"No—only Bat said sinkin' it was easy."
"There's the clew to the robbery!" Bud leaned forward, the light of revelation in his eyes. "It's the last thing any one would think of, and about the easiest thing to do. Bat Johnson himself could have hazed those horses across the ford and come back after his pack horse. He could have done the murder and robbery too. If they had a boat hidden under the bank, he could have slipped out of the side door with all the plunder in a sack, packed it on his horse to the river, tossed it into the boat and gone on about his business—which was turning those horses loose and throwing them back across the river. I know where they were tied out of sight in the wash for an hour or two at least. It's so damned simple, Lark, it was practically safe!"
"It could be done," Lark agreed, "but they couldn't go on down river and stand a chance of getting anywhere."
"They wouldn't need to. Who would see a boat if it slipped down river from Palmer's place and went back the way it came? The farther bank is too rough to ride and too barren for stock to range close, and the current swings that way and cuts close to shore. This side it's boggy wherever you can get to the bank, so all the town stock waters at the ford, where there's a streak of gravel bottom. The willows are thick as the hair on a dog, most places—though of course a man could crowd through to the bank, close enough to throw a bag or two. Why, at three o'clock or a little before, even the kids were all in school down at the other end of town, and every footloose man was locked inside the Elkhorn!"
"Palmer was in town, you said." Butch Cassidy's eyes had squinted half shut as his mind focused upon the robbery and shuttled back and forth from scene to scene.
"You're darned right he was in town. It was Palmer who locked the saloon door, and it was Palmer who seemed to hate the idea of having it opened when I started to leave. Steve did all the bellowing, but Palmer's face gave him away; he wanted that door to stay shut. Of course, he had just deposited five thousand dollars in the bank, and he's been making quite a holler, I suppose—at least, he did at the inquest. But maybe he put that money in the bank for that very reason, to give him something to howl about. What do you think, Lark?"
"I'd bet on it," Lark answered sententiously, and with a three-tined fork turned over several pieces of beef fried so thoroughly that the meat was tender simply because it was too young to be tough under any mistreatment. He selected a particularly crisp piece, sawed off a corner with his knife and poised the morsel on the end of his fork.
"Oughta be some way to git the goods on that outfit. I've a dang good notion—"
"Better let it ride for a while," Butch counseled earnestly. "If it's them, they're bound to tip their hands; any mismove, and they'll be gone clean outa the country. Any of the bunch gone since it happened? What about Bat and his pack outfit? Did he leave with it?"
"Palmer sent him back home after the inquest. I overheard him telling Bat that some of them might have to join the manhunt and he'd better stay on the ranch in case he was needed," said Bud.