Mystery Ranch Part 7

As if in answer, Helen Ervin came into the yard with a rake in her hand.

She gave a little cry of pleasure at seeing Lowell.

"I'd have been over before, as I promised," said Lowell, "and in fact I had actually started when I had to make a long trip to a distant part of the reservation."

"I suppose it was in connection with this murder," she said.

"Yes."

"Tell me about it. What bearing did your trip have on it?"

Lowell was surprised at the intensity of her question.

"Well, you see," he said, "I had to bring in a couple of men who are suspected of committing the crime. But, frankly, I thought that in this quiet place you had not so much as heard of the murder."

The girl smiled, but there was no mirth in her eyes.

"Of course it isn't as if one had newsboys shouting at the door," she replied, "but we couldn't escape hearing of it, even here. Tell me, who are these men you have arrested?"

"An Indian and a half-breed. Their tracks were found at the scene of the murder."

"But that evidence is so slight! Surely they cannot--they may not be guilty."

"If not, they will have to clear themselves at the trial."

"Will they--will they be hanged if found guilty?"

"They may be lynched before the trial. There is talk of it now."

Helen made a despairing gesture.

"Don't let anything of that sort happen!" she cried. "Use all your influence. Get the men out of the country if you can. But don't let innocent men be slain."

Lowell attempted to divert her mind to other things. He spoke of the changed appearance of the ranch.

"Your coming has made a great difference here," he said. "This doesn't look like the place where I left you not many days ago."

Helen closed her eyes involuntarily, as if to blot out some vision in her memory.

"That terrible night!" she exclaimed. "I--"

She paused, and Lowell looked at her in surprise and alarm.

"What is it?" he asked. "Is there anything wrong--anything I can do to help you?"

"No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only the recollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly."

"Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treating you all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputation around here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I brought you over here. But you know how people feel about minding their own affairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feel that we should speak."

"No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesickness for my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But I can't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to this place. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate--and dead! And then those few days that followed!"

She buried her face in her hands a moment, and then said, quietly:

"Did you know that my stepfather had married an Indian woman?"

"Yes. Do you mean that you didn't know?"

"No, I didn't know."

"What a fool I was for not telling you these things!" exclaimed Lowell.

"I might have saved you a lot of humiliation."

"You could have saved me more than humiliation. He told me all about her--the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was going to kill me as he had killed her--by inches."

Lowell grew cold with horror.

"But this is criminal!" he declared. "Let me take you away from this place at once. I'll find some place where you can go--back to my mother's home in the East."

"No, it's all right now. I'm in no danger, and I can't leave this place.

In fact I don't want to," said the girl, putting her hand on Lowell's arm.

"Do you mean to tell me that he treated you so fiendishly during the first few days, and then suddenly changed and became the most considerate of relatives?"

"I tell you I am being treated all right now. I merely told you what happened at first--part of the cruel things he said--because I couldn't keep it all to myself any longer. Besides, that Indian woman--poor little thing!--is on my mind all the time."

"Then you won't come away?"

"No--he needs me."

"Well, this beats anything I ever heard of--" began Lowell. Then he stopped after a glance at her face. She was deathly pale. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her hands trembled. It seemed to him that the school-girl he had brought to the ranch a few days before had become a woman through some great mental trial.

"Come and see, or hear, for yourself," said Helen.

Wonderingly, Lowell stepped into the ranch-house kitchen. Helen pointed to the living-room.

Through the partly open door, Lowell caught a glimpse of an aristocratic face, surmounted by gray hair. A white hand drummed on the arm of a library chair which contained pillows and blankets. From the room there came a voice that brought to Lowell a sharp and disagreeable memory of the cutting voice he had heard in false welcome to Helen Ervin a few days before. Only now there was querulous insistence in the voice--the insistence of the sick person who calls upon some one who has proved unfailing in the performance of the tasks of the sick-room.

Helen stepped inside the room and closed the door. Lowell heard her talking soothingly to the sick man, and then she came out.

"You have seen for yourself," she said.

Lowell nodded, and they stepped out into the yard once more.

"I'll leave matters to your own judgment," said Lowell, "only I'm asking two things of you. One is to let me know if things go wrong, and the other isn't quite so important, but it will please me a lot. It's just to go riding with me right now."

Helen smilingly a.s.sented. Once more she was the girl he had brought over from the agency. She ran indoors and spoke a few words to Wong, and came out putting on her hat.

They drove for miles toward the heart of the Indian reservation. The road had changed to narrow, parallel ribbons, with gra.s.s between.

Cattle, some of which belonged to the Indians and some to white leasers, were grazing in the distance. Occasionally they could see an Indian habitation--generally a log cabin, with its ugliness emphasized by the grace of a flanking tepee. Everything relating to human affairs seemed dwarfed in such immensity. The voices of Indian herdsmen, calling to each other, were reduced to faint murmurs. The very sound of the motor seemed blanketed.