Otis Carr, bending over the kneeling officer in the ranger cabin,
seemed fairly stupefied with astonishment as Lafe Ogden read the words
which branded him as the murderer of Ranger Fyffe. Even when the
Sheriff turned and looked up at him, condemnation in his keen gaze and
his hand instinctively seeking his gun, Otis stood petrified, oblivious
of everything but the scrawled and blurred inscription on the floor. He
still bent forward, eyes staring, pale beneath his tan, his mouth
agape.
Deputy Seth Markey whipped his revolver from its holster. He did not
train it upon Otis, but stood with arms crossed, eying him narrowly,
alert for the slightest hostile move. Sheriff Ogden rose slowly to his
feet, his gaze intent upon the younger man.
Through Otis’ mind flashed a picture of Joe Fyffe, wounded, rushing
into the ranger cabin, staggering toward the table, clutching at the
telephone, frantically calling for help, and then slowly sinking to the
floor, where he lay in agony. And then the ranger, knowing his life was
measured by minutes, had striven to set down a message that would
reveal the identity of the man who had shot him.
In the scene as reënacted in Otis’ mind, Fyffe fumbled with stiffening
fingers at his shirt pocket, searching for the stub of his pencil.
Fighting down his agony, he scrawled his damning indictment of
Otis--his friend!
And Otis, still standing there, bent forward, staring down at the
floor, seemed to see the ranger’s body suddenly go limp, the pencil
dropping from nerveless fingers. And then the pool of blood slowly
widening under the motionless body.
“_Otis Carr shot me because--_”
What would the rest of the sentence have been? What if Ranger Fyffe’s
heart had pulsed a few more beats? What would he have written?
And why--why had he written that Otis Carr shot him, when Otis had been
fifteen miles from the ranger station throughout the night?
* * * * *
Gradually Otis became conscious of his surroundings again. He
straightened, and looked from the Sheriff to his deputy, and back
again. He saw nothing in their gaze but cold conviction of his guilt.
Why didn’t they say something? Why did they stand there, silent and
impeaching? They had him on the defensive, at their mercy. He cleared
his throat to speak, with no definite idea of what he would say. But
the words would not come, and the sounds that issued from his lips were
stammering and unintelligible. At last he made an awkward little
gesture of helplessness with his hands, and dropped his head.
Sheriff Ogden, without taking his eyes from Otis, spoke to his deputy.
“Take his gun,” he directed shortly. Otis remained motionless while
Markey lifted the weapon from its holster, and rapidly passed his hands
over Otis’ body in search of other arms.
The deputy glanced at the revolver and turned it over to the Sheriff
with the remark: “Been fired twice.”
“How come, Otis?” asked the Sheriff, not unkindly, but with the air of
one with an unpleasant duty to perform.
Otis suddenly found his voice.
“Shot at a rattler, just before I reached the Buffalo Forks road.”
The trace of a smile hovered about Sheriff Ogden’s lips.
“And I s’pose whoever shot Joe Fyffe come into the cabin afterward and
wrote them words on the floor, just to throw suspicion on you?”
Otis raised his head and looked Ogden squarely in the eyes.
“No, Sheriff; Joe Fyffe wrote that. I’ve seen his writing before. This
is a little bit shaky, but it’s Joe Fyffe’s writing.”
The Sheriff raised his brows and emitted a low whistle of surprise.
“How do you account for his scribbling that on the floor, then?”
“I tell you I can’t account for it,” Otis admitted. “I own up that it
struck me all of a heap. I was as much surprised as you when I saw it.
You know I never had any quarrel with Joe Fyffe. We were friends. Why
should I kill him?”
“Now, just between you and me, didn’t your daddy say, like all the rest
of the cow-men here, that the Gov’ment wasn’t going to collect a penny
of grazing-fees, and that the ranger ought to be run out of the
country?”
Otis, who had regained his color after the first shock of the
discovery, paled visibly again at the Sheriff’s question. He hesitated
an instant before he answered.
“Why, yes,” he retorted, “there’s no use denying that. You know as well
as I that the Government rangers aren’t any too popular in the cattle
country. But you admit that _all_ the cow-men dislike the rangers. Why
should that indicate any motive on _my_ part?”
“I aint saying it does,” Ogden remarked. “I’m asking for information.
Now, isn’t it true, Otis, that just because you was particularly
friendly with Joe Fyffe, you thought you could talk to him better than
anyone else? Wasn’t that the reason you come over here last night--not
with any notion of killing him, mind you--but just to tell him he’d
better clear out, before somethin’ happened?
“I’m supposin’ that you came here to do him a service--to warn him to
git out before there was trouble, ’cause I know you and him was pretty
good friends. Now, Otis, tell me straight--wasn’t that about the way
things sized up? One word led to another. Maybe he pulled a gun on you
first, and you had to do it, or get killed yourself. If you’ll say it
was self-defense, now, maybe that’ll go a long ways with the jury.
Between you and me, haven’t I hit it about right?”
Otis, staring at Ogden, his eyes narrowed and his lips compressed,
shook his head.
“I tell you, Sheriff, I didn’t kill Joe Fyffe. How could I claim
self-defense when I was fifteen miles from here all night? And if I
were the one who really killed him, do you think I’d have shot him down
like this, without giving him a chance?
The Sheriff shrugged and turned away.
“Remember, Otis, I’m tryin’ to help you. Of course, I can’t make you
say what you don’t want to say. But if you think you’ll ever get away
with an alibi defense, in the face of that writin’ on the floor and
those empty cartridges in your gun--why, you’ve got another guess
comin’. But a self-defense plea may get you somewheres. I’m just tryin’
to give you a tip, that’s all. It’s none of my funeral.”
Otis, who had regained his composure to some extent by this time, cried
out with some display of eagerness:
“Well, there’s one way we can settle this whole thing, Sheriff. Let’s
ride over to Gus Bernat’s cabin right now, and if he tells you I wasn’t
at his place last night, then I’m willing to go to jail.”
The Sheriff frowned and shook his head.
“No chance, Otis. It’s too far. I’m afraid we’ll have to take you to
Jackson under arrest, and investigate the evidence afterward. But I’ll
send word to Gus to come to town tomorrow. If his story fits in with
yours--well, then it will be up to the prosecuting attorney to decide
what to do. Seth, you telephone the coroner. Then we’ll cut that plank
out of the floor as evidence, and get started back to town.”
* * * * *
While the deputy was carrying out the Sheriff’s instructions, Otis
seated himself at the table, and rolled and lighted a cigarette. He
made note of the fact that there was not the slightest tremor in his
fingers, and was glad, for he knew his every act was being observed
closely, and that evidences of nervousness would not help him.
He had banished the panic which had possessed him at first when he read
the dead man’s accusation. Now he reflected that all that was needed to
tear asunder the veil of suspicion which enveloped him, was Gus
Bernat’s alibi. His spirits rose with the thought, but he did not
neglect to study every feature of the room as he waited. For he knew
that even though Bernat’s alibi would free him from facing trial,
nothing but the discovery of the identity of the real murderer would
absolve him from suspicion in the minds of the residents of the
community. And there was one person in particular whose regard had
come, within the last few days, to mean far more to Otis than he had
realized until he had been snared in this trap of Fate.
“All right, Otis, let’s go,” Sheriff Ogden called when the deputy had
ripped from the floor the plank containing Joe Fyffe’s dying words. He
permitted the door of the ranger cabin to remain unlocked, explaining
that the coroner would fasten it after removing the body.
Otis’ chestnut pony, a rugged little mountain animal which had gained
the name of “Pie-face” because of the splotched white star between his
eyes, turned an inquiring look at the approach of his master. Like all
Western saddle-horses, Pie-face had been taught to stand as though
hitched as long as his reins were trailing on the ground. As Otis
passed the reins over the animal’s head, he threw one arm about the
neck of his loyal little mount and patted him affectionately. Here, at
least, was one friend who would always believe in him!
“Looks like rain, Sheriff,” Otis drawled with assumed nonchalance.
“Look at those clouds rolling over the Tetons. By the way, are you
going to use your--er--handcuffs?”
“Handcuffs?” repeated the Sheriff almost indignantly. “What’d we want
with handcuffs? We got our guns, and you aint armed. You wouldn’t dare
make a break. We know it, and you know it. No, Otis, I aint going to
rub it in. But if you’ll give me your promise you wont try to make a
break, it’ll make it a whole lot easier for me.”
Otis laughed shortly. Already they had started down the narrow trail
which led from the ranger station to the Buffalo Forks road. Markey was
in the lead, and Ogden brought up the rear.
“Sure, Sheriff--I’ll promise you I wont try to get away. If I tried to
escape, that would be a mighty good sign that I’m guilty, and that I’m
scared to face a showdown, wouldn’t it?”
They were nearing the road, which skirts Red Rock creek, when Markey
suddenly reined in his mount and directed Ogden’s attention to a moving
figure in the aspens beyond the stream. For a moment Sheriff and deputy
eyed the figure and conversed in undertones.
“Looks like one of the Radley boys,” Sheriff Ogden announced at length.
“Wonder what he’s doing over here, so far off his own range. Guess we’d
better find out.”