BUD DOES A LITTLE BUSTLING
The volunteer man hunters had returned much soberer though no wiser than they had set out, and with them came Bat Johnson, who declared that his trip could be postponed until after the inquest, which would be held as soon as the sheriff and coroner arrived from the county seat. In the meantime Delkin had sent frantic word by telephone to the nearest points, and men were riding into town on sweaty horses, curious to see the corpse of the cashier and eager to join in the chase.
"For half a cent I'd borrow a horse and take the trail alone, with grub enough for a couple of days," Bud confided restlessly to his companion. "I'd do it, only Delkin says we'll be wanted at the inquest to-morrow; and after that the sheriff will be on the job and running things to suit himself. Seems mighty queer, the way those bandits plumb disappeared and never left a trace. Bat Johnson claimed to me that he was sure four riders went down the draw and crossed the river ahead of him, but now he admits that he only got a glimpse of the horses' rumps and can't swear to any riders. But what in thunder would range horses be doing right here in town almost? The whole thing's off color. I wish Lark was here—my uncle. He's pretty good at figuring out the other fellow's game."
"There must be some way to catch the murderers and get the money back," Brunelle worried. "Of course catching them won't help the cashier, but the money makes a big difference. This really does leave Marge and me in an awful fix, Mr. Larkin. All you people have homes and property, but here we are—perfect strangers; and a little over five dollars to face the world with! We didn't think it would be safe to keep any money in the house, out in this wild country, so every dollar we had was in the bank—where it would be safe!" He laughed a bit wildly. "Of course, I'll go to work at once. We both will. I wonder how much the robbers got?"
Bud shook his head.
"Delkin doesn't know, exactly; or if he does he isn't telling until he has to. He says Charlie Mulholland took care of everything while the other fellow has been sick, and all he or any of the others did was go in and act as teller while Charlie wrote letters and worked on the books forenoons. It's just a little whiddledig of a bank—plenty of money, but not many depositors. All the cattlemen and some horse raisers used it, and put in great wads when they sold off some stock, and checked it out in driblets. I could have run the whole works myself, almost. If the bank's busted, the robbers got a plenty. It's going to hit a lot of us, but it sure is too bad you folks got caught. What kind of work did you think of doing?"
"Well, Marge could teach school, of course. And once she gets a stand-in with the editors, she can sell all the pieces she writes, and I can sell the pictures to go with them. I can get a job as a cowboy for a while, I suppose, until we get on our feet again." His jaw squared. "We'll never go back, that's one thing sure; not even if we had the train fare. All the neighbors said we'd make a fizzle of things if we left there. I suppose there's a school somewhere that Marge can teach, isn't there?"
"I don't know of—wel-l—come to think of it, the Meadowlark sure needs a school teacher." Bud had caught another disturbing sight of Marge sitting with bowed head by the table, lamplight shining through loose locks of hair.
Tired as he was, bedtime came too soon for Bud that night.
Marge would go to the inquest next morning, though Bud warned her that it would not be exciting and that she would only get herself talked about. These things could not daunt her. She must go, she said, because she was going to need murders and posses and sheriffs right along in her Western stories, and this was a wonderful opportunity to study the types at close range. She could not understand why Bud laughed.
So to the inquest she went, and thereby shocked the sober citizens of Smoky Ford, who liked their womenfolk shy and retiring. She mistook the big blacksmith for the sheriff, who was small and very quiet and kept his badge hidden under his vest. She was much disappointed in the coroner, who was pot-bellied and chewed tobacco frankly and untidily and spat where he pleased. Moreover, the corpse was in a back room out of sight, and Marge could not bring herself quite to the point of walking deliberately in to see how a man looks who has been murdered. She was the only woman present, and the room was crowded with men who stared at her; not even her notebook could furnish cause sufficient for her presence.
Then, after a few tedious preliminaries, they all trooped off to the bank to take a look around and left Marge all by herself in the empty storeroom. It did not help her temper any to have Bud ask her afterwards how she liked the wild, wild West as far as she had got.
"That man Palmer, who deposited five thousand dollars just before he came into the saloon, looked at you very queerly when you were giving an account of finding the cashier," Brunelle observed irrelevantly, thinking it best to change the subject before Marge said something sarcastic.
"He can't help that. He was born queer," Bud retorted. "Meanest old skinflint in the country. Took a quirting from my uncle before the whole town, and never has made a move to get back at Lark for it. Maybe that's why he looks queer when he sees some one from the Meadowlark."
"But he sneered as if he thought you were lying," Lawrie persisted.
"Well, so did I sneer as if I thought he were lying when he told about depositing five thousand dollars in the bank. I bet he keeps his money buried back of the barn or some other good place."
"I wish we'd buried ours," Marge sighed. "Or the editors would wake up and buy a story or something. We'll have to hunt some work to do, Lawrie—"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Marge. Mr. Larkin knows of a school you can teach. He says the Meadowlark school needs a teacher. And perhaps I can get a job somewhere close, as a cowboy. Do you think I could, Mr. Larkin?"
"How do we get there?" Marge began to untie her apron as if she meant to start within the next five minutes. Bud caught his breath and opened his mouth to explain, to temporize. But Marge was already beginning to pack her books, and her eyes were the brightest, dancingest gray eyes he had ever looked into. His own kindled while he gazed.
So that is how it happened that young Bud Larkin, leaving his own tall sorrel in Delkin's stable as hostage of a sort, drove blithely out to the Meadowlark with a hired team and a spring wagon and two passengers squeezed into the front seat with him and three trunks piled high and tied there with Bud's good grass rope.