He went out into the hall and down the creaking stairs, the man he wanted so badly listening to his descending footsteps, half tempted to follow. Scott did not move, perhaps had already fallen drunkenly asleep on his chair, and finally Keith crossed his own room, and lay down. The din outside continued unabated, but the man's intense weariness overcame it all, and he fell asleep, his last conscious thought a memory of Hope.
Chapter XX. Hope Goes to Sheridan
The discovery of the locket which had fallen from about Keith's neck made it impossible for Hope to remain quietly for very long in the hotel at Fort Larned. The more carefully she thought over the story of that murder at the Cimmaron Crossing, and Keith's tale of how he had discovered and buried the mutilated bodies, the more assured she became that that was where this locket came from, and that the slain freighter must have been her own father. She never once questioned the truth of Keith's report; there was that about the man which would not permit of her doubting him. He had simply failed to mention what he removed from the bodies, supposing this would be of no special interest.
Mrs. Murphy, hoping thus to quiet the apprehensions of her charge, set herself diligently at work to discover the facts. As her house was filled with transients, including occasional visitors from Carson City, and was also lounging headquarters for many of the officers from the near-by fort, she experienced no difficulty in picking up all the floating rumors. Out of these, with Irish shrewdness, she soon managed to patch together a consistent fabric of fact.
“Shure, honey, it's not so bad the way they tell it now,” she explained, consolingly. “Nobody belaves now it was yer father that got kilt. It was two fellers what stole his outfit, clothes an' all, an' was drivin' off wid 'em inter the sand hills. Divil a wan does know who kilt 'em, but there's some ugly stories travellin' about. Some says Injuns; some says the posse run 'em down; an' Black Bart an' his dirthy outfit, they swear it was Keith. Oi've got me own notion. Annyhow, there's 'bout three hundred dollars, some mules, an' a lot o' valyble papers missin'.”
“But if it wasn't father, where is he now?”
“That's what Oi've been tryin' ter foind out. First off he went out to the Cimmaron Crossing, gyarded by a squad o' cavalry from the fort here. Tommy Caine wint along, an' told me all about it. They dug up the bodies, but niver a thing did they find on 'em—not a paper, nor a dollar. They'd bin robbed all roight. The owld Gineral swore loike a wild mon all the way back, Tommy said, an' the first thing he did at Carson City was to start huntin' fer 'Black Bart.' He was two days gittin' on the trail av him; then he heard the feller was gone away trapsing after a singin' or dancin' gyurl called Christie Maclaire. She was supposed to be ayther at Topeky or Sheridan. A freighter told the owld man she was at Sheridan, an' so he started there overland, hopin' ter head off 'Black Bart.' Oi reckon we could a towld mor 'n that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why shure, honey, what's the use tryin' ter decave me? Didn't Jack Keith, wid his own lips, tell me ye was Christie Maclaire?”