"Yes, and his admission strengthens me in the belief that he's telling the truth, or at least that he had no part in the actual killing. If he were guilty, he'd deny being within miles of the spot."
"Mebbe you're right," said the sheriff, rising and turning his hat in his hand and methodically prodding new and geometrically perfect indentations in its high crown, "but you've got a strong popular opinion to buck. Most people believe them Injuns and the breed have a guilty knowledge of the murder."
"When you get twelve men in the jury box saying the same thing," replied Lowell, "that's going to settle it. But until then I'm considering the case open."
Jim McFann's camp was in the loneliest of many lonely draws in the sage-gray uplands where the foothills and plains meet. It was not a camp that would appeal to the luxury-loving. In fact, one might almost fall over it in the brush before knowing that a camp was there. A "tarp" bed was spread on the hard, sun-cracked soil. A saddle was near by. There was a frying-pan or two at the edge of a dead fire. A pack-animal and saddle horse stood disconsolately in the greasewood, getting what slender grazing was available, but not being allowed to wander far. It was the camp of one who "traveled light" and was ready to go at an instant's notice.
So well hidden was the half-breed that, in spite of explicit directions that had been given by Bill Talpers, Andy Wolters had a difficult time in finding the camp. Talpers had sent Andy as his emissary, bearing grub and tobacco and a bottle of whiskey to the half-breed. Andy had turned and twisted most of the morning in the monotony of sage. Song had died upon his lips as the sun had beaten upon him with all its unclouded vigor.
Andy did not know it, but for an hour he had been under the scrutiny of the half-breed, who had been quick to descry the horseman moving through the brush. McFann had been expecting Talpers, and he was none too pleased to find that the trader had sent the gossiping cowpuncher in his stead. Andy, being one of those ingenuous souls who never can catch the undercurrents of life, rattled on, all unconscious of the effect of light words, lightly flung.
"You dig the grub and other stuff out o' that pack," said Andy, "while I hunt an inch or two of shade and cool my brow. When it comes to makin' a success of hidin' out in the brush, you can beat one of them renegade steers that we miss every round-up. I guess you ain't heard about the robbery that's happened in our metropolis of Talpersville, have you?"
The half-breed grunted a negative.
"Of course not, seein' as you ain't gettin' the daily paper out here. Well, an expert safe-buster rode Bill Talpers's iron treasure-chest to a frazzle the other night. Took valuable papers that Bill's all fussed up about, but dropped a wad of bills, big enough to choke one of them prehistoric bronks that used to romp around in these hills."