[CHAPTER FIVE]
THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN ARROW
Still, clear moonlight lay upon the land, with the far hills like a painted back drop against the stars when Bud, having ridden far and fast, jogged wearily into town and dropped reins before the bank, where a light shone faintly through the curtained windows and figures were to be seen moving occasionally behind the green shades. He knocked, and after a hushed minute Delkin himself admitted him. Bud walked from force of habit to the grilled window and leaned his fore-arms heavily upon the shelf, his cameo-pinned hat pushed back on his head as he pressed his forehead against the bronze rods of the barrier.
"Well, I rode the high lines," he announced huskily because of the dryness in his throat. "I saw the bunch from town go fogging along the trail across the river, but I was back on the bench, following a mess of horse tracks that took off toward the hills.
"There's something darn funny about this deal, Mr. Delkin." Delkin had retreated again behind the partition as if that was what his office required of him. "Here's how she lies, but I don't pretend to understand it. I got my horse and rode back up here and out behind the bank, so as to pick up any trail they had left. The only horses that had stood for any length of time near the bank was a pack outfit that had been on the vacant lot back here all afternoon, by the sign. It was Bat Johnson had it—he works for Palmer. He rode away just as I came around the corner of the bank, thinking I could get in at the side door, and I overhauled him at the ford. He'd taken that stock trail through the willows, back here, and he told me he'd got a glimpse of three or four horses loping down through the draw to the ford ahead of him. He hadn't seen any one leave the bank by the side door, he said, for he was over to the blacksmith shop for a while and came and got his horses just as I came in sight around the corner. He hadn't seen any one that acted suspicious, but he hadn't been paying any attention, he said.
"I rode back up the draw and picked up the trail of four horses, shod all around. Your town posse crossed the river while I was in the draw, and I followed the four horses across. The riders ahead of me didn't pay any attention to the tracks. I suppose," he added scornfully, "they were looking for masked men with white sacks full of money in their arms! They just loped down the road, all in a bunch, as if they were headed for a dance." Bud cleared his throat; this painstaking report was dry work.
"Well, Mr. Delkin, those four horses—shod all around—took straight across the bench beyond the Smoky, heading for the hills. Here's the funny part, though: They didn't hunt the draws where they could keep out of sight, but sifted right along in a beeline, across ridges and into hollows and out again, until the tracks were lost where they joined a bunch of range stock that's running back there on the bench about eight miles. From there on I couldn't get a line on anything at all. I tried to ride up on the bunch, but my horse was tired and they're pretty wild, and they broke for the hills. There were shod horses among them, and I'm sure that no one had time to catch up fresh horses out of that band and leave the four—and, Mr. Delkin, those four horses didn't travel as if they had riders. I'd swear they were running loose, and beat it straight from town to join their own bunch of range horses."
"And that's all you found out?" Delkin's voice was flat and old and hopeless.
"That's the extent of it. It was a blind trail, I believe, and your holdups went some other way. Perhaps that posse will pick up some sign, though if they do it will be an accident."
The other men there asked a few questions, their manner as hopeless as Delkin's. They were the directors and other officers of the bank, and Bud sensed their feeling of helplessness before this calamity. The body of the cashier had been removed, and these were staying on the scene simply because they did not know what else to do.