“Did they get Markham, Toynbee?” asked Peters.
The landlord was reading a newspaper. He jumped in his chair as the unexpected words reached him from the bed.
“Oh, you’re back, eh?” said he. “You’ve been a long time on the road, although the doctor said we needn’t to mind. Get Markham? Well, I guess!” And Toynbee chuckled. “Jordan got him, and four others, along with the stolen horses. They were pushing through the dry wash when the sheriff and his party arrived there. You bet they got him, Peters, and red-handed at that. Big surprise to everybody. Why, Markham had put the whole thing up! He was back of the entire scheme! It has all come out. Markham won’t talk, but the rest of the gang feel different. Across the line there were men waiting to take the horses and rush ’em off where they’d never be found. Say! I guess you ought to have a medal for what you did last night! How are you feeling, anyhow?”
Peters was stunned. Porter Markham one of the horse thieves! Could Peters believe his ears? Markham had had a reason for driving the horses off their feet on the return from Devil’s Lake. With all the other stock taken from Morton’s, it had been Markham’s plan to make the sleigh team useless, so far as a drive of twenty miles to Roscommon, with news for the sheriff, was concerned; and Markham had protested against Peters’ plan of using skates in carrying an alarm to Roscommon; but when the method had been put into effect, in spite of him, Markham had taken to the skis and had waylaid Peters at the eastern foot of Bear Butte. In the light of recent events, the motive for that attack could be seen at an even more treacherous angle. Markham’s scheme was not to beat Peters to Roscommon with news for the sheriff, but to keep all knowledge of the robbery from the authorities until the stolen horses had been delivered across the line. Instead of making for the town, after securing Peters’ skates, Markham had followed the river bends beyond the town, to a point where he could join his rascally confederates with the horse herd.
“How do you feel, Peters?” repeated Toynbee, after waiting a long time for a reply.
“Mighty nigh locoed,” said Peters.
“No wonder! Say, you hit the railroad iron with your head when you went over the embankment. Any other head but yours would probably have been cracked.”
“You can’t crack a saphead,” commented Peters, but not in bitterness.
Next day, when Peters was thinking of getting out of his bed and helping drive the horses back to the ranch, no less a person than Uncle Silas Goddard walked into his room. Uncle Silas was an iron-gray man, big and broad, and with a regular heart under his ribs. He had received a telegram, signed Reece Bailey, per Morton, and had come to North Dakota by first train.
There were greetings, not those of a pleased employer for a worthy employee, but more in line with what one’s next of kin might say in circumstances altogether creditable. Bailey was “coming fine,” and would be on the job again in two or three weeks; and Peters, the doctor said, would be fit as a fiddle in seven days, at the outside. The horses were on the way back to Morton’s.