The coroner passed this point. "You say he called at your house—how many times?"
"Two or three, I think."
"Was your father at home each time?"
"Once I was alone."
"Did you meet Watson then?"
"No. I saw him coming in the gate and I went inside and locked the door."
"What happened then?"
"He beat on the door, and when I failed to reply he went away."
"Was he drunk?"
"He might have been. He seemed more like an insane man to me."
Kitsong broke in, "I don't believe all this—"
"When was that?"
"Night before last, at about this time or a little earlier."
"Was he on foot?"
"No; he came on horseback."
"Did he ride away on horseback?"
"Yes, though he could scarcely mount. I was surprised to see how well he was able to manage his horse."
"Did you tell your father of this?"
"No."
"Why not?"
She hesitated. "He would have been very—very much disturbed."
"You mean he would have been angry?"
"Yes."
The coroner suddenly turned the current of his inquiry. "Do you always wear shoes such as you now have on?"
Every eye in the room was directed toward her feet, which were shod in broad-toed, low-heeled shoes.
She was visibly embarrassed, but she answered, composedly: "I do—yes, sir. In fact, I go barefoot a great deal while working in the garden. The doctor ordered it, and, besides, the ordinary high-heeled shoes seem foolish up here in the mountains."
"Will you be kind enough to remove your shoe? I would like to take some measurements from it."
She flushed slightly, but bent quickly, untied the laces, and removed her right shoe.
The coroner took it. "Please remain where you are, Miss McLaren." Then to the jury, who appreciated fully the importance of the moment, "We will now compare this shoe with the footprints."
"Don't be disturbed, miss," whispered the ranger. "I know the size and shape of those footprints."
The sheriff cleared the way to the porch, where the little patch of flour had been preserved by ropes stretched from post to post, and the outside crowd, pressing closer, watched breathlessly while the jury bent together and compared the shoes and the marks.
It required but a few moments' examination to demonstrate that the soles of the accused woman's shoes were larger and broader and entirely different in every way.
"She may have worn another shoe," Kitsong put in.
"Of course! We'll find that out," retorted the coroner.
As they returned to the room Hanscom said to the witness: "Now be very careful what you reply. Take plenty of time before you answer. If you are in doubt, say nothing."
In the sympathy of his glance her haughty pose relaxed and her eyes softened. "You are very kind," she said.
"I don't know a thing about law," he added, apologetically, "but I may be able to help you."
The coroner now told the jury that Mr. Hanscom, as representing the witness at the hearing, would be allowed to ask any questions he pleased before the end of the hearing.
"But I must insist upon taking measurements of your bare feet, Miss McLaren."
The jury grinned and the girl flushed with anger, but at a word from the ranger yielded and drew off her stocking.
Hanscom, while assisting the coroner in measurements, said, "I'm sorry, miss, but it is necessary."
The examination proved that her bare foot was nearly two sizes wider and at least one size longer than the footprints in the flour. Furthermore, it needed but a glance for the jury, as well as the doctor, to prove that she had been going barefoot, as she claimed, for many weeks. Her foot was brown and her toes showed nothing of the close confinement of a pointed shoe.
Carmody, returning to his seat, conferred with the jury, designating the difference between the telltale marks on the porch and the feet of the witness, and Hanscom argued that the woman who made the telltale tracks must have been small.
"Miss McLaren could not possibly wear the shoe that left those marks in the flour," he said.
"We are on the wrong trail, I guess," one of the jury frankly stated. "I don't believe that girl was ever on the place. If she or the old man had been guilty, they wouldn't have been hanging around home this morning. They'd have dusted out last night."
And to this one other agreed. Four remained silent.
The ranger seized on these admissions. "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to connect the tracks in the flour with the person who did the shooting. It may have been done by another visitor at another time."
"Well," decided the coroner, "it's getting dark and not much chance for hotel accommodations up here, so I guess we'd better adjourn this hearing." He turned to Helen. "That's all, Miss McLaren."
As Hanscom handed back her shoe he said: "I hope you won't worry another minute about this business, miss. The jury is certain to report for 'persons unknown.'"
"I'm very grateful for your kindness," she answered, feelingly. "I felt so utterly helpless when I came into the room."
"You've won even the jury's sympathy," he said.
Nevertheless, as she left the room, he followed closely, for the Kitsongs, who had been denied admittance, were openly voicing their dissatisfaction with the coroner's verdict. "She ought to be held, and the old man ought to be held," they insisted.
"One or the other of them shot Watson," declared Abe to Carmody. "No matter if the girl's foot doesn't just exactly fit the tracks. She could jam her foot into a narrow shoe if she tried, couldn't she? If you let that girl pull the wool over your eyes like that you ain't fit to be coroner."
Carmody's answer was to the point. "The thing for your crowd to do is to quit chewing the rag and get this body down the valley and decently buried. I can't stand around here all night listening to amateur attorneys for the prosecution."
"Vamose!" called the sheriff, and in ten minutes the crowd was clattering down the trail in haste to reach food and shelter, leaving the Kauffmans to take their homeward way alone.
Hanscom helped the girl into the wagon and rode away up the valley close behind her, his mind filled with the singular story which she had so briefly yet powerfully suggested. That she was a lady masquerading in rough clothing was evident even before she spoke, and the picture she made, sitting in the midst of that throng of rough men and slatternly women, had profoundly stirred his imagination. He longed to know more of her history, and it was the hope of still further serving her which led him to ride up alongside the cart and say:
"Here's where my trail forks, but I shall be very glad to go up and camp down at your gate if you feel at all nervous about staying alone."
Kauffman, who had regained his composure, answered, "We have no fear, but we are deeply grateful for your offer."
The ranger dismounted and approached the wagon, as if to bring himself within reach, and the girl, looking down at him from her seat with penetrating glance, said:
"Yes, we are greatly indebted to you."
"If I can be of any further help at any time," the young forester said, a little hesitatingly, "I hope you will let me know." His voice so sincere, his manner so unassuming, softened her strained mood.
"You are very kind," she answered, with gentle dignity. "But the worst of this trial is over for us. I cannot conceive that any one will trouble us further. But it is good to know that we have in you a friend. The valley has always resented us."
He was not yet satisfied. "I wish you'd let me drop around to-morrow or next day and see how you all are. It would make me feel a whole lot better."
The glance which she gave him puzzled and, at the moment, daunted him. She seemed to search his soul, as if in fear of finding something unworthy there. At last she gave him her strong, brown hand.
"Come when you can. We shall always be glad to see you."
III
Hanscom rode away up the trail in a singularly exalted mood. The girl with whom he had been so suddenly related in a coroner's inquest filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. He saw nothing, heard nothing of the forest. Helen's sadness, her composure, her aloofness, engaged his imagination.
"She's been sick and she's been in trouble," he decided. "She's out here to get away from somebody or something."
Over and over again he recounted her words, lingering especially upon the sweetness of her voice and the searching quality of that last look she had given him. He unsaddled his horse mechanically, and went about his cabin duties with listless deftness.
Lonely, cut off from even the most formal intercourse with marriageable maidens, he was naturally extremely susceptible to the charm of this cultivated woman. The memory of her handsome foot, the clasp of her strong fingers, the lines of her lovely neck—all conspired to dull his appetite for food and keep him smoking and musing far into the night, and these visions were with him as he arose the next morning to resume his daily duties in the forest. They did not interrupt his work; they lightened it.
As the hours went by, the desire to see her grew more and more intense, and at last, a couple of days later while riding the trail not far above the Kauffman ranch, he decided that it was a part of his day's work to "scout round" that way and inquire how they were all getting on. He was strengthened in this determination by the reports which came to him from the ranchers he met. No other clue had developed, and the Kitsongs, highly incensed at the action of the jury, not only insisted that the girl was the murderess, but that the doctor was shielding her for reasons of his own—and several went so far as to declare their intention to see that the Kauffmans got their just punishment.
It is true, the jury admitted that they were divided in their opinion, but that the coroner's attitude brought about a change of sentiment. The fact that the woman didn't wear and couldn't wear so small a shoe was at the moment convincing. It was only later, when the Kitsong sympathizers began to argue, that they hesitated.
Mrs. Abe Kitsong was especially bitter, and it was her influence which brought out an expression of settled purpose to punish which led to the ranger's decision to go over and see if the old German and his daughter were undisturbed.
As he turned in at the Kauffman gate he caught a glimpse of the girl hoeing in the garden, wearing the same blue sunbonnet in which she had appeared at the inquest. She was deeply engaged with her potatoes and did not observe him till, upon hearing the clatter of his horse's hoofs upon the bridge, she looked up with a start. Seeing in him a possible enemy, she dropped her hoe and ran toward the house like a hare seeking covert. As she reached the corner of the kitchen she turned, fixed a steady backward look upon him, and disappeared.
Hanscom smiled. He had seen other women hurrying to change their workaday dress for visitors, and he imagined Helen hastily putting on her shoes and smoothing her hair. He was distinctly less in awe of her by reason of this girlish action—it made her seem more of his own rough-and-ready world, and he dismounted at her door almost at his ease, although his heart had been pounding furiously as he rode down the ridge.
She surprised him by reappearing in her working-gown, but shod with strong, low-heeled shoes. "Good evening, Mr. Forest Ranger," she said, smiling, yet perturbed. "I didn't recognize you at first. Won't you 'picket' and come in?" She said this in the tone of one consciously assuming the vernacular.
"Thank you, I believe I will," he replied, with candid heartiness. "I was riding one of my lower trails to-day, so I just thought I'd drop down and see how you were all coming on."
"We are quite well, thank you. Daddy's away just this minute. One of our cows hid her calf in the hills, and he's trying to find it. Won't you put your horse in the corral?"
"No; he's all right. He's a good deal like me—works better on a small ration. A standing siesta will just about do him."
A gleam of humor shone in her eyes. "Neither of you 'pear to be suffering from lack of food. But come in, please, and have a seat."
He followed her into the cabin, keenly alive to the changes in her dress as well as in her manner. She wore her hair plainly parted, as at the hearing, but it lay much lower about her brow and rippled charmingly. She stood perfectly erect, also, and moved with a fine stride, and the lines of her shoulders, even under a rough gray shirtwaist, were strong and graceful. Though not skilled in analyzing a woman's "outfit," the ranger divined that she wore no corset, for the flex of her powerful waist was like that of a young man.
Her speech was noticeably Southern in accent, as if it were a part of her masquerade, but she brought him a chair and confronted him without confusion. In this calm dignity he read something entirely flattering to himself.
"Evidently she considers me a friend as well as an officer," he reasoned.
"I hope you are a little hungry," she said. "I'd like to have you break bread in our house. You were mighty kind to us the other day."
"Oh, I'm hungry," he admitted, meeting her hospitality half-way. "Seems like I'm always hungry. You see, I cook my own grub, and my bill of fare isn't what you'd call extensive, and, besides, a man's cooking never relishes the way a woman's does, anyhow."
"I'll see what I can find for you," she said, and hurried out.
While waiting he studied the room in which he sat with keenest interest. It was rather larger than the usual living-room in a mountain home, but it had not much else to distinguish it. The furniture was of the kind to be purchased in the near-by town, and the walls were roughly ceiled with cypress boards; but a few magazines, some books on a rude shelf, a fiddle-box under the table, and a guitar hanging on a nail gave evidence of refinement and taste and spoke to him of pleasures which he had only known afar. The guitar especially engaged his attention. "I wonder if she sings?" he asked himself.
Musing thus in silence, he heard her moving about the kitchen with rapid tread, and when she came in, a few minutes later, bearing a tray, he thought her beautiful—so changed was her expression.
"I didn't wait for the coffee," she smilingly explained. "You said you were hungry and so I have brought in a little 'snack.' The coffee will be ready soon."
"Snack!" he exclaimed. "Lady! This is a feast!" And as she put the tray down beside him he added: "This puts me right back in Aunt Mary's house at Circle Bend, Nebraska. I don't rightly feel fit to sit opposite a spread like that."
She seemed genuinely amused by his extravagance. "It's nothing but a little cold chicken and some light bread. I made the bread yesterday; and the raspberry jam is mine also."
THE AUTHOR AND A FOREST RANGERToList
"It's angels' food to me," he retorted, as he eyed the dainty napkins and the silver spoons and forks. "You don't know what this means to a man who lives on rice and prunes and kittle bread. I have a guilty feeling; I do, indeed. Seems like I'm getting all this thanksgiving treat under false pretenses. Perhaps you think I'm an English nobleman in disguise. But I'm not—I'm just a plain dub of a forest ranger, ninety dollars a month and board myself."
She laughed at his disclaimer, and yet under her momentary lightness he still perceived something of the strong current of bitter sadness which had so profoundly moved him at the inquest and which still remained unexplained; therefore he hesitated about referring to the Watson case.
As he ate, she stood to serve him, but not with the air of a serving-maid; on the contrary, though her face was bronzed by the winds, and her hands calloused by spade and hoe, there was little of the rustic in her action. Her blouse, cut sailor fashion at the throat, displayed a lovely neck (also burned by the sun), and she carried herself with the grace of an athlete. Her trust and confidence in her visitor became more evident each moment.
"No," she said in answer to his question. "We hardly ever have visitors. Now and then some cowboy rides past, but you are almost the only caller we have ever had. The settlers in the valley do not attract me."
"I should think you'd get lone
some."
She looked away, and a sterner, older expression came into her face. "I do, sometimes," she admitted; then she bravely faced him. "But my health is so much better—it was quite broken when I came—that I have every reason to be thankful. After all, health is happiness. I ought to be perfectly content, and I am when I think how miserable I once was."
"Health is cheap with me," he smilingly replied. "But I get so lonesome sometimes that I pretty near quit and go out. Do you intend to stay here all winter?"
"We expect to."
He thought it well to warn her. "The snow falls deep in this valley—terribly deep."
She showed some uneasiness. "I know it, but I'm going to learn to snow-shoe."
"I wish you'd let me come over and teach you."
"Can you snow-shoe? I thought rangers always rode horseback."
He smiled. "You've been reading the opposition press. A forest ranger who is on the job has got to snow-shoe like a Canuck or else go down the valley after the snow begins to fall. It was five feet deep around my cabin last year. I hate to think of your being here alone. If one of you should be sick, it would be—tough. Unless you absolutely have to stay here, I advise you to go down the creek."
"Perhaps our neighbors and not the snow will drive us out," she replied. "They've already served notice."
He looked startled. "What do you mean by that?"
Without answering, she went to the bookshelf and took down a folded sheet of paper. "Here is a letter I got yesterday," she explained, as she handed it to him.
It was a rudely penciled note, but entirely plain in its message. "Spite of what the coroner found, most folks believe you killed Ed Watson," it began, abruptly. "Some of us don't blame you much. Others do, and they say no matter what the jury reports you've got to go. I don't like to see a woman abused, so you'd better take warning and pull out. Do it right away." It was signed, "A Friend."
The ranger read this through twice before he spoke. "Did this come through the mail?"
"Yes—addressed to me."
They of the High Trails Page 22
