sheriff tom redmond sat in lowell's office at the agency, staring grimly across at the little park, where the down from the cottonwood trees clung to the grass like snow. the sheriff had just brought himself to a virtual admission that he had been in the wrong.
"i was going to say," remarked tom, "that, in case you catch jim mcfann, perhaps the best thing would be for you to sort o' close-herd him at the agency jail here until time for trial."
lowell looked at the sheriff inquiringly.
"i'll admit that i've been sort of clamoring for you to let me bring a big posse over here and round up mcfann in a hurry. well, i don't believe that scheme would work."
"i'm glad we agree on that point."
"you've been taking the ground that unless we brought a lot of men over, we couldn't do any better than the injun police in the matter of catching this half-breed. also you've said that if we did bring a small army of cattlemen, it would only be a lynching party, and jim mcfann'd never live to reach the jail at white lodge."
"i don't think anything could stop a lynching."
"well, i believe you're right. the boys have been riding me, stronger and stronger, to get up a posse and come over here. in fact, they got so strong that i suspected they had something up their sleeves. when i sort o' backed up on the proposition, a lot of them began pulling wires at washington, so's to make you get orders that'd let us come on the reservation and get both of these men."
"i know it," said lowell, "but they've found they can't make any headway, even with their own congressmen, because judge garford's stand is too well known. he's let everybody know that he's against anything that may bring about a lynching. so far as the department is concerned, i've put matters squarely up to it and have been advised to use my own judgment."
"well, i never seen people so wrought up, and i'm free to admit now that if jim mcfann hadn't broke jail he'd have been lynched on the very day that he made his getaway. the only question is—do you think you can get him before the trial, and are you sure the injun'll come in?"
"i'm not sure of anything, of course," replied lowell, "but i've staked everything on fire bear making good his word. if he doesn't, i'm ready to quit the country. mcfann's a different proposition. he has been too clever for the police, but i have rather hesitated about having plenty buffalo risk the lives of his men, because i have had a feeling that mcfann might be reached in a different way. i'm sure he's been getting supplies from the man who has been using him in bootlegging operations."
"you mean talpers?"
"yes. if mcfann is mixed up in anything, from bootlegging to bigger crimes, he is only a tool. he can be a dangerous tool—that's admitted—but i'd like to gather in the fellow who does the planning."
"by golly! i wish i had you working with me on this murder case," said redmond, in a burst of confidence. "i'll admit i never had anything stump me the way this case has. i'm bringing up against a blank wall at every turn."
"haven't you found out anything new about sargent?"
"not a thing worth while. he lived alone—had lots of money that he made by inventing mining machinery."
"any relatives?"
"none that we can find out about."
"have you learned anything through his bank?"
"he had plenty of money on deposit; that's all."
"did he have any lawyers?"
"not that we've heard from."
"does any one know why he came on this trip?"
"no; but he was in the habit of making long jaunts alone through the west."
"what sort of a home did he have?"
"a big house in the suburbs. lived there alone with two servants. they haven't been able to tell a thing about him that's worth a cuss."
"would anything about his home indicate what sort of a man he was?"
"the detectives wrote something about his having a lot of indian things—navajo blankets and such."
"indians may have been his hobby. perhaps he intended to visit this reservation."
"if that was so, why should he drive through the agency at night and be killed going away from the reservation? no, he was going somewhere in a hurry or he wouldn't have traveled at night."
"but automobile tourists sometimes travel that way."
"not in this part of the country. in the southwest, perhaps, to avoid the heat of the day."
"well, what do you think about it all, tom?"
"that this feller was a pilgrim, going somewhere in a hurry. he was held up by some of your young bucks who were off the reservation and feeling a little too full of life for their own good. a touch of bootleg whiskey might have set them going. mebbe that's where jim mcfann came in. they might have killed the man when he resisted. the staking-out was probably an afterthought—a piece of injun or half-breed devilment."
"how about the sawed-off shotgun? i doubt if there's one on the reservation."
"probably that was sargent's own weapon. he had traveled in the west a good many years. mebbe he had used sawed-off shotguns as an express messenger or something of the sort in early days. it's a fact that there ain't any handier weapon of deefense than a sawed-off shotgun, no matter what kind of a wheeled outfit you're traveling in."
"it's all reasonable enough, tom," said lowell reflectively. "it may work out just as you have figured, but frankly i don't believe the indians and mcfann are in it quite as far as you think."
"well, if they didn't do it, who could have? you've been over the ground more than any one else. have you found anything to hang a whisper of suspicion on?"
lowell shook his head.
"nothing to talk about, but there are some things, indefinite enough, perhaps, that make me hesitate about believing the indians to be guilty."
"how about mcfann? he's got the nerve, all right."
"yes, mcfann would kill if it came to a showdown. there's enough indian in him, too, to explain the staking-down."
"he admits he was on the scene of the murder."
"yes, and his admission strengthens me in the belief that he's telling the truth, or at least that he had no part in the actual killing. if he were guilty, he'd deny being within miles of the spot."
"mebbe you're right," said the sheriff, rising and turning his hat in his hand and methodically prodding new and geometrically perfect indentations in its high crown, "but you've got a strong popular opinion to buck. most people believe them injuns and the breed have a guilty knowledge of the murder."
"when you get twelve men in the jury box saying the same thing," replied lowell, "that's going to settle it. but until then i'm considering the case open."
jim mcfann's camp was in the loneliest of many lonely draws in the sage-gray uplands where the foothills and plains meet. it was not a camp that would appeal to the luxury-loving. in fact, one might almost fall over it in the brush before knowing that a camp was there. a "tarp" bed was spread on the hard, sun-cracked soil. a saddle was near by. there was a frying-pan or two at the edge of a dead fire. a pack-animal and saddle horse stood disconsolately in the greasewood, getting what slender grazing was available, but not being allowed to wander far. it was the camp of one who "traveled light" and was ready to go at an instant's notice.
so well hidden was the half-breed that, in spite of explicit directions that had been given by bill talpers, andy wolters had a difficult time in finding the camp. talpers had sent andy as his emissary, bearing grub and tobacco and a bottle of whiskey to the half-breed. andy had turned and twisted most of the morning in the monotony of sage. song had died upon his lips as the sun had beaten upon him with all its unclouded vigor.
andy did not know it, but for an hour he had been under the scrutiny of the half-breed, who had been quick to descry the horseman moving through the brush. mcfann had been expecting talpers, and he was none too pleased to find that the trader had sent the gossiping cowpuncher in his stead. andy, being one of those ingenuous souls who never can catch the undercurrents of life, rattled on, all unconscious of the effect of light words, lightly flung.
"you dig the grub and other stuff out o' that pack," said andy, "while i hunt an inch or two of shade and cool my brow. when it comes to makin' a success of hidin' out in the brush, you can beat one of them renegade steers that we miss every round-up. i guess you ain't heard about the robbery that's happened in our metropolis of talpersville, have you?"
the half-breed grunted a negative.
"of course not, seein' as you ain't gettin' the daily paper out here. well, an expert safe-buster rode bill talpers's iron treasure-chest to a frazzle the other night. took valuable papers that bill's all fussed up about, but dropped a wad of bills, big enough to choke one of them prehistoric bronks that used to romp around in these hills."
mcfann looked up scowlingly from his task of estimating the amount of grub that had been sent.
"seems to me," went on andy, "that if i got back my money, i wouldn't give a durn about papers—not unless they was papers that established my rights as the long-lost heir of some feller with about twenty million dollars. that roll had a thousand-dollar bill wrapped around the outside."
the half-breed straightened up.
"how do you know there was a thousand-dollar bill in that roll?" he demanded, with an intensity that surprised the cowboy.
"bill told me so himself. he had took a few snifters, and was feelin' melancholy over them papers, and i tried to cheer him up by tellin' him jest what i've told you, that as long as i had my roll back, i wouldn't care about all the hen-tracks that spoiled nice white paper. he chirked up a bit at that, and got confidential and told me about this thousand-dollar bill. they say it ain't the only one he had. the story is that he sprung one on an injun the other day in payment for a bunch o' steers. there must be lots more profit in prunes and shawls and the other things that bill handles than most people have been thinkin', with thousand-dollar bills comin' so easy."
the half-breed was listening intently now. he had ceased his work about the camp, and was standing, with hands clenched and head thrust forward, eyeing andy so narrowly that the cowboy paused in his narrative.
"what's the matter, jim?" he asked; "bill didn't take any of them thousand-dollar things from you, did he?"
"mebbe not, and mebbe so," enigmatically answered the half-breed. "go on and tell me the rest."
when he had completed his story of the robbery at talpers's store, andy tilted his enormous sombrero over his eyes, and, leaning back in the shade, fell asleep. the half-breed worked silently about the camp, occasionally going to a near-by knoll and looking about for some sign of life in the sagebrush. he made some biscuits and coffee and fried some bacon, after which he touched andy none too gently with his moccasined foot and told the cowboy to sit up and eat something.
after one or two ineffectual efforts to start conversation, the visitor gave up in disgust. the meal was eaten in silence. even the obtuse andy sensed that something was wrong, and made no effort to rouse the half-breed, who ate grimly and immediately busied himself with the dish-washing as soon as the meal was over. andy soon took his departure, the half-breed directing him to a route that would lessen the chances of his discovery by the indian police.
after andy had gone the half-breed turned his attention to the bottle which had been sent by talpers. he visited the knoll occasionally, but nothing alive could be discerned in the great wastes of sage. when the shadows deepened and the chill of evening came down from the high altitudes of the near-by peaks, mcfann staked out his ponies in better grazing ground. then he built a small camp-fire, and, sitting cross-legged in the light, he smoked and drank, and meditated upon the perfidy of bill talpers.
mcfann was astir at dawn, and there was determination in every move as he brought in the horses and began to break camp.
the half-breed owned a ranch which had come down to him from his indian mother. shrewdly suspecting that the police had ceased watching the ranch, jim made his way homeward. his place was located in the bottom-land along a small creek. there was a shack on it, but no attempt at cultivation. as he looked the place over, jim's thoughts became more bitter than ever. if he had farmed this land, the way the agent wanted him to, he could have been independent by now, but instead of that he had listened to talpers's blandishments and now had been thrown down by his professed friend!
jim took off his pack and threw his camping equipment inside the shack. then he turned his pack-animal into the wild hay in the pasture he had fenced off in the creek bottom. he had some other live stock roaming around in the little valley—enough steers and horses to make a beginning toward a comfortable independence, if he had only had sense enough to start in that way. also there was good soil on the upland. he could run a ditch from the creek to the nearest mesa, where the land was red and sandy and would raise anything. the reservation agriculturist had been along and had shown him just how the trick could be done, but bill talpers's bootlegging schemes looked a lot better then!
the half-breed slammed his shack door shut and rode away with his greasy hat-brim pulled well over his eyes. he paid little attention to the demands he was making on horseflesh, and he rode openly across the country. if the indian police saw him, he could outdistance them. the thing that he had set out to do could be done quickly. after that, nothing mattered much.
skirting the ridge on which helen and lowell had stood, jim made a détour as he approached the reservation line and avoided the greek letter ranch. he swung into the road well above the ranch, and, breasting the hill where the murder had taken place on the dollar sign, he galloped down the slope toward talpers's store.
the trader was alone in his store when the half-breed entered. talpers had seen mcfann coming, some distance down the road. something in the half-breed's bearing in the saddle, or perhaps it was some inner stir of guilty fear, made talpers half-draw his revolver. then he thrust it back into its holster, and, swinging around in his chair, awaited his partner's arrival. he even attempted a jaunty greeting.
"hello, jim," he called, as the half-breed's lithe figure swung in through the outer doorway; "ain't you even a little afraid of the injun police?"
mcfann did not answer, but flung open the door into bill's sanctum. it was no unusual thing for the men to confer there, and two or three indians on the front porch did not even turn their heads to see what was going on inside. talpers's clerk was out and andy wolters had just departed, after reporting to the trader that the half-breed had seemed "plumb uneasy out there in the brush." andy had not told bill the cause of mcfann's uneasiness, but on that point the trader was soon to be enlightened.
"bill," said the half-breed purringly, "i hear you've been having your safe cracked."
something in the half-breed's voice made the trader wish he had not shoved back that revolver. it would not do to reach for it now. mcfann's hands were empty, but he was lightning in getting them to his guns.
the trader's lips seemed more than usually dry and cracked. his voice wheezed at the first word, as he answered.
"yes, jim, i was robbed," he said. then he added, propitiatingly: "but i've got a new safe. ain't she a beauty?"
"she sure is," replied mcfann, though he did not take his eyes off talpers. "got your name on, and everything. let's open her up, and see what a real safe looks like inside."
talpers turned without question and began fumbling at the combination. his hands trembled, and once he dropped them at his side. as he did so mcfann's hands moved almost imperceptibly. their movement was toward the half-breed's hips, and talpers brought his own hands quickly back to the combination. the tumblers fell, and the trader swung the door open.
"purtier 'n a new pair of boots," approved the half-breed, as a brave array of books and inner drawers came in view. "now them inside boxes. the one with the thousand-dollar bill in it."
"why, what's gittin' into you, jim?" almost whined talpers. "you know i ain't got any thousand-dollar bill."
"don't lie to me," snapped the half-breed, a harsh note coming into his voice. "you've made your talk about a thousand-dollar bill. i want to see it—that's all."
slowly talpers unlocked the inner strong box and took therefrom a roll of money.
"there it is," he said, handing it to mcfann. a thousand-dollar bill was on the outside of the roll.
"i ain't going to ask where you got that," said mcfann steadily, "because you'd lie to me. but i know. you took it from that man on the hill. you told me you'd jest found him there when i come on you prowling around his body. you said you didn't take anything from him, and i was fool enough to believe you. but you didn't get these thousand-dollar bills anywhere else. you double-crossed me, and if things got too warm for you, you was going to saw everything off on me. easy enough when i was hiding out there in the sagebrush, living on what you wanted to send out to me. i've done all this bootlegging work for you, and i covered up for you in court, about this murder, all because i thought you was on the square. and all the time you had took your pickings from this man on the hill and had fooled me into thinking you didn't find a thing on him. here's the money, bill. i wouldn't take it away from you. lock it in your safe again—if you can!"
the half-breed flung the roll of bills in talpers's face. the trader, made desperate by fear, flung himself toward mcfann. if he could pinion the half-breed's arms to his side, there could be but one outcome to the struggle that had been launched. the trader's great weight and grizzly-like strength would be too much for the wiry half-breed to overcome. but mcfann slipped easily away from talpers's clutching hands. the trader brought up against the mailing desk with a crash that shook the entire building. the heat of combat warmed his chilled veins. courage returned to him with a rush. he roared oaths as he righted himself and dragged his revolver from the holster on his hip.
before the trader's gun could be brought to a shooting level, paralysis seemed to seize his arm. fire seared his side and unbearable pain radiated therefrom. only the fighting man's instinct kept him on his feet. his knees sagged and his arm drooped slowly, despite his desperate endeavors to raise that blue-steel weapon to its target. he saw the half-breed, smiling and defiant, not three paces away, but seemingly in another world. there was a revolver in mcfann's hand, and faint tendrils of smoke came from the weapon.
grimly setting his jaws and with his lips parted in a mirthless grin, talpers crossed his left hand to his right. with both hands he tried to raise the revolver, but it only sank lower. his knees gave way and he slid to the floor, his back to his new safe and his swarthy skin showing a pale yellow behind his sparse, curling black beard.
"put the money away, bill, put it away, quick," said mcfann's mocking voice. "there it is, under your knee. you sold out your pardner for it—now hide it in your new safe!"
talpers's cracked lips formed no reply, but his little black eyes glowed balefully behind their dark, lowering brows.
"you're good at shooting down harmless indians, bill," jeered mcfann, "but you're too slow in a real fight. any word you want to send to the indian agent? i'm going to tell him i believe you did the murder on the dollar sign road."
a last flare of rage caused talpers to straighten up. then the paralysis came again, stronger than before. the revolver slipped from the trader's grasp, and his head sank forward until his chin rested on his broad chest.
mcfann looked contemptuously at the great figure, helpless in death. then he lighted a cigarette, and, laughing at the terror of the indians, who had been peeping in the window at the last of the tragedy, the half-breed walked out of the store, and, mounting his horse, rode to the agency and gave himself up to lowell.
