“Tell me,” she demanded, “why did he ask me to keep away from the shipping pens? I’d have no reason for going there.”
“I thought about that, too. It’s beyond me. All I know is that he was coming back here today. Dan Secor told me that. He’d fixed a gun for Traynor. Said he’d be back on the sixth.”
“The sixth—the sixth of October!”
The letter fluttered to the floor from the girl’s fingers as, white of face, she sprang to her feet.
“Johnny!” she cried. “Oh, dear God! Don’t you see it—don’t you understand? The Diamond-Bar has begun shipping from Winnemucca on the sixth of October for three years. That is why he didn’t want me to go to the pens. He thought father would be there.”
In a flash Johnny caught Traynor’s idea. If, as the boy had every reason to suspect, old Kent was the man Traynor had come to square accounts with, then he had the answer to the man’s every movement for a week before his death. That is, of course, excepting those two mysterious days on the Reservation. This coming back to Winnemucca was for three purposes: to see the girl, to settle with Kent, and, obviously, to replenish his funds, inasmuch as the letters from Flagstaff were from a Flagstaff bank.
Traynor had told Vinnie, the Basque, that he would not stay the night in Standing Rock. His one idea was to get back to Winnemucca by the sixth. Going on this thought, Johnny saw that the man’s presence in Standing Rock had been but incidental to his return here. But he had been seen. Kent must have kept out of his way, and after, or during supper, had slipped up to Traynor’s room and shot him.
Wasn’t there sense in every line of this reasoning? Didn’t all of the dozen and one little incidents since the crime confirm the facts?
Johnny wondered if he would find out anything in Elk Valley among the Indians, to make him change his mind. The evidence he held was circumstantial. Sometimes it lies. No matter. There was nothing left for him to do but to go through with this hunt, make the trip to Elk Valley and keep his own counsel. In no other way could he serve Molly better.
He had bungled things or else he would have avoided this scene with her. Her excitement and nervousness were due to him.