"This scoundrel has some knowledge in his possession which vitally affects the young woman I love. Also he is concerned, perhaps deeply, in the murder on the Dollar Sign road. Yet he has fortified himself so well in his villainy that he feels secure."
For all his increased feeling of security, Talpers was wise enough to let the bottle alone and also to do no boasting. Likewise he stuck faithfully to his store—so faithfully that it became a matter of public comment.
"If Bill sticks much closer to this store he's goin' to fall into a decline," said Andy Wolters, who had been restored to favor in the circle of cowpunchers that lolled about Talpers's place. "He's gettin' a reg'lar prison pallor now. He used to be hittin' the trail once in a while, but nowadays he's hangin' around that post-office section as if he expected a letter notifyin' him that a rich uncle had died."
"Mebbe he's afraid of travelin' these parts since that feller was killed on the Dollar Sign," suggested another cowboy. "Doggoned if I don't feel a little shaky myself sometimes when I'm ridin' that road alone at night. Looks like some of them Injuns ought to have been hung for that murder, right off the reel, and then folks'd feel a lot easier in their minds."
The talk then would drift invariably to the subject of the murder and the general folly of the court in allowing Fire Bear to go on the Indian agent's recognizance. But Talpers, though he heard the chorus of denunciation from the back of the store, and though he was frequently called upon for an opinion, never could be drawn into the conversation. He bullied his clerk as usual, and once in a while swept down, in a storm of baseless anger, upon some unoffending Indian, just to show that Bill Talpers was still a man to be feared, but for the most part he waited silently, with the confidence of a man who holds a winning hand at cards.
The same days that saw Talpers's confidence returning were days of dissatisfaction to Lowell. He felt that he was being constantly thwarted. He would have preferred to give his entire attention to the murder mystery, but details of reservation management crowded upon him in a way that made avoidance impossible. Among his duties Lowell found that he must act as judge and jury in many cases that came up. There were domestic difficulties to be straightened out, and thieves and brawlers to be sentenced. Likewise there was occasional flotsam, cast up from the human sea outside the reservation, which required attention.
One of those reminders of the outer world was brought in by an Indian policeman. The stranger was a rough-looking individual, to all appearances a harmless tramp, who had been picked up "hoofing it" across the reservation.
The Indian policeman explained, through the interpreter, that he had found the wanderer near a sub-agency, several miles away—that he had shown a disposition to fight, and had only been cowed by the prompt presentation of a revolver at his head.
"Why, you 're no tramp—you're a yeggman," said Lowell to the prisoner, interrupting voluble protestations of innocence. "You're one of the gentry that live off small post-offices and banks. I'll bet you've stolen stamps enough in your career to keep the Post-Office Department going six months. And you've given heart disease to no end of stockholders in small banks—prosperous citizens who have had to make good the losses caused by your safe-breaking operations. Am I bringing an unjust indictment against you, pardner?"
A flicker of a smile was discernible somewhere in the tangle of beard that hid the lineaments of the prisoner's face.