Mystery Ranch

Mrs. Ruel looked doubtful as she trotted to the kitchen. Returning, she stood in the window, a steaming coffee-pot in her hands.

"Tell me what you see, Sister Annie," said Lowell smilingly.

"Nawthin' but the kids assemblin' for school. There's old Pete, the blacksmith, purtendin' to be lookin' your machine over, when he's just come to rubber the way I am, f'r that red divvle. They're afraid, most of the agency folks, that Fire Bear won't show up. I wouldn't take an Injun's word f'r annythin' myself – me that lost an uncle in the Fetterman massacree. You're too good to 'em, Mister Lowell. You should have yanked this Fire Bear here in handcuffs – him and McFann together."

"Your coffee is fine – and I'll be obliged if you'll pour me some – but your philosophy is that of the dark ages, Mrs. Ruel. Thanks. Now tell me what traveler approaches on the king's highway."

Mrs. Ruel trotted to the window, with the coffee-pot still in her hands.

"It's some one of them educated loafers that's always hangin' around the trader's store. I c'n tell by the hang of the mail-order suit. No, it ain't! He's climbin' off his pony, and now he's jumped into the back of your automobile, and is settin' there, bold as brass, smokin' a cigarette. It's Fire Bear himself!"

"I thought so," observed Lowell. "Now another cup of coffee, please, and a little more of that toast, and we'll be off to the trial."

Mrs. Ruel returned to the kitchen, declaring that it really didn't prove anything in general, because no other agent could make them redskins do the things that Mister Lowell hypnotized 'em into doin'.

Lowell finished his breakfast and climbed into his automobile, after a few words with Fire Bear. The young Indian had started the day before from his camp in the rocks. He had traveled alone, and had not rested until he reached the agency. Lowell knew there would be much dancing in the Indian camp until the trial was over.

Driving to the agency jail, Lowell had McFann brought out. The half-breed, unmanacled and without a guard, sat beside Fire Bear in the back seat. Lowell decided to take no policemen from the reservation. He was certain that Fire Bear and McFann would not try to escape from him. The presence of Indian policemen might serve only to fan the very uncertain public sentiment into disastrous flames.

White Lodge was crowded with cattlemen and homesteaders and their families, who had come to attend the trial. A public holiday was made of the occasion, and White Lodge had not seen such a crowd since the annual bronco-busting carnival.

As he drove through the streets, Lowell was conscious of a change in public feeling. The prisoners in the automobile were eyed curiously, but without hatred. In fact, Jim McFann's killing of Talpers, which had been given all sorts of dramatic renditions at camp-fires and firesides, had raised that worthy to the rank of hero in the eyes of the majority. Also the coming of Fire Bear, as he had promised, sent up the Indian's stock. As Lowell took his men to the court-room he saw bets paid over by men who had wagered that Fire Bear would not keep his word and that he would have to be brought to the court-room by force.

The court-house yard could not hold the overflow of spectators from the court-room. The crowd was orderly, though there was a tremendous craning of necks when the prisoners were brought in, to see the man who had killed so redoubtable a gunman as Bill Talpers. Getting a jury was merely a matter of form, as no challenges were made. The trial opened with Fire Bear on the stand.

The young Indian added nothing to the testimony he had given at his preliminary hearing. He told, briefly, how he and his followers had found the body beside the Dollar Sign road. The prosecuting attorney was quick to sense a difference in the way the Indian's story was received. When he had first told it, disbelief was evident. Today it seemed to be impressing crowd and jury as the truth.

The same sentiment seemed to be even more pronounced when Jim McFann took the stand, after Fire Bear's brief testimony was concluded without cross-examination. Audience and jury sat erect. Word was passed out to the crowd that the half-breed was testifying. In the court-room there was such a stir that the bailiff was forced to rap for order.

The prosecuting attorney, seeing the case slipping away from him, was moved to frantic denunciations. He challenged McFann's every statement.

"You claim that you had lost your lariat and were looking for it. Also that you came upon this dead body, with your rope used to fasten the murdered man to stakes that had been driven into the prairie?" sneered the attorney.

"Yes;" said McFann.

"And you claim that you were frightened away by the arrival of Fire Bear and his Indians before you had a chance to remove the rope?"

"Yes; but I want to add something to that statement," said the half-breed.

"All right – what is it?"

"There was another man by the body when I came there looking for my rope."

"Who was that man?"

"Talpers."

A thrill ran through the court-room as the half-breed went on and described how he had found the trader stooping over the murdered man, and how Talpers had shown him a watch which he had taken from the victim, but claimed that was all the valuables that had been found. Also he described how Talpers had prevailed upon him to keep the trader's presence a secret, which McFann had done in his previous testimony.

"Why do you come in with this story, at this late day?" asked the attorney.

"Because Talpers was lying to me all the time. He had taken money from that man – some of it in thousand-dollar bills. I did not care for the money. It was just that this man had lied to me, after I had done all his bootlegging work. He was playing safe at my expense. If it had been found that the dead man was robbed, he was ready to lay the blame on me. When I heard of the money he had hidden, I knew the game he had played. I walked in on him, and made him take the dead man's money from his safe. I threw the money in his face and dared him to fight. When he tried to shoot me, I killed him. It was better that he should die. I don't care what you do with me, but how are you going to hang Fire Bear or hang me for being near that body, when Bill Talpers was there first?"

Jim McFann's testimony remained unshaken. Cast doubt upon it as he would, the prosecuting attorney saw that the half-breed's new testimony had given an entirely new direction to the trial. He ceased trying to stem the tide and let the case go to the jury.

The crowd filed out, but waited around the court-house for the verdict. The irrepressible cowpunchers, who had a habit of laying wagers on anything and everything, made bets as to the number of minutes the jury would be out.

"Whichever way it goes, it'll be over in a hurry," said Tom Redmond to Lowell, "but hanged if I don't believe your men are as good as free this minute. Talpers's friends have been trying to stir up a lot of sentiment against Jim McFann, but it has worked the other way. The hull county seems to think right now that McFann done the right sort of a job, and that Talpers was not only a bootlegger, but was not above murder, and was the man who committed that crime on the Dollar Sign road. Of course, if Talpers done it, Fire Bear couldn't have. Furthermore, this young Injun has made an awful hit by givin' himself up for trial the way he has. To tell you the truth, I didn't think he'd show up."

Lowell escaped as soon as he could from the excited sheriff and sought Helen Ervin, whom he had seen in the court-room.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come to get you, on account of having to bring in the prisoners," said Lowell, "but I imagine this is the last ride to White Lodge you will have to take. The jury is going to decide quickly – or such is the general feeling."

Lowell had hardly spoken when a shout from the crowd on the court-house steps announced to the others that the jury had come in.

Lowell and Helen found places in the court-room. Judge Garford had not left his chambers. As soon as the crowd had settled down, the foreman announced the verdict.

"Not guilty!" was the word that was passed to those outside the building. There was a slight ripple of applause in the court-room which the bailiff's gavel checked. Lowell could not help but smile bitterly as he thought of the different sentiment at the close of the preliminary hearing, such a short time before. He wondered if the same thought had come to Judge Garford. But if the aged jurist had made any comparisons, they were not reflected in his benign features. A lifetime among scenes of turbulence, and watching justice gain steady ascendancy over frontier lawlessness, had made the judge indifferent to the manifestations of the moment.

"It's just as though we were a lot of jumping-jacks," thought Lowell, "and while we're doing all sorts of crazy things, the judge is looking far back behind the scenes studying the forces that are making us go. And he must be satisfied with what he sees or our illogical actions wouldn't worry him so little."

Fire Bear and McFann took the verdict with customary calm. The Indian was released from custody and took his place in Lowell's automobile. The half-breed was remanded to jail for trial for the Talpers slaying. Lowell, after saying good-bye to the half-breed, lost no time in starting for the agency. On the way he caught up with Helen, who was riding leisurely homeward. As he stopped the machine she reined up her horse beside him and extended her hand in congratulation.

"You're not the only one who is glad of the acquittal," she exclaimed. "I am glad – oh, I cannot tell you how much!"

Lowell noticed that her expression of girlishness had returned. The shadow which had fallen upon her seemed to have been lifted miraculously.

"Wasn't it strange the way things turned out?" she went on. "A little while ago every one seemed to believe these men were guilty, and now there's not a one who doesn't seem to think that Talpers did it."

"There's one who doesn't subscribe to the general belief," answered Lowell.

"What do you mean?"

Lowell was conscious that she was watching him narrowly.

"I mean that I don't believe Bill Talpers had anything to do with murdering that man on the Dollar Sign road!"

CHAPTER XV

"There's one thing sure in all cases of crime: If people would only depend more on Nature and less on themselves, they'd get results sooner."

Lowell and his chief clerk were finishing one of their regular evening discussions of the crime which most people were forgetting, but which still occupied the Indian agent's mind to the complete exclusion of all reservation business.

"What do you mean?" asked Rogers, from behind smoke clouds.

"Just the fact that, if we can only find it, Nature has tagged every crime in a way that makes it possible to get an answer."

"But there are lots of crimes in which no manifestation of Nature is possible."

"Not a one. What are finger-prints but manifestations of Nature? And yet for ages we couldn't see the sign that Nature hung out for us. No doubt we're just as obtuse about a lot of things that will be just as simple and just as plain when their meaning is finally driven home."

"But Nature hasn't given a hint about that Dollar Sign road crime. Yet it took place outdoors, right in Nature's haunts."

"You simply mean that we haven't been able to comprehend Nature's signals."

"But you've been over the ground a dozen times, haven't you?"

"Fifty times – but all that merely proves what I contend. If I go over that ground one hundred times, and don't find anything, what does it prove? Merely that I am ninety-nine times stupider than I should be. I should get the answer the first time over."

Rogers laughed.

"I prefer the most comfortable theory. I've settled down in the popular belief that Bill Talpers did the killing. Think how easy that makes it for me – and the chances are that I'm right at that."

"You are hopeless, Ed! But remember, if this thing goes unsolved it will only be because we haven't progressed beyond the first-reader stage in interpreting what Mother Nature has to teach us."

For several days following the acquittal of Fire Bear and McFann, Lowell had worked almost unceasingly in the hope of getting new evidence in the case which nearly everybody else seemed willing to forget. A similar persistency had marked Lowell's career as a newspaper reporter. He had turned up several sensations when rival newspaper men had abandoned certain cases as hopeless so far as new thrills were concerned.

Lowell had not exaggerated when he told Rogers he had gone over the scene of the murder fifty times. He had not gone into details with his clerk. Rogers would have been surprised to know that his chief had even blocked out the scene of the murder in squares like a checkerboard. Each one of these squares had been examined, slowly and painfully. The net result had been some loose change which undoubtedly had been dropped by Talpers in robbing the murdered man; an eagle feather, probably dropped from a coup stick which some one of Fire Bear's followers had borrowed from an elder; a flint arrowhead of great antiquity, and a belt buckle and some moccasin beads.

Far from being discouraged at the unsuccessful outcome of his checkerboarding plan, Lowell took his automobile, on the morning following his talk with Rogers, and again visited the scene of the crime.

For six weeks the hill had been bathed daily in sunshine. The drought, which the Indians had ascribed to evil spirits called down by Fire Bear, had continued unbroken. The mud-holes in the road, through which Lowell had plunged to the scene of the murder when he had first heard of the crime, had been churned to dust. Lowell noticed that an old buffalo wallow at the side of the road was still caked in irregular formations which resembled the markings of alligator hide. The first hot winds would cause these cakes of mud to disintegrate, but the weather had been calm, and they had remained just as they had dried.

As he glanced about him at the peaceful panorama, it occurred to the agent that perhaps too much attention had been centered upon the exact spot of the murder. Yet, it seemed reasonable enough to suppose, no murderer would possibly lie in wait for a victim in such an open spot. If the murder had been deliberately planned, as Lowell believed, and if the victim's approach were known, there could have been no waiting here on the part of the murderer.

Getting into his automobile, Lowell drove carefully up the hill, studying both sides of the road as he went. Several hundred yards from the scene of the murder, he found a clump of giant sagebrush and greasewood, close to the road. Lowell entered the clump and found that from its eastern side he could command a good view of the Dollar Sign road for miles. Here a man and horse might remain hidden until a traveler, coming up the hill, was almost within hailing distance. The brush had grown in a circle, leaving a considerable hollow which was devoid of vegetation. Examining this hollow closely, Lowell paused suddenly and uttered a low ejaculation. Then he walked slowly to his automobile and drove in the direction of the Greek Letter Ranch.

When he arrived at the ranch house Lowell was relieved to find that Helen was not at home. Wong, who opened the door a scant six inches, told him she had taken the white horse and gone for a ride.

"Well, tell Mister Willis Morgan I want to see him," said Lowell.

Wong was much alarmed. Mister Morgan could not be seen. The Chinese combination of words for "impossible" was marshaled in behalf of Wong's employer.

Lowell, putting his shoulder against the Greek letter brand which was burnt in the panel, pushed the door open and stepped into the room which served as a library.

"Now tell Mister Morgan I wish to see him, Wong," said the agent firmly.

The door to the adjoining room opened, and Lowell faced the questioning gaze of a gray-haired man who might have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty. One hand was in the pocket of a velvet smoking-jacket, and the other held a pipe. The man's eyes were dark and deeply set. They did not seem to Lowell to be the contemplative eyes of the scholar, but rather to belong to a man of decisive action – one whose interests might be in building bridges or tunnels, but whose activities were always concerned with material things. His face was lean and bronzed – the face of a man who lived much in the outdoors. His nose was aquiline, and his lips, though thin and firm, were not unkindly. In fact, here was a man who, in the class-room, might be given to quips with his students, rather than to sternness. Yet this was the man of whom it was said… Lowell's face grew stern as the long list of indictments against Willis Morgan, recluse and "squaw professor," came to his mind.

The gray-haired man sat down at the table, and Lowell, in response to a wave of the hand that held the pipe, drew up opposite.

"You and I have been living pretty close together a long time," said Lowell bluntly, "and if we'd been a little more neighborly, this call might not be so difficult in some ways."

"My fault entirely." Again the hand waved – this time toward the ceiling-high shelves of books. "Library slavery makes a man selfish, I'll admit."

The voice was cold and hard. It was such a voice that had extended a mocking welcome to Helen Ervin when she had stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the Greek Letter Ranch-house. Lowell sneered openly.

"You haven't always been so tied up to your books that you couldn't get out," he said. "I want to take you back to a little horseback ride which you took just six weeks ago."

"I don't remember such a trip."

"You will remember it, as I particularize."

"Very well. You are beginning to interest me."

"You rode from here to the top of the hill on the Dollar Sign road. Do you remember?"

"What odds if I say yes or no? Go on. I want to hear the rest of this story."

"When you reached a clump of tall sage and grease wood, not far below the crest of the hill, you entered it and remained hidden. You had a considerable time to wait, but you were patient – very patient. You knew the man you wanted to meet was somewhere on the road – coming toward you. From the clump of bushes you commanded a view of the Dollar Sign road for miles. As I say, it was long and tedious waiting. It had rained in the night. The sun came out, strong and warm, and the atmosphere was moist. Your horse, that old white horse which has been on the ranch so many years, was impatiently fighting flies. Though you are not any kinder to horseflesh than you are to human beings who come within your blighting influence, you took the saddle off the animal. Perhaps the horse had caught his foot in a stirrup as he kicked at a buzzing fly."

The keen, strong features into which Lowell gazed were mask-like in their impassiveness.

"Soon you saw something approaching on the road over the prairie," went on the agent. "It must be the automobile driven by the man you had come to meet. You saddled quickly and rode out of the sagebrush. You met the man in the automobile as he was climbing the hill. He stopped and you talked with him. You had violent words, and then you shot him with a sawed-off shotgun which you had carried for that purpose. You killed the man, and then, to throw suspicion on others, conceived the idea of staking him down to the prairie. It would look like an Indian trick. Besides, you knew that there had been some trouble on the reservation with Indians who were dancing and generally inclined to oppose Government regulations. You had found a rope which had been dropped on the road by the half-breed, Jim McFann. You took that rope from your saddle and cut it in four pieces and tied the man's hands and wrists to his own tent-stakes, which you found in his automobile.

"Your plans worked out well. It was a lonely country and comparatively early in the day. There was nobody to disturb you at your work. Apparently you had thought of every detail. You had left a few tracks, and these you obliterated carefully. You knew you would hardly be suspected unless something led the world to your door. You had been a recluse for years, hated by white men and feared by red. Few had seen your face. You could retire to this lonely ranch and live your customary life, with no fear of suffering for the crime you had committed. To be sure, an Indian or two might be hanged, but a matter like that would rest lightly on your conscience.

"Apparently your plans were perfect, but you overlooked one small thing. Most clever scoundrels do. You did not think that perhaps Nature might lay a trap to catch you – a trap in the brush where you had been hidden. Your horse rolled in the mud to rid himself of the pest of flies. You were so intent on the approach of your victim that you did not notice the animal. Yet there in the mud, and visible to-day, was made the imprint of your horse's shoulder, bearing the impression of the Greek Letter brand!"

As Lowell finished, he rose slowly, his hands on the table and his gaze on the unflinching face in front of him. The gray-haired man rose also.

"I suppose," he said, in a voice from which all trace of harshness had disappeared, "you have come to give me over to the authorities on account of this crime."

"Yes."

"Very well. I committed the murder, much as you have explained it, but I did not ride the white horse to the hill. Nor am I Willis Morgan. I am Edward Sargent. Morgan was the man whom I killed and staked down on the prairie!"

CHAPTER XVI

Helen Ervin rode past the ranch door just as the gray-haired man made his statement to Lowell.

"You are Edward Sargent, the man who was supposed to have been murdered?" repeated the Indian agent, in astonishment.

"Yes; but wait till Miss Ervin comes in. The situation may require a little clearing, and she can help."

Surprise and anxiety alternated in Helen's face as she looked in through the open doorway and saw the men seated at the table. She paused a moment, silhouetted in the door, the Greek letter on the panel standing out with almost startling distinctness beside her. As she stood poised on the threshold in her riding-suit, the ravages of her previous trip having been repaired, she made Lowell think of a modernized Diana – modernized as to clothes, but carrying, in her straight-limbed grace, all the world-old spell of the outdoors.

"Our young friend has just learned the truth, my dear," said the gray-haired man. "He knows that I am Sargent, and that our stepfather, Willis Morgan, is dead."

Helen stepped quickly to Sargent's side. There was something suggesting filial protection in her attitude. Sargent smiled up at her, reassuringly.

"Probably it is better," he said, "that the whole thing should be known."

"But in a few days we should have been gone," said Helen. "Why have all our hopes been destroyed in this way at the last moment? Is this some of your work," she added bitterly, addressing Lowell – "some of your work as a spy?"

Sargent spoke up quickly.

"It was fate," he said. "I have felt from the first that I should not have attempted to escape punishment for my deed. The young man has simply done his duty. He worked with the sole idea of getting at the truth – and it is always the truth that matters most. What difference can it make who is hurt, so long as the truth is known?"

"But how did it become known," asked Helen, "when everything seemed to be so thoroughly in our favor? The innocent men who were suspected had been released. The public was content to let the crime rest at the door of Talpers – a man capable of any evil deed. What has happened to change matters so suddenly?"

"It was the old white horse that betrayed us," said Sargent, with a grim smile. "It shows on what small threads our fates hang balanced. The Greek letter brand still shows in the mud where the horse rolled on the day of the murder on the Dollar Sign hill. When our young friend here saw that bit of evidence, he came directly to the ranch and accused me of knowledge of the crime, all the time thinking I was Willis Morgan."

"Let me continue my work as a spy," broke in Lowell bitterly, "and ask for a complete statement."

"Willis Morgan was my twin brother," said Sargent. "As Willard Sargent he had made a distinguished name for himself among the teachers of Greek in this country. He was a professor at an early age, his bent toward scholarship being opposite to mine, which was along the lines of invention. My brother was a hard, cruel man, beneath a polished exterior. Cynicism was as natural to him as breathing. He married a young and beautiful woman, who had been married before, and who had a little daughter – a mere baby, Willard's wife soon died, a victim of his cynicism and studied cruelty. The future of this helpless stepdaughter of my brother's became a matter of the most intimate concern to me. My brother was mercenary to a marked degree. I had become successful in my inventions of mining machinery. I was fast making a fortune. Willard called upon me frequently for loans, which I never refused. In fact, I had voluntarily advanced him thousands of dollars, from which I expected no return. A mere brotherly feeling of gratitude would have been sufficient repayment for me. But such a feeling my brother never had. His only object was to get as much out of me as he could, and to sneer at me, in his high-bred way, while making a victim of me.