People ran to the livery yard, peered in and then, seeing nothing but those still bodies, they gained courage and crowded forward. A man, mounted on a dun, swung from his saddle, pushed through the crowd, glanced at the bodies, and gave a sigh of relief.
“The Wolf made his kill,” he said grimly. Then catching sight of the hostler, he grinned at him and added: “What yuh think of Jim now?”
“He ain’t human,” the hostler said. “He was laughin’ horrible—jumpin’ about like a grasshopper, and his guns goin’ so fast I couldn’t see ’em. No, sir, he ain’t no man, nor wolf, neither, ’cause he ain’t like nothin’ possible.”
Jack Allen turned his prisoners over to the local sheriff and then told the story as told to him by Boston Jack. This was later corroborated by two of the wounded rustlers.
It had been Boston Jack who had discovered that hidden valley. Spur Treadwell had refused to go with him unless things were so arranged that no one, except Boston Jack and One-wing McCann, knew of his connection with the rustling. They had blotted the Double R brands, driven the stolen cattle into the Nations, then swung them about and sold them back to old man Reed. Slivers Hart’s ranch was too close to the secret entrance to the valley, so Boston and Spur Treadwell framed him for murder, drove him from the country, and later bought his ranch.
After that things were easy. Men each night kept the cattle drifting from the south of the range to the north, so it was easy for the rustlers to drive fifty or a hundred head each night into the hidden valley. Later, after Dot Reed had been forced to sell and the three had bought the ranch through an agent, they planned to return the cattle from the hidden valley to the open range. It was arranged that the day after Dot Reed signed away her ranch, Spur was to collect a number of honest punchers and raid the valley, wipe out the rustlers, and thus remove all men who even suspected his dishonesty. Boston Jack, of course, would not be there. But Boston Jack, when the valley was raided by Allen’s men, believed that Spur had tried to double cross him and get rid of him at the same time he removed the rustlers. Hence, he had told what he knew.
“An’ who killed old man Reed?” Slivers asked.
“The twins,” said Jack. “Then they killed the two rustlers, who, they thought, knew too much, and so they downed two thirds with one stone—got rid of Mr. Reed and silenced two tongues.”
Dot Reed, her arm around Slivers, had listened in silence.
“And where is the—the Jim Allen now? I want to thank him,” she said.