| OCR Text |
Show eay out. wNohody, not even Sam. would any more think ol telling Mrs. liicker to shut up, than they would think of telling any other dumb object, ob-ject, that suddenly started to talk to shut up. "I think," Mrs. RIcker said, "that the girl herself probably killed her sister. If Sam's pipe ashes were on the bag, she put them I here, afterwards, after-wards, to make trouble for him." Sam said, "Shucks 1" I thought Jolin would be the first to speak 1 was mistaken. 'It was Panny herself who said, "Make her talk, now, Dncle Sam. DEEER. : ft) CE.5EAVER. V; l 'vf COPYRIC.HT b DOURLEDAY OORAN Ca INC. W U. SERVICE Make bcr Ink now, find give her reasons rea-sons for saying such a cruel, wicked, lying thing." "Mrs. Richer," Sam put the ques tion very solemnly, "have you any reasons for makiug this accusation?" "I have a feeling that she Is guilty." "This," Sam said, sternly, "is no time for feeling, nor for quibbling. You made a serious accusation straight out. I want your reason, or reasons, for making it, and I want them jus as straight." "1 have no reasons." Mrs. Rickei said. "That Is why 1 suspect her." "Ah-ah-nhl Women!" Sara said; nnii ttip wnv he id it. it was the CHAPTER VIX Continued. "lie s.uiwed up one night with a letter from Cnnni -.iano, written from j San Quentln. Bnuermont and Can-' nezlano had been pals here In the United States; and had gotten to- pether again, three years ago, when Bauermont had been over 1 here for six months. The letter said that he j was to leave prison on the fourth of July, and wanted to know where ha could meet Bauermont shortly after that date. Probably all Canneziano wanted was to renew his old connections; connec-tions; but the letter was cryptic enough for Bauermont to make his story out of It. "A cock-and-bull yarn about how he and Canneziano bad held up that Tonopah mall train, three years ago the train that was carrying a big shipment of currency for the federal reserve bank. A hundred thousand dollars, wasn't it? We all remember it, I guess. The robbers got away. Well, this Bauermont bird told ihe girls that he and Canneziano had been the robbers. came downstairs, until we all set out to look for her, Chad was not out of my sight. Ho was at the piano. He walked to the barn with me. He stayed in the barn with me. ' He walked back to the house with me. Lie was with us all during supper." "you," said Danny, "say that Chad was in the barn with you during all of that hour. I wonder whether Chad, If he were alive, could swear that you were In the barn with him, during all of that hour?" "What do you mean by that, my girl?" Sam questioned. Danny sat and stared at him, her eyes wide, her lips bitten tight; sat and looked as If she were frightened plumb out of her senses, and did not say one word. "You meant something when you said that," Sam insisted. "Now what was It? Come, speak up. I don't aim to treat you mean, and you know I'm sorry for you, and feel for you In your trouble. But what is it you have on your mind?" She sat there, still as a mouse ; her big eyes growing bigger from fright. John said gently, "If you have anything any-thing to say please say it" blackest oath he had used that day. "I think," I said, talking fast to keep Sam from shutting me up before be-fore I could get anything said, "that If, In susplcioning an Innocent girl like Danny, Mrs. Ricker Is simply drawing on her woman's instinct, she'd better pass it up, for the present, pres-ent, and listen to some plain sexless sense. "Gaby came downstairs at four. Danny called after her, right then ; so 'lariny was in the house right then. Gaby went to the rabbit hutch and stopped long enough to give Martha the bracelet. Almost as soon as Martha was in the house with the bracelet, Danny was downstairs with us, cool, collected, and undisturbed Now suppose that Gaby had come straight back into the house. 1 guess every one would agree that it would "It seems he made a pretty fair story out of it how he and Canneziano Cannez-iano had decided that every bank in the country would have the number of the oills by morning, and bow they'd agreed to cache them in soma safe place for a rather long time. They'd thought it best, too, to part company. Sn Bnuermont went on io Salt Lake, and Canneziano, since we were handy, came and hid the money here on the ranch." Sam interrupted. "Like b 1 he did!" "No, of course he didn't, dad. I'm giving you Bauermont's story, that's all. According to him Canneziano told him he had hidden the money here, all right; but he would not tell hira where. He said it was safe, that no one could find it not in a thousand years. That was all Bauermont could get out of him, except a promise to meet him, when he got out of prison, and, come here -with him to get the money. "The letter Gaby got, a few days ago, was from this Bauermont. Danny "You won't blame me?" she pleaded. "You won't blame me, afterward?" "Could 1 blame you for telling what you think Is the truth?" "Hubert," she spoke suddenly, and very sharply, for her, "did you see Uncle Sam, all that time, in the barn? Could you see him, all the time, while you were milking the cows? He says he could not see you." "No" Hubert hesitated. "No ' 1 guess 1 didn't see him, all the time. He was at one end of the barn, and I was at the other. But 1 heard him talking to Chad all the time. Sam was right there all the time, Danny. No getting away from that." "But there Is." she said. "You all seem to have forgotten it, but Chad was a mimic and a ventriloquist. He could have stayed there In the barn i alone, and with no trouble at all. made you think that Cncle Sam was there, too, and that they were talking together." I stopped breathing. 1 think the others stopped breathing. John spoke first. take her five minutes to get back upstairs. That would leave Danny not moreTthan ten minutes to idil her. and to come downstairs, as I've said, collected and undisturbed. Come to think of It, Gaby could not have talked to Martha and got to the attic stairway In any five minutes. At the widest figuring, that leaves Danny about five minutes " As I had been fearing he would. Sam stopped me. "That's all right, too, Mary. But there is no need to draw so long a bow. No need to count minutes on Danny. The note in Gaby's bag fixes hei innocence bet ter than all the minutes on the clock could." "No, it does not," Mrs. Ricker said. "Gaby knew that she had reason to fear an enemy. She probably found that out from the code letter. She may never have suspected that the enemy was her own sister." "1 wish 1 knew." Sam said, giving Mrs. Ricker a long look, "what you are getting at. Mrs. Ricker. I'd give that." Sara dangled out his right band if "Four cows got milked. Chad couldn't milk. Never milked a cow " "How do you know?" Danny said "You know only that Chad said he could not milk. We all know that he was lazy. He was raised on a farm He told me he was." John said: "He told me that h? was born and j-eared In Chicago." "Shut up. John." Sam commanded "Go on, Danny." "That's all.'" she said. "Except, that If Chad could milk, that would have given Uncle Sam nearly all of that hour " "Dan!" John's voice sounded as it he were talking to ore of his meanest mean-est broncos. "Stop It! Sitting here and accusing dad, witb no evidence-nothing evidence-nothing but a crazy, wild Idea "That is not true. I have evidence 1 nicked up Gaby's bag from the steps yesterday evening. Tobacco and pipe ashes were sticking to it- No one else on this place smokes a pipe. M one else, anywhere, drops his pipe whenever he is excited." She turned to me. "That Is what 1 told you dared not tell-" She hid her face In her hands. Sam's pipe fell from his mouth. "to know what any one of you was getting at. 1 think Danny would have to be pretty hard put to it, be- fore she'd invent that story about my pipe ashes See here, did any one else think they saw my pipe j ashes around- there?" 1 Imagined 1 could feel Hubert Hand's eyes boring Into me. My face burned. I raised my eyes. Sam was staring straight at me. "Mary." he said, "yon found the body. Did you see pipe ashes there, then?" My only excuse Is, that It takes longer than a minute or two minutes to betray n person who has been yonr best friend for twenty-five years. I said, "No." "1 am going to ask you to swear to that. Somebody get the Bible." Nobody moved. "You haven't made any of the others oth-ers swear to anything." I said. "1 haven't caught any of the others tn what I was sure was a direct and deliberate He." I felt weaker than filtered water It Is one thing to tell a lie. offhand into the free air. I haven't much nse for a person who can't do that, when Danny Could Not Read the Code. could not read the code, but she has every reason to think that the copy Gaby read to her was genuine. In it he said that the whole thing, from start to finish, had been a put up job on Gaby. He and Canneziano had had no connection witb the train robbery. The point of it was, that he had found another girl, was tired of Gaby, and wanted to ship her out of the way. Danny says the whole thing was an insult, from beginning to end; and that It seemed to havei been written with no other motive than a desire to humiliate Gaby, twit her langb in her face." "Sounds fishy to me," Sam mused. "Well, John, does that finish up the part of 'the story Danny couldn't tell?" "I think so, dad." "All right. Now, Danny, what did yoit mean, a few minutes ago, when you warned me to be careful, like CHAPTER X A Part of the Past. T, seemed to me that, when Sam's stones. I oppose it could not I nve edmrionrtimeSrjo,fnt,;I rn?s sideand went and picked up the pipe and handed it to Sam. "It's all right, dad." he said. ' "Not by a -n sight. It's not all r!ght " Sam came back to his senses right, oa interesting vigorously. But It w estin tis thing. ft e , bad got anyway. Let me ' see- 0 1 n,nt hour When could absolutely necessary. It is anotner thing to put your hand on the Good Book and swear to a lie. I knew that 1 could not do it "Martha." Sam said, "run and get the Bible for dad." ' Martha seemed to be sound asleep. I did not notice anything queer about her appearance. Mrs Ricker must have noticed something queer. She jumped to her feet and dashed across the room to where Martha was lying. A shriek went piercing through the house, splintering the air Into qulv ering bits of agony. Every one has awakened from sleep ccld with the sweating terror , of some hideous nightmare, but with only the vaguest impressions of its detail So it is with me. and that nightmare hour. 1 can not recom struct it It remains, yet. in my mind as nothing hut a horror of confu-sions. confu-sions. Some of us made desperate attempts at-tempts with restoratives. 1 re.nemb.i Sam s crying, with his face uncovered, like a child. I can ',nr him sayinc the.- he bad given l.er a sleeping powder, had f-ced it upon her I can hear. P laint of nil .Mrs. Bicker's voiee. with nil lh pent UP passion, ot years hpi forth in torrents of heartbreak. "Mv h:ihv Mv bnbT cirl My 1;'rl jIr,' ' M,.;ers. life. Mother's heart SpoaU to mother. My lamb My bahX." '(To Be Continues) you did?" (l 'I Danny stammered, wanted you to be careful about what you said, iu anger." "In other words, you wanted me to be careful about saying an-vt'n"'', that would seem to implicate John . John is not guilty." j "liow-do you know that?" "I know it the same way that you . all seem to know that Chad was not guilty. I know John." ! "That's all right. But you ennt know John's innocence like we know, Chad's- because, from. theiInieG.I Thnt'S "Huh" bcr would be an-reason an-reason for Uibnv " ZTsoe here, dad." John cu, lD- , , we are wait- n:is 1 , nf t!,oe missing links-- n i that she was plumb tuek eaS', out "No- of course I ran t ered out. here " I t"-'n- "S!im- I, Vta"' San, said Mrs. RiclMUP- |
