MACDONALD FOLLOWS A CLUE
Macdonald was no sluggard. It was his habit not to let the pleasure of
the night before interfere with the business of the morning after. But
in the darkness he overslept and let the town waken before him. He was
roused by the sound of knocking on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"It's me--Jones--Gopher Jones. Say, Mac, the bank ain't open and we
can't rouse Milton. Thought I'd come to you, seeing as you're president
of the shebang."
The mine-owner got up and began to dress. "Probably overslept, same as
I did."
"That's the point. We looked through the window of his bedroom and his
bed ain't been slept in."
In three minutes Macdonald joined the marshal and walked down with him
to the bank. He unlocked the front door and turned to the little crowd
that had gathered.
"Better wait here, boys. Gopher and I will go in. I expect everything is
all right, but we'll let you know about that as soon as we find out."
The bank president opened the door, let the officer enter, and followed
himself.
The sun had not yet risen and the blinds were down. Macdonald struck a
match and held it up. The wood burned and the flame flickered out.
"Bank's been robbed," he announced quietly.
"Looks like," agreed Jones. His voice was uneven with excitement.
The Scotch-Canadian lit another match. In the flare of it they saw that
the steel grill cutting off the alcove was open and that the door had
been blown from the safe. It lay on the floor among a litter of papers,
silver, fragments of steel, and bits of candle.
The marshal clutched at the arm of the banker. "Did you see--that?" he
whispered.
His finger pointed through the darkness to the other end of the room. In
the faint gray light of coming day Macdonald could see a huddled mass on
the floor.
"There has been murder done. I'll get a light. Don't move from here,
Jones. I want to look at things before we disturb them. There's no
danger. The robbers have been gone for hours."
Gopher had as much nerve as the next man--when the sun was shining and
he could see what danger he was facing. But there was something sinister
and nerve-racking here. He wanted to throw open the door and shout the
news to those outside.
By the light of another match the mine-owner crossed the room into
the sitting-room of the cashier. Presently he returned with a lamp
and let its light fall upon the figure lying slumped against the wall.
A revolver lay close to the inert fingers. The head hung forward
grotesquely upon the breast.
The dead man was Milton. His employer saw nothing ridiculous in the
twisted neck and sprawling limbs. The cashier had died to save the money
entrusted to his care.
Macdonald handed the lamp to the marshal and picked up the revolver.
Every chamber was loaded.
"They beat him to it. They were probably here when he reached home.
My guess is he heard them right away, got his gun, and came in. He's
still wearing his dress suit. That gives us the time, for he left the
club about midnight. Soon as they saw him they dropped him. Likely they
heard him and were ready. I wouldn't have had this happen for all the
money in the safe."
"How much was there in it?"
"I don't know exactly. The books will show. I'll send Wally down to look
them over."
"Shot right spang through the heart, looks like," commented Jones,
following with his eye the course of the wound.
"Wish I'd been here instead of him," Macdonald said grimly. His eyes
softened as he continued to look down at the employee who had paid
with his life for his faithfulness. "It wasn't an even break. Poor old
fellow! You weren't built for a job like this, Robert Milton, but you
played your hand out to a finish. That's all any man can do."
He turned abruptly away and began examining the safe. The silver still
stood sacked in one large compartment. The bank-notes had escaped the
hurried search of the robbers, but the gold was practically all gone.
One sack had been torn by the explosion and single pieces of gold could
be found all over the safe.
Macdonald glanced over the papers rapidly. The officer picked up one
of dozens scattered over the floor. It was a mortgage note made out to
the bank by a miner. He collected the others. Evidently the bandits had
torn off the rubber, glanced over one or two to see if they had any cash
value, and tossed the package into the air as a disgusted gambler does
a pack of cards.
The bank president stepped to the door and threw it open. He explained
the situation in three sentences.
"I can't let you in now, boys, until the coroner has been here," he went
on to tell the crowd. "But there is one way you can all help. Keep your
eyes open. If you have seen any suspicious characters around, let me
know. Or if any one has left town in a hurry--or been seen doing
anything during the night that you did not understand at the time. Men
can't do a thing like this without leaving some clue behind them even
though the snow has wiped away their trail."
A man named Fred Tague pushed to the front. He kept a feed corral near
the edge of town. "I can tell you one man who mushed out before five
o'clock this morning--and that's Gid Holt."
The eyes of Macdonald, cold and hard as jade, fastened to the man. "How
do you know?"
"That dog team he bought from Tim Ryan--Well, he's been keeping it in my
corral. When I got there this morning it was gone. The snow hadn't wiped
out the tracks of the runners yet, so he couldn't have left more than
fifteen minutes before."
"What time was it when you reached the corral?"
"Might have been six--maybe a little later."
"You don't know that Holt took the team himself?"
"Come to that, I don't. But he had a key to the barn where the sled was.
Holt has been putting up at the hotel. I reckon it is easy to find out
if he's still there."
Macdonald's keen brain followed the facts as the nose of a bloodhound
does a trail. Holt, an open enemy of his, had reached town only two days
before. He had bought one of the best and swiftest dog teams in the
North and had let slip before witnesses the remark that Macdonald would
soon find out what he wanted with the outfit. The bank had been robbed
after midnight. To file open the grill and to blow up the safe must
have taken several hours. Before morning the dogs of Holt had taken the
trail. If their owner were with them, it was a safe bet that the sled
carried forty thousand dollars in Alaska gold dust.
So far the mind of the Scotchman followed the probabilities logically,
but at this point it made a jump. There were at least two robbers. He
was morally sure of that, for this was not a one-man job. Now, if Holt
had with him a companion, who of all those in Kusiak was the most likely
man? He was a friendless, crabbed old fellow. Since coming to Kusiak old
Gideon had been seen constantly with one man. Together they had driven
out the day before and tried his new team. They had been with each other
at dinner and had later left the hotel together. The name of the man who
had been so friendly with old Holt was Gordon Elliot--and Elliot not
only was another enemy of Macdonald, but had very good reasons for
getting out of the country just now.
The strong jaw of the mine-owner stood out saliently as he gave short,
sharp orders to men in the crowd. One was to get the coroner, a second
Wally Selfridge, another the United States District Attorney. He divided
the rest into squads to guard the roads leading out of town and to see
that nobody passed for the present.
As soon as the men he had sent for arrived, Macdonald went over the
scene of the crime with them. It was plain that the dynamiting had been
done by an old-time miner who knew his business, but there had been
brains in the planning of the robbery.
"There is no ivory above the ears of the man who bossed this job,"
Macdonald told the others. "He picks a night when we're all at the club,
more than half a mile from here, a stormy night when folks are not
wandering the streets. He knows that the wind will deaden the sound of
the dynamite and that the snow will wipe out any tracks that might help
to identify him and his pal or show which way they have gone."
The coroner took charge of the body and Wally of the bank. The
mine-owner and the district attorney walked up to the hotel together. As
soon as they had explained what they wanted, the landlord got a passkey
and took them to the room Holt had used.
Apparently the bed had been slept in. In the waste-paper basket the
district attorney found something which he held up in a significant
silence. Macdonald stepped forward and took from him a small cloth sack.
"One of those we keep our gold in at the bank," said the Scotchman after
a close examination. "This definitely ties up Holt with the robbery. Now
for Elliot."
"He left the hotel with Holt about five this morning the porter says."
This was the contribution of the landlord.
The room of Gordon Elliot was in great disorder. Garments had been
tossed on the bed and on every chair and had been left to lie wherever
they had chanced to fall. Plainly their owner had been in great haste.
Macdonald looked through the closet where clothes hung. "His new fur
coat is not here--nor his trail boots. Looks to me as though Mr. Gordon
had hit the trail with his friend Holt."
This opinion was strengthened when it was learned from a store-owner in
town that Holt and Elliot had routed him out of bed in the early morning
to sell them two weeks' supplies. These they had packed upon the sled
outside the store.
"It's a cinch bet that Elliot took the trail with him," the lawyer
conceded.
All doubt of this was removed when a prospector reached town with the
news that he had met Holt and Elliot traveling toward the divide as fast
as they could drive the dogs.
The big Scotchman ordered his team of Siberian wolf-hounds made ready
for the trail. As he donned his heavy furs, Colby Macdonald smiled with
deep satisfaction. He had Elliot on the run at last.
Just as he closed the door of his room, Macdonald heard the telephone
bell ring. He hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders and strode out into
the storm. If he had answered the call he would have learned from Diane,
who was at the other end of the line, that the stage upon which Sheba
had started for Katma had not reached the roadhouse at Smith's Crossing.
Five minutes later the winners of the great Alaska Sweepstakes were
flying down the street in the teeth of the storm. Armed with a rifle
and a revolver, their owner was mushing into the hills to bring back
the men who had robbed his bank and killed the cashier. He traveled
alone because he could go faster without a companion. It never occurred
to him that he was not a match for any two men he might face.