CHAPTER XVI—LOST—A HAT
“What do you think of it, Sleepy?” asked Hashknife, as they saddled their horses.
“Fine!” grunted Sleepy. “This is action, cowboy. When they start knockin’ officers down and bustin’ jail, I’m feelin’ good.”
They mounted their horses and rode out to the Circle Spade. There was a light in the bunk-house, but none in the ranch-house. They dismounted and sneaked up to the bunk-house window, where they looked in and saw Monty Adams and Steve Winchell, humped over at a table, playing seven-up.
They walked back to the corral, where they sat down and debated what to do. Slim did not want to go to the ranch-house and make a search. It might be productive of a lot of trouble, especially at night.
And as they sat there in the shelter of the corral fence, a horse and rider came to the ranch, dismounted near them, turned the horse into the corral, carried the saddle to the stable, and then went to the ranch-house. It was Chuckwalla Ike. He lighted a lamp in the living-room and took it upstairs with him.
“Foxy old devil!” snorted Slim. “He was too wise to bring Rance out here. Now where do yuh suppose he took him? Not to the Half-Box R, nor to the JML. He wouldn’t have had time to go to the JML. I’ll bet he stocked a hide-out in the hills.”
“No use lookin’ for him at night,” said Sleepy. “We might as well go back to town and wait for daylight.”
“Yeah; and he won’t be so easy to take ag’in,” complained Slim. “Old Rance is a danged fine shot, and he knows every inch of this country.”
They went back to their horses and rode to town. Scotty was in bed at the office, suffering quite a lot with his injured head, in which the doctor had taken three stitches. It meant that several days would elapse before Scotty would be wearing a hat again.
A search of the office showed that the keys to the main door of the jail and to the cell were missing. Slim had kept them in a drawer in his desk. Luckily Slim had one set of duplicates.
“It wasn’t done by a stranger,” smiled Hashknife. “The man who pulled that job knew where to find the keys.”
“No; it was done by a friend, Hashknife,” laughed Chuck. “A friend with a lot of cold nerve.”
“And honest too,” laughed Slim. “He kept his word.”
They were out again at daylight. Slim’s idea was to keep a sharp watch on Chuckwalla. He believed that sooner or later Chuckwalla would go to old Rance. But Slim knew old Chuckwalla would be very careful, especially if he had any idea that the officers suspected him.
In order to look over considerable territory, in case old Rance should be hiding out in the country between the Circle Spade and the Half-Box R, Hashknife and Chuck headed straight for the Half-Box R, while Slim and Sleepy took the road to the Circle Spade.
Chuck knew of an old place, half shack, half dugout, hidden away in the hills between the two ranches. It had at one time been the winter home of a wolfer.
“Just stumbled onto it one day,” explained Chuck. “Yuh never could find it, unless yuh knowed just where to look. Old Rance might know where it is, and it would shore make a dinger of a hide-out.”
They came to the rickety old bridge across the river, which was barely wide enough for two riders abreast. On the left-hand side of the bridge, about a quarter of the way across, lay a battered sombrero. Hashknife swung down and picked it up.
It was not a hat that would ordinarily be discarded, being a black Stetson, more trampled than worn. There was no name in it, except that of the maker. Chuck looked it over critically.
“Lotsa black Stetsons wore around here,” he said. “Mebby some of Butch Reimer’s punchers got drunk and lost it.”
Hashknife dismounted and stepped over to the railing. Thirty feet below him was a dry-wash, with here and there a clump of stunted bushes, piles of drift. Farther to the right was the river, only about sixty feet across at this time of the year.
Suddenly Hashknife leaned forward, looking almost directly down. Lying against one of the old pilings, half-hidden in a tangle of brush and drift, was the body of a man. Hashknife called Chuck, and together they looked down at it.
From that distance it was impossible to identify him, as he was partly covered by the bushes. They led their horses back to the end of the bridge and tied them to a tree, after which they worked their way down to the river level.
Chuck did not like dead men, so he allowed Hashknife to drag the body out of the tangle. It was Billy DuMond. A round blue hole in the center of his forehead showed them that his death had been no accident. Chuck squatted down on his haunches and tore up several cigarette-papers in trying to roll a cigarette.
“Hit square between the eyes,” he marveled. “Somebody around here is a damned good shot.”
Chuck didn’t pay much attention to Hashknife, who was examining the body, and he did not notice that Hashknife had taken some papers from DuMond’s pocket. There were three envelopes, containing letters, which had evidently been carried a long time, and a folded sheet of paper.
Hashknife walked farther along under the bridge, as though searching for something more, and unfolded the sheet of paper. It was an inky scrawl, which read:
I.O.U. Seventy-eight hundred dollars.
($7800.00)
Angel McCoy
Hashknife stuffed the paper in his pocket and walked back to Chuck.
“What do yuh reckon we better do about this body?” he asked.
“Leave it here,” said Chuck quickly. “Let Slim and the coroner handle it.”
“Do yuh think we better ride down and tell Reimer?”
“Yeah, I s’pose we had. And then we can cut across the country and tell Slim. Who do yuh reckon killed old DuMond, Hashknife?”
“Somebody did a good job of it, Chuck. Who wanted to kill him off?”
“Rance McCoy.”
“I heard about that. How did he stand with Angel?”
“Oh, all right, I guess. They seemed to be friendly. Yuh see, it was DuMond who told Angel about Lila not bein’ Rance’s daughter. I reckon that’s what made Rance sore at DuMond. Yuh heard about Lila losin’ her job, didn’t yuh?”
“Yeah. That was a shame.”
They went back to their horses and rode to the Half-Box R, where they found Butch Reimer and Dell Blackwell saddling their horses.
“Billy DuMond is dead!” blurted Chuck, without any preliminary.
Butch stared at him curiously.
“Dead?”
“Deader’n hell,” forcibly, if inelegantly.
Butch dropped his latigo and came over to them. DuMond had been with Butch Reimer a long time.
“Yuh might tell me about it, Chuck,” said Reimer, looking from Chuck to Hashknife.
Chuck told them how they had found DuMond, and that he had been shot squarely between the eyes. Butch was visibly affected, and it seemed to Hashknife that there was fear in his eyes, which shifted from face to face.
“If old Rance McCoy wasn’t in jail——” he said, breaking off his sentence meaningly.
“Well, he ain’t,” said Chuck. “Somebody helped him break jail last night. They popped Scotty over the head.”
Butch snorted disgustedly and hooked his thumbs over his belt.
“That accounts for it. Yuh won’t have to look far for the man who killed Billy DuMond.”
“Is Rance McCoy a murderer?” asked Hashknife.
“What do yuh mean, Hartley?”
“DuMond was murdered. His gun is still in the holster. The man who shot him shoved the gun almost against DuMond’s head. And then he threw the body over the side of the bridge, hoping nobody would find it. But they made the mistake of leaving DuMond’s hat on the bridge. Probably overlooked it in the dark.”
Hashknife reached down inside his chaps and drew out the black Stetson, which he handed to Reimer. Hashknife was watching Reimer closely, and he saw his crooked lips twitch at sight of the hat.
Slowly he straightened it out in his two hands. Blackwell merely glanced at it. Butch cleared his throat softly.
“That’s old Billy’s hat,” he said softly. “Poor old Bill.”
“We better keep it,” said Hashknife. “The sheriff will want to keep it, I suppose.”
“What good is it to him?” queried Butch.
“Oh, merely a part of DuMond’s personal effects. If yuh want it, Slim will probably give it to yuh.”
“Well, all right,” grudgingly. “Where’s Slim?”
“Lookin’ for Rance McCoy,” replied Chuck.
“Same here,” grunted Butch. “You tell Slim my gang are at his disposal. Jist as sure as hell, old Rance killed Billy DuMond. Do you think he’s at the Circle Spade?”
“Not a chance. He’s too smart for that. If you fellers are goin’ to town, don’t touch the body. We had to drag it out where we could look it over. As soon as we get hold of Slim, we’ll have it taken to town.”
Butch promised to keep away from it, and Hashknife rode away with Chuck, heading across the hills toward the Circle Spade. Hashknife was grinning to himself, and Chuck sensed the fact that Hashknife was amused.
“What’s funny about it, Hashknife?”
“I was just laughin’ to myself about Reimer wantin’ to keep DuMond’s hat as a souvenir.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“The fact that Reimer recognized it, Chuck.”
“Well, he ought to recognize DuMond’s hat, hadn’t he?”
“Sure.”
“Well, what’s so funny about it?”
“Nothin’ much, except that DuMond’s head is not less than a seven and three-eighths, and this black hat is a six and seven-eighths.”
“Yuh mean it ain’t DuMond’s hat?”
“Not unless that bullet swelled his head a lot.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” exploded Chuck admiringly. “Slim was tellin’ me you was smart. Who’d ever think of comparin’ that hat with DuMond’s head? I’ll betcha Butch Reimer thinks it’s DuMond’s hat. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”
“Anyway, he got kinda sentimental over it,” grinned Hashknife. “Whereabouts is that dugout yuh mentioned?”
“Oh, that’s north of us now. I thought we better find Slim first and tell him about DuMond.”
“I guess so. Is that dead horse much out of our way?”
“Not much. We cross the railroad over here at Curlew Spur, and then we can foller up to where the horse is.”
Fifteen minutes later they dismounted and looked at what was left of the Circle Spade horse. Coyotes and magpies had practically cleaned the bones of all flesh. Hashknife examined the skull of the animal, which was still covered with skin. The bullet had penetrated the animal’s brain, and had gone through the skull. Hashknife examined the bullet-hole thoughtfully, and then walked to the fence and looked down at the tracks, which were at least twenty feet lower than where they stood.
“Make anythin’ of it?” asked Chuck curiously. He was beginning to respect Hashknife’s powers of observation.
“Sometimes yuh can make a mountain out of a molehill, Chuck,” replied Hashknife gravely. “Mebby we better go and find Slim.”
Slim had told them where to find him and Sleepy, and they were there, sitting in the shade of a stunted cottonwood, from where they had kept an eye on the Circle Spade ranch-house.
“Drawed a blank so far,” grinned Slim. “Saw Monty and Steve ride away; but Chuckwalla ain’t stirred.”
“You tell ’em, Hashknife,” said Chuck, as they dismounted.
Hashknife told Slim how they had discovered the body of Billy DuMond beneath the bridge, and the sheriff’s eyes widened. He had known Billy DuMond a long time.
“Rance McCoy!” he gasped. “He’s been gunnin’ for DuMond. By God, he got loose, waited for Billy on that old bridge—and nailed him.”
“Tell ’em about that hat,” urged Chuck.
Hashknife grinned as he related the conversation between himself and Butch. He gave Slim the hat. They looked it over for identifying marks, but found none. The size was plainly marked on a sticker under the sweat-band.
“I never paid no attention to the size of DuMond’s head,” said Chuck.
“When yore life depends on noticin’ things, yuh get the habit of seein’ ’em,” said Hashknife gravely. “Did any of yuh ever see old Rance McCoy wearin’ a hat as big as this one?”
None of them had.
“It shore ain’t the one he had when he was in jail,” declared Chuck. “That one was an awful old wreck.”
“Did Billy DuMond have any money?” asked Hashknife.
“On forty a month?” grinned Slim.
“Was him and Angel McCoy good friends?”
“Always have been, I reckon.”
Hashknife straightened out the black sombrero. It was not the type of hat an old man would buy. It was one of the size known as “five-gallon,” and of a rather expensive finish.
“Cost about forty dollars,” said Hashknife. “I had one almost like it a few years ago. Wore it on Sunday. The jigger who owned this hat was kind of a dude.”
“Which shore lets out Rance McCoy and Billy DuMond,” laughed Slim. “I know DuMond wouldn’t spend a month’s salary for a hat. The question is—will we gain anythin’ by waitin’ for Chuckwalla to make a move?”
Hashknife shook his head slowly, still eyeing the hat.
“I don’t think so, Slim. There’s more behind this than we think. It’s commencin’ to brew a little. Crooks always make mistakes. And every time they try to rectify one, they make another. Don’t believe what yuh see, because it might be made to look thataway.”
Slim squinted closely at Hashknife, as though trying to read behind those level gray eyes.
“Hartley, have yuh struck a trail?” he asked.
“The makin’ of one, Slim. The blazes ain’t so danged plain yet—but they’re blazes, just the same. Let’s go back to town and get a rig to haul DuMond in with. We’ll let Chuckwalla do as he pleases today. If he had old Rance hid out in the brush, he wouldn’t visit him in the daylight.”
“That’s right. We ain’t got much sense.”
“Not too much, Slim.”