Mystery Ranch

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  MYSTERY RANCH

  BY ARTHUR CHAPMAN

  AUTHOR OF "OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINS," AND "CACTUS CENTER"

  BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANYThe Riverside Press Cambridge1921

  COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.

  COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ARTHUR CHAPMAN

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  CHAPTER I

  There was a swift padding of moccasined feet through the hall leading tothe Indian agent's office.

  Ordinarily Walter Lowell would not have looked up from his desk. Herecognized the footfalls of Plenty Buffalo, his chief of Indian police,but this time there was an absence of the customary leisureliness in theofficial's stride. The agent's eyes were questioning Plenty Buffalobefore the police chief had more than entered the doorway.

  The Indian, a broad-shouldered, powerfully built man in a blue uniform,stopped at the agent's desk and saluted. Lowell knew better than to askhim a question at the outset. News speeds best without urging when anIndian tells it. The clerk who acted as interpreter dropped his papersand moved nearer, listening intently as Plenty Buffalo spoke rapidly inhis tribal tongue.

  "A man has been murdered on the road just off the reservation,"announced the interpreter.

  Still the agent did not speak.

  "I just found him," went on the police chief to the clerk, whointerpreted rapidly. "You'd better come and look things over."

  "How do you know he was murdered?" asked the agent, reaching for hisdesk telephone.

  "He was shot."

  "But couldn't he have shot himself?"

  "No. He's staked down."

  Lowell straightened up suddenly, a tingle of apprehension runningthrough him. Staked down--and on the edge of the Indian reservation!Matters were being brought close home.

  "Is there anything to tell who he is?"

  "I didn't look around much," said Plenty Buffalo. "There's an auto inthe road. That's what I saw first."

  "Where is the body?"

  "A few yards from the auto, on the prairie."

  The agent called the sheriff's office at White Lodge, the adjoiningcounty seat. The sheriff was out, but Lowell left the necessaryinformation as to the location of the automobile and the body. Then heput on his hat, and, gathering up his gloves, motioned to Plenty Buffaloand the interpreter to follow him to his automobile which was standingin front of the agency office. Plenty Buffalo's pony was left at thehitching-rack, to recover from the hard run it had just been given. Thewooden-handled quirt at the saddle had not been spared by the Indian.

  Flooded with June sunshine the agency had never looked more attractive,from the white man's standpoint. The main street was wide, with aparkway in the center, shaded with cottonwoods. The school buildings,dormitories, dining-hall, auditorium, and several of the employees'residences faced this street. The agent's house nestled among trees andshrubbery on the most attractive corner. The sidewalks were wide, andmade of cement. There was a good water system, as the faithfullyirrigated lawns testified. Arc lights swung from the streetintersections, and there were incandescents in every house. A sewersystem had just been completed. Indian boys and girls were looking aftergardens in vacant lots. There were experimental ranches surrounding theagency. In the stables and enclosures were pure-bred cattle and sheep,the nucleus of tribal flocks and herds of better standards.

  In less than four years Walter Lowell had made the agency a model of itskind. He had done much to interest even the older Indians inagriculture. The school-children, owing to a more liberal educationalsystem, had lost the customary look of apathy. The agent's work had beencommended in annual reports from Washington. The agency had beenfeatured in newspaper and magazine articles, and yet Lowell had feltthat he was far from accomplishing anything permanent. Ancient customsand superstitions had to be reckoned with. Smouldering firesoccasionally broke out in most alarming fashion. Only recently there hadbeen a serious impairment of reservation morale, owing to thespectacular rise of a young Indian named Fire Bear, who had gatheredmany followers, and who, with his cohorts, had proceeded to dance and"make medicine" to the exclusion of all other employment. Fire Bear'sdefection had set many rumors afloat. Timid settlers near thereservation had expressed fear of a general uprising, which fear hadbeen fanned by the threats and boastings sent broadcast by some of FireBear's more reckless followers.

  Lowell was frankly worried as he sped away from the agency with PlentyBuffalo and the interpreter. Every crime, large or small, which occurrednear the reservation, and which did not carry its own solution, was laidto Indians. Here was something which pointed directly to Indianhandiwork, and Lowell in imagination could hear a great outcry going up.

  Plenty Buffalo gave little more information as the car swayed along theroad that led off the reservation.

  "He says he was off the reservation trailing Jim McFann," remarked theinterpreter. "He thought Jim was going along the road to Talpers'sstore, but Plenty Buffalo was mistaken. He did not find Jim, but what hedid find was this man who had been killed."

  "Jim McFann isn't a bad fellow at heart, but this bootlegging andtrailing around with Bill Talpers will get him in trouble yet," repliedthe agent. "He's pretty clever, or Plenty Buffalo's men would havecaught him long before this."

  They were approaching Talpers's store as the agent spoke. The store wasa barn-like building, with a row of poplars at the north, and a bigcottonwood in front. A few houses were clustered about. Bill Talpers,store-keeper and postmaster, looked out of the door as the automobilewent past. Generally there were Indians sitting in front of the store,but to-day there were none. Plenty Buffalo volunteered the informationthat there had been a "big sing" on a distant part of the reservationwhich had attracted most of the residents from this neighborhood.Talpers was seen running out to his horse, which stood in front of thestore.

  "He'll be along pretty soon," said the agent. "He knows there'ssomething unusual going on."

  The road over which the party was traveling was sometimes called theDollar Sign, for the reason that it wound across the reservation linelike a letter S. After leaving White Lodge, which was off thereservation, any traveler on the road crossed the line and soon wentthrough the agency. Then there was a curve which took him across theline again to Talpers's, after which a reverse curve swept back into theIndians' domain. All of which was the cause of no little trouble to theagent and the Indian police, for bootleggers found it easy to operatefrom White Lodge or Talpers's and drop back again across the line tosafety.

  Another ten miles, on the sweep of the road toward the reservation, andthe automobile was sighted. The body was found, as Plenty Buffalo haddescribed it. The man had been murdered--that much was plain enough.

  "Buckshot, from a sawed-off shotgun probably," said the agent,shuddering.

  Whoever had fired the shot had done his work with deadly accuracy. Partof the man's face had been carried away. He had been well along inyears, as his gray hair indicated, but his frame was sturdy. He wasdressed in khaki--a garb much affected by transcontinental automobiletourists. The car which he had been driving was big and expensive.

  Other details were forgotten for the moment in the fact that the man hadbeen staked to the prairie. Ropes had been attached to his hands andfeet. These ropes were fastened to tent-stakes driven into the prairie.

  "The man had been camping along the route," said the agent, "and whoeverdid this shooting probably used the victim's own tent-stakes."

  This opinion was confirmed after a momentary examination of the tonneauof th
e car, which disclosed a tent, duffle-bag, and other campingequipment.

  "Look around the prairie and see if you can find any of this man'sbelongings scattered about," said Lowell.

  "Plenty Buffalo wants to know if you noticed all the pony tracks," saidthe interpreter.

  "Yes," replied Lowell bitterly. "I couldn't very well help seeing them.What does Plenty Buffalo think about them?"

  "They're Indian pony tracks--no doubt about that," said the interpreter,"but there is no telling just when they were made."

  "I see. It might have been at the time of the murder, or afterward."

  Lowell looked closely at the pony tracks, which were thick about theautomobile and the body. Plainly there had been a considerable body ofhorsemen on the scene. Plenty Buffalo, skilled in trailing, had nothesitated to announce that the tracks were those of Indian ponies. Ifmore evidence were needed, there were the imprints of moccasined feet inthe dust.

  Lowell surveyed the scene while Plenty Buffalo and the interpretersearched the prairie for more clues. The agent did not want to disturbthe body nor search the automobile until the arrival of the sheriff, asthe murder had happened outside of Government jurisdiction, and thelocal authorities were jealous of their rights. The murder had been doneclose to the brow of a low hill. The gently rolling prairie stretched toa creek on one side, and to interminable distance on the other. Therewas a carpet of green grass in both directions, dotted with clumps ofsagebrush. It had rained a few days before--the last rain of many, itchanced--and there were damp spots in the road in places and the grassand the sage were fresh in color. Meadow-larks were trilling, and thewhole scene was one of peace--provided the beholder could blot out thememory of the tenantless clay stretched out upon clay.

  In a few minutes Sheriff Tom Redmond and a deputy arrived in anautomobile from White Lodge. They were followed by Bill Talpers, in thesaddle.

  Redmond was a tall, square-shouldered cattleman, who still clung to therough garb and high-heeled boots of the cowpuncher, though he seldomused any means of travel but the automobile. Western winds, heated byfiery Western suns, had burned his face to the color of saddle-leather.His eyebrows were shaggy and light-colored, and Nature's bleachingelements had reduced a straw-colored mustache to a discouragingnondescript tone.

  "Looks like an Injun job, Lowell, don't it?" asked Redmond, as his sharpeyes took in the situation in darting glances.

  "Isn't it a little early to come to that conclusion?" queried the agent.

  "There ain't no other conclusion to come to," broke in Talpers, who hadjoined the group in an inspection of the scene. "Look at them ponytracks--all Injun."

  Talpers was broad--almost squat of figure. His complexion was brick red.He had a thin, curling black beard and mustache. He was one of the mento whom alkali is a constant poison, and his lips were always crackedand bleeding. His voice was husky and disagreeable, his small eyesbespoke the brute in him, and yet he was not without certain qualitiesof leadership which seemed to appeal particularly to the Indians. Hisstore was headquarters for the rough and idle element of thereservation. Also it was the center of considerable white trade, for itwas the only store for miles in either direction, and in addition wasthe general post-office.

  Knowing of Talpers's friendliness for the rebellious element among theIndians, Lowell looked at the trader in surprise.

  "You didn't see any Indians doing this, did you, Talpers?" he asked.

  The trader hastened to qualify his remark, as it would not do to havethe word get out among the Indians that he had attempted to throw theblame on them.

  "No--I ain't exactly sayin' that Injuns done it," said the trader, "butI ain't ever seen more signs pointin' in one direction."

  "Well, don't let signs get you so far off the right trail that you can'tget back again," replied the agent, turning to help Tom Redmond and hisdeputy in the work of establishing the identity of the slain man.

  It was work that did not take long. Papers were found in the pocketsindicating that the victim was Edward B. Sargent, of St. Louis. In theautomobile was found clothing bearing St. Louis trademarks.

  "Judging from the balance in this checkbook," said the sheriff, "he wasa man who didn't have to worry about financial affairs. Probably this isonly a checking account, for running expenses, but there's thirtythousand to his credit."

  "He's probably some tourist on his way to the coast," observed thedeputy, "and he thought he'd make a detour and see an Injun reservation.Somebody saw a good chance for a holdup, but he showed fight and gotkilled."

  "Nobody reported such a machine as going through the agency," offeredLowell. "The car is big enough and showy enough to attract attentionanywhere."

  "I didn't see him go past my place," said Talpers. "And if my clerk'dseen him he'd have said somethin' about it."

  "Well, he was killed sometime yesterday--that's sure," remarked thesheriff. "He might have come through early in the morning and nobody sawhim, or he might have hit White Lodge and the agency and Talpers's lateat night and camped here along the Dollar Sign until morning and beenkilled when he started on. The thing of it is that this is as far as hegot, and we've got to find the ones that's responsible. This kind of akilling is jest going to make the White Lodge Chamber of Commerce get upon its hind legs and howl. There's bound to be speeches telling how,just when we've about convinced the East that we've shook off our wildWestern ways, here comes a murder that's wilder'n anything that's beenpulled off since the trapper days."

  "Accordin' to my way of thinkin'," said Talpers, "that man wasn'ttortured after he was staked down. Any one who knows anything aboutInjun character knows that when they pegged a victim out that way, theyintended for him to furnish some amusement, such as having splintersstuck into him and bein' set afire by the squaws."

  "They probably thought they seen some one coming," said the sheriff,"and shot him after they got him tied down, and then made a quickgetaway."

  "That man was shot before he was tied down," interposed Lowell quietly.

  "What makes you think that?" Redmond said quickly.

  "There are no powder marks on his face. And any one shot at such closerange, by some one standing over him, would have had his head blownaway."

  Redmond assented, grudgingly.

  "What does Plenty Buffalo think about it all?" he asked.

  Lowell called the police chief and the interpreter. Plenty Buffalodeclared that he was puzzled. He was not prepared to make any statementat all as yet. He might have something later on.

  "Very well," said the agent, motioning to Plenty Buffalo to go on withthe close investigations he had been silently carrying on. "We may getsomething of value from him when he has finished looking. But there's nouse coaxing him to talk now."

  "I s'pose not," rejoined Redmond sneeringly. "What's more, I s'pose hecan't even see them Injun pony tracks around the body."

  "He called my attention to them as soon as we arrived here," saidLowell. "But as far as that goes he didn't need to. Those things are asevident as the bald fact that the man has been killed."

  "Well, that's about the only clue there is, as far as I can figger out,"remarked the sheriff testily, "and that points straight and clean tosome of your wards on the reservation."

  "Count on me for any help," replied Lowell crisply. "All I'm interestedin, of course, is seeing the guilty brought out into the light."

  Turning away and ending a controversy, which he knew would be fruitless,Lowell made another searching personal examination of the scene. Heexamined the stakes, having in mind the possibility of finger-prints.But no tell-tale mark had been left behind. The stakes were too rough toadmit the possibility of any finger-prints that might be microscopicallydetected. The road and prairie surrounding the automobile were examined,but nothing save pony tracks, numerous and indiscriminately mingled,rewarded his efforts.

  "Them Injuns jest milled around this machine and the body of thathombrey," said Talpers. "There must have been twenty-five of 'em in thebunch, anyway, ain't I righ
t, Plenty Buffalo?" added the trader,repeating his remark in the Indian's tribal tongue, in which the whiteman was expert.

  "Heap Injun here," agreed Plenty Buffalo, not averse to showing off alarge part of his limited English vocabulary.

  "That trouble-maker, Fire Bear, is the only one who travels much with agang, ain't he?" demanded Redmond.

  "Yes," assented the agent. "He has had from fifty to one hundred youngIndians making medicine with him on Wolf Mountain. Rest assured thatFire Bear and every one with him will have to give an account ofhimself."

  "That's the talk!" exclaimed Redmond, pulling at his mustache. "I ain'tafraid of your not shooting straight in this thing, Mr. Lowell, butyou've got to admit that you've stuck up for Injuns the way no otheragent has ever stuck up for 'em before, and natchelly--"

  "Naturally you thought I might even cover up murder for them," addedLowell good-naturedly. "Well, get that idea out of your head. But alsoget it out of your head that I'm going to see any Indian or Indiansrailroaded for a crime that possibly he or they didn't commit."

  "All right!" snapped the sheriff, instantly as belligerent andsuspicious as ever. "But this thing is going to be worked out on theevidence, and right now the evidence--"

  "Which is all circumstantial."

  "Yes, circumstantial it may be, but it's mighty strong against some ofyour people over that there line, and it's going to be followed up."

  Lowell shrugged his shoulders, knowing the futility of further argumentwith the sheriff, who was representative of the considerable elementthat always looked upon Indians as "red devils" and that would neveradmit that any good existed in race or individual.

  The agent assisted in removing the body of the murdered man to the bigautomobile that had been standing in the road, a silent witness to thecrime. Lowell drove the machine to White Lodge, at the request of thesheriff, and sent telegrams which might establish the dead man'sidentity beyond all doubt.

  Meantime the news of the murder was not long in making its devious wayabout the sparsely settled countryside. Most of the population of WhiteLodge, and ranchers from remote districts, visited the scene. Onefortunate individual, who had arrived before the body had been removed,interested various groups by stretching himself out on the prairie onthe exact spot where the slain man had been found.

  "Here he laid, jest like this," the actor would conclude, "right outhere in the bunch grass and prickly pear, with his hands and feet tiedto them tent-stakes, and pony tracks and moccasin tracks all mixedaround in the dust jest as if a hull tribe had been millin' here. If alot of Injuns don't swing for this, then there's no use of callin' thisa white man's country any more."

  The flames of resentment needed no fanning, as Lowell found. The agenthad not concluded his work with the sheriff at White Lodge before heheard thinly veiled threats directed at all Indians and their friends.He paid no attention to the comments, but drove back to the agency,successfully masking the grave concern he felt. In the evening, hischief clerk, Ed Rogers, found Lowell reading a magazine.

  "The talk is that you'll have to get Fire Bear for this murder," saidRogers. Then the chief clerk added, bluntly: "I thought sure you'd beworking on this case."

  Lowell smiled at the clerk's astonishment.

  "There's nothing more that requires my attention just now," he said. "IfFire Bear is wanted, we can always get him. That's one thing thatsimplifies all such matters, where Indians are concerned. An Indiancan't lose himself in a crowd, like a white man. Furthermore, he neverthinks of leaving the reservation."

  Here the young agent rose and yawned.

  "Anyway," he remarked, "it isn't our move right now. Until it is, Iprefer to think of pleasanter things."

  But the agent's thoughts were not on any of the pleasant thingscontained in the magazine he had flung into a corner. They were dwellingmost consistently upon a pleasing journey he had enjoyed, a few daysbefore, with a young woman whom he had taken from the agency to MysteryRanch.