Mystery Ranch

"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.

CHAPTER XIV

Lowell consulted with Judge Garford and Sheriff Tom Redmond, and it was decided to keep Jim McFann in jail at the agency until time for his trial for complicity in the first murder on the Dollar Sign road.

Sheriff Redmond admitted that, owing to the uncertainty of public sentiment, he could not guarantee the half-breed's safety if McFann were lodged in the county jail. Consequently the slayer of Bill Talpers remained in jail at the agency, under a strong guard of Indian police, supplemented by trustworthy deputies sent over by Redmond.

The killing of Talpers was the excuse for another series of attacks on Lowell by the White Lodge paper. Said the editor:

The murder of our esteemed neighbor, William Talpers, by James McFann, a half-breed, is another evidence of the necessity of opening the reservation to white settlement.

This second murder on the Dollar Sign road is not a mystery. Its perpetrator was seen at this bloody work. Furthermore, he is understood to have coolly confessed his crime. But, like the first murder, which is still shrouded in mystery, this was a crime which found its inception on the Indian reservation. Are white residents adjacent to the reservation to have their lives snuffed out at the pleasure of Government wards and reservation offscourings in general? Has not the time come when the broad acres of the Indian reservation, which the redskins are doing little with, should be thrown open to the plough of the white man?

"'Plough of the white man' is good," cynically observed Ed Rogers, after calling Lowell's attention to the article. "If those cattlemen ever get the reservation opened, they'll keep the nesters out for the next forty years, if they have to kill a homesteader for every hundred and sixty acres. So far as Bill Talpers's killing is concerned, I can't see but what it is looked upon as a good thing for the peace of the community."

It seemed to be a fact that Jim McFann's act had appealed irresistibly to a large element. Youthful cowpunchers rode for miles and waited about the agency for a glimpse of the gun-fighter who had slain the redoubtable Bill Talpers in such a manner. None of them could get near the jail, but they stood in picturesque groups about the agency, listening to the talk of Andy Wolters and others who had been on more or less intimate terms with the principals in the affair.

"And there was me a-snoozin' in that breed's camp the very day before he done this shootin'," said Andy to an appreciative circle. "He must have had this thing stewin' in his head at the time. It's a wonder he didn't throw down on me, jest for a little target practice. But I guess he figgered he didn't need no practice to get Bill Talpers, and judgin' from the way things worked out, his figgerin' was right. Some artist with the little smoke machine, that boy, 'cause Bill Talpers wasn't no slouch at shootin'! I remember seein' Bill shoot the head off a rattlesnake at the side of the road, jest casual-like, and when it come to producin' the hardware he was some quick for a big man. He more than met his match this time, old Bill did. And, by gosh! you can bet that nobody after this ever sends me out to any dry camps in the brush to take supplies to any gunman who may be hid out there. Next time I might snooze and never wake up."

All was not adulation for Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. Talpers was not loved, but the killing of any white man by some one of Indian ancestry was something to fan resentment without regard to facts. Bets were made that McFann would not live to be tried on the second homicide charge against him, many holding the opinion that he would be hanged, with Fire Bear, for the first murder. Also wagers were freely made that Fire Bear would not be produced in court by the Indian agent, and that it would be necessary to send a force of officers to get the accused Indian.

Lowell apparently paid no attention to the rumors that were flying about. A mass of reservation detail had accumulated, and he worked hard to get it out of the way before the trial. He had made changes in the boarding-school system, and had established an experimental farm at the agency. He had supervised the purchase of livestock for the improvement of the tribal flocks and herds. In addition there had been the personal demands that shower incessantly upon every Indian agent who is interested in his work.

Reports from the reservation agriculturists, whose work was to help the Indians along farming lines, were not encouraging. Drought was continuing without abatement.

"The last rain fell the day before the murder on the Dollar Sign road," said Rogers. "Remember how we splashed through mud the day we ran out there and found that man staked down on the prairie?"

"And now the Indians are saying that the continued drought is due to Fire Bear's medicine," observed Lowell. "Even some of the more conservative Indians believe there is no use trying to raise crops until the charge against Fire Bear is dismissed and the evil spell is lifted."

In spite of the details of reservation management that crowded upon him, Lowell found time for occasional visits to the Greek Letter Ranch to see Helen Ervin. He told her the details of the Talpers shooting, so far as he knew them.

"There isn't much that I can tell about the cause of the shooting," said Lowell, in answer to one of her questions. "I could have had all the details, but I cautioned Jim McFann to say nothing in advance of his trial. But from what I have gathered here and there, Jim and Talpers fell out over money matters. A thousand-dollar bill was found on the floor under Talpers's body. It had evidently been taken from the safe, and might have been what they fought over."

Helen nodded in comprehension of the whole affair, though she did not tell Lowell that he had made it clear to her. She guessed that in some way Jim McFann had come into possession of the facts of his partner's perfidy. She wondered how the half-breed had found out that Talpers had taken money from the murdered man and had not divided. She had held that knowledge over Talpers's head as a club. She could see that he feared McFann, and she wondered if, in his last moments, Talpers had wrongfully blamed her for giving the half-breed the information which turned him into a slayer.

"Anyway, it doesn't make much difference what the fight was over," declared Lowell. "Talpers had been playing a double game for a long time. He tried just once too often to cheat his partner – something dangerous when that partner is a fiery-tempered half-breed."

"Is this shooting of Talpers going to have any effect on McFann's trial for the other murder?" asked Helen.

"It may inflame popular sentiment against both men still further – something that never seems to be difficult where Indians are concerned."

Lowell tried in vain to lead the talk away from the trial.

"Look here," he exclaimed finally, "you're worrying yourself unnecessarily over this! I don't believe you're getting much of any sleep, and I'll bet Wong will testify that you are eating very little. You mustn't let matters weigh on your mind so. Talpers is gone, and you have the letter that was in his safe and that he used as a means of worrying you. Your stepfather is getting better right along – so much so that you can leave here at any time. Pretty soon you'll have this place of tragedy off your mind and you'll forget all about the Indian reservation and everything it contains. But until that time comes, I prescribe an automobile ride for you every day. Some of the roads around here will make it certain that you will be well shaken before the prescription is taken."

Lowell regretted his light words as soon as he had uttered them.

"This trial is my whole life," declared the girl solemnly. "If those men are convicted, there can never be another day of happiness for me!"

On the morning set for the opening of the trial, Lowell left his automobile in front of his residence while he ate breakfast. To all appearances there was nothing unusual about this breakfast. It was served at the customary time and in the customary way. Apparently the young Indian agent was interested only in the meal and in some letters which had been sent over from the office, but finally he looked up and smiled at the uneasiness of his housekeeper, who had cast frequent glances out of the window.

"What is it, Mrs. Ruel?" asked Lowell.

"The Indian – Fire Bear. Has he come?"

"Oh, that's what's worrying you, is it? Well, don't let it do so any more. He will be here all right."