On the other hand—why should he flee from a charge which he knew to be groundless? Flight would convince the entire rangeland of his guilt—if it retained any doubt, after it heard of the murder. Cowardice was worse than being the object of unfounded suspicion—worse even, than paying the extreme penalty for the crime of some one else. Besides, there was Gus Bernat, who would swear to his alibi—
So Otis fought with himself his first great battle. Two hours later Ogden’s chief deputy, sitting in the Sheriff’s office in Jackson, brought down the forelegs of his chair in startled surprise as he saw Otis, still handcuffed, dismount and approach stiffly.
“You’re dead!” the chief deputy called out at his approach. “Lafe phoned a hour ago that you was drownded in the flood. He’s still huntin’ for your body.”
“Not quite drowned, but almost,” Otis grinned. “You see, I’d promised Lafe I wouldn’t attempt to escape, so here I am.”
“Damn fool!” snorted the chief deputy. “Why didn’t you beat it while the beatin’ was good?”
“I preferred to have the Sheriff turn me loose himself,” Otis replied, smiling. “He’ll do it, too, when he hears what Gus Bernat has to say.”
“Gus Bernat?” repeated the chief deputy. “Why, he was drownded in the flood hisself. The coroner stopped for his body on the way back with Fyffe’s.”
CHAPTER VII
Bernat was dead! His alibi was gone! With Bernat had died his last chance for freedom—for life itself, perhaps! What chance remained for him to convince a jury of his innocence? He was enmeshed in a net of overwhelming circumstantial evidence. Who would believe his story now? Who, in the face of Fyffe’s written message, of the empty shells in Otis’ revolver, of the widely known enmity between the cattle men and the rangers, would hold his weak defense as anything more than a crude and hastily conceived fabrication?
The shock of the discovery of Fyffe’s condemning scrawl and of his subsequent arrest had been great, indeed. But through it all he had been buoyed up by the confidence that Bernat could provide an ironclad alibi.