Buffalo Bill put the handkerchief into his breast pocket. “I’ll try Taos if I don’t make the riffle in these mountains. The evidence I want may be on the body of the man you killed. Go back again and search the pockets. Bring everything here.”
Angell went away for the second time, and when he returned he brought a purse containing a few dollars in silver, a knife, a revolver, a plug of tobacco, and a match box with the initials “T. D.” engraved upon an oval.
The king of scouts was disappointed. The match box was the only clew to the identity of the dead man, and even it might prove valueless. The initials might belong to somebody else. The box might have been found or stolen.
“Do you know any one whose name will fit these initials?” he asked.
“Lemme think,” replied Angell, as he stroked his chin. “It’s more’n likely that it stands fer Tom. As fer ‘D’—jumpin’ Jehosophat! Ther galoot is Tom Darke; Lanky Tom, that ther sheriff of Santa Fe was achin’ ter catch when I war down that way three months ago. I seen ther bills describin’ ther critter, an’ thar’s no mistook about it.”
“I reckon you’re right,” returned Buffalo Bill quietly. “I remember the case. Darke was implicated in a dastardly murder. He was the tool, not the principal. Jared Holmes, a merchant of Santa Fe, was assassinated at his home. It was after dark, and he was sitting in front of an open window. A shot was fired from without, and the bullet entered his brain. A man answering the description of Tom Darke was seen running away from the house; there was other circumstantial evidence connecting him with the crime, and so the officers tried to overhaul him.”
Bart Angell nodded. “Tom war a tinhorn gambler, and ther sheriff told me that, onct whilst how-come-ye-so, Tom let out ter a feller he war drinkin’ with that he war workin’ fer a boss that war shore comin’ in fer all kinds of money.”
Buffalo Bill’s face was grave. “Do you know,” he said, “that Jared Holmes was the brother of Matt Holmes, whose dead body lies out there in the brush? The motive that prompted the killing of Jared was the same that prompted the taking off of Matt. But I won’t go into details now. Help me to get to your cabin, and after a while I’ll talk more.”
But there was no revelation that night. The king of scouts was in a fainting condition when Angell’s cabin was reached. A second dressing to his wound was given, and he was put to bed. Next morning he awoke with mind clear and only a slight physical weakness.
After breakfast, he said: “I realize that you are anxious to know exactly what happened at the cabin of Holmes, and I believe you will work better after I have relieved your curiosity. By this you will understand that there is work for you to do. The bodies down on the flat must be buried. We are many hundreds of miles from a town and a coroner, and so we must act as if we represented the government of the Territory.”