Mystery Ranch

"Of course I don't know it absolutely. It's jest what I feel, from bein' as well acquainted with Jim as I am."

"Yes, you and Jim are tolerably close to each other – everybody knows that."

Talpers shot a suspicious glance at the agent, and then he reassumed his mysterious grin.

"Where you goin' now?" he asked.

"Just up on the hill."

"I've been back there a couple of times," sneered Bill, "but I couldn't find no notes dropped by the murderer."

"Well, there's just one thing that's plain enough now, Talpers," said Lowell grimly, as he released his brakes. "While Jim McFann is in jail a lot of Indians are going to be thirsty, and your receipts for whiskey are not going to be so big."

Talpers scowled angrily and stepped toward the agent. Lowell sat calmly in the car, watching him unconcernedly. Then Talpers suddenly turned and walked toward the store, and the agent started his motor and glided away.

Bill's ugly scowl did not fade as he stalked into his store. Lowell's last shot about the bootlegging had gone home. Talpers had had more opposition from Lowell than from any other Indian agent since the trader had established his store on the reservation line. In fact the young agent had made whiskey-dealing so dangerous that Talpers was getting worried. Lowell had brought the Indian police to a state of efficiency never before obtained. Bootlegging had become correspondingly difficult. Jim McFann had complained several times about being too close to capture. Now he was arrested on another charge, and, as Lowell had said, Talpers's most profitable line of business was certain to suffer. As Bill walked back to his store he wondered how much Lowell actually knew, and how much had been shrewd guesswork. The young agent had a certain inscrutable air about him, for all his youth, which was most disturbing.

Talpers had not dared come out too openly for McFann's release. He offered bail bonds, which were refused. He had managed to get a few minutes' talk with McFann, but Redmond insisted on being present, and all the trader could do was to assure the half-breed that everything possible would be done to secure his release.

Bill's disturbed condition of mind vanished only when he reached into his pocket and drew out the letter which indicated that the girl at Mystery Ranch knew something about the tragedy which was setting not only the county but the whole State aflame. Here was a trump card which might be played in several different ways. The thing to do was to hold it, and to keep his counsel until the right time came. He thanked the good fortune that had put him in possession of the postmastership – an office which few men were shrewd enough to use to their own good advantage! Any common postmaster, who couldn't use his brains, would have let that letter go right through, but that wasn't Bill Talpers's way! He read the letter over again, slowly, as he had done a dozen times before. Written in a pretty hand it was – handwriting befitting a dum fine-lookin' girl like that! Bill's features softened into something resembling a smile. He put the letter back in his pocket, and his expression was almost beatific as he turned to wait on an Indian woman who had come in search of a new shawl.

Talpers's attitude, which had been at once cynical and mysterious, was the cause of some speculation on Lowell's part as the agent drove away from the trader's store. Something had happened to put so much of triumph in Talpers's face and speech, but Lowell was not able to figure out just what that something could be. He resolved to keep a closer eye than customary on the doings of the trader, but soon all thoughts of everything save those concerned directly with the murder were banished from his mind when he reached the scene of the tragedy.

Getting out of his automobile, Lowell went over the ground carefully. The grass and even some of the sage had been trampled down by the curious crowds that had flocked to the scene. An hour's careful search revealed nothing, and Lowell walked back to his car, shaking his head. Apparently the surroundings were more inscrutable than ever. The rolling hills were beginning to lose their green tint, under a hot sun, unrelieved by rain. The last rain of the season had fallen a day or so before the murder. Lowell remembered the little pools he had splashed through on the road, and the scattered "wallows" of mud that had remained on the prairie. Such places were now all dry and caked. A few meadow-larks were still singing, but even their notes would be silenced in the long, hot days that were to come. But the distant mountains, and the little stream in the bottom of the valley, looked cool and inviting. Ordinarily Lowell would have turned his machine toward the line of willows and tried an hour or so of fly-fishing, as there were plenty of trout in the stream, but to-day he kept on along the road over which he had taken Helen Ervin to her stepfather's ranch.

As Lowell drove up in front of Willis Morgan's ranch-house, he noticed a change for the better in the appearance of the place. Wong had been doing some work on the fence, but had discreetly vanished when Lowell came in sight. The yard had been cleared of rubbish and a thick growth of weeds had been cut down.

Lowell marveled that a Chinese should be doing such work as repairing a fence, and wondered if the girl had wrought all the changes about the place or if it had been done under Morgan's direction.

As if in answer, Helen Ervin came into the yard with a rake in her hand. She gave a little cry of pleasure at seeing Lowell.

"I'd have been over before, as I promised," said Lowell, "and in fact I had actually started when I had to make a long trip to a distant part of the reservation."

"I suppose it was in connection with this murder," she said.

"Yes."

"Tell me about it. What bearing did your trip have on it?"

Lowell was surprised at the intensity of her question.

"Well, you see," he said, "I had to bring in a couple of men who are suspected of committing the crime. But, frankly, I thought that in this quiet place you had not so much as heard of the murder."

The girl smiled, but there was no mirth in her eyes.

"Of course it isn't as if one had newsboys shouting at the door," she replied, "but we couldn't escape hearing of it, even here. Tell me, who are these men you have arrested?"

"An Indian and a half-breed. Their tracks were found at the scene of the murder."

"But that evidence is so slight! Surely they cannot – they may not be guilty."

"If not, they will have to clear themselves at the trial."

"Will they – will they be hanged if found guilty?"

"They may be lynched before the trial. There is talk of it now."

Helen made a despairing gesture.

"Don't let anything of that sort happen!" she cried. "Use all your influence. Get the men out of the country if you can. But don't let innocent men be slain."

Lowell attempted to divert her mind to other things. He spoke of the changed appearance of the ranch.

"Your coming has made a great difference here," he said. "This doesn't look like the place where I left you not many days ago."

Helen closed her eyes involuntarily, as if to blot out some vision in her memory.

"That terrible night!" she exclaimed. "I – "

She paused, and Lowell looked at her in surprise and alarm.

"What is it?" he asked. "Is there anything wrong – anything I can do to help you?"

"No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only the recollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly."

"Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treating you all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputation around here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I brought you over here. But you know how people feel about minding their own affairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feel that we should speak."

"No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesickness for my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But I can't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to this place. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate – and dead! And then those few days that followed!"

She buried her face in her hands a moment, and then said, quietly:

"Did you know that my stepfather had married an Indian woman?"

"Yes. Do you mean that you didn't know?"

"No, I didn't know."

"What a fool I was for not telling you these things!" exclaimed Lowell. "I might have saved you a lot of humiliation."

"You could have saved me more than humiliation. He told me all about her – the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was going to kill me as he had killed her – by inches."

Lowell grew cold with horror.

"But this is criminal!" he declared. "Let me take you away from this place at once. I'll find some place where you can go – back to my mother's home in the East."

"No, it's all right now. I'm in no danger, and I can't leave this place. In fact I don't want to," said the girl, putting her hand on Lowell's arm.

"Do you mean to tell me that he treated you so fiendishly during the first few days, and then suddenly changed and became the most considerate of relatives?"

"I tell you I am being treated all right now. I merely told you what happened at first – part of the cruel things he said – because I couldn't keep it all to myself any longer. Besides, that Indian woman – poor little thing! – is on my mind all the time."

"Then you won't come away?"

"No – he needs me."

"Well, this beats anything I ever heard of – " began Lowell. Then he stopped after a glance at her face. She was deathly pale. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her hands trembled. It seemed to him that the school-girl he had brought to the ranch a few days before had become a woman through some great mental trial.

"Come and see, or hear, for yourself," said Helen.

Wonderingly, Lowell stepped into the ranch-house kitchen. Helen pointed to the living-room.

Through the partly open door, Lowell caught a glimpse of an aristocratic face, surmounted by gray hair. A white hand drummed on the arm of a library chair which contained pillows and blankets. From the room there came a voice that brought to Lowell a sharp and disagreeable memory of the cutting voice he had heard in false welcome to Helen Ervin a few days before. Only now there was querulous insistence in the voice – the insistence of the sick person who calls upon some one who has proved unfailing in the performance of the tasks of the sick-room.

Helen stepped inside the room and closed the door. Lowell heard her talking soothingly to the sick man, and then she came out.

"You have seen for yourself," she said.

Lowell nodded, and they stepped out into the yard once more.

"I'll leave matters to your own judgment," said Lowell, "only I'm asking two things of you. One is to let me know if things go wrong, and the other isn't quite so important, but it will please me a lot. It's just to go riding with me right now."

Helen smilingly assented. Once more she was the girl he had brought over from the agency. She ran indoors and spoke a few words to Wong, and came out putting on her hat.

They drove for miles toward the heart of the Indian reservation. The road had changed to narrow, parallel ribbons, with grass between. Cattle, some of which belonged to the Indians and some to white leasers, were grazing in the distance. Occasionally they could see an Indian habitation – generally a log cabin, with its ugliness emphasized by the grace of a flanking tepee. Everything relating to human affairs seemed dwarfed in such immensity. The voices of Indian herdsmen, calling to each other, were reduced to faint murmurs. The very sound of the motor seemed blanketed.

Lowell and the girl traveled for miles in silence. He shrewdly suspected that the infinite peace of the landscape would prove the best tonic for her overwrought mind. His theory proved correct. The girl leaned back in the seat, and, taking off her hat, enjoyed to the utmost the rush of the breeze and the swift changes in the great panorama.

"It isn't any wonder that the Indians fought hard for this country, is it?" asked Lowell. "It's all too big for one's comprehension at first, especially when you've come from brick walls and mere strips of sky, but after you've become used to it you can never forget it."

"I'd like to keep right on going to those blue mountains," said the girl. "It's wonderful, but a bit appalling, to a tenderfoot such as I am. I think we'd better go back."

Lowell drove in a circuitous route instead of taking the back trail. Just after they had swung once more into the road near the ranch, they met a horseman who proved to be Bill Talpers. The trader reined his horse to the side of the road and motioned to Lowell to stop. Bill's grin was bestowed upon the girl, who uttered a little exclamation of dismay when she established the identity of the horseman.

"I jest wanted to ask if you found anything up there," said Bill, jerking his thumb toward the road over which he had just ridden. It was quite plain that Talpers had been drinking.

"Maybe I did, and maybe not, Bill," answered Lowell disgustedly. "Anyway, what about it?"

"Jest this," observed Bill, talking to Lowell, but keeping his gaze upon Helen. "Sometimes you can find letters where you don't expect the guilty parties to leave 'em. Mebbe you ain't lookin' in the right place for evidence. How-de-do, Miss Ervin? I'm goin' to drop in at the ranch and see you and your stepfather some day. I ain't been very neighborly so far, but it's because business has prevented."

Lowell started the car, and as they darted away he looked in astonishment at the girl. Her pallor showed that once more she was under great mental strain. It came to Lowell in a flash that Bill's arrogance sprang from something deeper than mere conceit or drunkenness. Undoubtedly he had set out deliberately to terrorize the girl, and had succeeded. Lowell waited for some remark from Helen, but none came. He kept back the questions that were on the tip of his tongue. Aside from a few banalities, they exchanged no words until Lowell helped her from the car at the ranch.

"I want to tell you," said Lowell, "that I appreciate such confidence as you have reposed in me. I won't urge you to tell more but I'm going to be around in the offing, and, if things don't go right, and especially if Bill Talpers – "

There was so much terror in the girl's eyes that Lowell's assurances came to a lame ending. She turned and ran into the house, after a fluttering word of thanks for the ride, and Lowell, more puzzled than ever, drove thoughtfully away.