“That’s a blind trail to me. Why after? And what difference does it make?”
“All the difference in the world. If he left after the cook, you have been doing him an injustice for fifteen years, seh.”
Mackenzie leaned forward, excitement burning in his eyes. “Prove that, young man, and I’ll thank you to the last day of my life. It’s for my wife’s sake more than my own I want my little girl back. She jes’ pines for her every day of her life. But for my friend—if you can give me back the clean memory of Dave you’ll have done a big thing for me, Mr. O’Connor.”
“It’s only a working theory, but this is what I’m getting at. You and Henderson had arranged to take an early start on a two days’ deer hunt next mo’ning. That’s what you told me, isn’t it?”
“We were to start about four. Yes, sir.”
“Well, let’s suppose a case. Along comes Dave before daybreak, when the first hooters were beginning to call. Just as he reaches your ranch he notices a horse slipping away in the darkness. Perhaps he hears the little girl cry out. Anyhow, instead of turning in at the gate, he decides to follow. Probably he isn’t sure there’s anything wrong, but when he finds out how the horse he’s after is burning the wind his suspicions grow stronger. He settles down to a long chase. In the darkness, we’ll say, he loses his man, but when it gets lighter he picks up the trail again. The tracks lead south, across the line into Mexico. Still he keeps plodding on. The man in front sees him behind and gets scared because he can’t shake him off. Very likely he thinks it is you on his track. Anyhow, while the child is asleep he waits in ambush, and when Henderson rides up he shoots him down. Then he pushes on deeper into Chihuahua, and proceeds to lose himself there by changing his name.”
“You think he murdered Dave?” The cattleman got up and began to pace up and down the floor.
“I think it possible.”
Webb Mackenzie’s face was pallid, but there was a new light of hope in it. “I believe you’re right. God knows I hope so. That may sound a horrible thing to say of my best friend, but if it has got to be one or the other—if it is certain that my old bunkie came to his death foully in Chihuahua while trying to save my baby, or is alive to-day, a skulking coward and villain—with all my heart I hope he is dead.” He spoke with a passionate intensity which showed how much he had cared for his early friend, and how much the latter’s apparent treachery had cut him. “I hope you’ll never have a friend go back on you, Mr. O’Connor, the one friend you would have banked on to a finish. Why, Dave Henderson saved my life from a bunch of Apaches once when it was dollars to doughnuts he would lose his own if he tried it. We were prospecting in the Galiuros together, and one mo’ning when he went down to the creek to water the hawsses he sighted three of the red devils edging up toward the cabin. There might have been fifty of them there for all he knew, and he had a clear run to the plains if he wanted to back one of the ponies and take it. Most any man would have saved his own skin, but not Dave. He hoofed it back to the cabin, under fire every foot of the way, and together we made it so hot for them that they finally gave up getting us. We were in the Texas Rangers together, and pulled each other through a lot of close places. And then at the end—Why, it hurt me more than it did losing my own little girl.”
Bucky nodded. Since he was a man and not a father, he could understand how the hurt would rankle year after year at the defalcation of his comrade.