They Of The High Trails Part 58

I can't make out which of these raiders she ran away with."

"She's going to defend them both," said Throop; "and she's going to deny everything. I'd like to work the third degree on her. I'd bet I'd find out what she was doing down at Watson's."

Helen, who knew the value which her defenders placed on the correspondence between Rita's shoes and the footprint, was very grave as she said: "I hope she had no part in the murder. Mrs. Throop says she is hardly more than a child."

"Well," warned the sheriff, "we're not the court. It's up to Carmody and his jury."

They said no more about the trial, and Hanscom soon left the room with intent to find a lawyer who would be willing for a small fee to represent the Kauffmans--a quest in which he was unsuccessful.

The sheriff followed him out. "Reckon I'd better take you up to Carmody's office in my car," he said. "Kitsong may succeed in clapping a warrant on your head."

VIII

The valley had wakened early in expectation of an exciting day. The news of the capture of Busby and his companions had been telephoned from house to house and from ranch to ranch, and the streets were already filled with farmers and their families, adorned as for a holiday. The entire population of Sh.e.l.lfish Canon had a.s.sembled, voicing high indignation at the ranger's interference. Led by Abe and Eli, who busily proclaimed that the arrest of Henry and his companions was merely a trick to divert suspicion from the Kauffman woman, they advanced upon the coroner.

Abe had failed of getting a warrant for the ranger, but boasted that he had the promise of one as soon as the inquest should be ended.

"Furthermore," he said, "old Louis Cuneo is on his way over the range, and I'll bet something will start the minute he gets in."

Carmody, who was disposed to make as much of his position as the statutes permitted, had called the hearing in a public hall which stood a few doors south of his office, and at ten o'clock the aisles were so jammed with expectant auditors that Throop was forced to bring his witnesses in at the back door. Nothing like this trial in the way of free entertainment had been offered since the day Jim Nolan was lynched from the railway bridge.

Hanscom was greatly cheered by the presence of his chief, Supervisor Rawlins, who came into the coroner's office about a quarter to ten. He had driven over from Cambria in anxious haste, greatly puzzled by the rumors which had reached him. He was a keen young Marylander, a college graduate, with considerable experience in the mountain West. He liked Hanscom and trusted him, and when the main points of the story were clear in his mind he said:

"You did perfectly right, Hans, and I'll back you in it. I'm something of a dabster at law myself, and I'll see that Kitsong don't railroad you into jail. What worries me is the general opposition now being manifested. With the whole Sh.e.l.lfish Valley on edge, your work will be hampered. It will make your position unpleasant for a while at least."

Hanscom uneasily s.h.i.+fted his glance. "That doesn't matter. I'm going to quit the work, anyhow."

"Oh no, you're not!"

"Yes, I am. I wrote out my resignation this morning."

Rawlins was sadly disturbed. "I hate to have you let this gang drive you out."

"It isn't that," replied Hanscom, somberly. "The plain truth is, Jack, I've lost interest in the work. If Miss McLaren is cleared--and she will be--she'll go East, and I don't see myself going back alone into the hills."

The supervisor studied him in silence for a moment, and his voice was gravely sympathetic as he said: "I see! This girl has made your cabin seem a long way from town."

"She's done more than that, Jack. She's waked me up. She's shown me that I can't afford to ride trail and camp and cook and fight fire any more.

I've got to get out into the world and rustle a home that a girl like her can be happy in. I'm started at last. I want to do something. I'm as ambitious as a ward politician!"

The supervisor smiled. "I get you! I'm sorry to lose you, but I guess you are right. If you're bent on winning a woman, you're just about obliged to jump out and try something else. But don't quit until I have time to put a man in your place."

Hanscom promised this, although at the moment he had a misgiving that the promise might prove a burden, and together they walked over to the hall.

The crowded room was very quiet as the ranger and his chief entered and took seats near the platform on which the coroner and his jury were already seated. It was evident, even at a glance, that the audience was very far from being dominated, or even colored, by the Sh.e.l.lfish crowd, and yet, as none of the spectators, men or women, really knew the Kauffmans, they could not be called friendly. They were merely curious.

Hanscom was somewhat relieved to find that the jury was not precisely the same as it had been on the hillside. An older and better man had replaced Steve Billop, a strong partisan of Kitsong's; but to counter-balance this a discouraging feature developed in the presence of William Raines, a dark, oily, whisky-soaked man of sixty, a lawyer whose small practice lay among the mountaineers of Watson's type.

"He's here as Kitsong's attorney," whispered the ranger, who regretted that he had not made greater efforts to secure legal aid. However, the presence of his chief, a man of education and experience, rea.s.sured him in some degree.

Carmody, rejoicing in his legal supremacy, and moved by love of drama, opened proceedings with all the dignity and authority of a judge, explaining in sonorous terms that this was an adjourned session of an inquest upon the death of one Edward Watson, a rancher on the Sh.e.l.lfish.

"New witnesses have been secured and new evidence has developed," he said in closing, "and Mr. L. J. Hanscom, the forest ranger, who has important testimony to give, will first take the stand."

Though greatly embarra.s.sed by the eyes of the vast audience and somewhat intimidated by the judicial tone of Carmody's voice, Hanscom went forward and told his story almost without interruption, and at the end explained his own action.

"Of course, I didn't intend to help anybody side-step justice when I took the Kauffmans to the station, because I heard the coroner say he had excused them."

"What about those raiders?" asked one of the jurors. "Did you recognize the man who shot Kauffman's horse?"

Carmody interrupted: "We can't go into that. That has no connection with the question which we are to settle, which is, Who killed Watson?"

"Seems to me there is a connection," remarked Rawlins. "If those raiders were the same people Hanscom arrested in the cabin, wouldn't it prove something as to their character?"

"Sure thing!" answered another of the jurors.

"A man who would shoot a horse like that might shoot a man, 'pears to me," said a third.

"All right," said Carmody. "Mr. Hanscom, you may answer. Did you recognize the man who fired that shot?"

"No, he was too far away; but the horse he rode was a sorrel--the same animal which the Cuneo girl rode."

Raines interrupted: "Will you _swear_ to that?"

"No, I won't swear to it, but I think--"

Raines was savage. "Mr. Coroner, we don't want what the witness _thinks_--we want what he _knows_."

"Tell us what you know," commanded Carmody.

"I know this," retorted Hanscom. "The man who fired that shot rode a sorrel blaze-faced pony and was a crack gunman. To drop a running horse at that distance is pretty tolerable shooting, and it ought to be easy to prove who the gunner was. I've heard say Henry Kitsong--"

"I object!" shouted Raines, and Carmody sustained the objection.

"Pa.s.sing now to your capture of the housebreakers," said he, "tell the jury how you came to arrest the girl."

"Well, as I entered the cabin the girl Rita was sitting with her feet on a stool, and the size and shape of her shoe soles appeared to me about the size and shape of the tracks made in the flour, and I had just started to take one of her shoes in order to compare it with the drawings I carried in my pocket-book when Busby jumped me. I had to wear him out before I could go on; but finally I made the comparison and found that the soles of her shoes fitted the tracks exactly. Then I decided to bring her down, too."

A stir of excited interest pa.s.sed over the hall, but Raines checked it by asking: "Did you compare the shoes with the actual tracks on the porch floor?"

"No, only with the drawings I had made in my note-book."

Raines waved his hand contemptuously. "That proves nothing. We don't know anything about those drawings."

"I do," retorted Carmody, "and so does the jury; but we can take that matter up later. You can step down, Mr. Hanscom, and we'll hear James B.

Durgin."

Durgin, a bent, gray-bearded old rancher, took the stand and swore that he had witnessed a hot wrangle between Kauffman and Watson, and that he had heard the Dutchman say, "I'll get you for this!"