Instead, he asked:
“How can you help it? You don’t happen by any chance to know where they’re heading, do you? It isn’t likely they told you, seeing how they double-crossed you.”
Koenig glared and uttered an oath.
“No, I don’t know where they’re heading,” he growled. “But I know something else.”
“What?” Nicholson inquired.
“Never mind what,” the horse thief answered. “But something that’ll pin a damn sight more serious charge against them double-crossing rats than hoss thieving ever will.”
Nicholson was all attention, but he didn’t allow Koenig to see that his words had aroused any particular interest.
“What you doing? Giving me a stall?” he drawled.
“No! It ain’t a stall.”
“What is it then?”
“If you want to find out, I’ll show you,” Koenig replied. “I’ll lead you to a place where you’ll find something worth while to work on.”
“It’s a go,” the sergeant told him. “Let’s get moving,”
II
Turning their horses’ heads toward the east, they rode off, Koenig in the lead, showing the way, and the Mounty close behind, his gun always in readiness in case the horse thief showed some sign of treachery. But this he did not expect. Koenig seemed too intent upon turning the tables on his two former companions.
For some time now the plain had been gradually dropping away to the left. The broken country encompassed them. They were traveling, Nicholson noticed, along a winding, dry watercourse from which arose, to right and left, low hills, soft and round. The surroundings were not unfamiliar to the trooper. He realized they had been traveling in a wide semicircle and were now somewhere in the vicinity of Ponoka.
Late in the afternoon they came to a weather-beaten but sturdily built shack in a clearing. It was shut off from the trail by a thick growth of foliage. The heavy door, built of logs, was padlocked.
“You’ll find the key down there,” Koenig said, pointing to a pile of dirt and refuse before the door. “Dig around in it a bit.”
While the horse thief looked on with a sneer, Nicholson did so, but with no success.
“Hell, I could find it in no time if you didn’t have me handcuffed,” Koenig declared. “Heard ’em tell where it was often enough. Can’t do it when you have me manacled.”
He paused and surveyed the trooper, his eyes wandering maliciously toward the Mounty’s rifle.
“Ain’t afraid of me, are you?” he jeered. “You got the gun, not me.”
There was truth in what he said. Common sense, too. Koenig was unarmed, while Nicholson had both revolver and rifle. Only a fool would attack a man so heavily armed. And the trooper was now firmly convinced that Koenig wasn’t that sort of a fool.
He unlocked the handcuffs and carefully stood guard while the horse thief knelt down to search for the key. He found it without difficulty, and a moment later the door was opened and the two men pushed their way into the musty, cold interior of the abandoned shack. Koenig led the way to a large, rusty iron stove.
Without hesitation, he removed all of the stove lids and, as Nicholson followed his actions, he saw that the stove was choked to the top.
“Take a shovel full of that and see what you find,” Koenig said, pointing to a small coal shovel that stood propped against the stove.
It did not take the trooper long to discover that it had been a grisly fuel, that had been burned in the stove the last time it was used.
As he took out the ashes and spread them methodically on the floor, he saw among them several partly burned bones, bones from a human hand unless he was greatly mistaken.
Digging deeper into the ashes, he came upon a large, round object, which, as he lifted it from the stove, drove from his mind any doubts that might have existed there. It was a human skull, with the top crushed in!
Koenig had indeed led him upon something far more serious than horse stealing. Murder!
Placing the skull on the floor, he turned to his captive.
“Who was it?” he asked.
Koenig shook his head negatively. “Don’t know,” he said somewhat wearily.
Then he told how he had chanced to overhear Burke and Skinner talking one night when they thought he was asleep. From what he had gathered from their conversation they had waylaid someone on the lonely trail near the shack, killed him and taken the body to dispose of it.
He yawned and stretched himself as he finished speaking. The contents of the stove did not seem to interest him in the least. He appeared tired and fatigued.
“Mind if I lay down for a bit?” he asked, at the same time commencing to unbutton his fur coat.
It wasn’t surprising he was fatigued. Nicholson was himself, for they had been in the saddle most of the day.
Koenig threw off his coat and rolled it into a pillow before Nicholson had an opportunity to reply to the request.
After all, he figured he might as well let his prisoner lie down. It was at least a humane thing to do. And he wanted to gather together and study the gruesome remains he had taken from the rusty stove, and look about the place for further evidence. Later, he would handcuff his prisoner again and they would push on to Ponoka. There Koenig could be safely lodged at patrol headquarters, and Nicholson could get a good night’s rest before renewing the journey to Edmonton.
As he nodded assent, Koenig spoke again. “They talked about the store room, too,” he said. “ ’Bout something being left in there.”
With that he sprawled out on the floor, adjusted the coat under his head and closed his eyes.
Nicholson looked toward the store room that led off the main room of the cabin. He’d take a look in there. Not that he hadn’t intended to, anyway. Murder had been committed. It was evident that Burke and Skinner were the murderers. But how to catch them? The description of the pair was meager, and their names… well, Burke and Skinner were in all probability names they had adopted. If not, they were certainly names that could easily be dropped.
The essential thing was to discover a clew as to the identity of the murdered man. As long as his name remained a mystery, the odds were that it would be some time, if at all, before the murderers were caught.
Koenig’s last remark, however, caused Nicholson to stop and ponder. Then a light of keen anticipation came into his eyes. The store room might supply the essential clew!
He stood over his prisoner a moment, saw that he had fallen into a doze, and then crossed the room and pushed open the heavy store room door. It was dark inside. There was only a small window and twilight was gathering outside.
He would need a light before he could do any investigating. A search of the cabin, however, revealed that both of the lamps were dry of oil. He would have to use matches.
Resting his rifle against the store room wall, he struck a match. But just as it flared, the heavy door slammed shut and he heard the lock snap shut on the outside.
Koenig had not been asleep. It was Nicholson who had been napping.
With all the force at his command he threw himself at the door, but it did not budge. He heard Koenig running from the cabin.
Quickly he drew his revolver and tried to shoot out the lock, but although he emptied the gun into the heavy wood, it was no use.
The lone window in the room was the trooper’s only means of escape and pursuit. He rushed to it only to find that it was too small for him to squeeze through.
Even if it had been large enough, there would not have been time, for the horse thief, coat in hand, was running, as fast as his bow legs would carry him, across the clearing in the gathering dusk. As he ran he glanced excitedly back toward the store room window.