"Then he denies?" asked Bob eagerly.
"Says he knows nothing about Plant"s killing. His wife died that same morning, and he went away because he could not stand it. That"s his story; but the evidence is strong against him, poor fellow."
"Do you believe him?" asked Bob.
Amy swung her foot, pondering.
"No," she said at last. "I believe he killed Plant; and I believe he did right! Plant killed his wife and child, and took away all his property.
That"s what it amounted to."
"There are hardships worked in any administration," Bob pointed out.
Amy looked at him slowly.
"You don"t believe that in this case," she p.r.o.nounced at last.
"Then Pollock will perjure himself," suggested Bob, to try her.
"And if he has friends worth the name, they"ll perjure themselves, too!"
cried Amy boldly. "They"ll establish an alibi, they"ll invent a murderer for Plant, they"ll do anything for a man as persecuted and hunted as poor George Pollock!"
"Heavens!" returned Bob, genuinely aghast at this wholesale programme.
"What would become of morals and honour and law and all the rest of it, if that sort of thing obtained?"
"Law?" Amy caught him up. "Law? It"s become foolish. No man lives capable of mastering it so completely that another man cannot find flaws in his best efforts. Reuf and Schmitz are guilty--everybody says so, even themselves. Why aren"t they in jail? Because of the law. Don"t talk to me of law!"
"But how about ordinary mortals? You can"t surely permit a man to lie in a court of justice just because he thinks his friend"s cause is just!"
"I don"t know anything about it," sighed Amy, as though weary all at once, "except that it isn"t right. The law should be a great and wise judge, humane and sympathetic. George Pollock should be able to go to that judge and say: "I killed Plant, because he had done me an injury for which the perpetrator should suffer death. He was permitted to do this because of the deficiency of the law." And he should be able to say it in all confidence that he would be given justice, eternal justice, and not a thing so warped by obscure and forgotten precedents that it fits nothing but some lawyer"s warped notion of logic!"
"Whew!" whistled Bob, "what a lady of theory and erudition it is!"
Amy eyed him doubtfully, then smiled.
"I"m glad you happened along," said she. "I feel better. Now I believe I"ll be able to do something with my biscuits."
"I could do justice to some of them," remarked Bob, "and it would be the real thing without any precedents in that line whatever."
"Come around later and you"ll have the chance," invited Amy, again addressing herself to the stove.
Still smiling at this wholesale and feminine way of leaping directly to a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the trail to his own camp.
Here he found Jack Pollock poring over an old ill.u.s.trated paper.
"Hullo, Jack!" he called cheerfully. "Not out on duty, eh?"
"I come in," said Jack, rising to his feet and folding the old paper carefully. He said nothing more, but stood eyeing his colleague gravely.
"You want something of me?" asked Bob.
"No," denied Jack, "I don"t know nothing I want of you. But I was told to come and get a piece of paper and maybe some money that a stranger was goin" to leave by our chimbley. It ain"t there. You ain"t seen it, by any chance?"
"It may have got shoved among some of my things by mistake," replied Bob gravely. "I haven"t had a chance of looking. I"m just in from the Basin." At these last words he looked at Jack keenly, but that young man"s expression remained inscrutable. "I"ll look when I get back," he continued after a moment; "just now I"ve got to ride over to the mill to see Mr. Welton."
Jack nodded gravely.
"If you find them, leave them by the chimbley," said he. "I"m going to headquarters."
Bob rode to the mill. By the exercise of some diplomacy he brought the conversation to good lawyers without arousing Welton"s suspicions that he could have any personal interest in the matter.
"Erbe"s head and shoulders above the rest," said Welton. "He has half the business. He"s for Baker"s interests, and our own; and he"s shrewd.
Maybe you"ll get into trouble yourself some day, Bob. Better send for him. He"s the greatest criminal lawyer in the business."
Bob laughed heartily with his old employer. From Poole he easily obtained currency for his personal check of two hundred dollars. This would do to go on with for the time being. He wrote Erbe"s name and address--in a disguised hand--on a piece of rough brown paper. This he wrapped around the money, and deposited by the alarm clock on the rough log mantelpiece of his cabin. The place was empty. When he had returned from his invited supper with the Thornes, the package had disappeared.
He did not again catch sight of Jack Pollock, for next morning he started out on his errand to the north end.
XIII
At noon of the second day of a journey that led him up the winding watered valleys of the lower ranges, Bob surmounted a ridge higher than the rest and rode down a long, wide slope. Here the character of the country changed completely. Scrub oaks, young pines and chaparral covered the ground. Among this growth Bob made out the ancient stumps of great trees. The ranch houses were built of sawn lumber, and possessed brick chimneys. In appearance they seemed midway between the farm houses of the older settled plains and the rougher cabins of the mountaineers.
Bob continued on a dusty road until he rode into a little town which he knew must be Durham. Its main street contained three stores, two saloons, a shady tree, a windmill and watering trough and a dozen chair-tilted loafers. A wooden sidewalk shaded by a wooden awning ran the entire length of this collection of commercial enterprises. A redwood hitching rail, much chewed, flanked it. Three saddle horses, and as many rigs, dozed in the sun.
Bob tied his saddle horse to the rail, leaving the pack animal to its own devices. Without attention to the curious stares of the loafers, he pushed into the first store, and asked directions of the proprietor. The man, a type of the transplanted Yankee, pushed the spectacles up over his forehead, and coolly surveyed his questioner from head to foot before answering.
"I see you"re a ranger," he remarked drily. "Well, I wouldn"t go to Samuels"s if I was you. He"s give it out that he"ll kill the next ranger that sets foot on his place."
"I"ve heard that sort of talk before," replied Bob impatiently.
"Samuels means what he says," stated the storekeeper. "He drove off the last of you fellows with a shotgun--and he went too."
"You haven"t told me how to get there," Bob pointed out.
"All you have to do is to turn to the right at the white church and follow your nose," replied the man curtly.
"How far is it?"
"About four mile."
"Thank you," said Bob, and started out.
The man let him get to the door.
"Say, you!" he called.
Bob stopped.