Mystery Ranch

by Arthur Chapman

  CHAPTER V

  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 woulddo more than anything else to put him on the trail of a solution of themystery.

  Lowell was not inclined to accept Redmond's comfortable theory thateither Fire Bear or Jim McFann was guilty--or that both were equallydeep in the crime. Nor did he assume that these men were not guilty. Itwas merely that there were some aspects of the case which did not seemto him entirely convincing. Circumstantial evidence pointed strongly toFire Bear and the half-breed, and this evidence might prove all that wasnecessary to fasten the crime upon the prisoners. In fact Redmond was soconfident that he prophesied a confession from one or both of the menbefore the time arrived for their hearing in court.

  As Lowell approached Talpers's store, the trader came out and hailedhim.

  "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 onthe head," observed Bill. "There's some talk right now about lynchin'the prisoners. Folks wouldn't talk that way unless the arrest was prettypopular."

  "That's Tom Redmond's lookout. He will have to guard against alynching."

  Talpers stroked his beard and smiled reflectively. Evidently he hadsomething on his mind. His attitude was that of a man concealingsomething of the greatest importance.

  "There's one thing sure," went on Bill. "Jim McFann ain't any moreguilty of a hand in that murder than if he wasn't within a thousandmiles 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 thewrong 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 knowsthat."

  Talpers shot a suspicious glance at the agent, and then he reassumed hismysterious 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'tfind no notes dropped by the murderer."

  "Well, there's just one thing that's plain enough now, Talpers," saidLowell grimly, as he released his brakes. "While Jim McFann is in jail alot of Indians are going to be thirsty, and your receipts for whiskeyare not going to be so big."

  Talpers scowled angrily and stepped toward the agent. Lowell sat calmlyin the car, watching him unconcernedly. Then Talpers suddenly turned andwalked toward the store, and the agent started his motor and glidedaway.

  Bill's ugly scowl did not fade as he stalked into his store. Lowell'slast shot about the bootlegging had gone home. Talpers had had moreopposition from Lowell than from any other Indian agent since the traderhad established his store on the reservation line. In fact the youngagent had made whiskey-dealing so dangerous that Talpers was gettingworried. Lowell had brought the Indian police to a state of efficiencynever before obtained. Bootlegging had become correspondingly difficult.Jim McFann had complained several times about being too close tocapture. Now he was arrested on another charge, and, as Lowell had said,Talpers's most profitable line of business was certain to suffer. AsBill walked back to his store he wondered how much Lowell actually knew,and how much had been shrewd guesswork. The young agent had a certaininscrutable air about him, for all his youth, which was most disturbing.

  Talpers had not dared come out too openly for McFann's release. Heoffered bail bonds, which were refused. He had managed to get a fewminutes' talk with McFann, but Redmond insisted on being present, andall the trader could do was to assure the half-breed that everythingpossible would be done to secure his release.

  Bill's disturbed condition of mind vanished only when he reached intohis pocket and drew out the letter which indicated that the girl atMystery Ranch knew something about the tragedy which was setting notonly the county but the whole State aflame. Here was a trump card whichmight be played in several different ways. The thing to do was to holdit, and to keep his counsel until the right time came. He thanked thegood fortune that had put him in possession of the postmastership--anoffice which few men were shrewd enough to use to their own goodadvantage! Any common postmaster, who couldn't use his brains, wouldhave let that letter go right through, but that wasn't Bill Talpers'sway! He read the letter over again, slowly, as he had done a dozen timesbefore. Written in a pretty hand it was--handwriting befitting a dumfine-lookin' girl like that! Bill's features softened into somethingresembling a smile. He put the letter back in his pocket, and hisexpression was almost beatific as he turned to wait on an Indian womanwho had come in search of a new shawl.

  Talpers's attitude, which had been at once cynical and mysterious, wasthe cause of some speculation on Lowell's part as the agent drove awayfrom the trader's store. Something had happened to put so much oftriumph in Talpers's face and speech, but Lowell was not able to figureout just what that something could be. He resolved to keep a closer eyethan customary on the doings of the trader, but soon all thoughts ofeverything save those concerned directly with the murder were banishedfrom 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 thecurious crowds that had flocked to the scene. An hour's careful searchrevealed nothing, and Lowell walked back to his car, shaking his head.Apparently the surroundings were more inscrutable than ever. The rollinghills 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 sobefore the murder. Lowell remembered the little pools he had splashedthrough on the road, and the scattered "wallows" of mud that hadremained on the prairie. Such places were now all dry and caked. A fewmeadow-larks were still singing, but even their notes would be silencedin the long, hot days that were to come. But the distant mountains, andthe little stream in the bottom of the valley, looked cool and inviting.Ordinarily Lowell would have turned his machine toward the line ofwillows and tried an hour or so of fly-fishing, as there were plenty oftrout in the stream, but to-day he kept on along the road over which hehad taken Helen Ervin to her stepfather's ranch.

  As Lowell drove up in front of Willis Morgan's ranch-house, he noticed achange for the better in the appearance of the place. Wong had beendoing some work on the fence, but had discreetly vanished when Lowellcame in sight. The yard had been cleared of rubbish and a thick growthof weeds had been cut down.

  Lowell marveled that a Chinese should be doing such work as repairing afence, and wondered if the girl had wrought all the changes about theplace 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 Ihad actually started when I had to make a long trip to a distant part ofthe 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 aresuspected of committing the crime. But, frankly, I thought that in thisquiet 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," shereplied, "but we couldn't escape hearing of it, even here. Tell me, whoare these men you have arrested?"

  "An Indian and a half-breed. Their tracks were found at the scene of themurder."

/>   "But that evidence is so slight! Surely they cannot--they may not beguilty."

  "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 yourinfluence. Get the men out of the country if you can. But don't letinnocent men be slain."

  Lowell attempted to divert her mind to other things. He spoke of thechanged appearance of the ranch.

  "Your coming has made a great difference here," he said. "This doesn'tlook like the place where I left you not many days ago."

  Helen closed her eyes involuntarily, as if to blot out some vision inher 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 tohelp you?"

  "No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only therecollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly."

  "Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treatingyou all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputationaround here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I broughtyou over here. But you know how people feel about minding their ownaffairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feelthat we should speak."

  "No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesicknessfor my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But Ican't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to thisplace. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate--and dead! And thenthose 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 abouther--the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was goingto 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 thisplace at once. I'll find some place where you can go--back to mymother'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'sarm.

  "Do you mean to tell me that he treated you so fiendishly during thefirst few days, and then suddenly changed and became the mostconsiderate of relatives?"

  "I tell you I am being treated all right now. I merely told you whathappened at first--part of the cruel things he said--because I couldn'tkeep it all to myself any longer. Besides, that Indian woman--poorlittle 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 hestopped after a glance at her face. She was deathly pale. Her eyes wereunnaturally bright, and her hands trembled. It seemed to him that theschool-girl he had brought to the ranch a few days before had become awoman through some great mental trial.

  "Come and see, or hear, for yourself," said Helen.

  Wonderingly, Lowell stepped into the ranch-house kitchen. Helen pointedto the living-room.

  Through the partly open door, Lowell caught a glimpse of an aristocraticface, surmounted by gray hair. A white hand drummed on the arm of alibrary chair which contained pillows and blankets. From the room therecame a voice that brought to Lowell a sharp and disagreeable memory ofthe cutting voice he had heard in false welcome to Helen Ervin a fewdays before. Only now there was querulous insistence in the voice--theinsistence of the sick person who calls upon some one who has provedunfailing in the performance of the tasks of the sick-room.

  Helen stepped inside the room and closed the door. Lowell heard hertalking 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 askingtwo things of you. One is to let me know if things go wrong, and theother isn't quite so important, but it will please me a lot. It's justto go riding with me right now."

  Helen smilingly assented. Once more she was the girl he had brought overfrom the agency. She ran indoors and spoke a few words to Wong, and cameout putting on her hat.

  They drove for miles toward the heart of the Indian reservation. Theroad 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 Indianhabitation--generally a log cabin, with its ugliness emphasized by thegrace of a flanking tepee. Everything relating to human affairs seemeddwarfed in such immensity. The voices of Indian herdsmen, calling toeach other, were reduced to faint murmurs. The very sound of the motorseemed blanketed.

  Lowell and the girl traveled for miles in silence. He shrewdly suspectedthat the infinite peace of the landscape would prove the best tonic forher overwrought mind. His theory proved correct. The girl leaned back inthe seat, and, taking off her hat, enjoyed to the utmost the rush of thebreeze and the swift changes in the great panorama.

  "It isn't any wonder that the Indians fought hard for this country, isit?" 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, butafter you've become used to it you can never forget it."

  "I'd like to keep right on going to those blue mountains," said thegirl. "It's wonderful, but a bit appalling, to a tenderfoot such as Iam. 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, theymet a horseman who proved to be Bill Talpers. The trader reined hishorse to the side of the road and motioned to Lowell to stop. Bill'sgrin was bestowed upon the girl, who uttered a little exclamation ofdismay 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 wasquite 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 uponHelen. "Sometimes you can find letters where you don't expect the guiltyparties to leave 'em. Mebbe you ain't lookin' in the right place forevidence. How-de-do, Miss Ervin? I'm goin' to drop in at the ranch andsee you and your stepfather some day. I ain't been very neighborly sofar, but it's because business has prevented."

  Lowell started the car, and as they darted away he looked inastonishment at the girl. Her pallor showed that once more she was undergreat mental strain. It came to Lowell in a flash that Bill's arrogancesprang from something deeper than mere conceit or drunkenness.Undoubtedly he had set out deliberately to terrorize the girl, and hadsucceeded. Lowell waited for some remark from Helen, but none came. Hekept back the questions that were on the tip of his tongue. Aside from afew banalities, they exchanged no words until Lowell helped her from thecar at the ranch.

  "I want to tell you," said Lowell, "that I appreciate such confidence asyou have reposed in me. I won't urge you to tell more but I'm going tobe around in the offing, and, if things don't go right, and especiallyif Bill Talpers--"

  There was so much terror in the girl's eyes that Lowell's assurancescame to a lame ending. She turned and ran into the house, after afluttering word of thanks for the ride, and Lowell, more puzzled thanever, drove thoug
htfully away.