Brand Blotters - Page 50/180

The deputy glanced quietly round, nodded here and there at sight of the

familiar face of an acquaintance, and spoke to the driver.

"Let's hear you say your little piece again, José."

The Mexican now had it by heart, and he pattered off the thing from

beginning to end without a pause. Melissy, behind the counter, leaned her

elbows on it and fastened her eyes on the boyish face of the officer. In

her heart she was troubled. How much did he know? What could he discover

from the evidence she had left? He had the reputation of being the best

trailer and the most fearless officer in Arizona. But surely she had

covered her tracks safely.

From José the ranger turned to Alan. "We'll hear your account of it now,

seh," he said gently.

While Alan talked, Jack's gaze drifted through the window to the flock of

sheep that were being driven up from the ditch by Lee and Norris. That

little pastoral scene had its significance for him. He had arrived at the

locality of the hold-up a few minutes after they had left, and his keen

intelligence had taken in some of the points they had observed. A rapid

circuit of the spot at the distance of thirty yards had shown him no

tracks leading from the place except those which ran up the lateral on

either side of it. It was possible that these belonged to the horses of

the robbers, but if so the fellows were singularly careless of detection.

Moreover, the booty must be accounted for. They had not carried it with

them, since no empty box remained to show that they had poured the gold

into sacks, and it would have been impossible to take the box as it was on

a horse. Nor had they buried it, unless at the bottom of the irrigating

ditch, for some signs of their work must have remained.

Balancing probabilities, it had seemed to Flatray that these might be the

tracks of ranchmen who had arrived after the hold-up and were following

the escaping bandits up the lateral. For unless these were the robber's,

there was no way of escape except either up or down the bottom of the

ditch. His search had eliminated the possibility of any other but the

road, and this was travelled too frequently to admit of even a chance of

escape by it without detection. Jack filed away one or two questions in

his brain for future reference. The most important of these was to

discover whether there had been any water in the ditch at the time of the

hold-up.