“Not if what you tell me is true. Now, get to bed. I’ll give you something that will make you sleep.”
“But the children?”
“Nothing can be done to-night. Drink this.” He was not sure yet that she was telling him the truth. “I’ll send MacLean down in the morning.” He hustled her out of the tent.
He wondered as he got into bed as to the truth of her story. Disgusting, such animal terror! Awkward hole, that. Fate seemed possessed to queer him with those Hardins!
CHAPTER XXXIII
A DISCOVERY
THE murder of Maldonado shook the camp next morning. The wife had run from Rickard’s tent to Mrs. Dowker, who had put the hysterical creature to bed. All night, she babbled of her horror. There had been no sleep at the Dowkers’; the boy woke up shrieking with fright at the strange sobbing. Dowker spoke of it at the mess-tent at breakfast; an hour later, Rickard met the story there. He wondered if it had yet reached Hardin’s sister. He decided to send MacLean down to the house of the oleander to get at the facts.
He was rushing MacLean through the morning’s dictation, when three rurales, in brilliant trappings, rode up to his ramada. They looked like stage-soldiers, small and pompous in their spectacular uniforms and gold-laced hats. The leader, entering the office, announced that they were on the track of a criminal, the murderer of a rurale, Maldonado. The crime had occurred two nights ago, down the river. The señor knew the place. There was a famous oleander—
“Do you know who it was?” Rickard felt sure of the answer. He himself thought that the murderer lay sleeping in Mrs. Dowker’s tent.
The spokesman of the party, of fierce mustaches, and glittering bullion, surprised him. “An Indian, named Felipe.” He repeated the story Rickard had heard before. Felipe had escaped his guards, the companions of the speaker. They had followed him, tracked him to his home; then, conclusively on to the adobe of the oleander where Maldonado and the woman were found—butchered. It was quite clear. He had left a stupid trail behind him of noisy threats, revenge—
“Maldonado’s girl herself opened the door for him; she saw him run out. Oh, he will be shot for this. Maldonado was a good officer.”