“But one day the boss came back and every blamed Indian in sight was stretched out on the ground snorin’ to beat thunder. One smart one had slipped up behind the glass eye and slipped an empty tomato can down over it so it couldn’t spy on ’em. And so when I seen your false teeth I thought of that Carson City feller’s false eye, only his was covered up with an old tin can and yours was settin’ out in the open, tellin’ me things.
“For one thing they was tellin’ me I maybe might be right on the suspicions I’d had about them tracks up above. First, though, I asked some questions without lettin’ on to anybody what I had in my mind. A detective on a case don’t go round blabbin’ his business to everybody in sight, you know. I found out Hurley never had a bad tooth in his head. So this plate must belong to the fellow that was with him, which was you. That was point number one.
“I found out what size foot Hurley had and what kind of a boot he was wearin.’ Point number two: them fake tracks up above couldn’t have been made by him. They must have been made by you. Question then was, why should you want to sneak out of that basin and duck your nut without spreadin’ the word? Says I to myself, ‘That’s for me to find out.’ So havin’ quietly confisticated that plate for evidence, I climbed up to the sandy stretch of the trail without bein’ noticed particular by any of the party and I made certain I hadn’t been wrong in the first place about them tracks.”
“You keep harping on that,” said Chaney with irritation. “What was wrong with those tracks? Mind you, I’m not admitting anything nor confessing anything, but I’m asking you what was wrong there?”
The under-sheriff grinned in appreciation of his own shrewdness.
“Nothin’ much was wrong with them, only this,” he explained. “There was one set too many, that’s all. When you backed across that sand you done a first-rate job, but you plumb forgot to brush out the prints you’d already made comin’ in. You’d got down out of the saddle and was walking your horse when you started down that day. I’m right, ain’t I? You needn’t answer—I know I am. Well, that was your mistake, brother—not wipin’ out the first set. So there they was as plain as the nose on your face—two sets of prints, about a yard and a half apart and both pointin’ in the same direction!
“They say a feller that’s fixin’ to commit a cold-blooded murder always leaves something behind him to convict him, and I judge it’s the same way with a feller that takes it in his head all of a sudden to try to work a fraud on an insurance company or somebody. Lawsy me, that double set of tracks showin’ there to give you away, and no doubt you sayin to yourself how smart you was all the time you was makin’ ’em! Why, say, listen, the only way it could ’a’ been possible for you to make ’em honest would for you to be twins.
“Well, later on when I found out more about you, I wouldn’t been much surprised to hear you was twins and carried the other twin hid on your person somewheres and trotted him out when you wanted to use him. Because by all accounts you certainly are a great one, Chaney, for havin’ an extry supply of everything in your war bags. Well, maybe that is good medicine—I won’t say; but it certainly turned out bad for you this one time.
“Well, anyhow, I kept my mouth shut, not takin’ nobody in my confidence, on the trip back to Polebridge. As soon as I could get a minute to myself I called up Kalispel—and say, talk about your coincidences! The news of you and young Hurley bein’ missin’ had been given out the day before by the sheriff and it was telegraphed all over the country to the newspapers, and the home office of our company in New Haven, Connecticut, had seen the dispatch and wired to the district agency at Helena sayin’ you carried a policy with us and for them to start an inquiry into the circumstances and get confirmation and all; and the district agency had wired to me sayin’ the same thing.
“Maybe them home-office folks wasn’t astonished when the word came right back to ’em that their local representative was already on the job and smellin’ a rat. Just to show you, they thought so well of me on account of what I’d already nosed out they didn’t send no special investigator out from headquarters to handle the matter. They turned it over to me, with an expense account and a drawin’ account and all; just told me to drop everything else and stick to this case till I found you. So I got a leave of absence from the sheriff’s office, and, buddy, I’ve been on your trail ever since, and that’s goin’ on eleven months.