“I mentioned myself last,” Crowfoot answered without hesitation. “And being equipped like I explained, it does look like I could do better to trail by myself instead of being mixed up with a pair of rat-brained miscreants like you. If you’re set on stirring up Carver, you can just count me out.”
He departed and left Freel and Wellman to perfect their own plans.
They conferred at some length and as a result Freel spent several days in making quiet investigations among the homesteaders north and west of the Half Diamond H. Another evidence of the change that was taking place in the country was the fact that the code of silence and refusal to divulge information no longer prevailed. Many of the newcomers were willing, even eager, to impart any possible scrap of information. Freel found some who had noted Bart’s return with a crippled shoulder; others that would testify that the horse upon which he was mounted belonged to Carver. He discovered one man who had seen Bart ride up the Half Diamond H lane in the evening. In each instance Freel shook his head and commented upon the fact that it looked as if the two of them had been mixed up in it; that it certainly seemed inevitable that he should have to place them under arrest and charge them with the crime if the evidence kept piling up. In each case also he requested secrecy. In reality he gathered insufficient evidence to hold either of them overnight but he had created an abundance of witnesses to serve his purpose.
Some two weeks thereafter a man rode up to the rear door of the one saloon in the little town of Alvin a few miles down the valley from the Half Diamond H. He dropped his reins over a post a few feet from the door and entered. For an hour he loitered at a table, playing solitaire and making an occasional trip to the bar for a drink and a chat with the bartender.
“Nice place,” he commented after he felt that their acquaintance had ripened somewhat. “You own it?”
The man behind the bar nodded.
“Man by name of Carver live round here close?” the stranger inquired.
“A piece up the valley,” the bartender assented. “Not far.”
“Drop in here often, does he?” the man asked.
“Whenever he’s in town—couple of times a week average,” the proprietor informed. “Drops in for a glass of beer before riding home. Mostly he’s in of afternoons; once in a while of nights when some of the boys gather here. You wanting to see him?”