It was from Horace Baker, elderly clerk of the court, that Hashknife
learned some of the facts about Len Ayres’s trial. Baker had been clerk
of the court for ten years, being elected every two years, because no
one else wanted the office. The transcript of testimony was all on file,
but Hashknife did not ask to read it.
According to Baker, a lone bandit had twice operated successfully within
a period of a month. The Wells Fargo safe had been smashed one night
between Lobo Wells and Randall, netting the bandit about ten thousand
dollars.
Less than a month later the Kernwood stage, carrying five thousand
dollars in the strong box, was robbed just out of Lobo Wells, and the
description of the lone robber tallied closely to that of the man who
had robbed the express car. Descriptions given by men who have been
looking down the muzzle of a gun are seldom accurate enough for
identification, so the officers merely waited for the bandit to break
out again.
It had come sooner than they anticipated, it seemed. Charley Prentice,
transferring money from his window to the safe near closing time, the
bank being empty of customers at the time, turned his head at a sound
and found himself confronted by a masked cowboy.
According to Prentice’s testimony, the man spoke hoarsely, demanding all
the money in the safe. Prentice was in no position to refuse, and had
given the man what later proved to be seven thousand dollars.
At this moment a man came along the sidewalk in front of the bank, which
was still open, and the bandit struck Prentice a sharp blow on the jaw
with his fist, knocking Prentice down and badly dazing him, and then
leaped the railing and going out through a rear entrance before Prentice
could recover.
The man who had stopped in front of the bank was Amos Baggs, at that
time prosecuting attorney, and he came in just in time to see the bandit
stumble in the rear doorway, his hat falling back into the bank. Baggs
did not know that the bank had been robbed, until he found Prentice on
his hands and knees trying to stand up.
Even then Baggs did not realise what had been done until Prentice
managed to explain, when Baggs ran for the sheriff, Harry Cole. Then
Baggs remembered the bandit’s hat, which they found against the rear
wall of the bank near the door, and in the sweat-band had been stamped
the initials L.A.
According to Horace Baker, Len had no defence.
He admitted ownership of the hat, but said it had been misplaced at home
and that he had been wearing an old one. The hat was a nearly-new
Stetson and so large that the jury smiled when he said that it had been
misplaced.
But Len refused to tell them where the money had been hidden, and they
convicted him on the strength of the hat. Prentice was partly able to
identify Len as the robber, and his first description covered the cowboy
fairly well.
Baker told Hashknife that he had known Mrs. Ayres for a number of years,
and had known Prentice since he came to work for the bank.
“Was she a pretty woman?” queried Hashknife.
“Well, yes, she was; very pretty.”
“Did she attend the trial?”
“No, she didn’t. A great many people thought she was wrong in not
attending, but I suppose she didn’t feel that way about it.”
“Was she happy with Len?”
“I don’t know, Hartley. She was a woman who liked to dress well and have
a good time, and Len wasn’t makin’ much money. I’ve always had an idea
that was why Len turned bandit.”
“To buy her things, yuh mean?”
“Yes.”
“Do yuh reckon she got the money?”
“I don’t believe she did. Some folks seemed to think that Prentice
married her to get some of it. But I guess Len was too wise for all of
them. He’s no fool. Some day he’ll dig up all that money, disappear out
of the country and have a nice bunch of cash to start in business for
himself.”
All of that was merely conjecture, and Hashknife left Baker’s office no
wiser than he had been before. As far as he could learn from talking
with the residents of Lobo Wells, they considered Len guilty of all
three robberies, and it was the general opinion that some day Len would
dig up the twenty-two thousand dollars and leave the country.
Hashknife wondered what Amos Baggs would have to say about his near
assassination and as he left the little courthouse he decided to talk
with Baggs. The buckboard, carrying Nan, little Larry and Whispering,
was just leaving town as Hashknife came out on the street.
He paid no attention to whose equipage it was, but sauntered up the
street to Baggs’s office, shoved the door open and walked in. Baggs was
slumped down in his chair, his collar loose on one end and standing up
past one ear, his necktie torn. He lifted a scarlet face and stared at
Hashknife. There were plenty of welts in evidence, attesting to the fact
that Len was heavy of hand.
“What’s the matter with you--smallpox?” asked Hashknife.
Baggs heaved himself up from his chair, fairly spitting with rage, not
realising that Hashknife did not know what had happened.
“Get out of here!” he croaked. “Get out! By God, I’ll be well paid for
this! I’ll kill somebody! I’ll----”
“You act as though yuh was mad,” said Hashknife calmly.
“Get out! Don’t talk to me! Will you leave this office?”
“Shore. I’ll tell the sheriff, so that he can come up and tie yuh to a
tree.”
“Damn yuh! Leave the sheriff out of this. I’ll----”
Hashknife closed the door behind him, wondering what in the world was
the matter with Baggs, who was still raving. He found Dillon and Breezy
at the office, and told them what Baggs had said and how Baggs had
looked.
“What do yuh reckon is eatin’ him?” wondered Dillon.
“Capillary fit,” said Breezy.
“You mean cataleptic fit,” corrected Dillon. “Capillary has somethin’ to
do with hair, don’t it?”
“If it does, I mean capillary. His hair is so tight it cramps his
brain.”
“I guess yo’re right, Breezy,” grinned the sheriff. “Mebbe he ain’t got
over his scare of last night. I don’t blame him.”
“Who do yuh reckon tried to kill him?” asked Hashknife.
The sheriff shook his head wearily.
“I dunno. The longer I’m in this office the less I savvy about crime. I
used to read detective stories, about ’em findin’ clues and all that,
and puttin’ the deadwood on a criminal. Them writers lied. Yuh can’t do
it. When a shot is fired in the dark, and all yuh see is the flash, how
are yuh goin’ to deduct who pulled the trigger? Can’t be done. Who would
bushwhack Amos Baggs? Why not kill him openly and get a medal? Who shot
Charley Prentice? You answer it, I can’t. I’ve lost all faith in
detective stories. I tell yuh, it’s all luck, when yuh catch a criminal.
Instead of votin’ a man into this office, they ought to check up and
find out who is the luckiest man in the county.”
“I guess there’s a lot of luck connected with it,” agreed Hashknife.
“A lot? It’s all luck. Brains don’t do yuh any good, unless yuh carry a
horseshoe and a rabbit’s foot.”
Nan Whitlock was doing a lot of thinking about her luck, as the
buckboard lurched over the rough road to the Box S. There was no
question in her mind that she must get out of the Lobo Wells country
before the following noon or go to jail. But how to get away without
explaining? That was the rub.
Whispering and Larry kept up a spirited conversation, but Nan’s mind was
too busy to allow her to join them. The boy seemed filled with joy over
the prospect of living at the ranch, and boasted of his prowess with an
axe.
“Yuh got to show me,” declared Whispering. “I’ve seen a lot of you
braggin’ cowboys, old timer. How are yuh with a rope?”
“Pretty good,” admitted the seven-year-old.
“Don’t mean a thing. We’ve got to have ’em perfect.”
“Well, I can practice, can’t I?”
“Shore. Work yore string on the cat. When yuh can forefoot a cat, yo’re
a dinger. I used to know a Mexican who could rope lizards with a fish
line. How are yuh with a six-gun, Larry?”
“I never had one.”
“We’ll stop that. Sailor’s got an old one, and I’ll steal it for yuh.
Needs quite a lot of fixin’, I reckon.”
“Well, I’ll fix it all right.”
“Gosh, yo’re shore a handy man for to have, don’tcha think so, Nan?”
“I think he is wonderful, Whispering.”
“More’n that; he’s almost unbelievable.”
Len was at the ranch ahead of them. Whispering drove the team up to the
front porch and Nan started to jump out, but the restless team jerked
ahead and Nan went sprawling.
For a moment she was dazed, but a sharp pain through her left ankle
caused her to sit up quickly, and at the same instant Len reached her.
Whispering was swearing at the team and trying to saw their heads off
with the bits, while Larry clung to the seat with one hand and his hat
with the other.
“Hurt yuh, Nan?” Len asked quickly.
“My ankle!” she whispered. “I think it is broken.”
“Gosh a’mighty, I hope not!”
He picked her up bodily and carried her in the house, while Whispering
quickly tied the team and came in. Len took off her shoe and cut the
stocking loose with his knife. The ankle was swelling rapidly, but after
a quick examination Len said:
“I think it’s a bad sprain, Nan. Heat some water, Whisperin’.”
Len mixed some whisky with water and asked Nan to swallow it.
“It’ll do yuh good,” he said. “Yuh need a bracer.”
The liquor made her a little light-headed, but helped her to bear the
pain of having the ankle soaked in hot water, and afterward Len bound it
tightly with strips from a sheet.
She managed to get to bed, where she lay white-faced, staring up at the
ceiling. Suddenly she realised that it would be impossible for her to
leave within her allotted time. Len came in and sat down beside the bed.
“That was shore some shock for yuh,” he told her. “Yore face is almost
as white as the pillow, Nan. Can I have Whisperin’ cook somethin’
especial for yuh for supper?”
“I couldn’t eat,” she said wearily. Suddenly an inspiration came to her,
and she said:
“Len, I--I told Mr. Baggs I’d be in to see him in the morning. It was
important, you see. But I can’t see him now, and I wondered if Sailor
would go to Lobo Wells to-night and tell him what happened.”
“Why, shore, Nan. I’ll send Sailor right after supper. Is that all yuh
want to tell him?”
“That’s all, Len; that I can’t walk. He will understand.”
“I hope he will. Is there anythin’ else?”
“No; just that.”
Len left the room, and in spite of the throbbing ankle Nan fell asleep,
feeling sure that Amos Baggs would understand and be human enough to
give her a few days of grace.