Rising to his knees, the picture in his hand, he peered into the lighted room. What he saw there drove his plans far from his mind. In fact, so great was Johnny’s surprise that he had trouble in retaining his balance upon the moving car.
Gallup’s visitor was old Thunder Bird! Yes—and the old chief was bound and gagged! Gallup sat before him. Another second and the scene was whisked from Johnny’s vision.
Johnny’s breath came in gasps as he rode down the tracks. Some things were plain now. It was Thunder Bird himself whom Traynor had gone to see! Could there be any doubt of it? Gallup saw an enemy in the Indian. Why? What better reason would he want than that Thunder Bird had known Traynor, and that the old chief knew that he—Gallup—had known the man, too?
People had called Traynor a stranger, but here were three men—Thunder Bird, Kent, and Gallup—whose actions proved that they had known him. There might be others—Tobias Gale, for instance—he was a mysterious sort of person. Indeed, no stranger’s bullet had ended Traynor’s life.
Johnny fretted and fumed as the minutes passed while the car stood still. It seemed that hours dragged by before the engine came back to shunt the car down the tracks toward town. Finally it began to move. The boy felt it take the switch just before it crossed the main street of the town. By this he knew that the car was going on to the siding which managed to squeeze past the side of the hotel.
Although not so close to Gallup’s house now, the boy could see into the room by standing erect. The car came to a stop almost opposite it. Johnny saw Thunder Bird tied in his chair, but Gallup was gone. “Downstairs, no doubt,” mused Johnny, “lookin’ for me.”
For the ten minutes that the car stood on the siding Johnny stared into the lighted room. He did not know just what to do. Rescuing men from Gallup’s lair was hardly a thing to be pursued as a nightly vocation—that is, if one were at all fond of living. But on the other hand, Thunder Bird might hold the key to the entire situation. Johnny felt that the old chief could explain many things if he could be induced to talk.
Obviously the thing to do was to find Madeiras and then force a way into Gallup’s house. Tony must be in town. Finding the Basque could not be more than an hour’s work.
“Damn it,” Johnny muttered. “Wish I’d tipped him off to the truth. Hain’t helped a bit to let him think he killed me. I sure need him now. Charlie wouldn’t be no good at all. He’d want to stick a knife into Gallup.”
The engine kicked a string of cars against the one upon which Johnny stood. They hit so sharply that the boy’s legs almost went out from under him. Crawling to the hand irons he swung his foot out to find the top one. He was facing the hotel for the first time. Before him was the room in which Traynor had been killed. Johnny drew back his foot, his brain reeling as he began putting two and two together.