in his capacity of indian agent walter lowell often had occasion to scan the business deals of his more progressive wards. he was at once banker and confidant of most of the indians who were getting ahead in agriculture and stock-raising. he did not seek such a position, nor did he discourage it. though it cost him much extra time and work, he advised the indians whenever requested.
one of the reservation's most prosperous stock-raisers, who had been given permission to sell off some of his cattle, came to lowell with a thousand-dollar bill, asking if it were genuine.
"it's all right," said lowell, "but where did you get it?"
the indian said he had received it from bill talpers in the sale of some livestock. lowell handed it back without comment, but soon afterward found occasion to call on bill talpers at the trader's store.
bill had been a frequent and impartial visitor to the bottles that were tucked away at both ends of his store. his hands and voice were shaky. his hat was perched well forward on his head, covering a patch of court-plaster which his clerk had put over a scalp wound, following a painful process of hair-cutting. bill had just been through the process of "bouncing" andy wolters, who remained outside, expressing wonder and indignation to all who called.
"all i did was ask bill where his favorite gun was gone," quoth andy in his nasal voice, as lowell drove up to the store platform. "i never seen bill without that gun before in my life. i jest started to kid him a little by askin' him who took it away from him, when he fired up and throwed me out of the store."
lowell stepped inside the store.
"bill," said lowell, as the trader rose from his chair behind the screen of letter-boxes, "i want you to help me out in an important matter."
bill's surprise showed in his swollen face.
"it's this," went on lowell. "if any of the indians bring anything here to pawn outside of the usual run of turquoise jewelry and spurs, i want you to let me know. also, if they offer any big bills in payment for goods—say anything like a thousand-dollar bill—just give me the high sign, will you? it may afford a clue in this murder case."
talpers darted a look of suspicion at the agent. lowell's face was serene. he was leaning confidentially across the counter, and his eyes met bill's in a look that made the trader turn away.
"you know," said lowell, "it's quite possible that money and valuables were taken from sargent's body. to be sure, they found his checkbook and papers, but they wouldn't be of use to anyone else. a man of sargent's wealth must have had considerable ready cash with him, and yet none was found. he would hardly be likely to start out on a long trip across country without a watch, and yet nothing of the sort was discovered. that's why i thought that if any indians came in here with large amounts of money, or if they tried to pawn valuables which might have belonged to a man in sargent's position, you could help clear up matters."
hatred and suspicion were mingled in talpers's look. the trader had spent most of his hours, since his return from morgan's ranch, cursing the folly that had led him into wearing sargent's watch. and now came this young indian agent, with talk about thousand-dollar bills. there was another mistake bill had made. he should have taken those bills far away and had them exchanged for money of smaller denomination. but he had been hard-pressed for cash, and suspicion seemed to point in such convincing fashion toward fire bear and the other indians that it did not seem possible that it could be shifted elsewhere. yet all his confidence had been shaken when helen ervin had calmly and correctly recounted to him the exact things that he had taken from that body on the hill. probably she had been talking to the agent and had told him all she knew.
"i know what you're drivin' at," snarled bill, his rage getting the better of his judgment. "you've been talkin' to that girl at morgan's ranch, and she's been tellin' you all she thinks she knows. but she'd better go slow with all her talk about valuables and thousand-dollar bills. she forgets that she's as deep in this thing as anybody and i've got the document to prove it."
the surprise in the indian agent's face was too genuine to be mistaken. talpers realized that he had been betrayed into overshooting his mark. the agent had been engaged in a little game of bluff, and talpers had fallen into his trap.
"all this is mighty interesting to me, bill," said lowell, regaining his composure. "i just dropped in here, hoping for a little general cooperation on your part, and here i find that you know a lot more than anybody imagined."
"you ain't got anything on me," growled bill, "and if you go spillin' any remarks around here, it's your death-warrant sure."
lowell did not take his elbow from the counter. his leaning position brought out the breadth of his shoulders and emphasized the athletic lines of his figure. he did not seem ruffled at bill's open threat. he regarded talpers with a steady look which increased bill's rage and fear.
"the trouble with you is that you're so dead set on protectin' them injuns of yours," said the trader, "that you're around tryin' to throw suspicion on innocent white folks. the hull county knows that fire bear done that murder, and if you hadn't got him on to the reservation the jail'd been busted into and he'd been lynched as he ought to have been."
bill waited for an answer, but none came. the young agent's steady, thoughtful scrutiny was not broken.
"you've coddled them injuns ever sence you've been on the job," went on bill, casting aside discretion, "and now you're encouragin' them in downright murder. here this young cuss, fire bear, is traipsin' around as he pleases, on nothin' more than his word that he'll appear for trial. but when jim mcfann busts out of jail, you rush out the hull injun police force to run him down. and now here you are around, off the reservation, tryin' to saddle suspicion on your betters. it ain't right, i claim. self-respectin' white men ought to have more protection around here."
talpers's voice had taken on something of a whine, and lowell straightened up in disgust.
"bill," he said, "you aren't as much of a man as i gave you credit for being, and what's more you've been in some crooked game, just as sure as thousand-dollar bills have four figures on them."
paying no attention to the imprecations which talpers hurled after him, the agent went back to his automobile and turned toward the agency. he had intended going on to the greek letter ranch, but talpers's words had caused him to make a change in his plans. at the agency he brought out a saddle horse, and, following a trail across the undulating hills on the reservation, reached the wagon-road below the ranch, without arousing talpers's suspicion.
as he tied his pony at the gate, lowell noticed further improvement in the general appearance of the ranch.
"somebody more than wong has been doing this heavy work," he said to helen, who had come out to greet him. "it must be that morgan—your stepfather is well enough to help. anyway, the ranch looks better every time i come."
"yes, he is helping some," said helen uneasily. "but i'm getting to be a first-rate ranch-woman. i had no idea it was so much fun running a place like this."
"i came over to see if you couldn't take time enough off for a little horseback ride," said lowell. "this is a country for the saddle, after all. i still get more enjoyment from a good horseback ride than from a dozen automobile trips. i'll saddle up the old white horse while you get ready."
helen ran indoors, and lowell went to the barn and proceeded to saddle the white horse that bore the greek letter brand. the smiling wong came out to cast an approving eye over the work.
"this old fly-fighter's a pretty good horse for one of his age, isn't he, wong?" said lowell, giving a last shake to the saddle, after the cinch had been tightened.
in shattered english wong went into ecstasies over the white horse. then he said, suddenly and mysteriously:
"you know talpels?"
"you mean bill talpers?" asked lowell. "what about him?"
once more the dominant tongue of the occident staggered beneath wong's assault, as the cook described, partly in pantomime, the manner of bill talpers's downfall the night before.
"do you mean to say that talpers was over here last night and that here is where he got that scalp-wound?" demanded lowell.
wong grinned assent, and then vanished, after making a sign calling for secrecy on lowell's part, as helen arrived, ready for the ride.
lowell was a good horseman, and the saddle had become helen's chief means of recreation. in fact riding seemed to bring to her the only contentment she had known since she had come to the greek letter ranch. she had overcome her first fear of the indians. all her rides that were taken alone were toward the reservation, as she had studiously avoided going near talpers's place. also she did not like to ride past the hill on the dollar sign road, with its hints of unsolved mystery. but she had quickly grown to love the broad, free indian reservation, with its limitless miles of unfenced hills. she liked to turn off the road and gallop across the trackless ways, sometimes frightening rabbits and coyotes from the sagebrush. several times she had startled antelope, and once her horse had shied at a rattlesnake coiled in the sunshine. the indians she had learned to look upon as children. she had visited the cabins and lodges of some of those who lived near the ranch, and was not long in winning the esteem of the women who were finding the middle ground, between the simplicity of savage life and the complexities of civilization, something too much for mastery.
lowell and helen galloped in silence for miles along the road they had followed in the automobile not many days before. at the crest of a high ridge, helen turned at right angles, and lowell followed.
"there's a view over here i had appropriated for myself, but i'm willing to share it with you, seeing that this is your own particular reservation and you ought to know about everything it contains," said helen.
the ridge dipped and then rose again, higher than before. the plains fell away on both sides—infinite miles of undulations. straight ahead loomed the high blue wall of the mountains. they walked their horses, and finally stopped them altogether. the chattering of a few prairie dogs only served to intensify the great, mysterious silence.
"sometimes the stillness seems to roll in on you here like a tide," said helen. "i can positively feel it coming up these great slopes and blanketing everything. it seems to me that this ridge must have been used by indian watchers in years gone by. i can imagine a scout standing here sending up smoke signals. and those little white puffs of clouds up there are the signals he sent into the sky."
"i think you belong in this country," lowell answered smilingly.
"i'm sure i do. you remember when i first saw these plains and hills i told you the bigness frightened me a little when the sun brought it all out in detail. well, it doesn't any more. just to be unfettered in mind, and to live and breathe as part of all this vastness, would be ideal."
"that's where you're in danger of going to the other extreme," the agent replied. "you'll remember that i told you human companionship is as necessary as bacon and flour and salt in this country. you're more dependent on the people about you here, even if your nearest neighbor is five or ten miles away, than you would be in any apartment building in a big city. you might live and die there, and no one would be the wiser. also you might get along tolerably well, while living alone. but you can't do it out here and keep a normal mental grip on life."
"my, what a lecture!" laughed the girl, though there was no merriment in her voice. "but it hardly applies to me, for the reason that i always depend upon my neighbors in the ordinary affairs of life. i'm sure i love to be sociable to my indian neighbors, and even to their agent. haven't i ridden away out here just to be sociable to you?"
"no dodging! i promised i wouldn't say anything more about the matters that have been disturbing you so, but that promise was contingent on your playing fair with me. i understand bill talpers has been causing you some annoyance, and you haven't said a word to me about it."
helen flashed a startled glance at lowell. he was impassive as her questioning eyes searched his face. amazement and concern alternated in her features. then she took refuge in a blaze of anger.
"i don't know how you found out about talpers!" she cried. "it is true that he did cause a—a little annoyance, but that is all gone and forgotten. but i am not going to forget your impertinence quite so easily."
"my what?"
"your impertinence?"
the girl was trembling with anger, or apprehension, and tapped her boot nervously with her quirt as she spoke.
"you've been lecturing me about various things," she went on, "and now you bring up talpers as a sort of bugaboo to frighten me."
"you don't know bill talpers. if he has any sort of hold on you or on willis morgan, he'll try to break you both. he is as innocent of scruples as a lobo wolf."
"what hold could he possibly have on me—on us?"
she looked at lowell defiantly as she asked the question, but he thought he detected a note of concern in her voice.
"i didn't say he had any hold. i merely pointed out that if he were given any opportunity he'd make life miserable for both of you."
lowell did not add that talpers, in a fit of rage and suspicion, augmented by strong drink, had hinted that helen knew something of the murder. he had been inclined to believe that talpers had merely been "fighting wild" when he made the veiled accusation—that the trader, being very evidently only partly recovered from a bout with his pet bottles, had made the first counter-assertion that had come into his head in the hope of provoking lowell into a quarrel. but there was a quality of terror in the girl's voice which struck lowell with chilling force. something in his look must have caught helen's attention, for her nervousness increased.
"you have no right to pillory me so," she said rapidly. "you have been perfectly impossible right along—that is, ever since this crime happened. you've been spying here and there—"
"spying!"
"yes, downright spying! you've been putting suspicion where it doesn't belong. why, everybody believes the indians did it—everybody but you. probably some indians did it who never have been suspected and never will be—not the indians who are under suspicion now."
"that's just about what another party was telling me not long ago—that i was coddling the indians and trying to fasten suspicion where it didn't rightfully belong."
"who else told you that?"
"no less a person than bill talpers."
"there you go again, bringing in that cave man. why do you keep talking to me about talpers? i'm not afraid of him."
most girls would have been on the verge of hysteria, lowell thought, but, while helen was plainly under a nervous strain, her self-command returned. the agent was in possession of some information—how much she did not know. perhaps she could goad him into betraying the source of his knowledge.
"i know you're not afraid of talpers," remarked lowell, after a pause, "but at least give me the privilege of being afraid for you. i know bill talpers better than you do."
"what right have you to be afraid for me? i'm of age, and besides, i have a protector—a guardian—at the ranch."
lowell was on the point of making some bitter reply about the undesirability of any guardianship assumed by willis morgan, squaw man, recluse, and recipient of common hatred and contempt. but he kept his counsel, and remarked, pleasantly:
"my rights are merely those of a neighbor—the right of one neighbor to help another."
"there are no rights of that sort where the other neighbor isn't asking any help and doesn't desire it."
"i'm not sure about your not needing it. anyway, if you don't now, you may later."
the girl did not answer. the horses were standing close together, heads drooping lazily. warm breezes came fitfully from the winds' playground below. the handkerchief at the girl's neck fluttered, and a strand of her hair danced and glistened in the sunshine. the graceful lines of her figure were brought out by her riding-suit. lowell put his palm over the gloved hand on her saddle pommel. even so slight a touch thrilled him.
"if a neighbor has no right to give advice," said lowell, "let us assume that my unwelcome offerings have come from a man who is deeply in love with you. it's no great secret, anyway, as it seems to me that even the meadow-larks have been singing about it ever since we started on this ride."
the girl buried her face in her hands. lowell put his arm about her waist, and she drooped toward him, but recovered herself with an effort. putting his arm away, she said:
"you make matters harder and harder for me. please forget what i have said and what you have said, and don't come to see me any more."
she spoke with a quiet intensity that amazed lowell.
"not come to see you any more! why such an extreme sentence?"
"because there is an evil spell on the greek letter ranch. everybody who comes there is certain to be followed by trouble—deep trouble."
the girl's agitation increased. there was terror in her face.
"look here!" began lowell. "this thing is beyond all promises of silence. i—"
"don't ask what i mean!" said the girl. "you might find it awkward. you say you are in love with me?"
"i repeat it a thousand times."
"well, you are the kind of man who will choose honor every time. i realize that much. suppose you found that your love for me was bringing you in direct conflict with your duty?"
"i know that such a thing is impossible," broke in lowell.
helen smiled, bitterly.
"it is so far from being impossible that i am asking you to forget what you have said, and to forget me as well. there is so much of evil on the greek letter ranch that the very soil there is steeped in it. i am going away, but i know its spell will follow me."
"you are going?" queried lowell. "when?"
"when these men now charged with the murder are acquitted. they will be acquitted, will they not?"
the eager note in her question caught lowell by surprise.
"no man can tell," he replied. "it's all as inscrutable as that mountain wall over there."
helen shaded her eyes with her gauntleted hand as she looked in the direction indicated by lowell. black clouds were pouring in masses over the mountain-range. the sunshine was being blotted out, as if by some giant hand. the storm-clouds swept toward them as they turned the horses and started back along the ridge. a huge shadow, which helen shudderingly likened to the sprawling figure of talpers in the lamplight, raced toward them over the plains.
"there isn't a storm in all that blackness," lowell assured her. "it's all shadow and no substance. perhaps your fears will turn out that way."
the girl regarded him gravely.
"i've tried to hope as much, but it's no use, especially when you've felt the first actual buffetings of the storm."
the approaching cloud shadow seemed startlingly solid. the girl urged her horse into a gallop, and lowell rode silently at her side. the shadow overtook them. angry winds seemed to clutch at them from various angles, but no rain came from the cloud mass overhead. when they rode into the ranch yard, the sun was shining again. they dismounted near the barn, and wong took the white horse. lowell and the girl walked through the yard to the front gate, the agent leading his horse. as they passed near the porch there came through the open door that same chilling, sarcastic voice which stirred all the ire in lowell's nature.
"helen," the voice said, "that careless individual, wong, must be reprimanded. he has mislaid one of my choicest volumes. perhaps it would be better for you to attend to replacing the books on the shelves after this."
every word was intended to humiliate, yet the voice was moderately pitched. there was even a slight drawl to it.
lowell's face betrayed his anger as he glanced at the girl. he made a gesture of impatience, but helen motioned to him, in warning.
"some day you're going to let me take you away from this," he said grimly, looking at her with an intensity of devotion which brought the red to her cheeks. "meantime, thanks for taking me out on that magic ridge. i'll never forget it."
"it will be better for you to forget everything," answered the girl.
lowell was about to make a reply, when the voice came once more, cutting like a whiplash in a renewal of the complaint concerning the lost book. the girl turned, with a good-bye gesture, and ran indoors. lowell led his horse outside the yard and rode toward talpers's place, determined to have a few definite words with the trader.
when lowell reached talpers's, the usual knot of indians was gathered on the front porch, with the customary collection of cowpunchers and ranchmen discussing matters inside the store.
"bill ain't been here all the afternoon," said talpers's clerk in answer to lowell's question. "he sat around here for a while after you left this morning, and then he saddled up and took a pack-horse and hit off toward the reservation, but i don't know where he went or when he'll be back."
lowell rode thoughtfully to the agency, trying in vain to bridge the gap between talpers's cryptic utterances bearing on the murder, and the not less cryptic statements of helen in the afternoon—an occupation which kept him unprofitably employed until far into the night.
