Mystery Ranch Part 18

"Never mind!" roared Talpers. "You round up this burglar and let me go through him. I'll get what's mine, all right."

Redmond made a gesture of despair. A man who had been robbed and had recovered his money, and was so keen after papers that he wouldn't or couldn't describe, was past all fooling with. The sheriff rode off, grumbling, without even questioning Lowell to ascertain if the Indian police had seen any suspicious characters on the reservation.

Bill Talpers's mental convolutions following the robbery reminded Lowell of the writhing of a wounded snake. Bill's fear was that the letter would be picked up and sent back to the girl at the Greek Letter Ranch.

Suspicion of a plot in the affair did not enter his head. To him it was just a sinister stroke of misfortune--one of the chance buffets of fate.

One tramp burglar out of the many pursuing that vocation had happened upon the Talpers establishment at a time when its proprietor was in an unusually sound sleep. Bill gave himself over to thoughts of the various forms of punishment he would inflict upon the wandering yeggman in case a capture were effected--thoughts which came to naught, as Red Egan had been given so generous a start toward his Omaha goal that he never was headed.

As the days went past and the letter was not discovered, Bill began to gather hope. Perhaps the burglar, thinking the letter of no value, had destroyed it, in natural disgust at finding that he had dropped the money which undoubtedly was the real object of his safe-breaking.

If Talpers had known what had really happened to the letter, all his self-comfortings would have vanished. Lowell had lost no time in taking the missive to Helen. He had found affairs at the Greek Letter Ranch apparently unchanged. Wong was at work in the kitchen. Two Indians, who had been hired to harvest the hay, which was the only crop on the ranch, were busy in a near-by field. Helen, looking charming in a house dress of blue, with white collar and cuffs, was feeding a tame magpie when Lowell drove into the yard.

"Moving picture ent.i.tled 'The Metamorphosis of Miss Tatters,'" said Lowell, amusedly surveying her.

"The scratches still survive, but the riding-suit will take a lot of mending," said Helen, showing her scratched hands and wrists.

"Well, if this very becoming costume has a pocket, here's something to put in it," remarked Lowell, handing her the letter.

Helen's smile was succeeded by a startled, anxious look, as she glanced at the envelope and then at Lowell.

"No need for worry," Lowell a.s.sured her. "n.o.body has read that letter since it pa.s.sed out of the possession of our esteemed postmaster, Bill Talpers, sometime after one o'clock this morning."

"But how did he come to give it up?" asked Helen, her voice wavering.

"He did not do so willingly. It might be said he did not give it up knowingly. As a matter of fact, our friend Talpers had no idea he had lost his precious possession until it had been gone several hours."

"But how--"

"'How' is a word to be flung at Red Egan, knight of the steel drill and the nitro bottle and other what-nots of up-to-date burglary," said Lowell. "Though I saw the thing done, I can't tell you how. I only hope it clears matters for you."

"It does in a way. I cannot tell you how grateful I am," said Helen, her trembling hands tightly clutching the letter.

"Only in a way? I am sorry it does not do more."

"But it's a very important way, I a.s.sure you!" exclaimed Helen. "It eliminates this man--this Talpers--as a personal menace. But when you are so eager to get every thread of evidence, how is it that you can give this letter to me, unread? You must feel sure it has some bearing on the awful thing--the tragedy that took place back there on the hill."

"That is where faith rises superior to a very human desire to look into the details of mystery," said Lowell. "If I were a real detective, or spy, as you characterized me, I would have read that letter at the first opportunity. But I knew that my reading it would cause you grave personal concern. I have faith in you to the extent that I believe you would do nothing to bring injustice upon others. Consequently, from now on I will proceed to forget that this letter ever existed."

"You may regret that you have acted in this generous manner," said the girl. "What if you find that all your faith has been misplaced--that I am not worthy of the trust--"

"Really, there is nothing to be gained by saying such things,"

interposed Lowell. "As I told you, I am forgetting that the letter ever existed."

"Do you know," she said, "I wish this letter could have come back to me from any one but you?"

"Why?"

"Because, coming as it has, I am more or less constrained to act as fairly as you believe I shall act."

"You might give it back to Talpers and start in on any sort of a deal you chose."

"Impossible! For fear Talpers may get it, here is what I shall do to the letter."

Here Helen tore it in small pieces and tossed them high in the air, the breeze carrying them about the yard like snow.

"In which event," laughed Lowell, "it seems that I win, and my faith in you is to be justified."

"I wish I could a.s.sure you of as much," answered Helen sadly. "But if it happens that your trust is not justified, I hope you will not think too harshly of me."

"Harshly!" exclaimed Lowell. "Harshly! Why, if you practiced revolver shooting on me an hour before breakfast every morning, or if you used me for a doormat here at the Greek Letter Ranch, I couldn't think anything but lovingly of you."

"Oh!" cried Helen, clapping her hands over her ears and running up the porch steps, as Lowell turned to his automobile. "You've almost undone all the good you've accomplished to-day."

"Thanks for that word 'almost,'" laughed Lowell.

"Then I'll make it 'quite,'" flung Helen, but her words were lost in the s.h.i.+fting of gears as Lowell started back to the agency.

That night Helen dreamed that Bill Talpers, on hands and knees, was moving like a misshapen shadow about the yard in the moonlight picking up the letter which she had torn to pieces.

CHAPTER XIII

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 gra.s.s 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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."