Forbes Parkhill

“ Sheriff Ogden called when the deputy had ripped from the floor the plank containing Joe Fyffe’s dying words. He permitted the door of the ranger cabin to remain unlocked, explaining that the coroner would fasten it after removing the body.
Otis’ chestnut pony, a rugged little mountain animal which had gained the name of “Pie-face” because of the splotched white star between his eyes, turned an inquiring look at the approach of his master. Like all Western saddle-horses, Pie-face had been taught to stand as though hitched as long as his reins were trailing on the ground. ”

“ Otis was exasperated at the stupidity of the cow-men, which would not permit them to believe him when he said he was innocent of the slaying of the ranger. But his heart went out to the loyal men who had flocked to his aid, endangering their own lives to rescue him from the jail. He swung into the saddle.
“Boys,” he called, one arm upraised as he strove to quell the eagerness of Pie-face, “boys, I sure appreciate what you’ve done for me. It was mighty white of you. You don’t believe me when I say I didn’t kill Joe Fyffe. You tell me to hit the trail and keep going. ”

“ Mariel, who had equipped herself with a quirt belonging to Margaret Carr, her school chum who had induced her to pay a visit to the Footstool ranch in Wyoming, frowned slightly and attempted to slap her boot, as if she had held a riding-crop. The quirt, however, was too limber, and refused to slap.
“I understand, but that’s just why I want to learn,” she insisted with some little spirit. “What if I’d be out somewhere alone, and have to saddle—”
“I bet you-all wont be ridin’ around alone, ma’am—not’s long as young Mr. Otis is here,” remarked Simple with assurance. ”

“ Flight would convince the entire rangeland of his guilt—if it retained any doubt, after it heard of the murder. Cowardice was worse than being the object of unfounded suspicion—worse even, than paying the extreme penalty for the crime of some one else. Besides, there was Gus Bernat, who would swear to his alibi—
So Otis fought with himself his first great battle. Two hours later Ogden’s chief deputy, sitting in the Sheriff’s office in Jackson, brought down the forelegs of his chair in startled surprise as he saw Otis, still handcuffed, dismount and approach stiffly. ”

“ The heap of bodies untangled. From its midst arose Sheriff Lafe Ogden. One hand gripped the sleeve of Jess Bledsoe of the Flying A. His wrists were manacled in handcuffs. He glared wildly about the room.
“I guess,” drawled the Sheriff, “that we don’t need to see the face in the picture now, to know who’s been rustling the cattle on this range, or to know who killed Joe Fyffe. Pretty shrewd, while it lasted. Dressed like Otis, and complained to me every so often about the rustlers, so it would look like he was losin’ calves too. ”

“ The base of the tree-trunk was too large, and the roots sloped off over the creek bank at such an angle as to make a sitting posture out of the question.
Otis was curious to know the result of the expedition of Sheriff Ogden and Seth Markey in pursuit of the figure which had melted into the timber. He too had caught a fleeting glimpse of the man, and believed it to be “Soggy” Radley of the Jackson’s Hole country. Soggy had gained his sobriquet through his ability to enjoy his own flapjacks, which no one else, even his brother Ginger, could stomach. ”

“ Slowly, because of his stiffened limbs and handcuffed wrists, he climbed up the rocks and out of the gorge. He made for the Buffalo Forks road sixty yards away, and started back upstream. Rounding a bend in the road, he beheld Pie-face standing, ears upraised inquiringly, not one hundred feet above the spot where Otis had been swept away with the tree. ”

“ Mariel waited with bated breath.
“There!” Otis exclaimed when at last the print was finished. “Look, Mariel! Isn’t it astounding? I’ve suspected it, but I’ve never breathed a word of my suspicions to a soul. This solves everything—everything!”
Twenty minutes later, having made an additional print, and with the negative carefully wrapped to protect it from breakage, Otis announced his readiness to leave the cabin. Both were jubilant as they mounted their horses and started down the trail. Suddenly Mariel broke out with an exclamation of annoyance. ”

“ He’s cropping the grass as if he’d never in the world thought of running away.”
Jess knew better than to attempt to press his advantage too far. He stalked forward with jingling spurs and grasped the bridle of Dynamite, who had come to a halt a score of yards away.
“I—I guess we’d better start back. It’s starting to rain,” she faltered, plainly a bit afraid of her mount, who eyed her innocently when Jess led him back.
“Don’t let him see you’re scared of him,” Jess advised, cupping his hands to help her into the saddle. “Just keep that slicker from flapping, and he wont try it again.” ”

“ Otis believed he could feel the earth tremble beneath him. He knew that the lightning had struck a tree somewhere in the gulch near by.
Then, for the first time, he was assailed by a questioning fear for his own safety. He remembered coming upon the bodies of a score of sheep that had sought shelter beneath a huge tree in the highlands near Two-Gwo-Tee pass two years before, only to be electrocuted in a mass when a bolt of lightning struck the tree. He cursed the deputy for his thoughtlessness in chaining him to the pine, when it was plain that the electrical storm was approaching. ”

“ You could have used the ranger’s own camera, if necessary. And photographs sometimes reveal things the human eye can’t see. You know, Otis, I think it might be worth while even now to photograph the ground here, so we can study it at leisure, through a magnifying glass, perhaps. And the interior of the cabin, too. It’s only a bare chance, but it might aid us. Run back to the cabin and get the camera, will you, please?”
As Otis turned his back and made for the cabin, Mariel knelt and made a hasty but careful examination of the earth about the remains of the fire. ”

“ Boys, you’re the best friends a man ever had, but you’ve got the wrong slant on things.
“After I left you the other night, I tell you I was feeling pretty mean. I wanted to get out alone. I started up the river, figuring I’d lay out and have a look for the rustlers. I ran into Gus Bernat, and he asked me to stay at his cabin overnight. If Gus hadn’t been drowned in the flood, you’d never have had to get me out of jail last night.
“Along toward morning, Ranger Fyffe heard a noise outside his cabin, I judge, from the way things turned out. He figured it was a lion, or a cat or something. ”

“ Now look at the picture again. See that calf? Looks like it just happened into the picture, like any of the calves on the range around the cabin, doesn’t it? Notice its feet? Just like it’s been hog-tied, and slipped its hind foot out of the knot, isn’t it? Look at the brand. Not like any brand hereabouts, is it?
“What’s that the man’s got in his hand? That’s right. It’s a running-iron. That’s what he dropped when he grabbed his gun. He must have recovered it after the murder, when he doused his fire and beat it. Take a look at the horse, now. He hasn’t got a star-face, like Pie-face, has he? ”

“ But through it all he had been buoyed up by the confidence that Bernat could provide an ironclad alibi.
Years before, one of his father’s cowhands had been cornered by a grizzly in the Snake River valley south of the Yellowstone. The man had raised his rifle to fire, and the rifle had jammed. Otis, then a boy, had been one of the party which had found the torn and mutilated body, with the jammed rifle by its side. ”

“ CHAPTER I The modern West still keeps many of the old-time thrills, as you who read this captivating novelette of the Wyoming mountains will discover. Mr. Parkhill himself lives in the West; “The Ken-Caryl Case” and other stories have already won him fame as an excellent writing-man.
Sheriff Lafe Ogden, long-barreled blue revolver in his hand, knocked lightly on the rough pine door of the Red Rock ranger station. Then he stepped back softly and pressed himself close to the log-and-plaster wall beside his deputy, Seth Markey, and young Otis Carr. ”

“ He’s very human.” And then, as an afterthought, she added: “And modest!”
Jess looked at her a trifle suspiciously. “You know,” he said, “there’s grown to be quite a friendly rivalry between Otis and me.” Mariel shot a doubtful and inquiring glance at him. “Each of us wants to be the first to catch the rustlers who have been getting into our stock,” he went on; and Mariel breathed a sigh of relief.
“We both believe the Radley boys over in Jackson’s Hole are the ones responsible for all this rustling, but so far, we haven’t been able to prove a thing. ”

“ He believed that the Sheriff would relish making such an arrest far more than he had relished making the arrest of Otis himself on the charge of murdering Ranger Fyffe.
The capture of one of the Radley boys, with sufficient evidence for a conviction, would meet with popular approval, and would make many votes at the next election. Otis knew Sheriff Ogden to be an easy-going official of the type which makes a good politician, eager to please everyone, if possible, and loath to make enemies. ”

“ He hadn’t failed to use his eyes during the week that Mariel had been a guest of the ranch, and his years gave him certain privileges which the other “boys” lacked.
Mariel flushed slightly, and then laughed.
“But he isn’t here today,” she challenged, as if seeking to elicit further information concerning Otis.
“No, ma’am,” Simple replied, his eyes narrowing as he looked away southward toward the Gros Ventre range, “I reckon he’s out there somewheres lookin’ over the range. First thing, ma’am, don’t go swishin’ that quirt around these broomtails. They’re liable to think yore in earnest. ”

“ Otis commenced. “All of us have reported losses from time to time—the Lazy Y, the Flying A, the Footstool and others—but mostly it was the Footstool calves that seemed to be the favorites of the rustlers.
“Now, most all of us seemed to hold a grudge against Joe Fyffe because he was in the Government service. We seemed to think the Government wanted to run us off the range. We couldn’t see that the forest service is keeping us from ruining our own range by overgrazing. ”

“ Cain’t you-all figger out some way to get rid of them, now that you’ve figgered this out so purty?”
“I don’t think you’ll have much trouble with the Red Rock ranger station after this, boys,” Otis laughed. “You see, I put in my application for a job as forest ranger months ago. Fyffe’s death leaves the first vacancy.
“I was talking it over with Mariel as we rode down here from the ranger cabin this morning. You can be sure of a square deal all right from some one who has the stockmen’s interests at heart. ”

“ If the boys ever catch them at it—well, it’s going to be pretty tough on the Radley brothers.”
“But isn’t cattle—er—rustling just plain stealing?”
“Some say it’s worse than that, Miss Mariel.”
“Well, then, why don’t the police, or whoever enforces the laws, arrest these people and bring them to trial?”
Jess laughed good-naturedly.
“Well, there’s several reasons for that. The penalty provided by the law isn’t stiff enough to worry the rustlers much. So the cattle men sort of figure that they can attend to the situation without bothering the Sheriff about it. ”

“ You know as well as I that the Government rangers aren’t any too popular in the cattle country. But you admit that all the cow-men dislike the rangers. Why should that indicate any motive on my part?”
“I aint saying it does,” Ogden remarked. “I’m asking for information. Now, isn’t it true, Otis, that just because you was particularly friendly with Joe Fyffe, you thought you could talk to him better than anyone else? Wasn’t that the reason you come over here last night—not with any notion of killing him, mind you—but just to tell him he’d better clear out, before somethin’ happened? ”

“ Fyffe kept most of his materials in the other room of the ranger cabin.”
“But if he’d been using the flash-pan and plate-slide at the time he was shot, he’d hardly have taken them back there, would he?”
“No-o. Usually a photographer, when he takes out the slide preparatory to making a picture, places it on top of the camera, if he’s using a tripod. If he isn’t, and it’s a small camera, he’d be apt to thrust it into his pocket. We didn’t search his pockets. The coroner could tell us if it was there.”
“Well, the next thing to do, Otis, is to develop the plate. ”