Once in the ranger station, however, Dewitt’s spirits soon revived. He was in his element, putting through telephone calls, requisitioning cars, assuming command. And Marion had to admit reluctantly that as an executive he showed to advantage.
While they were waiting for the car to arrive from Boise, Ted Meeker, the rancher who lived about half a mile away and who had arrived in a state of excitement after quite frankly having listened over the party phone, fell into conversation with Hank.
“How’s the stock coming?” Hank asked.
“Pretty good. There certainly is lots of feed in this meadow during about eight months of the year.”
“How are the horses?”
“Fine.”
“Got any you want to sell?”
Meeker grinned. “None you’d want to buy.”
“Haven’t had a stray in here, have you?”
“Say, there is, for a fact,” Meeker said. “When the horses came in to hay last winter, there was a black that came in. Big, powerful horse. I haven’t seen him before, and I don’t know who owns him. There’s no brand.”
“White left front foot? Star on his forehead?” Hank asked, rolling a cigarette deftly with one hand.
“That’s right.”
“Back in good shape?” Hank asked casually.
“It is now,” Meeker said and laughed. “Wasn’t quite so good when he came in.”
“Maybe fifteen years old? Sort of swaybacked?” Lucas asked. “Don’t tell me you own him?”
“Nope. But I know who does.”
“Well, by this time the owner’s got a feed bill.”
Marion listened absentmindedly to this conversation, not quite understanding its implications. As the sister of a murderer she found herself in the position of being apart from the little group. She knew, in fact, that Dewitt had even disliked having her in the room where she could listen to the telephone instructions which had gone out pertaining to the apprehension of Harry Benton. It was a welcome relief, therefore, when she heard the sound of an automobile motor anti realized that they would be on the move again...
The drive to the county scat was a long one, and it was nearly noon when the party finally reported to Bill Catlin. They were all exhausted.
The old country sheriff eyed them curiously. His manner was calm, unhurried, and deliberate. “Looks to me like you’ve been takin’ it pretty hard,” he said to Dewitt. “Maybe you’d better roll in for a while before we do anything else.”
Dewitt squared his shoulders. “I can’t sleep when there are a lot of things to be done. I won’t rest until I know every wheel has been set in motion.”
“Well, now, we can take over from here,” the sheriff assured him philosophically.
Dewitt shook his head. “I don’t want to appear conceited, but it just happens I’m here. I’m going to keep on the job.”
Bill Catlin said, somewhat whimsically, “Guess us country boys wouldn’t do so well in the city.”
Dewitt smiled.
“On the other hand,” Catlin said, “we manage to get by out here in our country.”
“I hope,” Dewitt said, “that the time will come when we have a city-trained man available in every county in the United States.”
“Well, now, that just might be a good thing,” Bill said.
Dewitt’s voice was rasping from fatigue: “Well, let’s finish up this case if you don't mind.”
“You mean finish it up right now?”
“That’s right. Arrest one of the guilty parties.”
“Who?”
“Use your head,” Dewitt said impatiently. “Reconstruct the crime. Put two and two together.”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“Hank Lucas tells me that he knows that packhorse, has known it for some time. He knows the man who sold it to Adrian.”
Catlin nodded.
“That packhorse showed up down by the ranger station after snowfall last year when the horses came in to get fed. He’d been feeding out on the range before then.”
Again Catlin nodded.
“Surely you can see what happened,” Dewitt went on, trying to hold back his impatience. “There in the cabin we found some buttons in the stove, meaning that some garments had been burned up. We didn’t find a single tiring in the line of wearing apparel, blankets, personal possessions, or anything. Just a few dishes and odds and ends of that sort. In other words, the cabin had been fixed up very carefully so that any person who happened to stumble onto it wouldn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary. It would appear that the trappers who had been in it had taken their furs at the end of the winter season and gone on out to sell them.”
“So Hank was telling me,” the sheriff said.
“All right,” Dewitt said. “Benton killed Frank Adrian. He loaded all the stuff on the packhorse and walked out to the ranch by the ranger station, where he struck the highway. He unpacked the horse and turned him loose.”
“Then what?” Catlin asked.
“Then he vanished.”
“Seems like he did, for a fact,” the sheriff said.
“Well,” Dewitt said impatiently, “my God, do I have to rub your nose in it? Figure out what happened. That wasn’t any cabin-fever killing. That was willful, premeditated murder. Adrian had quite a roll of cash on him. Benton got out with it. What happened? He got to that road and unpacked his packhorse. He didn't just evaporate into thin air. Someone met him with an automobile. It had to be someone who was in on the play, someone who could keep an eye on things and wait until people were about ready to launch an investigation, and then contrive to show up and be very solicitous about her ‘dear brother.’ In other words, it’s just as plain as the nose on your face that Marion Benton was her brother’s accomplice and the murder of Frank Adrian was premeditated.”
Marion jumped to her feet. “How dare you say anything like that?”
“Now, just a minute, ma’am,” Bill Catlin said authoritatively. “If you wouldn’t mind just sitting down and keeping quiet, I'll ask you questions when I get around to it. But right now we’re having an official investigation, and Mr. Dewitt is doing the talking.”
Marion subsided into the chair.
Corliss Adrian said to the sheriff, “He could have hitchhiked in. I don’t think Miss Benton was in on it.”
“Don't be silly, Corliss,” Dewitt said. “I can appreciate your desire to be charitable. Miss Benton has imposed on all of us with her superb job of acting, but I'm looking at the thing from the standpoint of a trained investigator.”
Marion started to say something, but the sheriff motioned her to silence.
“Figure it out,” Dewitt went on. “That murder was committed sometime before snow, sometime before the ground froze. The men had gone in there planning to prospect and then to trap. They had taken in enough supplies to last them through the winter, probably all of the supplies they could possibly load on one packhorse. There must have been quite a bit of stuff. Benton had to load all that and pack it out. Then he had to get rid of it.
“I’ve asked particularly about traffic along that road. Except during hunting season, there’s virtually no one who uses it other than the ranger and the chap who has the ranch there, plus the man who delivers the mail.
“I try to do things thoroughly. I’ve talked on the telephone to the mailman, and I asked him particularly if he remembered picking up anyone with a lot of camp equipment.”
“Couldn’t he have hidden the camp equipment?” Corliss asked.
“Too dangerous,” Dewitt said shortly. “There must have been a lot of provisions which had to be disposed of some way — bacon, flour, sugar, coffee. Then there were blankets and traps. To simply dump that stuff out somewhere would be taking too many chances. The minute anyone found that cache of stuff, he’d know something had happened.”