Chapter 23

EVIDENCE FOR THE PROSECUTION

"Good--very good," said Kiddie. "He's captured; and you're sure he can't escape--eh?"

Nick Undrell laughed.

"Don't you alarm yourself any," he answered, dismounting from the bay horse. "He ain't goin' t' escape, that's sure."

"Very well," returned Kiddie, slinging his coiled lariat over the horn of his saddle. "In that case, I c'n afford to wait for your further explanations until we get along to my cabin. Sheriff Blagg is there, an' young Rube Carter."

He led his pony through the woodland by the same narrow trail that he had followed a few minutes earlier, and it was not long before they reached the stables.

"I presume," said Kiddie, when he was closing the door, leaving the two horses secure in their stalls, "that Broken Feather was ridin' my horse Regent when you laid him by the heels?"

"That's so," Nick answered; "the best hoss I've ever bin astride of. Yes, we waylaid him--middle of One Tree Gulch."

"Seems you expected him. You knew just where he'd been, an' what he'd been up to. You expected him to ride through One Tree Gulch exactly at that time?"

"No, your lordship," returned Nick; "I knew nothin' for sure. It was no more'n a cute guess on my part, knowin' the man."

Kiddie turned and looked at Undrell very steadily.

"I'm very much afraid that you know more about this business than you're likely to admit," he said. "You were in it yourself to some extent. Perhaps you even went partners with him--eh?"

"What?" Nick showed genuine astonishment at the implied accusation.

"Walk right in," ordered Kiddie, when they were at the front door of the cabin.

Isa Blagg started forward excitedly at Nick's unexpected entrance.

"Got him already!" he exclaimed. "That's smart, Kiddie--real smart."

"Wait, Isa, wait," retorted Kiddie. "I want to ask a few questions."

He reached round to his desk and laid a tobacco pipe on the table in front of Nick Undrell.

"Is that yours?" he asked.

"Yes," said Nick, taking it up and turning it in his fingers, "it's sure mine. Where'd you pick it up? Last time I see it 'twas on the shelf at home in my shack. Been lying thar for months. Too good ter throw away, not good enough ter smoke. How in thunder did it get here?"

"It was found in one of our canoes," explained Kiddie. "You are supposed to have dropped it there and forgotten it."

"Never bin in one o' your canoes in all my life," Nick declared.

"Ever been in this room before?" pursued Kiddie.

"Never," Nick denied; "never been inside the door."

"Show me the soles of your boots," said Kiddie.

Nick lifted his feet for inspection. Kiddie looked at the smooth soles inquiringly, nodded in satisfaction, and then leant forward and carefully picked a thread of yellow worsted from Undrell's striped vest.

"How do you explain," he went on, "that we found a thread of this very same yellow wool caught in the glass of that broken window? How do you account for a thread of the same stuff bein' found fixed round one of the claws of my dead hound?"

"Your dead hound!" repeated Nick, in genuine surprise. "Dead, d'ye say? D'ye mean he killed it--shot it? My, I'm glad we captured him--real glad, I am."

"What's that?" cried Isa Blagg. "Who d'ye mean?"

"All right, Sheriff," said Kiddie. "Leave it to me, please. I've only one more question to ask." He turned to Nick again. "Ever smoked one of my foreign cigarettes, Nick?" he inquired.

Nick shook his head.

"Never even seen one of 'em, except that time in my shack when you offered me one outer your gold case, an' I wouldn't have it," he answered. "But I guess you knows as well as I do that Broken Feather collared a whole heap of 'em?"

"Yes," said Kiddie. "It was the takin' of the cigarettes that made me certain that the robber was Broken Feather. You will have gathered from my questions that he tried to fix the crime upon you, Nick. He wore a pair of your boots an' left the prints of them around. He planted your old pipe in the canoe. He left the yellow threads from your woollen vest where they would serve as clues pointin' to you an' you alone and at the same time he was most careful to leave no trace or sign of his own identity."

"The skunk!" muttered Nick; "the greasy, low-down skunk?"

"Say, Kiddie," interposed Rube Carter, "thar's one thing you ain't asked Nick Undrell t' explain. What was his game prowlin' around here an' tryin' ter make friends with the dog?"

"I'll tell you that," returned Nick, glancing across at Rube. "It was all quite innercent. I knew that Kiddie an' you was away on a canoe trip. Broken Feather knew it, too. I'd a suspicion, an' more'n a suspicion, that he'd made up his mind ter break in here an' carry off some of Kiddie's valu'bles. I came prowlin' around ter spy on him. I saw him here once. He saw me watchin' him, an' he quitted. Then I heard that he'd gone cavortin' off on the war-path against the Crows, back of Lone Wolf Mountain, an' I didn't worry any more, since he couldn't be in two places at once. D'ye savvy?"

"Yes," nodded Kiddie; "yes, go on."

"Well," continued Nick, "night before last I was sittin' all lonesome in my shack, waitin' for the water to boil an' listenin' t' the rain outside, when there come a knock at the door. I opened it, an' there was a stranger--a Injun--lookin' like a drowned rat. He wanted food; he wanted shelter. I lets him come in. He couldn't speak English. We talked by signs, an' didn't get a lot said. I made two mugs of coffee, one for myself, one for him.

"Then I turned to the cupboard ter git some cheese an' a cracker or two, never suspectin' that he was anythin' else than a homeless wanderer. Well, I dunno just how he managed it--wasn't watchin' him, didn't suspect him--but when my back was turned, he must ha' took the opportunity he was waitin' for an' cunningly dropped suthin' in my mug of coffee. That's sure what he did. Thar ain't a doubt about it. I didn't taste nothin' unusual; but that coffee was doped. I couldn't keep awake. I fell asleep, an' yet not altogether asleep. I kinder saw things an' heard 'em in a dreamy way.

"Seemed ter me after a while that the door opened an' a second Injun came crawlin' in. It wasn't till afterwards that I realized who this second one was. He looked at me hard, kept on watchin' me for mebbe a full hour, until he figured I was sound asleep. Then he crept near an' touched me: caught hold o' this yer vest an' tugged at it till he tore a hole in it. Then he went about the room, silent as a cat. He drew my boots away from the stove, where I'd put 'em to dry. He went to the shelf, where that old pipe was lyin'. I dunno what else he did. I was too much asleep t' know anythin' or care anythin'. I only know that it was broad daylight when I awoke, that both them Injuns had vamoosed, an' that I couldn't find my boots."

"Reason bein' that Broken Feather had took 'em," said Rube Carter. "Didn't you find tracks outside the door, Nick?"

"Yes," Nick answered, "I found the marks of two pairs of moccasins leadin' up to the door; a pair of moccasins an' a pair of hob-nailed boots--my own boots--goin' away. It wasn't a very difficult proposition, an' I allow it wasn't long 'fore I'd ciphered it all up. I made out that Broken Feather, havin' failed in his raid on the Crow Indian reservation, had planned ter come right here an' do a bit of the burglary business in your absence. He's bin owin' me a grudge for a while back. He took my boots so that the marks of 'em in the mud would draw suspicion on me. D'ye savvy?"

"That was clearly his idea," Kiddie agreed, "and he very nearly succeeded. He gave himself away, however, by plantin' too many false clues around, an' makin' them too conspicuous. Did you follow on his tracks, Nick?"

"We did," Nick replied. "Jim Thurston, Fred Crippleshaw an' me, we follered him as far as Long Grass Creek. There we lost track of him, an' gave up the chase. We couldn't hope ter get here in front of him, though he was on foot an' we were mounted. But knowin' that he'd likely be goin' back with the loot to his own village, an' guessin' which trail he'd take, we hung around in One Tree Gulch. Waited hours an' hours.

"At last we heard a strange horse comin' along at an easy trot. By the sound of its feet we c'd tell it was no or'nary prairie cayuse, an' soon, sure enough, Broken Feather came inter view, with the goods in a gunny sack slung over his shoulder. Before he guessed we were there--before he c'd whip out his gun--we'd dropped on him."

"Ah," said Sheriff Blagg, stroking his chin. "I allow you did that business with considerable credit, Nick Undrell. Case of set a thief to catch a thief. I'm only regrettin' that I wasn't present on the occasion to make a formal arrest."

"'Tain't too late yet," smiled Kiddie. "You c'n ride back to Fort Laramie along with Nick an' conclude the business in proper legal form. No need to caution you to see that the prisoner cannot escape, and when the trial takes place, I guess you'll count upon me to be there to give evidence against him."

"What d'you reckon they'll give him, Kiddie?" Rube Carter wanted to know.

"Dunno," Kiddie shrugged his shoulders: "two or three years in penal servitude, I expect. Anyhow, Broken Feather's ambitious career doesn't look as if it would materialize. He'll be put out of the way of doin' further mischief, and we can settle down in our peaceful solitude, happy and undisturbed."

He turned to Nick Undrell.

"By the way, Nick," he said, "you told me a while back that you'd lost that cattle ranch of yours over a game of cards. You gambled it away to an Indian, didn't you?"

"That's so, your lordship," returned Nick. "An' the Injun referred to was Broken Feather. I ain't sure, but I've allus had a notion that he cheated in that game of poker. Why d'you ask about the ranch?"

"Because," said Kiddie, "it came into the market the other day and I bought it. Now that the estate is mine, I don't find that I've any use for it. I don't want it. D'you reckon you could run it for a season or two, Nick?"

"As your lordship's manager?" Nick asked.

"No," Kiddie answered, "as my workin' partner."

"Could you trust me?" questioned Nick.

"Down to the ground," said Kiddie, holding forth his hand.

Nick Undrell seized it.

"Kiddie," he faltered, "you're making a new man of me. You found me when I was lost. You blazed a new trail for me, an' I kept to it. I shall keep to it until the very end."

* * * * * *

During the rest of that same day, while Rube Carter was occupied in the work of unloading the canoe and setting the cabin in order, Kiddie engaged himself in opening his delayed correspondence and writing letters.

Many of the letters he opened were business communications from his lawyers in London, requiring immediate attention. Some were letters from friends in England, regretting his absence and imploring him to return. The one that he left to the last was addressed in a familiar handwriting, and he read it with close interest.

MY DEAR COUSIN HARRY,--

Do you remember once when we sat together in the billiard-room at St. Olave, and you were yarning to me about Buckskin Jack and Gideon Birkenshaw and the Pony Express? I said something about wishing I could go out West again and enjoy some such adventures as yours, and you said: "Well, you'd better come out with me." I don't know what I answered, but I believe you thought I didn't quite take to the idea, and you went off suddenly without repeating the invitation.

Now, however, I'm not going to wait to be asked. Since you didn't take me with you, I am going to come out on my own. I want to see you again, Kiddie. I want to be your chum for a few weeks, and share your life in that shack in the Bush that you were going to build. By this time you ought to be pining for a companion.

There are so many things I want to do and to see, with you to teach me. Golf and tennis and billiards are all very well, but I yearn for the wide spaces and the wilds. I want to see a real herd of buffalo and a pack of wolves, and to go bear hunting, to do some trapping, and to see some Indians--not the imitation article that hangs around on railway stations wearing breeches and a top hat, but the real noble savage, the wigwam Redskin with painted face and feathered head-dress. But more than all, I want to live in the same world of adventure with you. So I am coming out West. Before you get this letter I shall have started, and some day very soon you may meet me riding along the trail on my way to Sweetwater Bridge.

Then when I have had enough of it, I count upon your coming back home to England with me. This is imperative. There are heaps of important things waiting for you to do and to see to here.

Always your affectionate cousin, HAROLD FRITTON.

P.S.--Give my love to Sheila, and stroke her velvet ears for me.

Kiddie drew a deep breath. Rube Carter, who was behind him dusting the books and pictures, heard him, and turned round.

"Got some bad news in that letter you're readin', Kiddie?" he asked.

Kiddie folded up the letter and replaced it in its envelope.

"No," he answered. "It ought to be good news. My cousin Harold is coming out to pay us a visit."

"That so?" said Rube. "You've told me of your cousin Harold. He's your heir, ain't he? What did you sigh for? Don't you want him?"

"It was Harold who gave me the deerhound," Kiddie explained. "He sends his love to her. And she's dead. That's why I sighed. Say, Rube, you'll like Cousin Harold."

"Dunno 'bout that," said Rube. "Guess I shall have ter take a very far back seat when he comes along. Why, by all accounts he's even more of a gentleman than you are yourself, Kiddie."

"That's quite true," Kiddie acknowledged. "But that's no disadvantage, is it? We both stand in need of a bit of polishin' up before we go home to England again."

"Home to England?" Rube repeated. "What d'you mean by that?"

"Sooner or later I've got to go back to London," Kiddie told him. "But it won't be for always, you see--just long enough for you to have a good look round."

"Me!" exclaimed Rube in amazement.

"That's my notion," Kiddie intimated. "You'd like to go to England, wouldn't you? And you don't expect me to stay here for ever?"

"Course not," said Rube. "And--and--well, I dessay thar's a lot of chores you're hankerin' to attend to over there. We c'n easily lock up the cabin. It won't come to no harm now that thar's no Broken Feathers lyin' around."