Bucky O'Connor: A Tale of the Unfenced Border by William MacLeod Raine (learn to read books .txt) 📗

for him, but he died in about two hours. Before dying, he made us a present of a map we found in his breast pocket. It showed the location of a very rich mine he had found, and as he had no near kin he turned it over to us to do with as we pleased.

“Just then the round-up came on, and we were too busy to pay much attention to the mine. Each of us would have trusted the other with his life, or so I thought. But we cut the paper in half, each of us keeping one part, in order that nobody else could steal the secret from the one that held the paper. The last time I had been in El Paso I had bought my little girl a gold chain with two lockets pendent. These lockets opened by a secret spring, and in one of them I put my half of the map. It seemed as safe a place as I could devise, for the chain never left the child's neck, and nobody except her mother, Dave, and I knew that it was placed there. Dave hid his half under a rock that was known to both of us. The strange thing about the story is that my false friend, in the hurry of his flight, forgot to take his section of the map with him. I found it under the rock next day, so that his vile treachery availed him nothing from a mercenary point of view.”

“Didn't take his half of the map with him. That's right funny,” Bucky mused aloud.

“We never could understand why he didn't.”

“Mebbe if you understood that a heap of things might be clear that are dark now.”

“Mebbe. Knowing Dave Henderson as I did, or, rather, as I thought I did, such treachery as his was almost unbelievable. He was the sweetest, sunniest soul I ever knew, and no two brothers could have been as fond of each other as we seemed to be. But there was no chance of mistake. He had gone, and taken our child with him, likely in accordance with a plan of revenge long cherished by him. We never heard of him or the child again. They disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed them up. Our cook, too, left with him that evil night.”

“Your cook?” It was the second comment Bucky had ventured, and it came incisively. “What manner of man was he?”

“A huge, lumbering braggart. I could never understand why Dave took the man with him.”

“If he did.”

“But I tell you he did. They disappeared the same night, and the trail showed they went the same road. We followed them for about an hour next day, but a heavy rain came up and blotted out the tracks.”

“What was the cook's name?”

“Jeff Anderson.”

“Have you a picture of him, or one of your friend?”

“Back at the ranch I had pictures of Dave, but I burned them after he left. Yes, I reckon we have one of Anderson, standing in front of the chuck wagon.”

“Send it to me, please.”

“All right.”

The ranger asked a few questions that made clearer the situation on the day of the kidnapping, and some more concerning Anderson, then fell again into the role of a listener while Mackenzie concluded his story.

“All these years I have kept my eyes open, confident that at last I would discover something that would help me to discover the whereabouts of my child, or, at least, give me a chance to punish the scoundrel who betrayed my confidence. Yesterday my brother's letter gave the first clue we have had. I want that lead worked. Ferret this thing out to the bottom, lieutenant. Get me something definite to go on. That's what I want you to do. Run the thing to earth, get at the facts, and find my child for me. I'll give you carte blanche up to a hundred thousand dollars. All I ask of you is to make good. Find the little girl, or else bring me face to face with that villain Henderson. Can you do it?”

O'Connor was strangely interested in this story of treachery and mystery. He rose with shining eyes and held out his hand. “I don't know, seh, but I'll try damned hard to do three things: find out what has become of the little girl, of Dave Henderson, and of the scoundrel who stole your baby because he thought the map was in the pocket.”

“You mean that you don't think Dave—”

“That is exactly what I mean. Your cook, Anderson, kidnapped the child, looks like to me. I saw that locket Collins found. My guess was that the marks on the end of the chain were deep teeth marks. The man that stole your baby tried first to cut the chain with his teeth so as to steal the chain. You see, he could not find the clasp in the dark. Then the child wakened and began to cry. He clapped a hand over its mouth and carried the little girl out of the room. Then he heard somebody moving about, lost his nerve, and jumped on the horse that was waiting, saddled, at the door. He took the child along simply because he had to in order to get the chain and the secret he thought it held.”

“Perhaps; but that does not prove it was not Dave.”

“It's contributory evidence, seh. Your friend could have slipped the chain from her neck any day, or he could have opened the locket and taken the map. No need for him to steal in at night. Do you happen to remember whether your little girl had any particular aversion to the cook?”

The cattleman's forehead frowned in thought. “I do remember, now, that she was afraid of him. She always ran screaming to her mother when he tried to be friendly with her. He was a sour sort of fellow.”

“That helps out the case a heap, for it shows that he wanted to make friends with her and she refused. He was thus forced to take the chain when she was asleep instead of playing with her till he had discovered the spring and could simply take the map.”

“But he didn't know anything about the map. He was not in our confidence.”

“You and your friend talked it over evenings when he was at the ranch, and other places, too, I expect.”

“Yes, our talk kind of gravitated that way whenever we got together.”

“Well, this fellow overheard you. That's probable, at least.”

“But you're ignoring the important fact. Dave disappeared too that night, with my little girl.”

Bucky cut in sharply with a question. “Did he? How do you know he disappeared WITH her? Why not AFTER? That's the theory my mind is groping on just now.”

“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.”