Mystery Ranch

by Arthur Chapman

  CHAPTER IX

  In his capacity of Indian agent Walter Lowell often had occasion to scanthe business deals of his more progressive wards. He was at once bankerand confidant of most of the Indians who were getting ahead inagriculture and stock-raising. He did not seek such a position, nor didhe discourage it. Though it cost him much extra time and work, headvised the Indians whenever requested.

  One of the reservation's most prosperous stock-raisers, who had beengiven permission to sell off some of his cattle, came to Lowell with athousand-dollar bill, asking if it were genuine.

  "It's all right," said Lowell, "but where did you get it?"

  The Indian said he had received it from Bill Talpers in the sale of somelivestock. Lowell handed it back without comment, but soon afterwardfound occasion to call on Bill Talpers at the trader's store.

  Bill had been a frequent and impartial visitor to the bottles that weretucked away at both ends of his store. His hands and voice were shaky.His hat was perched well forward on his head, covering a patch ofcourt-plaster which his clerk had put over a scalp wound, following apainful process of hair-cutting. Bill had just been through the processof "bouncing" Andy Wolters, who remained outside, expressing wonder andindignation to all who called.

  "All I did was ask Bill where his favorite gun was gone," quoth Andy inhis nasal voice, as Lowell drove up to the store platform. "I never seenBill without that gun before in my life. I jest started to kid him alittle by askin' him who took it away from him, when he fired up andthrowed me out of the store."

  Lowell stepped inside the store.

  "Bill," said Lowell, as the trader rose from his chair behind the screenof letter-boxes, "I want you to help me out in an important matter."

  Bill's surprise showed in his swollen face.

  "It's this," went on Lowell. "If any of the Indians bring anything hereto pawn outside of the usual run of turquoise jewelry and spurs, I wantyou to let me know. Also, if they offer any big bills in payment forgoods--say anything like a thousand-dollar bill--just give me the highsign, will you? It may afford a clue in this murder case."

  Talpers darted a look of suspicion at the agent. Lowell's face wasserene. He was leaning confidentially across the counter, and his eyesmet Bill's in a look that made the trader turn away.

  "You know," said Lowell, "it's quite possible that money and valuableswere taken from Sargent's body. To be sure, they found his checkbook andpapers, but they wouldn't be of use to anyone else. A man of Sargent'swealth must have had considerable ready cash with him, and yet none wasfound. He would hardly be likely to start out on a long trip acrosscountry without a watch, and yet nothing of the sort was discovered.That's why I thought that if any Indians came in here with large amountsof money, or if they tried to pawn valuables which might have belongedto a man in Sargent's position, you could help clear up matters."

  Hatred and suspicion were mingled in Talpers's look. The trader hadspent most of his hours, since his return from Morgan's ranch, cursingthe folly that had led him into wearing Sargent's watch. And now camethis young Indian agent, with talk about thousand-dollar bills. Therewas another mistake Bill had made. He should have taken those bills faraway and had them exchanged for money of smaller denomination. But hehad been hard-pressed for cash, and suspicion seemed to point in suchconvincing fashion toward Fire Bear and the other Indians that it didnot seem possible that it could be shifted elsewhere. Yet all hisconfidence had been shaken when Helen Ervin had calmly and correctlyrecounted to him the exact things that he had taken from that body onthe hill. Probably she had been talking to the agent and had told himall she knew.

  "I know what you're drivin' at," snarled Bill, his rage getting thebetter of his judgment. "You've been talkin' to that girl at Morgan'sranch, and she's been tellin' you all she thinks she knows. But she'dbetter go slow with all her talk about valuables and thousand-dollarbills. She forgets that she's as deep in this thing as anybody and I'vegot the document to prove it."

  The surprise in the Indian agent's face was too genuine to be mistaken.Talpers realized that he had been betrayed into overshooting his mark.The agent had been engaged in a little game of bluff, and Talpers hadfallen into his trap.

  "All this is mighty interesting to me, Bill," said Lowell, regaining hiscomposure. "I just dropped in here, hoping for a little generalcooperation on your part, and here I find that you know a lot more thananybody imagined."

  "You ain't got anything on me," growled Bill, "and if you go spillin'any remarks around here, it's your death-warrant sure."

  Lowell did not take his elbow from the counter. His leaning positionbrought out the breadth of his shoulders and emphasized the athleticlines of his figure. He did not seem ruffled at Bill's open threat. Heregarded Talpers with a steady look which increased Bill's rage andfear.

  "The trouble with you is that you're so dead set on protectin' themInjuns of yours," said the trader, "that you're around tryin' to throwsuspicion on innocent white folks. The hull county knows that Fire Beardone that murder, and if you hadn't got him on to the reservation thejail'd been busted into and he'd been lynched as he ought to have been."

  Bill waited for an answer, but none came. The young agent's steady,thoughtful scrutiny was not broken.

  "You've coddled them Injuns ever sence you've been on the job," went onBill, casting aside discretion, "and now you're encouragin' them indownright murder. Here this young cuss, Fire Bear, is traipsin' aroundas he pleases, on nothin' more than his word that he'll appear fortrial. But when Jim McFann busts out of jail, you rush out the hullInjun police force to run him down. And now here you are around, off thereservation, tryin' to saddle suspicion on your betters. It ain't right,I claim. Self-respectin' white men ought to have more protection aroundhere."

  Talpers's voice had taken on something of a whine, and Lowellstraightened up in disgust.

  "Bill," he said, "you aren't as much of a man as I gave you credit forbeing, and what's more you've been in some crooked game, just as sure asthousand-dollar bills have four figures on them."

  Paying no attention to the imprecations which Talpers hurled after him,the agent went back to his automobile and turned toward the agency. Hehad intended going on to the Greek Letter Ranch, but Talpers's words hadcaused him to make a change in his plans. At the agency he brought out asaddle horse, and, following a trail across the undulating hills on thereservation, reached the wagon-road below the ranch, without arousingTalpers's suspicion.

  As he tied his pony at the gate, Lowell noticed further improvement inthe general appearance of the ranch.

  "Somebody more than Wong has been doing this heavy work," he said toHelen, who had come out to greet him. "It must be that Morgan--yourstepfather is well enough to help. Anyway, the ranch looks better everytime I come."

  "Yes, he is helping some," said Helen uneasily. "But I'm getting to be afirst-rate ranch-woman. I had no idea it was so much fun running a placelike this."

  "I came over to see if you couldn't take time enough off for a littlehorseback ride," said Lowell. "This is a country for the saddle, afterall. I still get more enjoyment from a good horseback ride than from adozen automobile trips. I'll saddle up the old white horse while you getready."

  Helen ran indoors, and Lowell went to the barn and proceeded to saddlethe white horse that bore the Greek Letter brand. The smiling Wong cameout to cast an approving eye over the work.

  "This old fly-fighter's a pretty good horse for one of his age, isn'the, Wong?" said Lowell, giving a last shake to the saddle, after thecinch had been tightened.

  In shattered English Wong went into ecstasies over the white horse. Thenhe said, suddenly and mysteriously:

  "You know Talpels?"

  "You mean Bill Talpers?" asked Lowell. "What about him?"

  Once more the dominant tongue of the Occident staggered beneath Wong'sassault, as the cook described, partly in pantomime, the manner of BillTalpers's downfall the night before.

  "Do you mean to say that Talpers was over here
last night and that hereis where he got that scalp-wound?" demanded Lowell.

  Wong grinned assent, and then vanished, after making a sign calling forsecrecy on Lowell's part, as Helen arrived, ready for the ride.

  Lowell was a good horseman, and the saddle had become Helen's chiefmeans of recreation. In fact riding seemed to bring to her the onlycontentment she had known since she had come to the Greek Letter Ranch.She had overcome her first fear of the Indians. All her rides that weretaken alone were toward the reservation, as she had studiously avoidedgoing near Talpers's place. Also she did not like to ride past the hillon the Dollar Sign road, with its hints of unsolved mystery. But she hadquickly grown to love the broad, free Indian reservation, with itslimitless miles of unfenced hills. She liked to turn off the road andgallop across the trackless ways, sometimes frightening rabbits andcoyotes from the sagebrush. Several times she had startled antelope, andonce her horse had shied at a rattlesnake coiled in the sunshine. TheIndians she had learned to look upon as children. She had visited thecabins and lodges of some of those who lived near the ranch, and was notlong in winning the esteem of the women who were finding the middleground, between the simplicity of savage life and the complexities ofcivilization, something too much for mastery.

  Lowell and Helen galloped in silence for miles along the road they hadfollowed in the automobile not many days before. At the crest of a highridge, Helen turned at right angles, and Lowell followed.

  "There's a view over here I had appropriated for myself, but I'm willingto share it with you, seeing that this is your own particularreservation and you ought to know about everything it contains," saidHelen.

  The ridge dipped and then rose again, higher than before. The plainsfell away on both sides--infinite miles of undulations. Straight aheadloomed the high blue wall of the mountains. They walked their horses,and finally stopped them altogether. The chattering of a few prairiedogs only served to intensify the great, mysterious silence.

  "Sometimes the stillness seems to roll in on you here like a tide," saidHelen. "I can positively feel it coming up these great slopes andblanketing everything. It seems to me that this ridge must have beenused by Indian watchers in years gone by. I can imagine a scout standinghere sending up smoke signals. And those little white puffs of clouds upthere are the signals he sent into the sky."

  "I think you belong in this country," Lowell answered smilingly.

  "I'm sure I do. You remember when I first saw these plains and hills Itold you the bigness frightened me a little when the sun brought it allout in detail. Well, it doesn't any more. Just to be unfettered in mind,and to live and breathe as part of all this vastness, would be ideal."

  "That's where you're in danger of going to the other extreme," the agentreplied. "You'll remember that I told you human companionship is asnecessary as bacon and flour and salt in this country. You're moredependent on the people about you here, even if your nearest neighbor isfive or ten miles away, than you would be in any apartment building in abig city. You might live and die there, and no one would be the wiser.Also you might get along tolerably well, while living alone. But youcan't do it out here and keep a normal mental grip on life."

  "My, what a lecture!" laughed the girl, though there was no merriment inher voice. "But it hardly applies to me, for the reason that I alwaysdepend upon my neighbors in the ordinary affairs of life. I'm sure Ilove to be sociable to my Indian neighbors, and even to their agent.Haven't I ridden away out here just to be sociable to you?"

  "No dodging! I promised I wouldn't say anything more about the mattersthat have been disturbing you so, but that promise was contingent onyour playing fair with me. I understand Bill Talpers has been causingyou some annoyance, and you haven't said a word to me about it."

  Helen flashed a startled glance at Lowell. He was impassive as herquestioning eyes searched his face. Amazement and concern alternated inher features. Then she took refuge in a blaze of anger.

  "I don't know how you found out about Talpers!" she cried. "It is truethat he did cause a--a little annoyance, but that is all gone andforgotten. But I am not going to forget your impertinence quite soeasily."

  "My what?"

  "Your impertinence?"

  The girl was trembling with anger, or apprehension, and tapped her bootnervously with her quirt as she spoke.

  "You've been lecturing me about various things," she went on, "and nowyou bring up Talpers as a sort of bugaboo to frighten me."

  "You don't know Bill Talpers. If he has any sort of hold on you or onWillis Morgan, he'll try to break you both. He is as innocent ofscruples as a lobo wolf."

  "What hold could he possibly have on me--on us?"

  She looked at Lowell defiantly as she asked the question, but he thoughthe detected a note of concern in her voice.

  "I didn't say he had any hold. I merely pointed out that if he weregiven any opportunity he'd make life miserable for both of you."

  Lowell did not add that Talpers, in a fit of rage and suspicion,augmented by strong drink, had hinted that Helen knew something of themurder. He had been inclined to believe that Talpers had merely been"fighting wild" when he made the veiled accusation--that the trader,being very evidently only partly recovered from a bout with his petbottles, had made the first counter-assertion that had come into hishead in the hope of provoking Lowell into a quarrel. But there was aquality of terror in the girl's voice which struck Lowell with chillingforce. Something in his look must have caught Helen's attention, for hernervousness increased.

  "You have no right to pillory me so," she said rapidly. "You have beenperfectly impossible right along--that is, ever since this crimehappened. You've been spying here and there--"

  "Spying!"

  "Yes, downright spying! You've been putting suspicion where it doesn'tbelong. Why, everybody believes the Indians did it--everybody but you.Probably some Indians did it who never have been suspected and neverwill be--not the Indians who are under suspicion now."

  "That's just about what another party was telling me not long ago--thatI was coddling the Indians and trying to fasten suspicion where itdidn't rightfully belong."

  "Who else told you that?"

  "No less a person than Bill Talpers."

  "There you go again, bringing in that cave man. Why do you keep talkingto me about Talpers? I'm not afraid of him."

  Most girls would have been on the verge of hysteria, Lowell thought,but, while Helen was plainly under a nervous strain, her self-commandreturned. The agent was in possession of some information--how much shedid not know. Perhaps she could goad him into betraying the source ofhis knowledge.

  "I know you're not afraid of Talpers," remarked Lowell, after a pause,"but at least give me the privilege of being afraid for you. I know BillTalpers better than you do."

  "What right have you to be afraid for me? I'm of age, and besides, Ihave a protector--a guardian--at the ranch."

  Lowell was on the point of making some bitter reply about theundesirability of any guardianship assumed by Willis Morgan, squaw man,recluse, and recipient of common hatred and contempt. But he kept hiscounsel, and remarked, pleasantly:

  "My rights are merely those of a neighbor--the right of one neighbor tohelp another."

  "There are no rights of that sort where the other neighbor isn't askingany help and doesn't desire it."

  "I'm not sure about your not needing it. Anyway, if you don't now, youmay later."

  The girl did not answer. The horses were standing close together, headsdrooping lazily. Warm breezes came fitfully from the winds' playgroundbelow. The handkerchief at the girl's neck fluttered, and a strand ofher hair danced and glistened in the sunshine. The graceful lines of herfigure were brought out by her riding-suit. Lowell put his palm over thegloved hand on her saddle pommel. Even so slight a touch thrilled him.

  "If a neighbor has no right to give advice," said Lowell, "let us assumethat my unwelcome offerings have come from a man who is deeply in lovewith you. It's no great secret, anyway, as it see
ms to me that even themeadow-larks have been singing about it ever since we started on thisride."

  The girl buried her face in her hands. Lowell put his arm about herwaist, and she drooped toward him, but recovered herself with an effort.Putting his arm away, she said:

  "You make matters harder and harder for me. Please forget what I havesaid and what you have said, and don't come to see me any more."

  She spoke with a quiet intensity that amazed Lowell.

  "Not come to see you any more! Why such an extreme sentence?"

  "Because there is an evil spell on the Greek Letter Ranch. Everybody whocomes there is certain to be followed by trouble--deep trouble."

  The girl's agitation increased. There was terror in her face.

  "Look here!" began Lowell. "This thing is beyond all promises ofsilence. I--"

  "Don't ask what I mean!" said the girl. "You might find it awkward. Yousay you are in love with me?"

  "I repeat it a thousand times."

  "Well, you are the kind of man who will choose honor every time. Irealize that much. Suppose you found that your love for me was bringingyou in direct conflict with your duty?"

  "I know that such a thing is impossible," broke in Lowell.

  Helen smiled, bitterly.

  "It is so far from being impossible that I am asking you to forget whatyou have said, and to forget me as well. There is so much of evil on theGreek Letter Ranch that the very soil there is steeped in it. I am goingaway, but I know its spell will follow me."

  "You are going?" queried Lowell. "When?"

  "When these men now charged with the murder are acquitted. They will beacquitted, will they not?"

  The eager note in her question caught Lowell by surprise.

  "No man can tell," he replied. "It's all as inscrutable as that mountainwall over there."

  Helen shaded her eyes with her gauntleted hand as she looked in thedirection indicated by Lowell. Black clouds were pouring in masses overthe mountain-range. The sunshine was being blotted out, as if by somegiant hand. The storm-clouds swept toward them as they turned the horsesand started back along the ridge. A huge shadow, which Helenshudderingly likened to the sprawling figure of Talpers in thelamplight, raced toward them over the plains.

  "There isn't a storm in all that blackness," Lowell assured her. "It'sall shadow and no substance. Perhaps your fears will turn out that way."

  The girl regarded him gravely.

  "I've tried to hope as much, but it's no use, especially when you'vefelt the first actual buffetings of the storm."

  The approaching cloud shadow seemed startlingly solid. The girl urgedher horse into a gallop, and Lowell rode silently at her side. Theshadow overtook them. Angry winds seemed to clutch at them from variousangles, but no rain came from the cloud mass overhead. When they rodeinto the ranch yard, the sun was shining again. They dismounted near thebarn, and Wong took the white horse. Lowell and the girl walked throughthe yard to the front gate, the agent leading his horse. As they passednear the porch there came through the open door that same chilling,sarcastic voice which stirred all the ire in Lowell's nature.

  "Helen," the voice said, "that careless individual, Wong, must bereprimanded. He has mislaid one of my choicest volumes. Perhaps it wouldbe better for you to attend to replacing the books on the shelves afterthis."

  Every word was intended to humiliate, yet the voice was moderatelypitched. There was even a slight drawl to it.

  Lowell's face betrayed his anger as he glanced at the girl. He made agesture of impatience, but Helen motioned to him, in warning.

  "Some day you're going to let me take you away from this," he saidgrimly, looking at her with an intensity of devotion which brought thered to her cheeks. "Meantime, thanks for taking me out on that magicridge. I'll never forget it."

  "It will be better for you to forget everything," answered the girl.

  Lowell was about to make a reply, when the voice came once more, cuttinglike a whiplash in a renewal of the complaint concerning the lost book.The girl turned, with a good-bye gesture, and ran indoors. Lowell ledhis horse outside the yard and rode toward Talpers's place, determinedto have a few definite words with the trader.

  When Lowell reached Talpers's, the usual knot of Indians was gathered onthe front porch, with the customary collection of cowpunchers andranchmen discussing matters inside the store.

  "Bill ain't been here all the afternoon," said Talpers's clerk in answerto Lowell's question. "He sat around here for a while after you leftthis morning, and then he saddled up and took a pack-horse and hit offtoward the reservation, but I don't know where he went or when he'll beback."

  Lowell rode thoughtfully to the agency, trying in vain to bridge the gapbetween Talpers's cryptic utterances bearing on the murder, and the notless cryptic statements of Helen in the afternoon--an occupation whichkept him unprofitably employed until far into the night.