied,” he said painfully.
“This ---- doctor won’t talk, except to tell me that I got shot in a
poker game and that the _hombre_ that shot me is in jail. Is that
right?”
Bob nodded.
“Yeah, that’s true, Mellody.”
“Who shot me?”
“Splinter--the fat cowboy you was drinkin’ with.”
“Yeah?” Mellody’s eyes opened wide. “What fer?”
“Don’tcha remember of accusin’ him of cheatin’?”
Mellody wrinkled his brow and shut one eye as he squinted at Bob.
“Did I? Well, by the mighty Missouri River, that’s queer hooch we was
drinkin’. My ----, I must ’a’ been drunk! ’F anybody’d asked me, I’d
’a’ said that the game hadn’t started yet.”
“Thasso?” Bob grinned widely. “Then who did shoot yuh, Mellody?”
“---- if I know--’cause I had my head turned.”
“How many shots were fired?”
“How in ---- do I know? I never heard any of ’em.”
“Were you so drunk that you wouldn’t ’a’ heard a shot fired--if yuh
hadn’t been hit?”
“Not me. I never was so drunk that I couldn’t start runnin’ any old time
they starts throwin’ lead.”
“Then yuh don’t know whether Splinter shot yuh or not, eh?”
Mellody shook his head.
“I tell yuh I don’t know who shot me. He was awful drunk, I remember
that; so drunk that he couldn’t get money out of his pocket.”
“Who was you lookin’ at when you turned around, Mellody?”
“I been wonderin’ about that myself. I was pretty drunk, and I might
’a’ been mistaken, but I thought it was Windy Smith, the foreman of
the Ten-Bar-B outfit.”
“Who’s he?” queried Andy, but no one seemed able to explain.
Bob nodded slowly and turned back to the door. It was dark outside, and
half-way across the street to the Buck Horn they met Windy and Mark.
“Gotta question to ask yuh,” said Bob, grinning. “What color horse has
Barr Wyeth been ridin’ since his sorrel had to be shot?”
“Sorrel,” grunted Windy. “They looked a little alike, but the one we
shot was bigger.”
“Thank yuh again,” grunted Bob and headed for the hitch-rack.
“Where yuh goin’?” asked Andy.
“Goin’ to take a little ride, boss. You stay here and keep your eyes and
ears open. Tomorrow is Saturday and everybody in the country will be in
town; _sabe_? It would be a ---- of a fine day to pull off a lynchin’.”
Andy gawped after him as he rode away down the street, and turned back
toward the office. Andy was a slow thinker, and had no idea what it was
all about, but he had confidence in his new deputy.
Bob rode straight to the place designated by Mark Ells, and had little
trouble in locating the remains of the hammer-headed sorrel. There was
little left except bones, but with the aid of matches he was able to
find that all four shoes were still on the hoofs, and the right front
hoof was shod with a bar-shoe.
A coyote yapped at him from the side of the hill, and from back in
the brushy coulee came the spitting snarl of a hunting bobcat that
had probably been cheated of its prey. Bob swung back on his horse
and headed into the hills toward the JHF ranch.
He whistled unmusically between his teeth and grinned at the moon which
was just peeping over the top of Blackfeet Pass.
“My knittin’ is almost done, bronc,” he told his horse, “or mebbe it’s
more like weavin’ a pattern so that both sides come out the same. A fool
crook only looks after the big things, and the first thing he knows a
little thing gets tangled in his spurs and trips him.”
It was a long ways across the hills to the JHF, but Bob was in no hurry.
It was nearly midnight when he rode down the slope behind the big barn
and tied his horse to the corral fence. There was a faint light in one
of the ranch-house windows, and Bob grinned as he noticed that this was
in the spare bedroom.
He went softly into the bunk-house and sat down beside a window,
without lighting a lamp. The moonlight flooded the old ranch-house,
and cast heavy shadows across the yard. A cow bawled sleepily and a
big, gray owl drifted like a shadow across the moonlit space and
faded into the cottonwoods behind the house.
Then Bob saw a man come out of the shadows and stand looking toward the
house. After a moment he walked boldly across the lighted space and up
to the window, where he blended into the shadows.
Bob stepped to the door and opened it a few inches. He heard the soft
creak as the window was raised, but could hear no voices. Quickly he
turned and went to a rear window, which he opened, and crawled outside.
By circling the corral he could keep in the shadows of the barn until
he came to the shadows of the cottonwoods.
He went softly, taking plenty of time. The lamp had been extinguished
now, but he could hear soft voices. Cautiously he circled the house
until only the corner separated him from the man at the window. It was
Barr Wyeth talking--
“--last place they’d look for me, and I had to have food.”
He was unable to hear Nell Wyeth’s reply, but she must have told him to
come into the kitchen, because he said--
“Anythin’, Nell, just so it’s food.”
He stepped away from the window, came around the corner and ran into the
muzzle of Bob’s six-shooter.
He smothered a curse and his arms instinctively went up. Without a word,
Bob stepped in and took Barr’s gun from its holster. The moonlight
flashed on his badge and Barr saw it.
“Turned sheriff to get me, eh?” he sneered.
“Somethin’ like that,” said Bob coldly. “Turn around and head for the
kitchen. Yuh don’t need to keep your hands up, Wyeth.”
Nell Wyeth had unlocked the kitchen door and was putting food on the
table when Bob herded his captive inside. She was only dressed in a
night gown and her hair was hanging loosely around her shoulders.
She stared at Bob and her hands went to her mouth, as if to stifle a
scream. Barr sank down in a chair and stared at the floor. He was
uncombed, unkempt and the lines of his face were graved deeply.
“He turned deputy sheriff to get me, Nell,” said Barr in a flat voice.
“He’s makin’ good.”
The sound of voices had awakened Ma Fann and now she leaned in around
the dining-room doorway, her night-cap awry, her old eyes heavy with
sleep.
“What in the world!” she exclaimed wonderingly.
Bob said nothing, but he watched Barr closely. Nell turned away from the
table and sank down in a chair, crying wearily.
“Ma,” said Bob softly, “I reckon Barr Wyeth is hungry.”
Barr lifted his face and stared at Bob.
“A ---- of a lot you care, Kern.”
“I s’pose,” said Bob sadly.
“I’ll get him a meal,” said Ma Fann. “Just wait until I slip on some
clothes. Nell, you better put on some, too.”
Nell got to her feet and walked to the door, where she turned and looked
at Bob.
“You’re satisfied now, aren’t you?” she asked bitterly. “You are a very
good prophet, Bob Kern.”
“Yes’m,” nodded Bob, “I s’pose I am.”
Neither of the two men spoke while Ma Fann was dressing. She had
explained things to John Fann, who came out with her, his head still
swathed in bandages. He looked at Barr Wyeth and shook his head sadly,
but turned to Bob--
“You are a deputy sheriff now, Bob?”
“Yeah, I am, John. Took the job today.”
“I suppose I’m already convicted,” observed Barr. There was a trace of
his old sarcastic smile now.