Desert Conquest Part 46

"She's the old stock--the old frontier stock! And Sandy, locking the detective in the harness room!" He chuckled. "Go down and let them out, Casey, and give them breakfast. A fine pair of children we've got, mother."

"Sandy can take care of himself," said Mrs. McCrae practically. "He always did, since he could walk, and he took his own ways, asking n.o.body. And Sheila, for a girl, is the same. They take after you, Donald, not me. But now, Casey, Mrs. Wade is at Chakchak, isn't she?"

"Mrs. Wade and Miss Burnaby," Casey replied. "It's all right, Mrs.

McCrae."

"Sheila needs no chaperon," said her father.

"Not with Casey," said her mother. "But there's the gossip, Donald, and the dirty tongues. It's not like the old days."

"True enough, maybe," McCrae admitted. And he added, when his wife had left the room: "What have they got hold of to arrest the boy, Casey?"

"I don't know," Casey replied. "But we'll face the music, Donald."

When Casey entered the harness room Gla.s.s and another man, a stranger, lay in one corner on a heap of sacks. Sandy had done a most workmanlike job, and he had put a neat finish to it by strapping each man to a stanchion with a pair of driving reins.

"Good morning, gentlemen," said Casey.

"Is it?" said Gla.s.s, sourly. His old hesitating manner had quite vanished.

"Beautiful," Casey replied. "Sun shining, birds singing, crops growing.

'G.o.d's in His heaven; all's well with the world.' Like to take a look at it? Or are you too much attached to your present surroundings?"

"You can cut out the funny stuff," said Gla.s.s. "I don't ever laugh before breakfast."

"Quite right, too," Casey replied. "Just roll over a little till I get at those knots. There you are, Mr. Gla.s.s. Now your friend here. Don't think I know him."

"Jack Pugh, sheriff's officer," said Gla.s.s, rising stiffly, with considerable difficulty.

"I'll have him in shape to shake hands in a minute," said Casey, as he worried at the knots. "And so, Mr. Gla.s.s, instead of an innocent landlooker you are a real live, mysterious detective. You don't look the part. Or perhaps you are still disguised."

"I can stand a josh better now," said Gla.s.s. "Maybe I'm not such a live proposition as I might be. When two grown men let a kid hogtie them it sort of starts them thinking."

"It sure does," Pugh agreed. He was a saturnine gentleman, with a humorous eye. "I been wantin' to scratch my nose for eight solid hours," he affirmed irrelevantly, rubbing that organ violently with his free hand.

"He's some kid," said Gla.s.s. "Where is he?"

"I haven't seen him. He left word where to find you."

"Beat it somewhere, I suppose," Gla.s.s commented. "He fooled us up in great style, I'll say that much. At first he acted about the way you'd expect a country kid to act--scared to death. He wanted to change his overalls for pants before we took him anywhere. Said they were hanging up in here. We fell for it. We came in, and there was a pair of pants hanging on a nail. He walked over to them, and the next thing we knew he had a gun on us. I hope I know when a man means business--and he did. He had half a notion to shoot anyway."

"That's right," Pugh confirmed. "He's one of them kids that makes gunmen. No bluff. I know the kind."

"So when he told me to tie Pugh I did it," Gla.s.s continued. "Then he dropped a loop over me, and that's all there is to tell. The joke's on us just now."

"So it is," said Casey. "Whatever made you think that kid had anything to do with blowing up the dam?"

"Hadn't he?"

Casey smiled genially. "Why, how should I know, Mr. Gla.s.s? I was just asking what you were going on."

"I'm not showing my hand. I don't say the kid did it alone."

"And so you thought you'd round him up and sweat some information out of him. That was it, wasn't it?"

"You're quite a guesser and you show a whole lot of interest in the answer," retorted Gla.s.s. "Keep on guessing."

"I don't need to. Come up to the house and have breakfast. And for Heaven's sake don't say anything to frighten the kid's mother."

"What do you take us for?" said Gla.s.s. "We'll treat the whole thing as a joke--to her."

Casey breakfasted with them, and after they had gone sought Simon. The old Indian, full to repletion, was squatting on the kitchen steps, smoking and blinking sleepily.

"No see um Sandy," he observed. "Where him stop?"

"No more Sandy stop this _illahee_," Casey replied. "Sandy _klatawa kopa_ stone _illahee_, all same Tom." Meaning that Sandy had gone in the direction of the hills, as had McHale.

"Why him _klatawa_?" Simon asked.

Casey explained, and Simon listened gravely. His receptiveness was enormous. Information dropped into him as into a bottomless pit, vanishing without splash.

"Sandy _hyas_ young fool," he commented. "Me tell him _mamook huyhuy_ moccasin. S'pose moccasin stop, _ikt_ man findum, then heltopay.

Polisman _mamook_ catchum, put um in _skook.u.m_ house, maybeso hang um _kopa_ neck."

"What are you talking about, anyway?" Casey demanded. And Simon told him of the track of the patched moccasin and of his warning to Sandy.

Casey immediately fitted things together. He knew that Sandy's right moccasin was almost invariably worn through at the toe. Before they left he had seen him patching them, and because they wore through at the same place the patches were of nearly the same shape. So that if Gla.s.s had found a patched moccasin it was not necessarily the one which had made the track. But that would make little difference. Either Farwell or his a.s.sistant must have told Gla.s.s about this track. If he had found a pair of Sandy's moccasins to correspond with the footprint he had come very near getting Sandy with the goods. But Farwell or somebody must have directed Gla.s.s's suspicions to Sandy.

However that was, Sandy had made a clean get-away into a region where he would be hard to catch. He was familiar with the trails, the pa.s.ses, the little basins and pockets nestling in the hills. He was well provisioned and well armed. And the last caused Casey some uneasiness, for having once resisted arrest Sandy would be very apt to do so again.

"Simon," he said, "I want you to take papah letter to Tom."

"Where Tom stop?" Simon asked naturally enough.

"Maybe at Sunk Springs," Casey replied. "Maybe not. You try Sunk Springs. S'pose no Tom stop there, you _nanitch_ around till you find him."

"All right," said Simon. "Me _nanitch_, me find Tom." He considered a moment. "_Halo_ grub stop me?"

"I'll tell them to grubstake you here," Casey rea.s.sured him. "I'll pay you, too, of course."

"You my _tillik.u.m_," said Simon, with great dignity. "Tom my _tillik.u.m_.

Good! Me like you. How much you pay?"

"Two dollars a day," said Casey promptly.

Simon looked grieved and pained. "You my tillik.u.m," he repeated.

"S'pose my _tillik.u.m_ work for me, me pay him five dolla'."

But Casey was unmoved by this touching appeal to friendship. "I'll remember that if I ever work for you," he replied. "Two dollars and grub is plenty. You Siwashes are spoiled by people who don't know any better than to pay what you ask. That's all you'll get from me. Your time's worth nothing, and your cayuses rustle for themselves."