“Of course, but who is Phyllis Gale? What has she to do with General Waite? His daughter has told me she never heard of any one by that name.”
“Well, Keith, the old man has never told me very much; he's pretty close-mouthed, except for swearing, but I've read his papers, and picked up a point or two. I reckon the daughter, Miss Hope, maybe never heard a word about it, but the boy—the one that was shot—must have stumbled onto the story and repeated it to Hawley. That's what set that fellow going. It seems Mrs. Waite's maiden name was Pierpont, and when she was seventeen years old she was married to the son of a rich North Carolina planter. The fellow was a drunken, dissolute good-for-nothing. They had a daughter born—this Phyllis—and when the child was three years old her father, in a fit of drunken rage, ran away, and to spite his wife took the little girl with him. All efforts to trace them failed, and the mother finally secured a divorce and, two years later, married Willis Waite. Waite, of course, knew these facts, but probably they were never told to the children. When the father of Mrs. Waite's first husband died, he left all his large property to his grandchild, providing she could be found and identified within a certain time, failing which the property was to be distributed among certain designated charities. Waite was named sole administrator. Well, the old man took as much interest in it as though it was his own girl, but made mighty little progress. He did discover that the father had taken the child to St. Louis and left her there with a woman named Raymond, but after the woman died the girl completely disappeared.”
“Then Miss Maclaire is Hope Waite's half-sister?”
“That's the way it looks now.”
“And Hawley merely happened to stumble on to the right party?”
“Sure; it's clear enough how that came about. The boy told him about the lost heiress his father was searching after, and showed him his sister's picture. 'Black Bart' instantly recognized her resemblance to Christie Maclaire, and thought he saw a good chance for some easy money. He needed the papers, however, to ascertain exactly the terms of the will, and what would be necessary for the identification. He never intended to go into court, but hoped to either get Waite out of the way, or else convince him that Christie was the girl, relying on her gratitude for his profits. When Waite played into his hands by coming to Carson City, the chance was too good to be lost. I'm not sure he meant to kill him, but he did mean to have those papers at any cost. Probably you know the rest—the girl was easy, because she was so ignorant of her parentage, and nothing prevented Hawley from winning except that Waite got mad and decided to fight. That knocked over the whole thing.”
They were outside now, and the first touch of the cool night air, the first glance up and down the noisy street, brought Keith to himself, his mind ready to grapple with the problem of Hope's disappearance. It seemed to him he had already looked everywhere, yet there was nothing to do except to continue the search, only more systematically. The sheriff assumed control—clear headed, and accustomed to that sort of thing—calling in Hickock and his deputies to assist, and fairly combing the town from one end to the other. Not a rat could have slipped unobserved through the net he dragged down that long street, or its intersecting alleys—but it was without result; nowhere was there found a trace of either the gambler or his companion.
They dug into saloons, bagnios, dance-halls, searching back rooms and questioning inmates; they routed out every occupant of the hotel, invaded boarding houses, and explored shacks and tents, indifferent to the protests of those disturbed,—but without result. They found several who knew Hawley, others who had seen the two together passing by the lighted windows of the Trocadero, but beyond that—nothing. Convinced, at last, that the parties sought were not alive in Sheridan, and beginning to fear the worst, the searchers separated, and began spreading forth over the black surrounding prairie, and by the light of lanterns seeking any semblance of trail. There was no lack of volunteers for this work, but it was daylight before the slightest clue presented itself. Keith, with the sheriff and two or three others, had groped their way outward until, with the first flush of dawn, they found themselves at the opening of a small rocky ravine, near the foot of “Boots Hill.” Peering down into its still shadowed depths, they discerned what appeared like a body lying there motionless. Keith sprang down beside it, and turned the rigid form over until the dead face was revealed in the wan light—it was that of the red moustached Scott. He staggered back at the recognition, barely able to ejaculate.
“Here, Sheriff! This is one of Hawley's men!”
The sheriff was bending instantly above the corpse, searching for the truth.