Читать книгу: «Mystery Ranch», страница 7

CHAPTER X

Bill Talpers's return to sobriety was considerably hastened by alarm after the trader's words with Lowell. As long as matters were even between Bill Talpers and the girl, the trader figured that he could at least afford to let things rest. The letter in his possession was still a potent weapon. He could at least prevent the girl from telling what she seemed to know of the trader's connection with the murder. He had figured that the letter would be the means of bringing him a most engaging bride. It would have done so if he had not been such a fool as to drink too much. Talpers usually was a canny drinker, but when a man goes asking – or, in this case, demanding – a girl's hand in marriage, it is not to be wondered at if he oversteps the limit a trifle in the matter of fortifying himself with liquor. But in this case Bill realized that he had gone beyond all reasonable bounds. That fall had been disastrous in every way. She was clever and quick, that girl, or she never would have been able to turn an incident like that to such good advantage. Most girls would have sniveled in a corner, thought Bill, until he had regained his senses, but she started right in to look for that letter. He had been smart enough to leave the letter in the safe at the store, but she had found plenty in that watch!

Another thought buzzed disturbingly in Bill's head. How did she know just how much money had been taken from Sargent's body? Also, how did she know that the watch was Sargent's, seeing that it had no marks of identification on it? If there had been so much as a scratch on the thing, Talpers never would have worn it. She might have been making a wild guess about the watch, but she certainly was not guessing about the money. Her certainty in mentioning the amount had given Bill a chill of terror from which he was slow in recovering. Another thing that was causing him real agony of spirit was the prominence of Lowell in affairs at the Greek Letter Ranch. It would be easy enough to hold the girl in check with that letter. She would never dare tell the authorities how much she knew about Talpers, as Bill could drag her into the case by producing his precious documentary evidence. But the agent – how much was he learning in the course of his persistent searching, and from what angle was he going to strike? Would the girl provide him with information which she might not dare give to others? Women were all weaklings, thought Bill, unable to keep any sort of a secret from a sympathetic male ear, especially when that ear belonged to as handsome a young fellow as the Indian agent! Probably she would be telling the agent everything on his next trip to the ranch. Bill had been watching, but he had not seen the young upstart from the agency go past, and neither had Bill's faithful clerk. But the visit might be made any day, and Talpers's connection with the tragedy on the Dollar Sign road might at almost any hour be falling into the possession of Lowell, whose activity in running down bootleggers had long ago earned him Bill's hatred.

Something would have to be done, without delay, to get the girl where she would not be making a confidant of Lowell or any one else. Scowlingly Bill thought over one plan after another, and rejected each as impractical. Finally, by a process of elimination, he settled on the only course that seemed practical. A broad fist, thudding into a leather-like palm, indicated that the Talpers mind had been made up. With his dark features expressing grim resolve, Bill threw a burden of considerable size on his best pack-animal. This operation he conducted alone in the barn, rejecting his clerk's proffer of assistance. Then he saddled another horse, and, without telling his clerk anything concerning his prospective whereabouts or the length of his trip, started off across the prairie. He often made such excursions, and his clerk had learned not to ask questions. Diplomacy in such matters was partly what the clerk was paid for. A good fellow to work for was Bill Talpers if no one got too curiously inclined. One or two clerks had been disciplined on account of inquisitiveness, and they would not be as beautiful after the Talpers methods had been applied, but they had gained vastly in experience. Some day he would do even more for this young Indian agent. Bill's cracked lips were stretched in a grin of satisfaction at the very thought.

The trader traveled swiftly toward the reservation. He often boasted that he got every ounce that was available in horseflesh. Traveling with a pack-horse was little handicap to him. Horses instinctively feared him. More than one he had driven to death without so much as touching the straining animal with whip or spur. Nothing gave Bill such acute satisfaction as the knowledge that he had roused fear in any creature.

With the sweating pack-animal close at the heels of his saddle pony, Talpers rode for hours across the plains. Seemingly he paid no attention to the changes in the landscape, yet his keen eyes, buried deeply beneath black brows, took in everything. He saw the cloud masses come tumbling over the mountains, but, like Lowell, he knew that the drought was not yet to be ended. The country became more broken, and the grade so pronounced that the horses were compelled to slacken their pace. The pleasant green hills gave place to imprisoning mesas, with red sides that looked like battlements. Beyond these lay the foothills – so close that they covered the final slopes of the mountains.

It was a lonely country, innocent of fences. The cattle that ran here were as wild as deer and almost as fleet as antelope. Twice a year the Indians rounded up their range possessions, but many of these cattle had escaped the far-flung circles of riders. They had become renegades and had grown old and clever. At the sight of a human being they would gallop away in the sage and greasewood.

Once Talpers saw the gleam of a wagon-top which indicated the presence of a wolf hunter in the employ of the leasers who were running cattle on the reservations and who suffered much from the depredations of predatory animals. By working carefully around a hill, the trader continued on his way without having been seen.

Passing the flanking line of mesas, Bill pushed his way up a watercourse between two foothills. The going became rougher, and all semblance of a trail was lost, yet the trader went on unhesitatingly. The slopes leading to the creek became steeper and were covered with pine and quaking aspen, instead of the bushy growths of the plains. The stream foamed over rocks, and its noise drowned the sound of the horses' hoofs as the animals scrambled over the occasional stretches of loose shale. With the dexterity of the born trailsman, Talpers wormed his way along the stream when it seemed as if further progress would be impossible. In a tiny glade, with the mountain walls rising precipitously for hundreds of feet, Talpers halted and gave three shrill whistles. An answer came from the other end of the glade, and in a few minutes Talpers was removing pack and saddle in Jim McFann's camp.

Since his escape from jail the half-breed had been hiding in this mountain fastness. Talpers had supplied him with "grub" and weapons. He had moved camp once in a while for safety's sake, but had felt little fear of capture. As a trailer McFann had few equals, and he knew every swale in the prairie and every nook in the mountains on the reservation.

Talpers brought out a bottle, which McFann seized eagerly.

"There's plenty more in the pack," said the trader, "so drink all you want. Don't offer me none, as I am kind o' taperin' off."

"Did you see any Indian police on the way?" asked the half-breed.

"No – nothin' but Wolfer Joe's wagon, 'way off in the hills. I guess the police ain't lookin' for you very hard. That ain't the fault of the agent, though," added Talpers meaningly. "He's promised he'll have you back in Tom Redmond's hands in less'n a week."

The half-breed scowled and muttered an oath as he took another drink. Talpers had told the lie in order to rouse McFann's antagonism toward Lowell, and he was pleased to see that his statement had been accepted at face value.

"But that ain't the worst for you, nor for me either," went on the trader. "That girl at the Greek Letter Ranch knows that you and me took the watch from the man on the Dollar Sign road."

"How did she know that?" exclaimed McFann in amazement.

"That's somethin' she won't tell, but she knows that you and me was there, and that the story you told in court ain't straight. I'm satisfied she ain't told any one else – not yet."

"Do you think she will tell any one?"

"I'm sure of it. You see, she sorter sprung this thing on me when I was havin' a little argyment about her marryin' me. She got spiteful and come at me with the statement that the watch I was wearin' belonged to that feller Sargent."

Bill did not add anything about the money. It was not going to do to let the half-breed know he had been defrauded.

McFann squatted by the fire, the bottle in his hand and his gaze on Talpers's face.

"She mentioned both of us bein' there," went on the trader. "She give the details in a way that I'll admit took me off my feet. It's an awkward matter – in fact, it's a hangin' matter – for both of us, if she tells. You know how clost they was to lynchin' you, over there at White Lodge, with nothin' so very strong against you. If that gang ever hears about us and this watch of Sargent's, we'll be hung on the same tree."

Talpers played heavily on the lynching, because he knew the fear of the mob had become an obsession with McFann. He noticed the half-breed's growing uneasiness, and played his big card.

"I spent a long time thinkin' the hull thing over," said Talpers, "and I've come to the conclusion that this girl is sure to tell the Indian agent all she knows, and the best thing for us to do is to get her out of the way before she puts the noose around our necks."

"Why will she tell the Indian agent?"

"Because he's callin' pretty steady at the ranch, and he's made her think he's the only friend she's got around here. And as soon as he finds out, we might as well pick out our own rope neckties, Jim. It's goin' to take quick action to save us, but you're the one to do it."

"What do you want me to do?" asked McFann suspiciously.

"Well, you're the best trailer and as good a shot as there is in this part of the country. All that's necessary is for you to drop around the ranch and – well, sort of make that girl disappear."

"How do you mean?"

Talpers rose and came closer to McFann.

"I mean kill her!" he said with an oath. "Nothin' else is goin' to do. You can do it without leavin' a track. Willis Morgan or that Chinaman never'll see you around. Nobody else but the agent ever stops at the Greek Letter Ranch. It's the only safe way. If she ever tells, Jim, you'll never come to trial. You'll be swingin' back and forth somewheres to the music of the prairie breeze. You know the only kind of fruit that grows on these cotton woods out here."

Jim McFann had always been pliable in Talpers's hands. Talpers had profited most by the bootlegging operations carried on by the pair, though Jim had done most of the dangerous work. Whenever Jim needed supplies, the trader furnished them. To be sure, he charged them off heavily, so there was little cash left from the half-breed's bootlegging operations. Talpers shrewdly figured that the less cash he gave Jim, the more surely he could keep his hold on the half-breed. McFann had grown used to his servitude. Talpers appeared to him in the guise of the only friend he possessed among white and red.

Jim rose slowly to his moccasined feet.

"I guess you're right, Bill," he said. "I'll do what you say."

The trader's eyes glowed with satisfaction. The desire for revenge had come uppermost in his heart. The girl at the ranch had outwitted him in some way which he could not understand. Twenty-four hours ago he had confidently figured on numbering her among the choicest chattels in the possession of William Talpers. But now he regarded her with a hatred born of fear. The thought of what she could do to him, merely by speaking a few careless words about that watch and money, drove all other thoughts from Talpers's mind. Jim McFann could be made a deadly and certain instrument for insuring the safety of the Talpers skin. One shot from the half-breed's rifle, either through a cabin window or from some sagebrush covert near the ranch, and the trader need have no further fears about being connected with the Dollar Sign murder.

"I thought you'd see it in the right light, Jim," approved Talpers. "It won't be any trick at all to get her. She rides out a good deal on that white horse."

Jim McFann did not answer. He had begun preparations for his trip. Swiftly and silently the half-breed saddled his horse, which had been hidden in a near-by thicket. From the supply of liquor in Talpers's pack, Jim took a bottle, which he was thrusting into his saddle pocket when the trader snatched it away.

"You've had enough, Jim," growled Talpers. "You do the work that's cut out for you, and you can have all I've brought to camp. I'll be here waitin' for you."

McFann scowled.

"All right," he said sullenly, "but it seems as if a man ought to have lots for a job like this."

"After it's all done," said Talpers soothingly, "you can have all the booze you want, Jim. And one thing more," called the trader as McFann rode away, "remember it ain't goin' to hurt either of us if you get a chance to put the Indian agent away on this same little trip."

Jim McFann waved an assenting sign as he disappeared in the trees, and the trader went back to the camp-fire to await the half-breed's return. He hoped McFann would find the agent at the Greek Letter Ranch and would kill Lowell as well as the girl. But, if there did not happen to be any such double stroke of luck in prospect, the removal of the Indian agent could be attended to later on.

When he reached the mesas beyond the foothills, the half-breed turned away from the stream and struck off toward the left. He kept a sharp lookout for Indian police as he traveled, but saw nothing to cause apprehension. Night was fast coming on when he reached the ridge on which Lowell and Helen had stood a few hours before. Avoiding the road, the half-breed made his way to a gulch near the ranch, where he tied his horse. Cautiously he approached the ranch-house. The kitchen door was open and Wong was busy with the dishes. The other doors were shut and shades were drawn in the windows. Making his way back to the gulch, the half-breed rolled up in his blanket and slept till daybreak, when he took up a vantage-point near the house and waited developments. Shortly after breakfast Wong came out to the barn and saddled the white horse for Helen. The half-breed noticed with satisfaction that the girl rode directly toward the reservation instead of following the road that led to the agency. Hastily securing his horse the half-breed skirted the ranch and located the girl's trail on the prairie. Instead of following it he ensconced himself comfortably in some aspens at the bottom of a draw, confident that the girl would return by the same trail.

If McFann had continued on Helen's trail he would have followed her to an Indian ranch not far away. A tattered tepee or two snuggled against a dilapidated cabin. The owner of the ranch was struggling with tuberculosis. His wife was trying to run the place and to bring up several children, whose condition had aroused the mother instinct in Helen. Though she had found her first efforts regarded with suspicion, Helen had persisted, until she had won the confidence of mother and children. Her visits were frequent, and she had helped the family so materially that she had astonished the field matron, an energetic woman who covered enormous distances in the saddle in the fulfillment of duties which would soon wear out a settlement worker.

The half-breed smoked uneasily, his rifle across his knees. Two hours passed, but he did not stir, so confident was he that Helen would return by the way she had followed in departing from the ranch.

McFann's patience was rewarded, and he tossed away his cigarette with a sigh of satisfaction when Helen's voice came to him from the top of the hill. She was singing a nonsense song from the nursery, and, astride behind her saddle and clinging to her waist, was a wide-eyed Indian girl of six years, enjoying both the ride and the singing.

Here was a complication upon which the half-breed had not counted. In fact, during his hours of waiting Jim had begun to look at matters in a different light. It was necessary to get Helen away, where she could not possibly tell what she knew, but why not hide her in the mountains? Or, if stronger methods were necessary, let Talpers attend to them himself? For the first time since he had come under Talpers's domination, Jim McFann was beginning to weaken. As the girl came singing down the hillside, Jim peered uneasily through the bushes. Talpers had shoved him into a job that simply could not be carried out – at least not without whiskey. If Bill had let him bring all he wanted to drink, perhaps things could have been done as planned.

Whatever was done would have to be accomplished quickly, as the white horse, with its double burden, was getting close. Jim sighted once or twice along his rifle barrel. Then he dropped the weapon into the hollow of his arm, and, leading his horse, stepped in front of Helen.

The parley was brief. McFann sent the youngster scurrying along the back trail, after a few threats in Indian tongue, which were dire enough to seal the child's lips in fright. Helen was startled at first when the half-breed halted her, but her composure soon returned. She had no weapon, nor would she have attempted to use one in any event, as she knew the half-breed was famous for his quickness and cleverness with firearms. Nor could anything be gained by attempting to ride him down in the trail. She did not ask any questions, for she felt they would be futile.

The half-breed was surprised at the calmness with which matters were being taken. With singular ease and grace – another gift from his Indian forbears – Jim slid into his saddle, and, seizing the white horse by the bridle, turned the animal around and started it up the trail beside him. In a few minutes Jim had found his trail of the evening before, and was working swiftly back toward the mountains. When Helen slyly dropped her handkerchief, as an aid to any one who might follow, the half-breed quietly turned back and, after picking it up, informed her that he would kill her if she tried any more such tricks. Realizing the folly of any further attempts to outwit the half-breed, Helen rode silently on. Not once did McFann strike across a ridge. Imprisoning slopes seemed to be shutting them in without surcease, and Helen looked in vain for any aid.

As they approached the foothills, and the travel increased in difficulty, McFann told Helen to ride close behind him. He glanced around occasionally to see that she was obeying orders. The old white horse struggled gamely after the half-breed's wiry animal, and McFann was compelled to wait only once or twice. Meanwhile Helen had thought over the situation from every possible angle, and had concluded to go ahead and not make any effort to thwart the half-breed. She knew that the reservation was more free from crime than the counties surrounding it. She also knew that it would not be long before the agent was informed of her disappearance, and that the Indian police – trailers who were the half-breed's equal in threading the ways of the wilderness – would soon be on McFann's tracks. After her first shock of surprise she had little fear of McFann. The thought that disturbed her most of all was – Talpers. She knew of the strange partnership of the men. Likewise she felt that McFann would not have embarked upon any such crime alone. The thought of Talpers recurred so steadily that the lithe figure of the half-breed in front of her seemed to change into the broad, almost misshapen form of the trader.

The first real fear that had come to her since the strange journey began surged over Helen when McFann led the way into the glade where he had been camped, and she saw a dreaded and familiar figure stooped over a small fire, engaged in frying bacon. But there was nothing of triumph in Talpers's face as he straightened up and saw Helen. Amazement flitted across the trader's features, succeeded by consternation.

"Now you've done it and done it right!" exclaimed the trader, with a shower of oaths directed at Jim McFann. "Didn't have the nerve to shoot at a purty face like that, did you? Git her into that tent while you and me set down and figger out what we're goin' to do!"

The half-breed helped Helen dismount and told her to go to his tent, a small, pyramid affair at one end of the glade. Jim fastened the flaps on the outside and went back to the camp-fire, where Talpers was storming up and down like a madman. Helen, seated on McFann's blanket roll, heard their voices rising and falling, the half-breed apparently defending himself and Talpers growing louder and more accusative. Finally, when the trader's rage seemed to have spent itself somewhat, the tent flaps were opened and Jim McFann thrust some food into Helen's hands. She ate the bacon and biscuits, as the long ride had made her hungry. Then Talpers roughly ordered her out of the tent. He and the half-breed had been busy packing and saddling. They added the tent and its contents to their packs. Telling Helen to mount the white horse once more, Talpers took the lead, and, with the silent and sullen half-breed bringing up the rear, the party started off along a trail much rougher than the one that had been followed by McFann and the girl in the morning.