The Riddle of the Rangeland

THE RIDDLE OF THE RANGELAND
By Forbes Parkhill
CHAPTER I

The modern West still keeps many of the old-time thrills, as you who read this captivating novelette of the Wyoming mountains will discover. Mr. Parkhill himself lives in the West; “The Ken-Caryl Case” and other stories have already won him fame as an excellent writing-man.

Sheriff Lafe Ogden, long-barreled blue revolver in his hand, knocked lightly on the rough pine door of the Red Rock ranger station. Then he stepped back softly and pressed himself close to the log-and-plaster wall beside his deputy, Seth Markey, and young Otis Carr.

There was no answer from within. The Sheriff raised his shaggy brows, pursed his lips and whistled softly. With a jerk of his head in the direction of the others, he stepped forward again. Suddenly he flung the door wide.

“Good God!” The exclamation burst from his lips, and checked the sudden advance of the two pushing forward on his heels.

“It’s Joe Fyffe himself!” He nodded toward the crumpled figure which lay face downward on the floor.

“Dead?” asked Otis Carr in a strange, strained voice as he squeezed his huge bulk through the door. He wondered why he had experienced no great shock at the gruesome discovery. For Joe Fyffe, forest ranger, silent, odd and retiring, had been his friend.

The Sheriff dropped to one knee. He placed a hand on the ranger’s wrist.

“Been dead quite a spell,” he announced without looking up.

“Blood shows that,” the deputy volunteered.

“Looky here how it’s dried round the edges, on the floor underneath his arms there. Two, three hours, I reckon.”

Otis Carr bent awkwardly over the huddled body.

“Shot, I s’pose,” he speculated, his tanned face, somehow attractive despite its homeliness, showing a trace of awe and concern. Most of his life had been spent in the cattle country east of Jackson’s Hole; yet the acts of violence which it had been his lot to witness had failed to render him callous in the presence of death.

Sheriff Ogden turned the ranger’s stiffening body on one side.

“That’s where he bled from,” he said shortly, pointing with the muzzle of his revolver to a tiny, stained hole in the ranger’s shirt, under the right shoulder. “But that’s what done the work,” he added, indicating a similar hole in the back, just above the ranger’s belt.

“It’s a cinch it wasn’t any accident,” Otis drawled, glancing curiously about the interior of the ranger cabin. “I tell you, somebody plugged him.”

“I don’t see any gun,” observed the Sheriff, rising, stepping over the body and walking to the door of the only other room.

“He couldn’t ’a’ had a chance. Nasty job, this!”

Otis followed him to the room which served as a sleeping chamber and office. Ogden removed a rifle from two wooden pegs in the log wall above the desk, examined it carefully, and shook his head. His scrutiny of a holstered revolver which swung by a cartridge belt from a nail in the wall was likewise barren of results.

“Neither one’s been fired,” he asserted, frowning and turning to the maps and papers on the rude pine desk. “He never had a chance to shoot back. You knew him pretty well, didn’t you, Otis? D’you know whether he had any other guns?”

Otis shook his head.

“Don’t think he did,” he replied uneasily, casting his eye about the room. “He hardly ever packed the revolver. Sometimes he carried the rifle in his saddle scabbard, but it was on the chance of seeing a cat or something, and not for protection from—well, you know. He never seemed to worry about the threats of the boys that the Gov’ment couldn’t send in any damned ranger to collect grazing-fees for using the open range.”

The Sheriff turned from the desk to a workbench containing a shallow tank, wooden racks and a row of bottles.

“I know,” he remarked gravely. “But between you and me, it aint like any of the boys to shoot him down like this. What’s this junk?”

“Dark-room equipment,” Otis answered, fingering a developing tray. “Joe was a nut on wild-animal photography, you know. Got some of the best animal pictures I’ve ever seen. Did his own finishing here at night. See that blanket rolled up over the window? He’d let that down, and have a first-class dark-room.”

“That’s right,” the Sheriff affirmed. “I remember now. He was the feller that bragged he was the only man that ever got a close-up picture of a wild mountain sheep, wasn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t say he bragged about it. But it was something worth boasting about, anyway.”

Sheriff Ogden, his barren search of the office and bedroom completed, led the way back to the room where the body lay.

“Lucky we run into you, Otis,” he remarked as he began a hurried search of its interior. “When I seen you ridin’ down the Buffalo Forks road, I says to Seth, here: ‘There’s Otis Carr, who knows Joe Fyffe right well—maybe better’n anyone else in these parts. We’ll ask him to go along.’

“We didn’t know what had happened, then. Just knew somethin’ funny was pulled off here at the ranger station. Forest supervisor in Jackson called me before daylight, an’ said he’d just got a flash on his phone, an’ that some one was callin’ for help. Operator told him the call was from Red Rock ranger station.

“He’d ’a’ come along, only for a wrenched leg. Between you and me, he’s a pretty decent feller, that supervisor, even if he is tryin’ to collect grazin’-fees for the Gov’ment. I says to Seth here: ‘Lucky thing these here ranger stations is connected with telephones for fire-calls. Man could have an accident an’ lay there for a week if it wasn’t for that wire.’ I had a hunch it might be somethin’ more than an accident, ’count of hearin’ more or less how the boys been shootin’ off their mouths. You been over the hill to Dubois, I s’pose?”

Otis, who had stepped to the pine table to retrieve the telephone, which was hanging close to the floor, turned quickly after restoring the instrument to its accustomed place and shot an odd, questioning glance at the Sheriff, who was stooping over the stove. Then he peered uncertainly at the deputy, who was kneeling by the outer door.

“N-o-o,” he drawled, turning back to the table, nervous fingers clumsily fingering the telephone. “Guess the old man told you them rustlers been busy again, working over some of the Footstool calves. Jess Bledsoe says they been bothering around some of the Flying A stock, too. Well, I rode over to the cabin of Gus Bernat, the French trapper, last night, figuring I might get a line on the fellow who’s so free with the running-iron. Had a hunch he might be working the range down below Two-Gwo-Tee pass, but I couldn’t see a thing—”

Deputy Seth Markey, seemingly impatient that the others should waste their time on such casual remarks with the mystery of the Fyffe killing confronting them, arose with an exclamation.

“Looky here, boss,” he cried to the Sheriff, directing his attention to two tiny brown spots near the doorsill. “See them blood-drops? That means Fyffe was outside when he was shot, and run in here afterward. Let’s take a look outside the cabin.”

Ogden abandoned his examination of the stove, and the pair of worn, hobnailed Canadian pack boots hanging from the log ceiling above it by their leather laces, and joined his deputy at the door.

“Sure ’nough,” he observed as he led the way outside the cabin, carefully scrutinizing the ground about the doorway. “Here’s another. We’ll just back-track this trail, an’ see what we can find.”

With difficulty they followed the thin trail of blood over the coarse gravel surface and pine-needle carpet of the pasture which surrounded the ranger cabin. It led through the open gate in the barbed-wire fence which inclosed the pasture. They lost it in the near-by creek bottom. In vain did they circle the spot where the last bloodstain appeared.

Some fifty yards away they came upon the cold ashes of a tiny wood fire. Sheriff Ogden pressed his hand among the charred fragments.

“From the feel of her, she might be a week old,” he announced sagely. “The ashes aint flaky, but black, showin’ that the fire didn’t burn out, but was doused with water from the crick.”

“But why,” asked Otis curiously, “would anyone want to build a fire so near the ranger station? I tell you it couldn’t be to cook a meal, because anyone could have dropped in and eaten with Fyffe.”

“Maybe the ranger built it hisself,” suggested the Sheriff. “What few tracks show in this coarse gravel is cow-tracks, and that don’t tell us nothin’. Can’t see any signs of a fight here. Let’s go back to the cabin.”

“He must have run in here after he was shot,” speculated Otis upon reentering the shack, “and grabbed for the phone. Like as not he yelled for help once or twice, and then dropped to the floor. Or maybe he knocked the phone off the table, and the supervisor heard him calling for help after he lay on the floor.”

“He knocked that camera off the table too,” the deputy volunteered. “I found it on the floor while you two was in the other room, and put it back on the table.”

“What’s this?” asked Otis, stooping and retrieving a stub of a pencil from the floor a few feet from the body. “I wonder if this means anything?”

The Sheriff glanced at it and grunted.

“Probably dropped out of his pocket when he fell. Or maybe he knocked it off the table with the phone and the camera.”

The deputy suddenly dropped to his knees beside the body.

“Looky here!” he cried, eagerness and excitement showing in his face as he looked up at them. He was pointing with a tanned and stubby finger at a straggling and meaningless black line upon the floor planking. One end trailed out to nothingness near where Otis had found the pencil. The other end of the line was covered with the splotch of blood. “Maybe he wrote somethin’ before he died!”

Sheriff Ogden seized a dish towel from a nail behind the stove. He moistened it with a dipperful of water from the bucket in the corner. Then he too dropped to his knees by Fyffe’s body and commenced to scrub at the bloodstained floor. Otis bent eagerly over his shoulder.

“There she is!” burst from the Sheriff’s lips as a faint scrawl appeared beneath his hands. He scrubbed vigorously a moment longer. All three peered at the pine plank as he desisted.

Five words were scrawled on the floor. Slowly Sheriff Ogden read them aloud—a damning message from the dead:

“‘Otis Carr shot me because—’”

CHAPTER II

“Simple” Sample, cow-hand employed by Sterling Carr, owner of the Footstool outfit, was initiating Mariel Lancaster, visitor from Pennsylvania, into the mysteries of saddling a horse.

“There aint no need for you-all to saddle a horse, long as you’re around the ranch, here, ma’am,” he protested as he led a “plumb gentle” sorrel outside the Footstool corral. “They’s most always some of the boys about, that’s willin’ to he’p you if you say the word.”

Mariel, who had equipped herself with a quirt belonging to Margaret Carr, her school chum who had induced her to pay a visit to the Footstool ranch in Wyoming, frowned slightly and attempted to slap her boot, as if she had held a riding-crop. The quirt, however, was too limber, and refused to slap.

“I understand, but that’s just why I want to learn,” she insisted with some little spirit. “What if I’d be out somewhere alone, and have to saddle—”

“I bet you-all wont be ridin’ around alone, ma’am—not’s long as young Mr. Otis is here,” remarked Simple with assurance. He hadn’t failed to use his eyes during the week that Mariel had been a guest of the ranch, and his years gave him certain privileges which the other “boys” lacked.

Mariel flushed slightly, and then laughed.

“But he isn’t here today,” she challenged, as if seeking to elicit further information concerning Otis.

“No, ma’am,” Simple replied, his eyes narrowing as he looked away southward toward the Gros Ventre range, “I reckon he’s out there somewheres lookin’ over the range. First thing, ma’am, don’t go swishin’ that quirt around these broomtails. They’re liable to think yore in earnest. Old Dynamite, here, he’s plumb peace-lovin’ an’ reasonable, but even he’s got some right funny idees about quirts.

“Step up an’ gentle him some, ma’am, so he’ll know yore intentions is honorable. Not from that end, ma’am, or he may kick yore slats out—beg pardon, ma’am, I mean he mayn’t see it the right way. Go at him from the head end. That’s right.

“Naow fold yore saddle-blanket—so. Keep on the nigh side, an’ ease it over his spine. Slide it back with the grain of the hair. Fine. I bet that saddle’s a purty big heft for you-all, aint it, ma’am? Naow reach under his bel—I mean, reach under him an’ grab that cinch. Run the latigo through the ring—like this. Naow pull—hard.”

Mariel turned to her instructor, sorely puzzled.

“Very well. But what do you do when he swells all up, like this?”

“Kick him in the slats, ma’am. Kick him in the slats. Leastways, that’s what I’d do, seein’ as how you-all ast me. But I guess you-all cain’t do nothin’ but talk to him. No, that wont do, neither, cause a lady cain’t talk the language that ol’ reprobate understands. Reckon you’ll have to wait till he gits out o’ breath. Naow—pull quick, ma’am. Good! Tie it jest like you’d tie a man’s necktie. You aint never tied a man’s necktie? It’s like this-hyere.”

Mariel, panting but triumphant, stood back and admired her handiwork.

“There!” she cried exultantly. “Sometime I’ll get you to teach me how to put those—er—trademarks on the livestock. They call this the Footstool ranch because its trademark looks like a footstool, don’t they?”

“Yes’m. Only they don’t exactly call it a trademark. That horizontal line is the top of the footstool, and them two lines that slants away underneath, they’re the laigs.”

“You have such odd names for your—er—brands. Yesterday I heard Mr. Carr talking about the Lazy Y. What’s that like?”

“Jest the letter V, ma’am, leanin’ over to one side, like it was too lazy to stand up straight. That’s old man Yarmouth’s brand.”

“And the Flying A. That’s Mr. Bledsoe’s mark, isn’t it?”

“Yes’m. The bar of the letter A sticks out on each side, like wings. An’ because it looks like the letter A with wings, they calls it the Flying A. I notice young Jess Bledsoe’s been over quite frequent of late.”

Mariel colored, but smiled. “I think he’s so typically Western. He seems to be made for these picturesque cowboy costumes.”

“I reckon he never misses a chance to make his spurs jingle, ma’am,” Simple remarked, tugging at the tobacco-tag dangling from his vest pocket. “He wears the biggest hat and the hairiest chaps between the Wind River reservation and the Tetons. He likes to tell how he captured Ed Gunn, the outlaw, after Ed had shot the gun out of Jess’ hand, incidentally shootin’ Jess’ little finger off. But don’t get him wrong, ma’am—I bet he can set on the hurricane deck of any bronc in these parts, an’ he can shoot the eye out of a needle. Trouble is, he knows it. But I reckon that’ll wear off in time.”

“I’ve heard already how Mr. Bledsoe lost his little finger,” said Mariel soberly. “He must be very daring. He tells me that the cattle-raisers are bothered by thieves who steal their stock. I should think they’d do something about it.”

“They will, ma’am—when they catch ’em. Rustlin’ aint the healthiest occupation in the world. Reckon it’s the Radley boys, over in the Hole. That’s Jackson’s Hole proper, ma’am, over to the west there. Mebbe you’ve heard about Jackson’s Hole, ma’am, as a hangout for cattle thieves an’ such. Most folks think they hide in the Hole. But they don’t. Anybody can get into Jackson’s Hole. But when anyone comes, lookin’ for calves that’s been monkeyed with with a runnin’-iron, the boys jest draws back into the Tetons, where you cain’t find ’em in a thousand years.

“Them’s the Tetons over there, ma’am—them snaggle-toothed mountains that rise right up like a wall. The old French trappers named ’em, because they’re like a breastworks. Behind that big one, the Grand Teton, are half a dozen trails leadin’ out to Idaho. Many a posse’s quit cold, ma’am, when they come to the Tetons.”

“I understand. But isn’t it hard to steal a cow and drive her so many miles without being seen by some one?”

“They don’t have to drive ’em, ma’am—not on the open range. Jest slap a brand on a maverick, and leave him. Then come round-up time, when they’re sorted out, the man with that p’ticler brand gets his calf without bein’ asked no questions. No one hereabouts would think o’ keepin’ a calf with some one else’s brand on him.

“But even if he does start to drive a critter to his home range, who’s goin’ to interfere with a man drivin’ home a stray with his own brand on him? On the open range there aint no restrictions—’cept what the Gov’ment’s made right recently. The Gov’ment up an’ tells the cow-man that the open range aint open any more—that the Gov’ment owns it, an’ is goin’ to collect a grazin’-fee for every head of cattle on it.

“I never hearn tell of sech a thing, ma’am. Mebbe you don’t understand it, but it makes every cow-man boil. Ever since there was a cow in this country, the cow-men have used the open range without payin’ for it. How come the Gov’ment makes ’em pay now? Here’s scads of grazin’ land goin’ to waste. But the Gov’ment’s goin’ to have a real job on its hands, collectin’ grazin’-fees from these ranchers.”

Mariel failed to comprehend half of the old cow-hand’s tirade, and her expression showed it.

“But do the ranchers think they can oppose the Government successfully?”

“They can make it so hot that no ranger’ll dare come in here an’ try to collect grazin’-fees. It wouldn’t surprise me a mite, ma’am, if Ranger Fyffe, up at Red Rock ranger station, would up an’ decide to leave the country right sudden. In fact, the boys was talkin’ last night about issuin’ him a formal invitation.”

“What if he refused to go?”

“Well, ma’am, the boys have a right persuadin’ way about ’em, I bet he’d go. If he didn’t—well, he might stay, permanent.”

Horror was growing in Mariel’s eyes as she listened to old Simple’s explanation.

“You mean to say they’d—they’d kill him?”

“Well, now, ma’am, a wise man can take a hint. There wont be any need for a killin’. For instance, say, one of the boys is picked to deliver a cordial invite to this ranger to leave the country—or to quit his job an’ stay here like an honest citizen, for, y’understand, miss, no one’s got anything personal against this ranger. If he got kilt, it would be a matter of principle, so to speak, with no hard feelin’s toward him.

“Well, s’posin’ he gets uppity an’ balks. What then? Why, mebbe some one shoots up his place. Then, if he don’t take the hint, mebbe they start shootin’ in earnest. Nobody believes in unnecessary killin’, ma’am, ’cept some real gunmen an’ killers. But it all depends on the feller that delivers the invite, an’ how the ranger’d take it. Naow, if the messenger’d get lit up a mite, an’ mebbe think he was a woodtick an’ it was his night to tick, an’ if the ranger got nasty, why, anything might happen.”

Mariel shuddered and said: “I think it’s a cowardly thing to do.”

“Mebbe so, ma’am, mebbe so,” grinned the old cow-hand, shrugging. “I reckon you aint the only one thinks so, either. The boys drawed lots to pick who was to run the ranger off’m the range. The one they picked wasn’t there. When they told him about it, that was just what he said. He give ’em h⸺. I mean, ma’am, he said it didn’t look right to him. But I reckon he was just scared out, ma’am. Left in a huff, he did, sayin’ he was goin’ over to the cabin of Gus Bernat, the trapper, to look for rustlers. Said the Gov’ment had a right to collect grazin’-fees an’ to limit the range, an’ that it was all for the cowman’s good in the long run. Next thing, I bet he’ll be standin’ up for the nester an’ his damn bob wire—beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. Bobbed wire is goin’ to strangle the cow-man, if he don’t look aout.”

Mariel glanced at the tiny watch strapped to her wrist. Seemingly she was deeply interested in Simple’s discourse on the cow-men’s feud with the rangers, rustlers, nesters and barbed wire. But despite this apparent interest, she displayed evidences of impatience.

“It’s nearly nine o’clock,” she announced, almost petulantly. “I wonder if—”

“I shouldn’t wonder, ma’am,” Simple interrupted, grinning, “if that’s him comin’ naow.”

A dashing figure on a white-stockinged chestnut had rounded the corner of the bunkhouse, and was approaching the corral at a trot. With almost a single motion he halted before them, leaped from the saddle and stood, hat in hand and bridle looped over his arm, smiling and bowing slightly before Mariel. She returned the smile.

“This is indeed a surprise, Mr. Bledsoe,” she told him brightly, smoothing a fold in her riding habit. Simple chuckled.

“Just thought I’d drop over to see if the Footstool’s got any line on those rustlers,” Bledsoe began pleasantly. “Didn’t think I’d be so fortunate as to find you, Miss Lancaster.” Then, turning to Simple: “H’lo, Simp. Where’s Otis?”

“Howdy, Jess,” the cow-hand responded. “Reckon Otis is out some’ers down Gros Ventre way.”

“Wonder if he’s heard about the trouble up at the ranger cabin?” Bledsoe asked. “Some of the boys says the Sheriff got a hurry-up call from the Red Rock station.”

CHAPTER III

Otis Carr, bending over the kneeling officer in the ranger cabin, seemed fairly stupefied with astonishment as Lafe Ogden read the words which branded him as the murderer of Ranger Fyffe. Even when the Sheriff turned and looked up at him, condemnation in his keen gaze and his hand instinctively seeking his gun, Otis stood petrified, oblivious of everything but the scrawled and blurred inscription on the floor. He still bent forward, eyes staring, pale beneath his tan, his mouth agape.

Deputy Seth Markey whipped his revolver from its holster. He did not train it upon Otis, but stood with arms crossed, eying him narrowly, alert for the slightest hostile move. Sheriff Ogden rose slowly to his feet, his gaze intent upon the younger man.

Through Otis’ mind flashed a picture of Joe Fyffe, wounded, rushing into the ranger cabin, staggering toward the table, clutching at the telephone, frantically calling for help, and then slowly sinking to the floor, where he lay in agony. And then the ranger, knowing his life was measured by minutes, had striven to set down a message that would reveal the identity of the man who had shot him.

In the scene as reënacted in Otis’ mind, Fyffe fumbled with stiffening fingers at his shirt pocket, searching for the stub of his pencil. Fighting down his agony, he scrawled his damning indictment of Otis—his friend!

And Otis, still standing there, bent forward, staring down at the floor, seemed to see the ranger’s body suddenly go limp, the pencil dropping from nerveless fingers. And then the pool of blood slowly widening under the motionless body.

“Otis Carr shot me because—”

What would the rest of the sentence have been? What if Ranger Fyffe’s heart had pulsed a few more beats? What would he have written?

And why—why had he written that Otis Carr shot him, when Otis had been fifteen miles from the ranger station throughout the night?

Gradually Otis became conscious of his surroundings again. He straightened, and looked from the Sheriff to his deputy, and back again. He saw nothing in their gaze but cold conviction of his guilt.

Why didn’t they say something? Why did they stand there, silent and impeaching? They had him on the defensive, at their mercy. He cleared his throat to speak, with no definite idea of what he would say. But the words would not come, and the sounds that issued from his lips were stammering and unintelligible. At last he made an awkward little gesture of helplessness with his hands, and dropped his head.

Sheriff Ogden, without taking his eyes from Otis, spoke to his deputy.

“Take his gun,” he directed shortly. Otis remained motionless while Markey lifted the weapon from its holster, and rapidly passed his hands over Otis’ body in search of other arms.

The deputy glanced at the revolver and turned it over to the Sheriff with the remark: “Been fired twice.”

“How come, Otis?” asked the Sheriff, not unkindly, but with the air of one with an unpleasant duty to perform.

Otis suddenly found his voice.

“Shot at a rattler, just before I reached the Buffalo Forks road.”

The trace of a smile hovered about Sheriff Ogden’s lips.

“And I s’pose whoever shot Joe Fyffe come into the cabin afterward and wrote them words on the floor, just to throw suspicion on you?”

Otis raised his head and looked Ogden squarely in the eyes.

“No, Sheriff; Joe Fyffe wrote that. I’ve seen his writing before. This is a little bit shaky, but it’s Joe Fyffe’s writing.”

The Sheriff raised his brows and emitted a low whistle of surprise.

“How do you account for his scribbling that on the floor, then?”

“I tell you I can’t account for it,” Otis admitted. “I own up that it struck me all of a heap. I was as much surprised as you when I saw it. You know I never had any quarrel with Joe Fyffe. We were friends. Why should I kill him?”

“Now, just between you and me, didn’t your daddy say, like all the rest of the cow-men here, that the Gov’ment wasn’t going to collect a penny of grazing-fees, and that the ranger ought to be run out of the country?”

Otis, who had regained his color after the first shock of the discovery, paled visibly again at the Sheriff’s question. He hesitated an instant before he answered.

“Why, yes,” he retorted, “there’s no use denying that. You know as well as I that the Government rangers aren’t any too popular in the cattle country. But you admit that all the cow-men dislike the rangers. Why should that indicate any motive on my part?”

“I aint saying it does,” Ogden remarked. “I’m asking for information. Now, isn’t it true, Otis, that just because you was particularly friendly with Joe Fyffe, you thought you could talk to him better than anyone else? Wasn’t that the reason you come over here last night—not with any notion of killing him, mind you—but just to tell him he’d better clear out, before somethin’ happened?

“I’m supposin’ that you came here to do him a service—to warn him to git out before there was trouble, ’cause I know you and him was pretty good friends. Now, Otis, tell me straight—wasn’t that about the way things sized up? One word led to another. Maybe he pulled a gun on you first, and you had to do it, or get killed yourself. If you’ll say it was self-defense, now, maybe that’ll go a long ways with the jury. Between you and me, haven’t I hit it about right?”

Otis, staring at Ogden, his eyes narrowed and his lips compressed, shook his head.

“I tell you, Sheriff, I didn’t kill Joe Fyffe. How could I claim self-defense when I was fifteen miles from here all night? And if I were the one who really killed him, do you think I’d have shot him down like this, without giving him a chance?

The Sheriff shrugged and turned away.

“Remember, Otis, I’m tryin’ to help you. Of course, I can’t make you say what you don’t want to say. But if you think you’ll ever get away with an alibi defense, in the face of that writin’ on the floor and those empty cartridges in your gun—why, you’ve got another guess comin’. But a self-defense plea may get you somewheres. I’m just tryin’ to give you a tip, that’s all. It’s none of my funeral.”

Otis, who had regained his composure to some extent by this time, cried out with some display of eagerness:

“Well, there’s one way we can settle this whole thing, Sheriff. Let’s ride over to Gus Bernat’s cabin right now, and if he tells you I wasn’t at his place last night, then I’m willing to go to jail.”

The Sheriff frowned and shook his head.

“No chance, Otis. It’s too far. I’m afraid we’ll have to take you to Jackson under arrest, and investigate the evidence afterward. But I’ll send word to Gus to come to town tomorrow. If his story fits in with yours—well, then it will be up to the prosecuting attorney to decide what to do. Seth, you telephone the coroner. Then we’ll cut that plank out of the floor as evidence, and get started back to town.”

While the deputy was carrying out the Sheriff’s instructions, Otis seated himself at the table, and rolled and lighted a cigarette. He made note of the fact that there was not the slightest tremor in his fingers, and was glad, for he knew his every act was being observed closely, and that evidences of nervousness would not help him.

He had banished the panic which had possessed him at first when he read the dead man’s accusation. Now he reflected that all that was needed to tear asunder the veil of suspicion which enveloped him, was Gus Bernat’s alibi. His spirits rose with the thought, but he did not neglect to study every feature of the room as he waited. For he knew that even though Bernat’s alibi would free him from facing trial, nothing but the discovery of the identity of the real murderer would absolve him from suspicion in the minds of the residents of the community. And there was one person in particular whose regard had come, within the last few days, to mean far more to Otis than he had realized until he had been snared in this trap of Fate.

“All right, Otis, let’s go,” Sheriff Ogden called when the deputy had ripped from the floor the plank containing Joe Fyffe’s dying words. He permitted the door of the ranger cabin to remain unlocked, explaining that the coroner would fasten it after removing the body.

Otis’ chestnut pony, a rugged little mountain animal which had gained the name of “Pie-face” because of the splotched white star between his eyes, turned an inquiring look at the approach of his master. Like all Western saddle-horses, Pie-face had been taught to stand as though hitched as long as his reins were trailing on the ground. As Otis passed the reins over the animal’s head, he threw one arm about the neck of his loyal little mount and patted him affectionately. Here, at least, was one friend who would always believe in him!

“Looks like rain, Sheriff,” Otis drawled with assumed nonchalance. “Look at those clouds rolling over the Tetons. By the way, are you going to use your—er—handcuffs?”

“Handcuffs?” repeated the Sheriff almost indignantly. “What’d we want with handcuffs? We got our guns, and you aint armed. You wouldn’t dare make a break. We know it, and you know it. No, Otis, I aint going to rub it in. But if you’ll give me your promise you wont try to make a break, it’ll make it a whole lot easier for me.”

Otis laughed shortly. Already they had started down the narrow trail which led from the ranger station to the Buffalo Forks road. Markey was in the lead, and Ogden brought up the rear.

“Sure, Sheriff—I’ll promise you I wont try to get away. If I tried to escape, that would be a mighty good sign that I’m guilty, and that I’m scared to face a showdown, wouldn’t it?”

They were nearing the road, which skirts Red Rock creek, when Markey suddenly reined in his mount and directed Ogden’s attention to a moving figure in the aspens beyond the stream. For a moment Sheriff and deputy eyed the figure and conversed in undertones.

“Looks like one of the Radley boys,” Sheriff Ogden announced at length. “Wonder what he’s doing over here, so far off his own range. Guess we’d better find out.”

CHAPTER IV

“What’re you going to do with me?” Otis inquired, the trace of a smile playing about his lips.

The Sheriff, puzzled, turned to his deputy.

“You better stay here with Otis, Seth,” he directed. Then he glanced at the spot across the stream where the moving figure had disappeared in the trees. For an instant he pondered, uncertain.

“No,” he announced in a moment, “that wont do. It would take two of us to get him, now that he’s in that timber. Guess we’ll have to let him go.”

“Wait a minute,” objected the deputy. “I’ll fix it so we can both go.”

He swung from the saddle, reached in his saddlebags and drew forth a pair of nickel-plated handcuffs.

“Hate to do this, Otis,” he began hurriedly, “but we wont be gone long. Just step over by this tree.”

Otis dismounted, not at all pleased that his pledge not to attempt to escape had not been accepted. He resolved, however, to make no protest, knowing that were he in the place of his captors, he would take every precaution to prevent the escape of a prisoner, if he deemed that prisoner guilty of murder. So without a word he stepped to the tree.

The deputy snapped one of the steel circlets about his left wrist. Then he brought Otis’ right hand about the trunk of the tree, a fairly large lodgepole pine, and snapped the other end of the handcuffs about his right wrist. Otis was left standing, facing the tree, his arms about its trunk, and his wrists pinioned on the other side of the pine.

“Sorry,” the deputy told him shortly as he flung himself into the saddle again. “We’ll be back pretty soon.”

The Sheriff had said nothing while Markey had been fastening Otis’ arms about the tree. Otis watched them ford the creek and plunge into the timber on the farther bank. He was glad that the tree was far enough removed from the road that none of his friends, who might be passing, could discover him in his humiliating predicament. Pie-face stood on the creek bank, a few yards distant, cropping the grass by the water’s edge. Otis knew that so long as his bridle was dragging there would be no danger of his straying away into the timber.

For perhaps five minutes Otis struggled vainly to work himself into a position where he might draw his tobacco and cigarette papers from his vest pocket. Finally, with an exclamation of impatience, he desisted in his attempt to prepare a smoke, and devoted his efforts to devising a means whereby he might sit down.

This, too, he found to be impossible. The base of the tree-trunk was too large, and the roots sloped off over the creek bank at such an angle as to make a sitting posture out of the question.

Otis was curious to know the result of the expedition of Sheriff Ogden and Seth Markey in pursuit of the figure which had melted into the timber. He too had caught a fleeting glimpse of the man, and believed it to be “Soggy” Radley of the Jackson’s Hole country. Soggy had gained his sobriquet through his ability to enjoy his own flapjacks, which no one else, even his brother Ginger, could stomach.

The presence of one of the Radley boys so far from his own range was full of meaning to Otis. Coupled with the recent brandblotting from which various stockmen in the vicinity had suffered, it meant that Soggy would have much to explain—particularly in that he was not keeping to the open trail, but was skulking through the timber afoot.

A chipmunk approached Otis over the rocks in a series of quick advances and shorter retreats. The little animal finally reached a point within a yard of his feet, and for a moment sat erect on its haunches, eying him curiously from beadlike eyes. Presently it discovered a seed fallen from a pine-cone, and retired to a near-by rock, where it sat nibbling away and flirting its tail, but keeping a wary eye upon him.

Otis wondered what Sheriff Ogden would do if he should discover Soggy Radley in the act of using a running-iron on a Footstool calf. He believed that the Sheriff would relish making such an arrest far more than he had relished making the arrest of Otis himself on the charge of murdering Ranger Fyffe.

The capture of one of the Radley boys, with sufficient evidence for a conviction, would meet with popular approval, and would make many votes at the next election. Otis knew Sheriff Ogden to be an easy-going official of the type which makes a good politician, eager to please everyone, if possible, and loath to make enemies.

Although the Sheriff was likable enough, and when the occasion demanded it, a fearless officer, Otis knew that most of his official acts were accomplished with an eye to their effect at the next election.

He believed, also, that Ogden would have been reluctant to cause his arrest, had he not been convinced of Otis’ guilt. And in view of the circumstances of the damning bit of writing on the cabin floor, and the empty shells in his revolver, he could not hold it against the Sheriff that that official was so confident he had committed the crime.

“Wait until he talks to Gus Bernat,” Otis said aloud, frightening the chipmunk, “then I’ll have the laugh on him.”

It would be odd indeed, he thought, if the Sheriff should return with Soggy Radley as his prisoner, charged with the theft of cattle from Otis, whom he held on a charge of murder.

A cold wind, sweeping down from the snow-covered Tetons, set the leaves of the quaking aspen atremble, and sung through the branches of the pines. Otis glanced at the sky, and uttered an exclamation of exasperation.

“Looks like I’m in for a good drenching,” he remarked to the chipmunk, which scuttled away among the rocks again. “It’s a wonder they didn’t take a look at the weather before they left me chained up like this. But then, I suppose prisoners can’t be too particular.”

The wind ceased. A big drop of rain splashed on the rock where the chipmunk had sat. Then, with a rush, the storm broke. The wind lashed the aspen grove, until Otis, peering through the sheets of rain, could see nothing but the silvery under side of the leaves.

He shrank against the tree, circling to the east so the trunk might afford him some measure of protection from the driving rain. He was thankful for the little shelter that the spreading branches of the pine gave him.

There was a flash of lightning—the lessening roll of thunder echoing from the rocky walls of the gulch. He could barely make out the trees on the far side of the creek. Pie-face, his back humped to the storm, stood head down, now and then casting a curious glance at his master, who made no move to lead him to shelter.

Suddenly there was a terrific report. Otis believed he could feel the earth tremble beneath him. He knew that the lightning had struck a tree somewhere in the gulch near by.

Then, for the first time, he was assailed by a questioning fear for his own safety. He remembered coming upon the bodies of a score of sheep that had sought shelter beneath a huge tree in the highlands near Two-Gwo-Tee pass two years before, only to be electrocuted in a mass when a bolt of lightning struck the tree. He cursed the deputy for his thoughtlessness in chaining him to the pine, when it was plain that the electrical storm was approaching.

Tied to his saddle was his slicker, which might have saved him from the chilling rain. He called to Pie-face, but the animal, true to the tradition of the range horse, would not stir so long as his bridle was dragging.

Presently he raised his head and sniffed suspiciously. He thought he detected the odor of burning pine. He wondered if the lightning had set fire to the tree which it had struck. He edged about his tree and swept every portion of the narrow gulch with a searching glance.

What if the lightning had started a forest fire? He had known of fires started by lightning which had swept through the timber for miles before they had been checked or had burned themselves out. Was he chained and helpless in the path of such a fire, to be burned to death without a chance for his life?

Presently, however, the storm subsided. A few minutes more, and it had gone as suddenly as it had come. The sun broke through over the jagged crest of the Tetons. Otis watched the black rain-clouds as they swept on rapidly eastward.

Still there was no sign of the return of Sheriff Ogden and his deputy.

Otis edged about the tree into the sun light. He became conscious, presently of a low hum which seemed to pervade the air. Pie-face pricked up his ears nervously and stood gazing up the gulch. The chipmunk emerged from the rocks and scuttled away up the mountainside.

The hum grew into a roar. The roar became like the crash of artillery.

Otis shot one glance up the narrow gulch. He saw a brown wall of twisting, turning and crashing timber sweeping down upon him. He could see no water. Yet he knew that the twelve-foot wall of smashing treetrunks and rubbish was the forefront of a brown and swirling flood.

He threw himself backward with all his weight in an attempt to break his bonds. The handcuffs bit deep into his wrists, but held. He was insensible to the agony as he threw himself backward again and yet again.

Twice he had seen sudden floods caused by mountain cloudbursts sweep down a narrow gulch, carrying everything before them, eating away at the mountainside and tearing out great boulders in their path. He had seen a stanchly built log cabin blotted out in an instant, and had aided in the search for the body of its occupant, which was never found.

Terror conquered training in Pie-face. The horse broke and ran, striking diagonally up the rocky slope, struggling upward with the agility of a pine marten.

Even as he struggled, Otis, white-faced and gasping, could picture himself crushed beneath the crashing wall of logs. With a tremendous heave, he threw himself backward for the last time. The handcuffs held.

He swung himself about the tree. It flashed through his mind that its sturdy trunk might protect him to some extent against the shock of the impact. But even if he were not crushed like a bear in a deadfall, he felt that, chained to the tree, he would be drowned beneath the chocolate waters. In a last frantic effort to escape he began awkwardly to climb the tree.

The cold breath of the flood engulfed him. The smashing of the timbers drowned out all other sound. He closed his eyes and clung to the trunk.

Then the flood struck.

CHAPTER V

“On the level, Miss Lancaster,” Jess Bledsoe was saying as they jogged along the Buffalo Forks road, “Otis Carr is a mighty fine chap. All the boys hereabouts like him. A little retiring, sometimes, and mighty awkward all the time. But he’s pretty level-headed, except once in a while when he lets his temper get away with him. And he knows the cattle business from hoof to ears, and range to stockyards.”

Mariel smiled. “Margaret worships her big brother,” she volunteered. “She used to show me his letters while we were at school together. From what she told me about him, I rather expected to find him a sort of superman. He isn’t at all as I pictured him.”

Jess glanced at her curiously. “You aren’t disappointed, are you?” he asked with just a trace of jealousy in his query.

“Indeed I’m not,” Mariel replied, looking away. “He isn’t a superman by any means. He’s very human.” And then, as an afterthought, she added: “And modest!”

Jess looked at her a trifle suspiciously. “You know,” he said, “there’s grown to be quite a friendly rivalry between Otis and me.” Mariel shot a doubtful and inquiring glance at him. “Each of us wants to be the first to catch the rustlers who have been getting into our stock,” he went on; and Mariel breathed a sigh of relief.

“We both believe the Radley boys over in Jackson’s Hole are the ones responsible for all this rustling, but so far, we haven’t been able to prove a thing. If the boys ever catch them at it—well, it’s going to be pretty tough on the Radley brothers.”

“But isn’t cattle—er—rustling just plain stealing?”

“Some say it’s worse than that, Miss Mariel.”

“Well, then, why don’t the police, or whoever enforces the laws, arrest these people and bring them to trial?”

Jess laughed good-naturedly.

“Well, there’s several reasons for that. The penalty provided by the law isn’t stiff enough to worry the rustlers much. So the cattle men sort of figure that they can attend to the situation without bothering the Sheriff about it. And they can, usually— if they’re smart enough. But it seems that none of us hereabouts is quite smart enough to catch them in the act. They do say that sooner or later they all get caught. But as long as these rustlers don’t overplay their hand, they may continue to get by almost indefinitely.

“They say that a good many of the ranches in this country were built up by the—er—foresight of their owners in keeping a keen eye on mavericks, and in not being too particular as to what stock they placed their brands on.

“Now, maybe these rustlers are just following their example. Maybe they intend to build up a herd the way the others have done, and then quit rustling and operate—er—legitimately.

“In the second place, the Sheriff can’t go out and arrest Soggy Radley or his brother just because Otis Carr or I or anyone else happens to entertain a suspicion that they’re cattle rustlers. Remember, such a charge would have to be tried before a jury, and so the Sheriff would have to have something more than suspicion before he made an arrest. And maybe the jury would include one or two cow-men who hadn’t been so particular themselves in slapping their brands on stray stock. So, even if you’ve got pretty conclusive evidence, that doesn’t necessarily mean a conviction.

“No, the boys figure on handling the situation themselves, and I guess it’s just as well. Sooner or later Otis or I or some one else is going to get something on these Radley boys. And then they’ll decide to drift along through the Tetons to Idaho or somewhere where the climate’s more agreeable. If they don’t—well, they’ll get what Ed Gunn the outlaw got, when he shot this finger off. They hanged him afterward.”

Mariel, puzzled, shook her head.

“I don’t know that I quite get your point of view out here,” she told Jess soberly. “At home when anything like this happens, we go to the proper authorities, and they do something about it. Here you seem to take things into your own hands, without regard for authorities—that is, if you don’t actually oppose the authorities, as in the case of the forest rangers.”

Jess turned in his saddle and peered at her searchingly.

“Did Otis tell you about our trouble with the ranger here?”

“That picturesque old cowboy, Mr. Sample, told me about some bloodthirsty plot which was being concocted to frighten the ranger into leaving this region. I think it’s a cowardly thing to do!”

“Old Simp?” Jess laughed. “He shoots off his mouth just to hear himself talk. I wouldn’t believe everything he says, Miss Mariel.”

“Then it isn’t true?”

“Well—” Jess hesitated. Without answering her question, he asked: “Did old Simp mention—er—anyone in particular?”

“I think he spoke of their drawing lots to choose one of their number to deliver the threat to the ranger. But I believe he said the man refused to be a party to the outrageous proceeding.”

“Did he mention any names?”

“No, I think not. Why? Do you know the man?”

Jess grunted. “Now, Miss Mariel, you’re asking me to tell you something I shouldn’t.”

Mariel lifted her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Bledsoe. I have no desire to pry into any of your secrets.... Look at those black clouds. Don’t you think we’d better turn back to the far—ranch, I mean?”

Jess was worried, and showed it.

“You wouldn’t want me to turn talebearer, would you, Miss Mariel?” he asked her.

“Not at all,” Mariel replied coolly, reining in her horse. “Don’t you think it’s going to rain?”

Jess laid a gloved hand on her bridle.

“Now, Miss Mariel, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he pleaded. “Can’t you see the position you put me in?”

Mariel turned her back on him—perhaps that he might not see the smile playing about her lips.

“But you admit there was such a conspiracy?”

“If you want to call it that—yes.”

“And Mr. Sample wasn’t stuffing me, then?”

“In the main he was right, I suppose. But old Simp does love to paint things in lurid colors.”

“And you don’t think it’s going to rain?”

Jess scanned the black clouds which now obscured the Tetons.

“These mountain showers don’t last very long. We can find shelter under some of these overhanging rocks.”

“I think I prefer to start back to the ranch. Isn’t this thing rolled up behind my saddle a raincoat?”

“It’s a slicker, Miss Mariel. If you really want to turn back, you’d better put it on before we start.”

At a glance from her he leaned over, untied the thongs which held the slicker, and without dismounting, held it while she thrust her arms in the sleeves.

Mariel, unaccustomed to the foibles of Western horses, drew the yellow oilskin forward with a widespread flourish. Instantly Dynamite, old but temperamental, leaped forward and bolted. Ears laid back, his body close to the ground, he started down the Buffalo Forks road, bent on outrunning the flapping slicker which had frightened him.

His first leap had almost dislodged Mariel from the saddle. She did not scream, but a startled cry of alarm burst from her lips as Dynamite bolted.

She had let the reins drop as she had raised her arms to don the slicker. Now she clutched at the pommel, and clung to it with every ounce of her strength.

Instantly Jess had dug his spurs into his white-stockinged chestnut. He was but two lengths behind old Dynamite, and the chestnut was a far fleeter animal.

Jess might have overtaken Dynamite, and forced him to stop by crowding him into the embankment on the far side of the road. Or he might have grasped the bolting horse’s bridle, causing him to slow down gradually.

But Jess was nothing if not dramatic. He spurred the chestnut forward until he was racing neck-and-neck with Dynamite. He leaned over and grasped Mariel about the waist. He threw his weight back and dragged her from the saddle, meanwhile reining in the chestnut, which came jerkily to a halt.

Jess lowered the girl to the ground. He leaped from the saddle, and an instant later was supporting her with an arm about her waist.

For a moment Mariel clung to him, gasping. Slowly the color returned to her face. Presently she moved away from him uncertainly. He made as if to follow her, but was fended off by an outstretched arm.

“Oh!” she panted, speaking for the first time. “That was splendid of you, Mr. Bledsoe! Why, I might have been killed!”

“It was nothing,” Jess assured her with every appearance of modesty. “I’m glad I could be of service—Mariel.”

It was the first time he had addressed her by her first name. She affected to take no notice of it.

“I don’t know how I can ever repay you,” she protested. “If it hadn’t been for—”

“Forget it!” Jess interrupted magnanimously. “If you feel faint—” He stepped forward again.

“Oh, I’m all right now,” she assured him with a little laugh. “Look at Dynamite. He’s cropping the grass as if he’d never in the world thought of running away.”

Jess knew better than to attempt to press his advantage too far. He stalked forward with jingling spurs and grasped the bridle of Dynamite, who had come to a halt a score of yards away.

“I—I guess we’d better start back. It’s starting to rain,” she faltered, plainly a bit afraid of her mount, who eyed her innocently when Jess led him back.

“Don’t let him see you’re scared of him,” Jess advised, cupping his hands to help her into the saddle. “Just keep that slicker from flapping, and he wont try it again.”

The pounding of hoofs became audible down the road. Both turned, and presently a horseman rounded a turn in the road at a full gallop. He drew in as he came abreast them. It was Spider Ponsonby, a lanky member of the Footstool outfit.

“Heard the news?” he called. And then, without waiting for a reply: “Ranger Joe Fyffe was murdered last night. And the Sheriff’s got Otis Carr under arrest!”

CHAPTER VI

Otis felt the trunk of the tree tremble and give at the first shock of the flood. Almost instantly the rushing waters overwhelmed him. Their icy grip clutched and tore at his arms and legs as he clung to the trunk. All sight and sound was blotted out by the chocolate flood.

Abruptly he became conscious that he no longer was in an upright position. Still clinging to the tree, he felt himself turning over and over with it. He remembered that the roots had been partly exposed in the creek-bank, and knew that the pine had been uprooted by the flood.

For a mere instant he felt himself above the surface. He gasped for breath. Immediately he was plunged beneath the rushing waters again. He clung to the tree with all his strength. He knew that once his legs were torn from the trunk, he would be hurled about by the torrent until his arms, still pinioned by the handcuffs, would be snapped in a dozen places.

Strangely enough, his terror of the instant before had left him. His brain was remarkably clear. He knew that what little chance for life was left him depended upon his clinging to the tree.

His first impulse had been to struggle. Instinct urged him to release his grip, to strive to break his bonds, to fight his way to the surface. But reason conquered. He gripped the whirling tree with every atom of his strength.

With a jar that racked every bone in his body the tree stopped. For just an instant he felt the swift current tugging at his body again. Then he felt the tree lifted from the water.

He shook the water from his eyes. At first he saw a jumble of rocky walls and green trees and blue sky and chocolate water. Then he realized that he was upside down. He saw that the tree-top had collided with a huge boulder. The force of the water was hurling the trunk, roots uppermost, through the arc of a huge circle. The tree-top, jammed against the boulder, formed the axis of the arc.

It seemed ages before the tree was upended, and crashed down again through the lower half of the arc. Clutching leechlike, upside-down, he had time to note that the tree-top was now but a mass of jagged branches, broken off close to the trunk. But although it seemed ages that he was being hurled through the air with the tree, in reality he had barely time to gasp again for air before he was plunged beneath the surface. Once more he felt himself whirling and turning with the tree as it was swept down the rocky gorge.

Otis had feared that he would be crushed in the maelstrom of milling logs and debris at the forefront of the flood. A quick glance while he hung suspended in the air showed him that the boiling surface of the waters was free of all except the smallest branches. He knew that the tree must have withstood the first shock of the flood—the wall of water he had seen bearing the swirling mass of timber.

But the peril of being crushed in the tumbling conglomeration of debris was far from being the only risk. He knew that at any instant he might be battered against a boulder, or ground between the trunk and the rocky walls of the gorge. True, the jagged stumps of the branches at one end of the trunk, and the spreading mass of roots at the other to some extent served to protect him from the rocks. Once, indeed, he felt a shock and became conscious of a numbness in his right leg. He never knew whether it was a jutting boulder or a log which had struck him.

He was becoming dizzy from the ceaseless whirling, and from the repeated necessity of holding his breath. He feared he would become so dazed that his grip on the tree would relax. The tree collided with another rock, and the shock left him breathless.

Strangely enough, he had no fear of drowning, so long as he could remain conscious. He knew that unconsciousness meant drowning, or else being beaten to a lifeless pulp against the rocks. But every few seconds he would find himself thrown above the water as the trunk revolved in the murky maelstrom. And each time he managed to gasp for breath before he was again submerged.

Suddenly above the roar of the flood came a terrific, wrenching crash, accompanied by a shock that left his senses reeling. There was a rending and a tearing of splintered wood. He felt his grip loosen on the rough trunk. The lower part of his body was torn away from the tree.

“This is the end,” was the one thought that emerged from the confusion of his senses.

The flood clutched at him, dragged him along the trunk, his manacled wrists jerking and tearing along the rough bark. Darkness overwhelmed him. He felt that he was floating away on billowy clouds. The roar of the flood grew dim....

Returning consciousness found Otis Carr lying on a high gravel bar. He started to raise a hand to his eyes; but he had forgotten the handcuffs.

He sat up. He still heard the roar of the flood. As his brain cleared, he saw the brown waters rushing past, less than a yard from his feet. A chocolate fountain spurted high in the air where the rushing waters encountered a submerged rock. The tree—

He looked about for the tree that first had been the means of pinioning him in the path of the flood, and then had been the means of saving his life. Thirty yards upstream he saw a mass of roots jammed between two boulders. An immense splinter was all that remained of the bole. The branches and upper portion of the trunk were nowhere to be seen.

Otis rose slowly to his feet. His right leg was still numb. The sleeves of his coat, above the manacles, were ripped and frayed. Blood trickled in a thin stream from beneath one cuff. His clothing was saturated with the muddy water. Every muscle in his body was stiff and sore. He felt of a good-sized lump above one ear, but noted that there was no abrasion.

Gradually, as he stared at the mass of roots jammed in the boulders, it dawned on him what had happened. The tree—his tree—had collided with the boulders with terrific force. The impact had been so great that the trunk had been shattered. The upper part of the tree had been swept downstream by the current, which had dragged him along the splintered portion of the trunk until it had swept him free. It had carried him, too, downstream, to cast him up on the high gravel bar as if he had been but another fragment of driftwood.

He wondered how far downstream he had been swept by the flood. The time he had been buffeted about by the onrush of waters had seemed interminable. He cast about to get his bearings—and to his surprise, he found he was barely three hundred yards from the spot where he had been manacled to the tree.

Slowly, because of his stiffened limbs and handcuffed wrists, he climbed up the rocks and out of the gorge. He made for the Buffalo Forks road sixty yards away, and started back upstream. Rounding a bend in the road, he beheld Pie-face standing, ears upraised inquiringly, not one hundred feet above the spot where Otis had been swept away with the tree.

Otis swung into the saddle, and immediately Pie-face started down the road at a trot. Unlike the cavalry horse, which is trained to stand after the rider mounts until a touch of the heels gives him the signal to go, the range horse moves the instant he feels the weight of the rider in the stirrup. So Otis without directing the horse, found himself headed back toward the Footstool ranch.

For the first time he realized that it might be unwise to return to the ranch, particularly with his wrists in manacles. His narrow escape from the flood had driven from his mind, for the time being, all thought of his predicament resulting from his arrest for the murder of Fyffe. Now it was brought home to him forcibly by the instinctive course of his horse.

What should he do? Undoubtedly he could make his way to the ranch and rid himself of the handcuffs. Any of the ranch employees, he knew, would assist him in filing them off, and would aid in his concealment from the Sheriff, if he asked it. For that matter, virtually any of the cattle men between Jackson and Two-Gwo-Tee would do as much, if they knew he was sought for the slaying of the ranger.

It would be easy enough to make his escape. Nowhere in the United States were conditions more favorable for flight from pursuing officers. Jackson’s Hole lay but a few miles to the west, and beyond the Hole lay the Tetons, offering a secure and inviting sanctuary. More than that, he knew the pursuit would be far from diligent. Undoubtedly Sheriff Ogden, to save his face, would follow him as far as the Tetons. But he knew the Sheriff, if he possessed any sort of an excuse, would probably prefer to have him escape.

And then, the Sheriff might believe him drowned, swept away in the flood, which was still roaring through the gorge. Again, Otis could, if need be, bring pressure to bear upon Ogden if he became too conscientious, simply by revealing that he had left a prisoner, chained and helpless, in the path of the flood.