Louis Bassett had left for Norada the day after David's sudden illness,
but ten days later found him only as far as Chicago, and laid up in his
hotel with a sprained knee. It was not until the day Nina went back to
the little house in the Ridgely Road, having learned the first lesson of
married life, that men must not only be captured but also held, that he
was able to resume his journey.
He had chafed wretchedly under the delay. It was true that nothing in
the way of a story had broken yet. The Tribune had carried a photograph
of the cabin where Clark had according to the Donaldson woman spent the
winter following the murder, and there were the usual reports that he
had been seen recently in spots as diverse as Seattle and New Orleans.
But when the following Sunday brought nothing further he surmised that
the pack, having lost the scent, had been called off.
He confirmed this before starting West by visiting some of the offices
of the leading papers and looking up old friends. The Clark story was
dead for the time. They had run a lot of pictures of him, however, and
some one might turn him up eventually, but a scent was pretty cold in
ten years. The place had changed, too. Oil had been discovered five
years ago, and the old settlers had, a good many of them, cashed in and
moved away. The town had grown like all oil towns.
Bassett was fairly content. He took the night train out of Chicago and
spent the next day crossing Nebraska, fertile, rich and interesting. On
the afternoon of the second day he left the train and took a branch
line toward the mountains and Norada, and from that time on he became an
urbane, interested and generally cigar-smoking interrogation point.
“Railroad been here long?” he asked the conductor.
“Four years.”
“Norada must have been pretty isolated before that.”
“Thirty miles in a coach or a Ford car.”
“I was reading the other day,” said Bassett, “about the Judson Clark
case. Have a cigar? Got time to sit down?”
“You a newspaper man?”
“Oil well supplies,” said Bassett easily. “Well, in this article it
seemed some woman or other had made a confession. It sounded fishy to
me.”
“Well, I'll tell you about that.” The conductor sat down and bit off the
end of his cigar. “I knew the Donaldsons well, and Maggie Donaldson was
an honest woman. But I'll tell you how I explain the thing. Donaldson
died, and that left her pretty much alone. The executors of the Clark
estate kept her on the ranch, but when the estate was settled three
years ago she had to move. That broke her all up. She's always said he
wasn't dead. She kept the house just as it was, and my wife says she had
his clothes all ready and everything.”
“That rather sounds as though the story is true, doesn't it?”
“Not necessarily. It's my idea she got from hoping to moping, so to
speak. She went in to town regular for letters for ten years, and the
postmaster says she never got any. She was hurt in front of the post
office. The talk around here is that she's been off her head for the
last year or two.”
“But they found the cabin.”
“Sure they did,” said the conductor equably. “The cabin was no secret.
It was an old fire station before they put the new one on Goat Mountain.
I spent a month in it myself, once, with a dude who wanted to take
pictures of bear. We found a bear, but it charged the camera and I'd be
running yet if I hadn't come to civilization.”
When he had gone Bassett fell into deep thought. So Maggie Donaldson
had gone to the post office for ten years. He tried to visualize those
faithful, wearisome journeys, through spring mud and winter snow, always
futile and always hopeful. He did not for a moment believe that she had
“gone off her head.” She had been faithful to the end, as some women
were, and in the end, too, as had happened before, her faith had killed
her.
And again he wondered at the curious ability of some men to secure
loyalty. They might go through life, tearing down ideals and destroying
illusions to the last, but always there was some faithful hand to
rebuild, some faithful soul to worship.
He was somewhat daunted at the size and bustling activity of Norada.
Its streets were paved and well-lighted, there were a park and a public
library, and the clerk at the Commercial Hotel asked him if he wished
a private bath! But the development was helpful in one way. In the
old Norada a newcomer might have been subjected to a friendly but
inquisitive interest. In this grown-up and self-centered community a man
might come and go unnoticed.
And he had other advantages. The pack, as he cynically thought of them,
would have started at the Clark ranch and the cabin. He would get to
them, of course, but he meant to start on the outside of the circle and
work in.
“Been here long?” he asked the clerk at the desk, after a leisurely
meal.
The clerk grinned.
“I came here two years ago. I never saw Jud Clark. To get to the Clark
place take the road north out of the town and keep straight about eight
miles. The road's good now. You fellows have worn it smooth.”
“Must have written that down and learned it off,” Bassett said
admiringly. “What the devil's the Clark place? And why should I go
there? Unless,” he added, “they serve a decent meal.”
“Sorry.” The clerk looked at him sharply, was satisfied, and picked up a
pen. “You'll hear the story if you stay around here any time. Anything I
can do for you?”
“Yes. Fire the cook,” Bassett said, and moved away.
He spent the evening in going over his notes and outlining a campaign,
and the next day he stumbled on a bit of luck. His elderly chambermaid
had lived in and around the town for years.
“Ever hear of any Livingstones in these parts?” he asked.
“Why, yes. There used to be a Livingstone ranch at Dry River,” she said,
pausing with her carpet sweeper, and looking at him. “It wasn't much of
a place. Although you can't tell these days. I sold sixty acres eight
years ago for two thousand dollars, and the folks that bought it are
getting a thousand a day out of it.”
She sighed. She had touched the hem of fortune's garment and passed on;
for some opportunity knocked but faintly, and for others it burst open
the door and forced its way in.
“I'd be a millionaire now if I'd held on,” she said somberly. That day
Bassett engaged a car by the day, he to drive it himself and return it
in good condition, the garage to furnish tires.
“I'd just like to say one thing,” the owner said, as he tried the gears.
“I don't know where you're going, and it's not exactly my business. Here
in the oil country, where they're cutting each other's throats for new
leases, we let a man alone. But if you've any idea of taking that car by
the back road to the old fire station where Jud Clark's supposed to have
spent the winter, I'll just say this: we've had two stuck up there for a
week, and the only way I see to get them back is a cyclone.”
“I'm going to Dry River,” Bassett said shortly.
“Dry River's right, if you're looking for oil! Go easy on the brakes,
old man. We need 'em in our business.”
Dry River was a small settlement away from the railroad. It consisted
of two intersecting unpaved streets, a dozen or so houses, a closed and
empty saloon and two general stores. He chose one at random and found
that the old Livingstone place had been sold ten years ago, on the death
of its owner, Henry Livingstone.
“His brother from the East inherited it,” said the storekeeper. “He came
and sold out, lock, stock and barrel. Not that there was much. A few
cattle and horses, and the stuff in the ranch house, which wasn't
valuable. There were a lot of books, and the brother gave them for a
library, but we haven't any building. The railroad isn't built this far
yet, and unless we get oil here it won't be.”
“The brother inherited it, eh? Do you know the brother's name?”
“David, I think. He was a doctor back East somewhere.”
“Then this Henry Livingstone wasn't married? Or at least had no
children?”
“He wasn't married. He was a sort of hermit. He'd been dead two days
before any one knew it. My wife went out when they found him and got him
ready for the funeral. He was buried before the brother got here.” He
glanced at Bassett shrewdly. “The place has been prospected for oil, and
there's a dry hole on the next ranch. I tell my wife nature's like the
railroad. It quit before it got this far.”
Bassett's last scruple had fled. The story was there, ready for the
gathering. So ready, indeed, that he was almost suspicious of his luck.
And that conviction, that things were coming too easy, persisted through
his interview with the storekeeper's wife, in the small house behind the
store. She was a talkative woman, eager to discuss the one drama in
a drab life, and she showed no curiosity as to the reason for his
question.
“Henry Livingstone!” she said. “Well, I should say so. I went out right
away when we got the word he was dead, and there I stayed until it was
all over. I guess I know as much about him as any one around here does,
for I had to go over his papers to find out who his people were.”
The papers, it seemed, had not been very interesting; canceled checks
and receipted bills, and a large bundle of letters, all of them from a
brother named David and a sister who signed herself Lucy. There had
been a sealed one, too, addressed to David Livingstone, and to be opened
after his death. She had had her husband wire to “David” and he had come
out, too late for the funeral.
“Do you remember when that was?”
“Let me see. Henry Livingstone died about a month before the murder at
the Clark ranch. We date most things around here from that time.”
“How long did 'David' stay?” Bassett had tried to keep his tone
carefully conversational, but he saw that it was not necessary. She was
glad of a chance to talk.
“Well, I'd say about three or four weeks. He hadn't seen his brother for
years, and I guess there was no love lost. He sold everything as quick
as he could, and went back East.” She glanced at the clock. “My husband
will be in soon for dinner. I'd be glad to have you stay and take a meal
with us.”
The reporter thanked her and declined.
“It's an interesting story,” he said. “I didn't tell your husband, for
I wasn't sure I was on the right trail. But the David and Lucy business
eliminates this man. There's a piece of property waiting in the East
for a Henry Livingstone who came to this state in the 80's, or for his
heirs. You can say positively that this man was not married?”
“No. He didn't like women. Never had one on the place. Two ranch hands
that are still at the Wassons' and himself, that was all. The Wassons
are the folks who bought the ranch.”
No housekeeper then, and no son born out of wedlock, so far as any
evidence went. All that glib lying in the doctor's office, all that
apparent openness and frankness, gone by the board! The man in the
cabin, reported by Maggie Donaldson, had been David Livingstone.
Somehow, some way, he had got Judson Clark out of the country and
spirited him East. Not that the how mattered just yet. The essential
fact was there, that David Livingstone had been in this part of the
country at the time Maggie Donaldson had been nursing Judson Clark in
the mountains.
Bassett sat back and chewed the end of his cigar thoughtfully. The
sheer boldness of the scheme which had saved Judson Clark compelled his
admiration, but the failure to cover the trail, the ease with which he
had picked it up, made him suspicious.
He rose and threw away his cigar.
“You say this David went East, when he had sold out the place. Do you
remember where he lived?”
“Some town in eastern Pennsylvania. I've forgotten the name.”
“I've got to be sure I'm wrong, and then go ahead,” he said, as he got
his hat. “I'll see those men at the ranch, I guess, and then be on my
way. How far is it?”
It was about ten miles, along a bad road which kept him too much
occupied for any connected thought. But his sense of exultation
persisted. He had found Judson Clark.