“Oh, of course!” Miss Georgie went to the window to make sure of the gentleman’s whereabouts. He was still sitting upon the store porch, and he was just in the act of lifting a tall, glass mug of beer to his gross mouth when she looked over at him. “Pig!” she gritted under her breath. “It’s a pity he doesn’t drink himself to death.” She turned and faced Peaceful anxiously.
“You spoke a while ago as if you didn’t trust him implicitly,” she said. “I firmly believe he hired those eight men to file on your land. I believe he also hired Saunders to watch Grant, for some reason—perhaps because Grant has shown his hostility from the first. Did you know Saunders—or someone—has been shooting at Grant from the top of the bluff for—well, ever since you left? The last shot clipped his hat-brim. Then Saunders was shot—or shot himself, according to the inquest—and there has been no more rifle practice with Grant for the target.”
“N-no, I hadn’t heard about that.” Peaceful pulled hard at his beard so that his lips were drawn slightly apart. “I don’t mind telling yuh,” he added slowly, “that I’ve got another lawyer working on the case—Black. He hates Baumberger, and he’d like to git something on him. I don’t want Baumberger should know anything about it, though. He takes it for granted I swallow whole everything he says and does—but I don’t. Not by a long shot. Black’ll ferret out any crooked work.”
“He’s a dandy if he catches Baumberger,” Miss Georgie averred, gloomily. “I tried a little detective work on my own account. I hadn’t any right; it was about the cipher messages Saunders used to send and receive so often before your place was jumped. I was dead sure it was old Baumberger at the other end, and I—well, I struck up a mild sort of flirtation with the operator at Shoshone.” She smiled deprecatingly at Peaceful.
“I wanted to find out—and I did by writing a nice letter or two; we have to be pretty cute about what we send over the wires,” she explained, “though we do talk back and forth quite a lot, too. There was a news-agent and cigar man—you know that kind of joint, where they sell paper novels and magazines and tobacco and such—getting Saunders’ messages. Jim Wakely is his name. He told the operator that he and Saunders were just practicing; they were going to be detectives, he said, and rigged up a cipher that they were learning together so they wouldn’t need any codebook. Pretty thin that—but you can’t prove it wasn’t the truth. I managed to find out that Baumberger buys cigars and papers of Jim Wakely sometimes; not always, though.”
Miss Georgie laughed ruefully, and patted her pompadour absent-mindedly.
“So all I got out of that,” she finished, “was a correspondence I could very well do without. I’ve been trying to quarrel with that operator ever since, but he’s so darned easy-tempered!” She went and looked out of the window again uneasily.
“He’s guzzling beer over there, and from the look of him he’s had a good deal more than he needs already,” she informed Peaceful. “He’ll burst if he keeps on. I suppose I shouldn’t keep you any longer—he’s looking this way pretty often, I notice; nothing but the beer-keg holds him, I imagine. And when he empties that—” She shrugged her shoulders, and sat down facing Hart.
“Maybe you could bribe Jim Wakely into giving something away,” she suggested. “I’d sure like to see Baumberger stub his toe in this deal! Or maybe you could get around one of those eight beauties you’ve got camping down on your ranch—but there isn’t much chance of that; he probably took good care to pick clams for that job. And Saunders,” she added slowly, “is eternally silent. Well, I hope in mercy you’ll be able to catch him napping, Mr. Hart.”
Peaceful rose stiffly,—and took up his hat from where he had laid it on the table.
“I ain’t as hopeful as I was a week ago,” he admitted mildly. “Put if there’s any justice left in the courts, I’ll save the old ranch. My wife and I worked hard to make it what it is, and my boys call it home. We can’t save it by anything but law. Fightin’ would only make a bad matter worse. I’m obliged to yuh, Miss Georgie, for taking such an interest—and I’ll tell Black about Jim Wakely.”
“Don’t build any hopes on Jim,” she warned. “He probably doesn’t know anything except that he sent and received messages he couldn’t read any sense into.”
“Well—there’s always a way out, if we can find it. Come down and see us some time. We still got a house to invite our friends to.” He smiled drearily at her, gave a little, old-fashioned bow, and went over to join Baumberger—and to ask Pete Hamilton for the use of his team and buckboard.
Miss Georgie, keeping an uneasy vigil over everything that moved in the barren portion of Hartley which her window commanded, saw Pete get up and start listlessly toward the stable; saw Peaceful sit down to wait; and then Pete drove up with the rig, and they started for the ranch. She turned with a startled movement to the office door, because she felt that she was being watched.
“How, Hagar, and Viney, and Lucy,” she greeted languidly when she saw the three squaws sidle closer, and reached for a bag of candy for them.
Hagar’s greasy paw stretched out greedily for the gift, and placed it in jealous hiding beneath her blanket, but she did not turn to go, as she most frequently did after getting what she came for. Instead, she waddled boldly into the office, her eyes searching cunningly every corner of the little room. Viney and Lucy remained outside, passively waiting. Hagar twitched at something under her blanket, and held out her hand again; this time it was not empty.
“Ketchum sagebrush,” she announced laconically. “Mebbyso yo’ like for buy?”
Miss Georgie stared fixedly at the hand, and said nothing. Hagar drew it under her blanket, held it fumbling there, and thrust it forth again.
“Ketchum where ketchum hair,” she said, and her wicked old eyes twinkled with malice. “Mebbyso yo’ like for buy?”
Miss Georgie still stared, and said nothing. Her under lip was caught tightly between her teeth by now, and her eyebrows were pulled close together.
“Ketchum much track, same place,” said Hagar grimly. “Good Injun makeum track all same boot. Seeum Good Injun creep, creep in bushes, all time Man-that-coughs be heap kill. Yo’ buy hair, buy knife, mebbyso me no tell me seeum Good Injun. Me tell, Good Injun go for jail; mebbyso killum rope.” She made a horrible gesture of hanging by the neck. Afterward she grinned still more horribly. “Ketchum plenty mo’ dolla, me no tell, mebbyso.”
Miss Georgie felt blindly for her chair, and when she touched it she backed and sank into it rather heavily. She looked white and sick, and Hagar eyed her gloatingly.
“Yo’ no like for Good Injun be killum rope,” she chuckled. “Yo’ all time thinkum heap bueno. Mebbyso yo’ love. Yo’ buy? Yo’ payum much dolla?”
Miss Georgie passed a hand slowly over her eyes. She felt numb, and she could not think, and she must think. A shuffling sound at the door made her drop her hand and look up, but there was nothing to lighten her oppressive sense of danger to Grant. Another squaw had appeared, was all. A young squaw, with bright-red ribbons braided into her shining black hair, and great, sad eyes brightening the dull copper tint of her face.
“You no be ’fraid,” she murmured shyly to Miss Georgie, and stopped where she was just inside the door. “You no be sad. No trouble come Good Injun. I friend.”
Hagar turned, and snarled at her in short, barking words which Miss Georgie could not understand. The young squaw folded her arms inside her bright, plaid shawl, and listened with an indifference bordering closely on contempt, one would judge from her masklike face. Hagar turned from berating her, and thrust out her chin at Miss Georgie.
“I go. Sun go ’way, mebbyso I come. Mebbyso yo’ heart bad. Me ketchum much dolla yo’, me no tellum, mebbyso. No ketchum, me tell sheriff mans Good Injun all time