STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES.
As if he knew he would be followed, the man who had borne off the
body had struck rocky ground soon, so completely breaking his trail
that to pursue it promised to be a work of great difficulty.
Buffalo Bill stopped.
“I don’t think I care to go farther just now,” he said. “Though,
later, I want to come here and cipher this thing out. I’m going back
to Blossom Range.”
“Waugh!” the trapper objected. “What fer? This hyar is ther place fer
work ter be done right now.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Buffalo Bill, thoughtfully; “I’ll
leave you and the baron to claw the tangles out of this thing; and
I’ll try to join you before long. As you go along break a bush now
and then, so that when I return I’ll have no trouble in finding you.”
“But what ye goin’ back fer?” Nomad asked, impatiently.
It seemed to him that to pick up the lost trail was the most
important thing at the moment; at any rate, he could think of nothing
more promising.
Because of the listening ears turned toward him, Buffalo Bill did not
care to acquaint the trapper with the thoughts in his mind.
So he made a lame excuse, about having forgotten something; and
turned about, leaving the trapper and the baron to go on alone; as
all of the town men turned back when Cody did.
“You can dig out that trail, Nomad, if any one on earth can,” he told
the trapper. “So just hang to it, you and the baron--unless he wants
to go back with me! When I return, I shall come with the expectation
of finding that you have dug out something worth while.”
But the baron had no wish to return to Blossom Range at that time; it
was his idea that the blind trail which Nomad was to try to spell out
offered worlds of excitement, of the most surprising kind.
When Buffalo Bill reached Blossom Range, he took the officer and the
coroner aside, after dismissing the other men.
“Perhaps you know all about those men who have been with you, and
that they’re to be trusted,” he explained; “but I don’t know any of
them, and the faces of one or two didn’t strike me favorably. What
I want to do now is to have you go with me to the Casino and arrest
there a woman called Vera Bright; she is with the show company that
has been giving performances in the Casino the past week. After that,
I shall ask you to go with me to Juniper Joe’s and place Juniper Joe
and his wife under arrest.”
The officer and coroner stared at him.
“Not Juniper Joe!” gasped the officer.
“None other. If I am making a mistake, I will stand responsible for
it. The man who was slain out there was the same that Juniper Joe
tried to kill the night of his wedding; and this woman, Vera Bright,
was with the murdered man shortly before daylight this morning, as
I know through the testimony of the German, who was watching the
Casino at that time. He heard them quarreling. In addition, Mrs.
Juniper Joe made that woman a visit yesterday.”
“If you back the thing, I’ll make the arrests,” said the officer, but
reluctantly.
“I will back you!” the scout told him. “Or, if you don’t want to do
it, I will make the arrests myself; yet I should prefer to have you
to do that part of the work.”
He did not think it wise, being still rather hazy about some points
himself, to tell these men all his conclusions; he preferred to let
events speak for themselves.
When they got down to the Casino and called for Miss Vera Bright,
they were informed that she was not there; that, in fact, she had
left Blossom Range that morning, on the stage for Calumet Springs.
“Let me see the manager of the show,” Buffalo Bill requested.
The manager came down--a pale, blond, young fellow--and began to
answer Buffalo Bill’s questions.
“I didn’t know she was going,” he declared; “and none of the company
did. The first we knew, she had her things packed, and asked me for
her salary. I wouldn’t pay it, of course, under the circumstances,
as we expect to play here another week, and she was in the cast. She
went away in a huff.”
“How long was she with your company?” was the scout’s next question.
The manager admitted that he had “picked her up” at Calumet Springs,
when the company was there on its way to Blossom Range.
“She wanted to join us, and I let her do so, as I thought we could
use her,” he explained.
“So you really know nothing about her?”
“Not a thing!”
When Buffalo Bill left the Casino, he sent a telegram to the marshal
of Calumet Wells, requesting him to hold the woman until certain
charges against her could be investigated.
“Now for Juniper Joe’s!” he said to the officer.
When they reached the cabin of Juniper Joe, they had somewhat the
same experience; Juniper Joe was not there, neither was his wife. The
cabin was locked.
The door which the scout had so recently splintered had been somewhat
repaired, and was braced on the inside, as well as locked.
“This is queer!” was the officer’s comment.
“Just a little bit,” the scout agreed.
“Shall I break the door in?”
“That is my advice.”
When it was battered in and they entered, they found no one inside.
A warrant had been secured, authorizing the house and the mine to be
searched. Therefore, the officer forced the door which led to the
mine. The mine looked dark as a cave; so lights were secured, before
they tried to enter it.
They examined the mine back of the cabin, the scout flashing the
light curiously on the walls.
He made no remarks about his discoveries, and his examination was
not a close one; but he commented freely enough on the fact that the
couple must have departed by the front door.
“Yet it seemed to have been barred on the inside!” was the officer’s
objection.
This was overcome, when a closer examination of the door was made.
The bar of wood had been so arranged that it would drop down on the
inside and so hold the door when it was closed from the outside.
Hence the theory that it had been barred from the inside fell to the
ground.
“This may be nothing but a mare’s nest, though,” the officer
suggested; “Juniper Joe and his wife may be both downtown right now.”
“His wife was supposed to have been too badly hurt to leave the
cabin,” the scout reminded.
“But she may have gone to some doctor’s office!”
Though this was true enough, the scout did not believe it.
After they had made sure that the mine and cabin were unoccupied,
Buffalo Bill asked the men to return to the town and make a search
for Juniper Joe and his wife, and to arrest them if they were found.
As for himself, as soon as the men set out, he turned about and
started off, with the intention of rejoining Nomad and the baron.
“A water haul!” he said to himself, as he walked on swiftly. “But I
think that at last we are making some progress.”
It was the scout’s opinion that the couple and Vera Bright had
hastily left the town.
“Why?” was the question.
It seemed to him there could be but one answer.