"What's that?" cried Isa Blagg. "Who d'ye mean?"
"All right, Sheriff," said Kiddie. "Leave it to me, please. I've only one more question to ask." He turned to Nick again. "Ever smoked one of my foreign cigarettes, Nick?" he inquired.
Nick shook his head.
"Never even seen one of 'em, except that time in my shack when you offered me one outer your gold case, an' I wouldn't have it," he answered. "But I guess you knows as well as I do that Broken Feather collared a whole heap of 'em?"
"Yes," said Kiddie. "It was the takin' of the cigarettes that made me certain that the robber was Broken Feather. You will have gathered from my questions that he tried to fix the crime upon you, Nick. He wore a pair of your boots an' left the prints of them around. He planted your old pipe in the canoe. He left the yellow threads from your woollen vest where they would serve as clues pointin' to you an' you alone and at the same time he was most careful to leave no trace or sign of his own identity."
"The skunk!" muttered Nick; "the greasy, low-down skunk?"
"Say, Kiddie," interposed Rube Carter, "thar's one thing you ain't asked Nick Undrell t' explain. What was his game prowlin' around here an' tryin' ter make friends with the dog?"
"I'll tell you that," returned Nick, glancing across at Rube. "It was all quite innercent. I knew that Kiddie an' you was away on a canoe trip. Broken Feather knew it, too. I'd a suspicion, an' more'n a suspicion, that he'd made up his mind ter break in here an' carry off some of Kiddie's valu'bles. I came prowlin' around ter spy on him. I saw him here once. He saw me watchin' him, an' he quitted. Then I heard that he'd gone cavortin' off on the war-path against the Crows, back of Lone Wolf Mountain, an' I didn't worry any more, since he couldn't be in two places at once. D'ye savvy?"
"Yes," nodded Kiddie; "yes, go on."
"Well," continued Nick, "night before last I was sittin' all lonesome in my shack, waitin' for the water to boil an' listenin' t' the rain outside, when there come a knock at the door. I opened it, an' there was a stranger—a Injun—lookin' like a drowned rat. He wanted food; he wanted shelter. I lets him come in. He couldn't speak English. We talked by signs, an' didn't get a lot said. I made two mugs of coffee, one for myself, one for him.