Ames found his fishing rod and creel where he had left them. He slipped the soggy strap of the creel over his shoulder, started to pick up the rod, then stopped. His woodsman’s eyes told him that the position of the rod had been changed since he had left it. Had it perhaps been the wind which accompanied the storm? He had no time to debate the matter, for once more raindrops began to patter ominously.
Picking up his rod, he swung into a long, rapid stride, the rain whipping against his back as he walked. He knew that there was no use trying to wait out this show. This would be a steady, sodden rain.
By the time Frank Ames reached his cabin he was wet to the skin.
He put pine-pitch kindling and dry wood into the stove, and soon had a roaring fire. He lit the gasoline lantern, divested himself of his wet clothes, took the two medium-sized fish from the creel and fried them for supper. He read a magazine, noticed casually that the rain on the cabin roof stopped about nine-thirty, listened to the news on the radio and went to bed. His sleep was punctuated with dreams of women who screamed and ran aimlessly through the forest, of shrewd-eyed city men who regarded him with patronizing cordiality, of snub-nosed, laughing-eyed women who pursued him with pronged spears, their mouths giving vent to sardonic laughter.
Ames was up with the first grayness of morning. The woodshed yielded dry wood, and, as the aroma of coffee filled the little cabin, Ames poured water into the jar of sour dough, thickened the water with flour, beat it to just the right consistency and poured out sour-dough hot cakes.
He had finished with the breakfast dishes and the chores, and was contemplating the stream which danced by in the sunlight just beyond the long shadows of the pine trees, when his eyes suddenly rested with startled disbelief on the two rounded manzanita pegs which had been driven into holes drilled in the wall of the log cabin.
The .22 rifle, with its telescopic sight, was missing.
The space immediately below, where his .30-.30 rifle hung suspended from pegs, was as usual, and the .30-.30 was in place. Only the place where the .22 should have been was vacant.
Ames heard steps outside the door. A masculine voice called, “Hello! Anyone home?”
“Who is it?” Ames called, whirling.
The form of Sheriff Bill Eldon was framed in the doorway.
“Howdy,” he said. “Guess I should drop in and introduce myself. I’m Bill Eldon, sheriff of the county.”
Ames took in the spare figure, tough as gristle, straight as a lodgepole pine, a man who was well past middle age, but who moved with the easy, lithe grace of a man in his thirties, a man who carried not so much as an ounce of unnecessary weight, whose eyes, peering out from under shaggy eyebrows, had the same quality of fierce penetration which is so characteristic of the hawks and eagles, yet his manner and voice were mild.
“I’m camped up the stream a piece with a couple of head of pack stock,” the sheriff said, “just riding through. This country up here is in my county and I sort of make a swing around through it during the fishing season. I was up here last year, but missed you. They said you were in town.”
Ames stretched out his hand. “Come right in, sheriff, and sit down. Ames is my name. I’m mighty glad to know you. I’ve heard about you.”
Bill Eldon thanked him, walked over to one of the homemade chairs built from pine slabs and baling wire, settled himself comfortably, rolled a cigarette. “Been up here long?”
“Couple of years. I run a trap line in the winters. I have a small allowance and I’m trying to stretch it as far as possible so I can build up health and a bank account at the same time — just enough for operating capital.”
Eldon crossed his legs, said, “Do you get around the country much?”
“Some.”
“Seen the folks camped down below?”
“Yes. I met some of them yesterday. I guess they came in the other way.”
“That’s right. Quite an outfit. Know any of the people camped up above?”
“I didn’t know there were any.”
“I didn’t know there were either,” the sheriff said, and then was quiet.
Ames cocked an eyebrow in quizzical interrogation.
“Seen anybody up that way?” Eldon asked.
“There are some folks camped up on Squaw Creek, but that’s six miles away. A man and his wife.”
“I know all about them,” the sheriff said. “I met them on the trail. Haven’t seen anything of a man about thirty-five, dark hair, stubby, close-cut mustache, gray eyes, about a hundred and sixty pounds, five feet, eight or nine inches tall, wearing big hobnail boots with wool socks rolled down over the tops of the boots — new boots?”
Ames shook his head.
“Seems as though he must have been camped up around here somewhere,” the sheriff said.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Mind taking a little walk with me?” the sheriff asked.
Ames, suddenly suspicious, said, “I have a few chores to do. I—”
“This is along the line of business,” the sheriff answered, getting up out of the chair with the casual, easy grace of a wild animal getting to its feet.
“If you put it that way, I guess we’ll let the chores go,” Ames said.
They left the cabin and swung up the trail. Ames’ long legs moved in the steady rhythm of space-devouring strides. The sheriff kept pace with him, although his shorter legs made him take five strides to the other man’s four.
For some five minutes they walked silently, walking abreast where the trail was wide; then as the trail narrowed, the sheriff took the lead, setting a steady, unwavering pace.
Abruptly Bill Eldon held up his hand as a signal to halt. “Now from this point on,” he said, “I’d like you to be kind of careful about not touching things. Just follow me.”
He swung from the side of the trail, came to a little patch of quaking asp and a spring.
A man was stretched on the ground by the spring, lying rigid and inert.
Eldon circled the body. “I’ve already gone over the tracks,” he said. And then added dryly, “There ain’t any, except the ones made by his own boots, and they’re pretty faint.”
“What killed him?” Ames asked.
“Small-caliber bullet, right in the side of the head,” the sheriff said.
Ames stood silently looking at the features discolored by death, the stubby mustache, the dark hair, the new hobnail boots with the wool socks turned down over the tops.
“When — when did it happen?”
“Don’t rightly know,” the sheriff said. “Apparently it happened before the thunderstorm yesterday. Tracks are pretty well washed out. You can see where he came running down this little slope. Then he jumped to one side and then to the other. Didn’t do him no good. He fell right here. But the point is, his tracks are pretty indistinct, almost washed out by that rainstorm. If it hadn’t been for the hobnails on his new boots, I doubt if we’d have noticed his tracks at all.
“Funny thing is,” the sheriff went on, “you don’t see any stock. He must have packed in his little camp stuff on his back. Pretty husky chap but he doesn’t look like a woodsman.”
Ames nodded.
“Wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?” the sheriff asked.
Ames shook his head.
“Happened to be walking down the stream yesterday afternoon just a little bit before the rain came up,” the sheriff said. “Didn’t see this fellow’s tracks anywhere in the trail and didn’t see any smoke. Wouldn’t have known he had a camp here if it hadn’t been for—”