On the day following the incarceration of Fire Bear and Jim McFann,
Lowell rode over to the scene of the murder on the Dollar Sign road.
It seemed to the agent as if a fresh start from the very beginning would
do more than anything else to put him on the trail of a solution of the
mystery.
Lowell was not inclined to accept Redmond's comfortable theory that
either Fire Bear or Jim McFann was guilty--or that both were equally
deep in the crime. Nor did he assume that these men were not guilty. It
was merely that there were some aspects of the case which did not seem
to him entirely convincing. Circumstantial evidence pointed strongly to
Fire Bear and the half-breed, and this evidence might prove all that was
necessary to fasten the crime upon the prisoners. In fact Redmond was so
confident that he prophesied a confession from one or both of the men
before the time arrived for their hearing in court.
As Lowell approached Talpers's store, the trader came out and hailed
him.
"I hear Redmond's arrested Fire Bear and Jim McFann," said Talpers.
"Yes."
"Well, as far as public opinion goes, I s'pose Tom has hit the nail on
the head," observed Bill. "There's some talk right now about lynchin'
the prisoners. Folks wouldn't talk that way unless the arrest was pretty
popular."
"That's Tom Redmond's lookout. He will have to guard against a
lynching."
Talpers stroked his beard and smiled reflectively. Evidently he had
something on his mind. His attitude was that of a man concealing
something of the greatest importance.
"There's one thing sure," went on Bill. "Jim McFann ain't any more
guilty of a hand in that murder than if he wasn't within a thousand
miles of the Dollar Sign when the thing happened."
"That will have to be proved in court."
"Well, as far as McFann's concerned I know Redmond's barkin' up the
wrong tree."
"How do you know it?"
Talpers made a deprecating motion.
"Of course I don't know it absolutely. It's jest what I feel, from bein'
as well acquainted with Jim as I am."
"Yes, you and Jim are tolerably close to each other--everybody knows
that."
Talpers shot a suspicious glance at the agent, and then he reassumed his
mysterious grin.
"Where you goin' now?" he asked.
"Just up on the hill."
"I've been back there a couple of times," sneered Bill, "but I couldn't
find no notes dropped by the murderer."
"Well, there's just one thing that's plain enough now, Talpers," said
Lowell grimly, as he released his brakes. "While Jim McFann is in jail a
lot of Indians are going to be thirsty, and your receipts for whiskey
are not going to be so big."
Talpers scowled angrily and stepped toward the agent. Lowell sat calmly
in the car, watching him unconcernedly. Then Talpers suddenly turned and
walked toward the store, and the agent started his motor and glided
away.
Bill's ugly scowl did not fade as he stalked into his store. Lowell's
last shot about the bootlegging had gone home. Talpers had had more
opposition from Lowell than from any other Indian agent since the trader
had established his store on the reservation line. In fact the young
agent had made whiskey-dealing so dangerous that Talpers was getting
worried. Lowell had brought the Indian police to a state of efficiency
never before obtained. Bootlegging had become correspondingly difficult.
Jim McFann had complained several times about being too close to
capture. Now he was arrested on another charge, and, as Lowell had said,
Talpers's most profitable line of business was certain to suffer. As
Bill walked back to his store he wondered how much Lowell actually knew,
and how much had been shrewd guesswork. The young agent had a certain
inscrutable air about him, for all his youth, which was most disturbing.
Talpers had not dared come out too openly for McFann's release. He
offered bail bonds, which were refused. He had managed to get a few
minutes' talk with McFann, but Redmond insisted on being present, and
all the trader could do was to assure the half-breed that everything
possible would be done to secure his release.
Bill's disturbed condition of mind vanished only when he reached into
his pocket and drew out the letter which indicated that the girl at
Mystery Ranch knew something about the tragedy which was setting not
only the county but the whole State aflame. Here was a trump card which
might be played in several different ways. The thing to do was to hold
it, and to keep his counsel until the right time came. He thanked the
good fortune that had put him in possession of the postmastership--an
office which few men were shrewd enough to use to their own good
advantage! Any common postmaster, who couldn't use his brains, would
have let that letter go right through, but that wasn't Bill Talpers's
way! He read the letter over again, slowly, as he had done a dozen times
before. Written in a pretty hand it was--handwriting befitting a dum
fine-lookin' girl like that! Bill's features softened into something
resembling a smile. He put the letter back in his pocket, and his
expression was almost beatific as he turned to wait on an Indian woman
who had come in search of a new shawl.
Talpers's attitude, which had been at once cynical and mysterious, was
the cause of some speculation on Lowell's part as the agent drove away
from the trader's store. Something had happened to put so much of
triumph in Talpers's face and speech, but Lowell was not able to figure
out just what that something could be. He resolved to keep a closer eye
than customary on the doings of the trader, but soon all thoughts of
everything save those concerned directly with the murder were banished
from his mind when he reached the scene of the tragedy.
Getting out of his automobile, Lowell went over the ground carefully.
The grass and even some of the sage had been trampled down by the
curious crowds that had flocked to the scene. An hour's careful search
revealed nothing, and Lowell walked back to his car, shaking his head.
Apparently the surroundings were more inscrutable than ever. The rolling
hills were beginning to lose their green tint, under a hot sun,
unrelieved by rain. The last rain of the season had fallen a day or so
before the murder. Lowell remembered the little pools he had splashed
through on the road, and the scattered "wallows" of mud that had
remained on the prairie. Such places were now all dry and caked. A few
meadow-larks were still singing, but even their notes would be silenced
in the long, hot days that were to come. But the distant mountains, and
the little stream in the bottom of the valley, looked cool and inviting.
Ordinarily Lowell would have turned his machine toward the line of
willows and tried an hour or so of fly-fishing, as there were plenty of
trout in the stream, but to-day he kept on along the road over which he
had taken Helen Ervin to her stepfather's ranch.
As Lowell drove up in front of Willis Morgan's ranch-house, he noticed a
change for the better in the appearance of the place. Wong had been
doing some work on the fence, but had discreetly vanished when Lowell
came in sight. The yard had been cleared of rubbish and a thick growth
of weeds had been cut down.
Lowell marveled that a Chinese should be doing such work as repairing a
fence, and wondered if the girl had wrought all the changes about the
place or if it had been done under Morgan's direction.
As if in answer, Helen Ervin came into the yard with a rake in her hand.
She gave a little cry of pleasure at seeing Lowell.
"I'd have been over before, as I promised," said Lowell, "and in fact I
had actually started when I had to make a long trip to a distant part of
the reservation."
"I suppose it was in connection with this murder," she said.
"Yes."
"Tell me about it. What bearing did your trip have on it?"
Lowell was surprised at the intensity of her question.
"Well, you see," he said, "I had to bring in a couple of men who are
suspected of committing the crime. But, frankly, I thought that in this
quiet place you had not so much as heard of the murder."
The girl smiled, but there was no mirth in her eyes.
"Of course it isn't as if one had newsboys shouting at the door," she
replied, "but we couldn't escape hearing of it, even here. Tell me, who
are these men you have arrested?"
"An Indian and a half-breed. Their tracks were found at the scene of the
murder."
"But that evidence is so slight! Surely they cannot--they may not be
guilty."
"If not, they will have to clear themselves at the trial."
"Will they--will they be hanged if found guilty?"
"They may be lynched before the trial. There is talk of it now."
Helen made a despairing gesture.
"Don't let anything of that sort happen!" she cried. "Use all your
influence. Get the men out of the country if you can. But don't let
innocent men be slain."
Lowell attempted to divert her mind to other things. He spoke of the
changed appearance of the ranch.
"Your coming has made a great difference here," he said. "This doesn't
look like the place where I left you not many days ago."
Helen closed her eyes involuntarily, as if to blot out some vision in
her memory.
"That terrible night!" she exclaimed. "I--"
She paused, and Lowell looked at her in surprise and alarm.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is there anything wrong--anything I can do to
help you?"
"No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only the
recollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly."
"Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treating
you all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputation
around here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I brought
you over here. But you know how people feel about minding their own
affairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feel
that we should speak."
"No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesickness
for my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But I
can't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to this
place. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate--and dead! And then
those few days that followed!"
She buried her face in her hands a moment, and then said, quietly:
"Did you know that my stepfather had married an Indian woman?"
"Yes. Do you mean that you didn't know?"
"No, I didn't know."
"What a fool I was for not telling you these things!" exclaimed Lowell.
"I might have saved you a lot of humiliation."
"You could have saved me more than humiliation. He told me all about
her--the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was going
to kill me as he had killed her--by inches."
Lowell grew cold with horror.
"But this is criminal!" he declared. "Let me take you away from this
place at once. I'll find some place where you can go--back to my
mother's home in the East."
"No, it's all right now. I'm in no danger, and I can't leave this place.
In fact I don't want to," said the girl, putting her hand on Lowell's
arm.
"Do you mean to tell me that he treated you so fiendishly during the
first few days, and then suddenly changed and became the most
considerate of relatives?"
"I tell you I am being treated all right now. I merely told you what
happened at first--part of the cruel things he said--because I couldn't
keep it all to myself any longer. Besides, that Indian woman--poor
little thing!--is on my mind all the time."
"Then you won't come away?"
"No--he needs me."
"Well, this beats anything I ever heard of--" began Lowell. Then he
stopped after a glance at her face. She was deathly pale. Her eyes were
unnaturally bright, and her hands trembled. It seemed to him that the
school-girl he had brought to the ranch a few days before had become a
woman through some great mental trial.
"Come and see, or hear, for yourself," said Helen.
Wonderingly, Lowell stepped into the ranch-house kitchen. Helen pointed
to the living-room.
Through the partly open door, Lowell caught a glimpse of an aristocratic
face, surmounted by gray hair. A white hand drummed on the arm of a
library chair which contained pillows and blankets. From the room there
came a voice that brought to Lowell a sharp and disagreeable memory of
the cutting voice he had heard in false welcome to Helen Ervin a few
days before. Only now there was querulous insistence in the voice--the
insistence of the sick person who calls upon some one who has proved
unfailing in the performance of the tasks of the sick-room.
Helen stepped inside the room and closed the door. Lowell heard her
talking soothingly to the sick man, and then she came out.
"You have seen for yourself," she said.
Lowell nodded, and they stepped out into the yard once more.
"I'll leave matters to your own judgment," said Lowell, "only I'm asking
two things of you. One is to let me know if things go wrong, and the
other isn't quite so important, but it will please me a lot. It's just
to go riding with me right now."
Helen smilingly assented. Once more she was the girl he had brought over
from the agency. She ran indoors and spoke a few words to Wong, and came
out putting on her hat.
They drove for miles toward the heart of the Indian reservation. The
road had changed to narrow, parallel ribbons, with grass between.
Cattle, some of which belonged to the Indians and some to white leasers,
were grazing in the distance. Occasionally they could see an Indian
habitation--generally a log cabin, with its ugliness emphasized by the
grace of a flanking tepee. Everything relating to human affairs seemed
dwarfed in such immensity. The voices of Indian herdsmen, calling to
each other, were reduced to faint murmurs. The very sound of the motor
seemed blanketed.
Lowell and the girl traveled for miles in silence. He shrewdly suspected
that the infinite peace of the landscape would prove the best tonic for
her overwrought mind. His theory proved correct. The girl leaned back in
the seat, and, taking off her hat, enjoyed to the utmost the rush of the
breeze and the swift changes in the great panorama.
"It isn't any wonder that the Indians fought hard for this country, is
it?" asked Lowell. "It's all too big for one's comprehension at first,
especially when you've come from brick walls and mere strips of sky, but
after you've become used to it you can never forget it."
"I'd like to keep right on going to those blue mountains," said the
girl. "It's wonderful, but a bit appalling, to a tenderfoot such as I
am. I think we'd better go back."
Lowell drove in a circuitous route instead of taking the back trail.
Just after they had swung once more into the road near the ranch, they
met a horseman who proved to be Bill Talpers. The trader reined his
horse to the side of the road and motioned to Lowell to stop. Bill's
grin was bestowed upon the girl, who uttered a little exclamation of
dismay when she established the identity of the horseman.
"I jest wanted to ask if you found anything up there," said Bill,
jerking his thumb toward the road over which he had just ridden. It was
quite plain that Talpers had been drinking.
"Maybe I did, and maybe not, Bill," answered Lowell disgustedly.
"Anyway, what about it?"
"Jest this," observed Bill, talking to Lowell, but keeping his gaze upon
Helen. "Sometimes you can find letters where you don't expect the guilty
parties to leave 'em. Mebbe you ain't lookin' in the right place for
evidence. How-de-do, Miss Ervin? I'm goin' to drop in at the ranch and
see you and your stepfather some day. I ain't been very neighborly so
far, but it's because business has prevented."
Lowell started the car, and as they darted away he looked in
astonishment at the girl. Her pallor showed that once more she was under
great mental strain. It came to Lowell in a flash that Bill's arrogance
sprang from something deeper than mere conceit or drunkenness.
Undoubtedly he had set out deliberately to terrorize the girl, and had
succeeded. Lowell waited for some remark from Helen, but none came. He
kept back the questions that were on the tip of his tongue. Aside from a
few banalities, they exchanged no words until Lowell helped her from the
car at the ranch.
"I want to tell you," said Lowell, "that I appreciate such confidence as
you have reposed in me. I won't urge you to tell more but I'm going to
be around in the offing, and, if things don't go right, and especially
if Bill Talpers--"
There was so much terror in the girl's eyes that Lowell's assurances
came to a lame ending. She turned and ran into the house, after a
fluttering word of thanks for the ride, and Lowell, more puzzled than
ever, drove thoughtfully away.