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  CHAPTER XV

  THE FIRST CLEW

  "Let's see!" Trowbridge reined in his horse and meditated, when he andDorothy had covered several miles of their ride back to Crawling Water."Jensen was shot around here somewhere, wasn't he?"

  "I think it was over there." She pointed with her quirt in the directionof a distant clump of jack-pines. "Why?"

  "Suppose we ride over and take a look at the spot." He smiled at herlittle shudder of repugnance. "We haven't any Sherlock Holmes in thiscountry, and maybe we need one. I'll have a try at it. Come on!"

  In response to the pressure of his knees, the trained cow-pony whirledtoward the jack-pines, and Dorothy followed, laughing at the idea thatso ingenuous a man as Lem Trowbridge might possess the analytical giftof the trained detective.

  "You!" she said mockingly, when she had caught up with him. "You're astransparent as glass; not that it isn't nice to be that way, but stillyou are. Besides, the rain we've had must have washed all tracks away."

  "No doubt, but we'll have a look anyhow. It won't do any harm.Seriously, though, the ways of criminals have always interested me. I'drather read a good detective story than any other sort of yarn."

  "I shouldn't think that you had any gift that way."

  "That's got nothing to do with it," he laughed. "It's always like that.Haven't you noticed how nearly every man thinks he's missed his calling;that if he'd only gone in for something else he'd have been a rattlinggenius at it? Just to show you! I've got a hand over at the ranch, afellow named Barry, who can tie down a steer in pretty close to therecord. He's a born cowman, if I ever saw one, but do you suppose hethinks that's his line?"

  "Doesn't he?" she asked politely. One of the secrets of her popularitylay in her willingness to feed a story along with deft littleinterjections of interest.

  "He does not. Poetry! Shakespeare! That's his 'forty'! At night he getsout a book and reads Hamlet to the rest of the boys. Thinks that if he'dever hit Broadway with a show, he'd set the town on fire."

  When Dorothy laughed heartily, as she now did, the sound of it was worthgoing miles to hear. There are all shades of temperament and characterin laughter, which is the one thing of which we are leastself-conscious; hers revealed not only a sense of humor, rare in hersex, but a blithe, happy nature, which made allies at once of those uponwhose ears her merriment fell. Trowbridge's eyes sparkled with hisappreciation of it.

  "Well, maybe he would," she said, finally.

  "Maybe I'll make good along with Sherlock Holmes." He winked at her ashe slipped from his horse's back, on the edge of a rocky knoll, frontingthe jack-pines. "This is the place, I reckon." His quick eyes hadcaught a dark stain on a flat rock, which the rain had failed to cleanseentirely of the dead herders' blood.

  When Dorothy saw it, too, her mirth subsided. To her mind, the thoughtof death was most horrible, and especially so in the case of a murderousdeath, such as had befallen the sheep men. Not only was the thinghorrible in itself, but still more so in its suggestion of the dangerswhich threatened her friends.

  "Do hurry!" she begged. "There can't be anything here."

  "Just a minute or two." Struck by the note of appeal in her voice, sounlike its lilt of the moment before, he added: "Ride on if you wantto."

  "No," she shuddered. "I'll wait, but please be quick."

  It was well for her companion that she did wait, or at least that shewas with him for, when he had inspected the immediate vicinity of theshooting, he stepped backward from the top of the knoll into a little,brush-filled hollow, in which lay a rattlesnake. Deeply interested inhis search, he did not hear the warning rattle, and Dorothy might nothave noticed it either had not her pony raised its head, with a startand a snort. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the snake and calledout sharply.

  "Look out, behind you, Lem!"

  There are men, calling themselves conjurors, who perform prodigies ofagility with coins, playing-cards, and other articles of legerdemain,but they are not so quick as was Trowbridge in springing sidewise fromthe menacing snake. In still quicker movement, the heavy Colt at hisside leaped from its holster. The next second the rattle had ceasedforever, for the snake's head had been neatly cut from its body.

  "Close call! Thanks!" Trowbridge slid his weapon back into its restingplace and smiled up at her.

  So close, indeed, had the call been that, coming upon the dreadfulassociations of the spot, Dorothy was unnerved. Her skin turned a sicklywhite and her lips were trembling, but not more so than were the flanksof the horses, which seemed to be in an agony of fear. When the girl sawTrowbridge pick up a withered stick and coolly explore the recesses of asmall hole near which the snake had been coiled, she rebelled.

  "I'm not going to stay here another minute," she declared hotly.

  "Just a second. There may be another one.... Oh, all right, go on,then," he called out, as she whirled her pony and started off. "I'llcatch you. Ride slow!"

  He looked after her with a smile of amusement, before renewing hisefforts with the stick, holding his bridle reins with one hand so thathis horse could not follow hers. To his disappointment there seemed tobe nothing in the hole, but his prodding suddenly developed an amazingfact. He was on the point of dropping the stick and mounting his horse,when he noticed a small piece of metal in the leaves and grass at themouth of the hole. It was an empty cartridge shell.

  "By Glory!" he exclaimed, as he examined it. "A clew, or I'm a sinner!"

  Swinging into his saddle, he raced after Dorothy, shouting to her as herode. In her pique, she would not answer his hail, or turn in hersaddle; but he was too exultant to care. He was concerned only withovertaking her that he might tell her what he had found.

  "For the love of Mike!" he said, when by a liberal use of his spurs hecaught up with her. "What do you think this is, a circus?"

  "You can keep up, can't you?" she retorted banteringly.

  "Sure, I can keep up, all right." He reached out and caught her bridlerein, pulling her pony down to a walk in spite of her protests. "I wantto show you something. You can't see it riding like a jockey. Lookhere!" He handed her the shell. "You see, if I had come when you wantedme to, I wouldn't have found it. That's what's called the detectiveinstinct, I reckon," he added, with a grin. "Guess I'm some littleSherlock, after all."

  "Whose is it?" She turned the shell over in her palm a trifle gingerly.

  "Look!" He took it from her and pointed out where it had been dented bythe firing-pin. "I reckon you wouldn't know, not being up in fire-arms.The hammer that struck this shell didn't hit true; not so far off as tomiss fire, you understand, but it ain't in line exactly. That tells me alot."

  "What does it tell you?" She looked up at him quickly.

  "Well," he spoke slowly, "there ain't but one gun in Crawling Water thathas that peculiarity, that I know of, and that one belongs, or didbelong, to Tug Bailey."

  She caught at his arm impulsively so that both horses were brought to astandstill.

  "Then _he_ shot Jensen, Lem?"

  Her voice was tremulous with eagerness, for although she had neverdoubted Wade or Santry; had never thought for a moment that either mancould have committed the crime, or have planned it, she wanted themcleared of the doubt in the eyes of the world. Her disappointment wasacute when she saw that Trowbridge did not deem the shell to beconvincing proof of Bailey's guilt.

  "Don't go too fast now, Dorothy," he cautioned. "This shell proves thatBailey's gun was fired, but it doesn't prove that Bailey's finger pulledthe trigger, or that the gun was aimed at Jensen. Bailey might haveloaned the rifle to somebody, or he might have fired at a snake, like Idid a few minutes ago."

  "Oh, he might have done anything, of course. But the shell is someevidence, isn't it? It casts the doubt on Tug Bailey, doesn't it?"

  "Yes, it does that, all right. It casts it further than him." Thecattleman spoke positively. "It's a clew, that's what it is. We've got aclew and we've got a motive, and we didn't have either of themyesterday."

  "How
do you suppose that shell got where you found it?" she asked, hervoice full of hope.

  "Bailey must have levered it out of his rifle, after the shooting, andit fell into that hole. You see,"--he could not resist making thetriumphant point once more,--"if I hadn't stopped to look for anotherrattler, I never would have found it. Just that chance--just a littlechance like that--throws the biggest criminals. Funny, ain't it?" Butshe was too preoccupied with the importance of the discovery to dwell onhis gifts as a sleuth.

  "What can we do about it, Lem?" She gave her pony her head and theybegan to move slowly. "What ought we to do?"

  "I'll find this fellow, Bailey, and wring the truth out of him," heanswered grimly; and her eyes sparkled. "If I'm not greatly mistaken,though, he was only the tool."

  "Meaning that Moran...."

  "And Rexhill," Trowbridge snapped. "They are the men higher up, and thegame we're really gunning for. They hired Bailey to shoot Jensen so thatthe crime might be fastened on to Gordon. I believe that as fully as I'malive this minute; the point is to prove it."

  "Then we've no time to waste," she said, touching her pony with thequirt. "We mustn't loiter here. Suppose Bailey has been sent away?"

  The thought of this caused them to urge their tired horses along atspeed. Many times during the ride which followed Trowbridge lookedadmiringly at his companion as she rode on, untiringly, side by sidewith him. A single man himself, he had come to feel very tenderly towardher, but he had no hope of winning her. She had never been more thangood friends with him, and he realized her feeling for Wade, but thisknowledge did not make him less keen in his admiration of her.

  "Good luck to you, Lem," she said, giving him her hand, as they pausedat the head of Crawling Water's main street. "Let me know what you do assoon as you can. I'll be anxious."

  He nodded.

  "I know about where to find him, if he's in town. Oh, we're slowlygetting it on them, Dorothy. We'll be ready to 'call' them pretty soon.Good-by!"

  Tug Bailey, however, was not in town, as the cattleman learned at MonteJoe's dance-hall, piled high with tables and chairs and reeking with thestench, left over from the previous night, of whiskey fumes and staletobacco smoke. Monte Joe professed not to know where the puncher hadgone, but as Trowbridge pressed him for information the voice of awoman, as shrill as the squawk of a parrot, floated down from the floorabove.

  "Wait a minute."

  Trowbridge waited and the woman came down to him. He knew her byill-repute, as did every man in the town, for she was Pansy Madder, oneof the dance-hall habitues, good-looking enough by night to the inflamedfancy, but repulsive by day, with her sodden skin and hard eyes.

  "You want to know where Tug is?" she demanded.

  "Yes, where is he?"

  "He's headed for Sheridan, I reckon. If he ain't headed there, he'llstrike the railroad at some other point; him and that--Nellie Lewis,that he's skipped with." Her lusterless eyes were fired by the onlything that could fire them: her bitter jealousy.

  "You're sure?" Trowbridge persisted, a little doubtfully.

  "Sure? Of course, I'm sure. Say,"--she clutched at his arm as he turnedaway,--"if he's wanted for anything, bring him back here, will you?Promise me that! Let me"--her pale lips were twisted by an uglysmile--"get my hands on him!"

  From the dance-hall, Trowbridge hastened to the jail to swear out awarrant for Bailey's arrest and to demand that Sheriff Thomas telegraphto Sheridan and to the two points above and below, Ranchester andClearmont, to head off the fugitive there. Not knowing how far theSheriff might be under the dominance of the Rexhill faction, thecattleman was not sure that he could count upon assistance from theofficial. He meant, if he saw signs of indecision, to do thetelegraphing himself and to sign at the bottom of the message the nameof every ranch owner in the district. That should be enough to awakenthe law along the railroad without help from Thomas, and Trowbridge knewthat such action would be backed up by his associates.

  He had no trouble on this score, however, for Sheriff Thomas was away onthe trail of a horse-thief, and the deputy in charge of the jail was ofsturdier character than his chief.

  "Will I help you, Lem?" he exclaimed. "Say, will a cat drink milk? Youbet I'll help you. Between you and me, I've been so damned ashamed ofwhat's been doing in this here office lately that I'm aching for achance to square myself. I'll send them wires off immediate."

  "I reckon you're due to be the next Sheriff in this county, Steve,"Trowbridge responded gratefully. "There's going to be a change herebefore long."

  "That so? Well, I ain't sayin' that I'd refuse, but I ain't doin' thisas no favor, either, you understand. I'm doin' it because it's the law,the good old-fashioned, honest to Gawd, s'help me die, law!"

  "That's the kind we want here--that, or no kind. So long, Steve!"

  With a nod of relief, Trowbridge left the jail, well-satisfied that hehad done a good turn for Wade, and pleased with himself for having livedso well up to the standards set by the detectives of popular fiction.Since Bailey had not had time to reach the railroad, his arrest was nowalmost a certainty, and once he was back in Crawling Water, a bucket ofhot tar and a bundle of feathers, with a promise of immunity forhimself, would doubtless be sufficient to extract a confession from himwhich would implicate Rexhill and Moran.

  Feeling that he had earned the refreshment of a drink, the cattleman wasabout to enter the hotel when, to his consternation, he saw tearingmadly down the street toward him Bill Santry, on a horse that hadevidently been ridden to the very last spurt of endurance. He ranforward at once, for the appearance of the old man in Crawling Water,with a warrant for murder hanging over his head, could only mean thatsome tragedy had happened at the ranch.

  "Hello, Lem!" Santry greeted him. "You're just the man I'm lookin' for."

  "What's the trouble?" Trowbridge demanded.

  "The boy!" The old plainsman slid from his horse, which could hardlykeep its feet, but was scarcely more spent in body than its rider was innerve. His face was twitching in a way that might have been ludicrousbut for its significance. "They've ambushed him, I reckon. I comestraight in after you, knowin' that you'd have a cooler head for thishere thing than--than I have."

  "My God!" The exclamation shot from Trowbridge like the crack of a gun."How did it happen?"

  Santry explained the details, in so far as he knew them, in a fewbreathless sentences. The old man was clearly almost beside himself withgrief and rage, and past the capacity to act intelligently upon his owninitiative. He had not been satisfied, he said, to remain behind at theranch and let Wade go to the timber tract alone, and so after a periodof indecision he had followed him. Near the edge of the timber he hadcome upon Wade's riderless horse, trailing broken bridle reins. He hadfollowed the animal's tracks back to the point of the assault, butthere was no sign of Wade, which fact indicated that he had been carriedaway by those who had overcome him.

  "I could see by the tracks that there was a number of 'em; as many asfive or six," the old man summed up. "I followed their sign as far as Icould, but I lost it at the creek. Then I went back to the house andsent some of the boys out to scout around before I come down here afteryou."

  "Where do you suppose they could have taken him?" Trowbridge asked."They'd never dare bring him to town."

  "Gawd knows, Lem! There's more pockets and drifts up in them hills thanthere is jack-rabbits. 'Tain't likely the boys'll find any new sign,leastways not in time; not before that ---- of a Moran--it was him didit, damn him! I know it was. Lem, for Gawd's sake, what are we goin' todo?"

  "The first thing to do, Bill, is to get you out of this town, beforeThomas shows up and jumps you."

  "I don't keer for myself. I'll shoot the...."

  "Luckily, he's away just now," Trowbridge went on, ignoring theinterruption. "Come with me!" He led the way into the hotel. "Frank," hesaid to the red-headed proprietor, "is Moran in town to-day?"

  "Nope." The Irishman regarded Santry with interest. "He went out thismorning with four or five men."


  "Rexhill's here, ain't he?" Trowbridge asked then. "Tell him there's twogentlemen here to see him. Needn't mention any names. He doesn't knowme."

  When Santry, with the instinct of his breed, hitched his revolver to amore convenient position on his hip, Trowbridge reached out and took itaway from him. He dared not trust the old man in his present mood. Heintended to question the Senator, to probe him, perhaps to threaten him;but the time had not come to shoot him.

  "I'll keep this for you, Bill," he said soothingly, and dropped theweapon into his coat pocket. "I'm going to take you up with me, for thesake of the effect of that face of yours, looking the way it does rightnow. But I'll do the talking, mind! It won't take long. We're going toact some, too."

  Their visit had no visible effect upon Rexhill, however, who was toomuch master of himself to be caught off his guard in a game which hadreached the point of constant surprise. His manner was not conciliatory,for the meeting was frankly hostile, but he did not appear to beperturbed by it. He had not supposed that the extremes he had sanctionedcould be carried through without difficulty, and he was prepared to meetany attack that might be offered by the enemy.

  "Senator Rexhill," Trowbridge introduced himself, "you've never met me.I'm from the Piah Creek country. My name is Trowbridge."

  "Yes," the Senator nodded. "I've heard of you. I know your friend thereby sight." He lingered slightly over the word "friend" as he glancedtoward Santry, "There's a warrant out for him, I believe."

  "Yes. There's a warrant out for one of your--friends, too, Tug Bailey,"Trowbridge retorted dryly, hoping that something would eventuate fromhis _repartee_; but nothing did. If the news surprised Rexhill, as itmust have, he did not show it. "I've just sworn it out," the ranchercontinued, "but that's not why I'm here. I'm here to tell you thatGordon Wade, whom you know, has been kidnaped."

  Santry stifled an exclamation of rage in answer to a quick look from hisfriend.

  "Kidnaped from his own range in broad daylight," the latter went on. "Irepresent his friends, who mean to find him right away, and it hasoccurred to me that you may be able to assist us in our search."

  "Just why has that idea occurred to you?" Rexhill asked calmly, asthough out of mere curiosity. "I'd like to know."

  A bit baffled by this attitude of composure, Trowbridge hesitated, forit was not at all what he had expected to combat. If the Senator hadflown into a passion, the cattleman would have responded with equalheat; now he was less sure of himself and his ground. It was barelypossible, after all, that Tug Bailey had shot Jensen out of personalspite; or, at the worst, had been the tool of Moran alone. One couldhardly associate the thought of murder with the very prosperous lookinggentleman, who so calmly faced them and twirled his eyeglasses betweenhis fingers.

  "Why should that idea have occurred to you?" the Senator asked again."So far as I am informed, Wade is also liable to arrest for complicityin the Jensen murder; in addition to which he has effected a jaildelivery and burglarized my office. It seems to me, if he has beenkidnaped as you say, that I am the last person to have any interest inhis welfare, or his whereabouts. Why do you come to me?"

  This was too much for Santry's self-restraint.

  "What's the use of talkin' to him?" he demanded. "If he ain't done ithimself, don't we know that Moran done it for him? To hell withtalkin'!" He shook a gnarled fist at Rexhill, who paid no attentionwhatever to him, but deliberately looked in another direction.

  "That is why we are here," said Trowbridge, when he had quieted Santryonce more. "Because we have good reason to believe that, if these actsdo not proceed from you, they do proceed from your agent, and you'reresponsible for what he does, if I know anything about law. This manMoran has carried things with a high hand in this community, but nowhe's come to the end of his rope, and he's going to be punished. Thatmeans that you'll get yours, too, if he's acted under your orders." Thecattleman was getting into his stride now that the first moments of hisembarrassment were passed. His voice rang with authority, which theSenator was quick to recognize, although he gave no evidence that he wasimpressed. "Has Moran been acting for you, that's what we want to know?"

  "My dear fellow,"--Rexhill laughed rumblingly,--"if you'll only stop foran instant to think, you'll see how absurd this is."

  "A frank answer to a frank question," Trowbridge persisted. "Has hebeen acting for you? Do you, at this moment, know what has become ofWade, or where he is?"

  "That's the stuff!" growled Santry, whose temples were throbbing underthe effort he put forth to hold himself within bounds.

  "I do not!" the Senator said, bluntly. "And I'll say freely that I wouldnot tell you if I did."

  Santry's hands opened and shut convulsively. He was in the act ofspringing upon Rexhill when Trowbridge seized him.

  "You're a liar!" he roared, struggling in his friend's grasp. "Let me athim. By the great horned toad, I'll make him tell!"

  "Put that man out of this room!" Rexhill had arisen in all of hisponderous majesty, roused to wrath at last. His pudgy finger shook as hepointed to the door, and his fat face was congested. "I'm not here to beinsulted by a jail-bird. Put him out!"

  Trowbridge's eyes gleamed exultantly, although he still kept a tighthold on Santry, for this was the sort of thing he had expected to meet.He had not thought that Rexhill would confess complicity in thekidnaping this early in the game; but he had looked for an outburst ofanger which would give him the chance he wanted to free his own mind ofthe hate that was in it. He had wanted the chance to make Rexhill feelthat his hour of atonement was close at hand, and getting nearer everyminute.

  "Easy, now!" he admonished. "We're going, both of us, but we won't beput out. You've said just what I looked for you to say. You've deniedknowledge of this thing. I think with Santry here that you're a liar, aGod-forsaken liar." He drew closer to the Senator, who seemed about toburst with passion, and held him with a gaze his fury could not daunt."May Heaven help you, Senator, when we're ready to prove all thisagainst you. If you're in Crawling Water then, we'll ride you to hell ona rail."

  "Now," Trowbridge said to Santry, when they were downstairs again, "youget out of town hot-foot. Ride to my place. Take this!" He scribbled afew lines on the back of an envelope. "Give it to my foreman. Tell himto meet me with the boys where the trail divides. We'll find Wade, if wehave to trade our beds for lanterns and kill every horse in the valley."

  The two men shook hands, and Santry's eyes were fired with a new hope.The old man was grateful for one thing, at least: the time for actionhad arrived. He had spent his youth on the plains in the days when everyman was a law unto himself, and the years had not lessened his spirit.

  "I'll be right after you, Bill," Trowbridge concluded. "I'm going firstto break the news to Miss Purnell. She'd hear it anyway and be anxious.She'd better get it straight from me."

  Lem Trowbridge had seen only one woman faint, but the recollection wasindelibly impressed upon his mind. It had happened in his boyhood, atthe ranch where he still lived, when a messenger had arrived with wordof the death of the elder Trowbridge, whose horse had stepped into aprairie-dog hole and fallen with his rider. The picture of his mother'scollapse he could never forget, or his own horrible thought that she,too, had passed away, leaving him parentless. For months afterwards hehad awakened at night, crying out that she was dead.

  The whole scene recurred to him when he told Dorothy of Wade'sdisappearance, and saw her face flush and then pale, as his mother's haddone. The girl did not actually faint, for she was young and wonderfullystrong, but she came so near to it that he was obliged to support herwith his arm to keep her on her feet. That was cruel, too, for he lovedher. But presently she recovered, and swept from his mind all thought ofhimself by her piteous appeal to him to go instantly in search of Wade.

  "We'll find him, Dorothy, don't you worry," he declared, with anappearance of confidence he was far from feeling. "I came around to tellyou myself because I wanted you to know that we are right on the job."

 
"But how can you find him in all those mountains, Lem? You don't evenknow which side of the range they've hidden him on."

  He reminded her that he had been born in Crawling Water Valley, and thathe knew every draw and canyon in the mountains; but in his heart herealized that to search all these places would take half a lifetime. Hecould only hope that chance, or good fortune, might lead them promptlyto the spot they sought.

  "Do you think that Senator Rexhill knows where Gordon is?" she asked."Is he in this, too?"

  "I don't know for sure," he answered. "I believe Moran is acting underRexhill's orders, but I don't know how much Rexhill knows of thedetails. If I knew that, it would be fairly easy. I'd...." His stronghands gripped the back of a chair until his knuckles showed white undertheir tan. "I'd choke it out of him!"

  "Oh, if there was only something I could do!" Dorothy wailed helplessly."A woman never can do anything in a crisis but _wait_!" Her distress wasso pitiable to witness that Trowbridge averted his gaze.

  "We'll do all that can be done, Dorothy," he assured her. "Trust me forthat. Besides--" A thought had just flashed into his head which mightrelieve her sense of helplessness. "Besides, we're going to need youhere in town to keep us informed of what goes on."

  "If I learn anything, how can I get word to you?" she asked, her facebrightening somewhat. "You'll be up in the hills."

  "I'll try to keep a man at the big pine all the time. If you find outanything send word to him."

  "Oh, yes, I will, I will. That'll be something anyhow." Her eyessparkling with tears, she gave him both her hands. "Good-by, Lem!"

  "Good-by, Dorothy," he said solemnly, wringing her hands. "I know justhow it is. We'll find him for you!"