The words "vengeance" and "reprisal" are never spoken by a mounted officer. Nevertheless, there is no place on earth where the murderer of a policeman may feel safe from the menace of the reaching hand. Dexter at present was on long patrol in the wilderness, seeking two fugitives who were wanted in the settlements for a brutal case of assault and battery. But now his plans must change. New and more urgent business called him.
Crouching on his heels beside his fallen comrade, he took off one of his gloves, and blew his breath to warm his finger tips. From his pocket he brought forth pencil and notebook, and, with calm, steady hand he wrote his brief report. He himself might be summoned at any time to meet a similar fate, and as a member of a methodical organization it was his duty to leave the written record behind. The bullet was sealed in an envelope with the scribbled page, and the packet then buttoned securely in his tunic pocket.
His own terse statement tucked away for safe keeping, he bent over to learn if Tommy Graves' journal sheets were inscribed to date. The young constable's notebook held the usual daily report, beginning three weeks back, when he had set out on his last journey from Fort Dauntless; but the record told only of trivial matters, of miles traveled and landmarks sighted, and did not mention the errand that fetched him to this far, lonesome valley of the British Columbian mountains. Possibly it was a secret mission that he dared not particularize by written words.
A single clew was afforded by a photograph found in the constable's inside pocket. It was a double Bertillon card, carrying the stamp of detective headquarters of Chicago, Illinois, and showing full-face and profile portraits of a man whose name was written down as "Roy ('Pink') Crill." The subject of the police photograph was a gross-featured man with no eyebrows and very little hair. It was a repellent physiognomy: thick, pendulous jowl, puffy cheeks, eyes sunk in deep sockets. The cranium was flat on top, with a peculiar indentation behind the temples that somehow made Dexter think of the pits in a copperhead's skull.
Whoever this "Pink" Crill might be, the existence of a Bertillon picture at least proved a criminal record. It was not an unnatural assumption to suppose that he was in flight from the other side of the border, and that young Graves had been assigned to the fatal business of stalking him down.
Crill's body and facial measurements had been jotted down in the columns allotted for the purpose of identification, and after running his glance over the card the Corporal was able to form a vivid mental picture of the man. He would know him if he met him.
Pocketing the Bertillon card for future reference, Dexter stood up, his hands balanced on his hips. With his underlip thrust slightly forward, he moodily scanned the ground where the tragedy had taken place.
The re-staging of the crime presented few difficulties for the experienced observer. Behind the fallen body was a snow-shrouded log. Fifty paces beyond the course of a frozen creek ran past. The banks of the stream were thickly fringed with junipers, but at this one point there was a break in the cover. Winding up from a distant notch in the mountains, the creek afforded the logical trail for any voyageur making in that direction from the southeast. The log commanded the opening in the juniper bushes, and Constable Graves had been sitting on the log.
Even under the covering of fresh snow, the marks were legible. The policeman's rifle lay buried as it had fallen in the cold drift near the log. Graves evidently had sat there for a long while, with his rifle across his knees. Like a deer hunter he had chosen his place in the open and allowed the falling flakes to cover him, while he waited, motionless. The still hunt needs patience, but usually it is the surest way.
In this instance, however, something had gone wrong with the hunter's plans. No one had come along the course of the brook. The snowy stream surface was as smooth and level as placer sand. Dexter contemplated the lower stretch of ground, and then turned with meditative eyes to search the slope behind him.