The Breaking Point - Page 96/275

The description Wasson had applied to Henry Livingstone, Bassett himself

applied to the two ranch hands later on, during their interview. It

could hardly have been called an interview at all, indeed, and after a

time Bassett realized that behind their taciturnity was suspicion. They

were watching him, undoubtedly; he rather thought, when he looked away,

that once or twice they exchanged glances. He was certain, too, that

Wasson himself was puzzled.

"Speak up, Jake," he said once, irritably. "This gentleman has come a

long way. It's a matter of some property."

"What sort of property?" Jake demanded. Jake was the spokesman of the

two.

"That's not important," Bassett observed, easily. "What we want to know

is if Henry Livingstone had any family."

"He had a brother."

"No one else?"

"Then it's up to me to trail the brother," Bassett observed. "Either of

you remember where he lived?"

"Somewhere in the East."

Bassett laughed.

"That's a trifle vague," he commented good-humoredly. "Didn't you boys

ever mail any letters for him?"

He was certain again that they exchanged glances, but they continued

to present an unbroken front of ignorance. Wasson was divided between

irritation and amusement.

"What'd I tell you?" he asked. "Like master like man. I've been here ten

years, and I've never got a word about the Livingstones out of either of

them."

"I'm a patient man." Bassett grinned. "I suppose you'll admit that one

of you drove David Livingstone to the train, and that you had a fair

idea then of where he was going?"

He looked directly at Jake, but Jake's face was a solid mask. He made no

reply whatever.

From that moment on Bassett was certain that David had not been driven

away from the ranch at all. What he did not know, and was in no way to

find out, was whether the two ranch hands knew that he had gone into the

mountains, or why. He surmised back of their taciturnity a small mystery

of their own, and perhaps a fear. Possibly David's going was as much a

puzzle to them as to him. Conceivably, during the hours together on the

range, or during the winter snows, for ten years they had wrangled and

argued over a disappearance as mysterious in its way as Judson Clark's.

He gave up at last, having learned certain unimportant facts: that the

recluse had led a lonely life; that he had never tried to make the place

more than carry itself; that he was a student, and that he had no other

peculiarities.