The sheriff used both hands to roll the cigarette. “And you have pitch on your hands and on your clothes, and somewhere in your tent I think we’ll find a pair of cord-soled shoes that will fit the tracks of—”
“Take a look at this gun now,” Dowling said, moving swiftly. “And take a look at the front end.”
The sheriff was motionless for a moment, then went on rolling his cigarette.
“I don’t want anyone to move,” Dowling said. “Keep right here in plain sight by this campfire and—”
Suddenly from the other side of the campfire came the swift flash of an explosion, the roar of a gun, and Dowling stood dazed, glancing incredulously at his bloody right hand from which the gun had disappeared.
The sheriff put the cigarette to his lips to moisten the paper, drew his tongue along the crease in the rice paper, and said in a low drawl, “Thanks for that, Ames, I sort of figured you’d know what to do in case I could talk him into making a break.”
The eastern sun had long since turned the crags of the big granite mountains into rosy gold. The shadows were still long, however, and the freshness of dawn lingered in the air.
Frank looked up as he heard the sound of the horse’s hoofs trampling the ground. Then Roberta’s voice called, “Ahoy, how are the hot cakes?”
“All eaten up,” Ames said, “and the dishes washed. Why don’t you city slickers get up before lunch?”
She laughed. “We did,” she said. “In fact, no one went to bed at all. The packers broke camp with daylight, and the sheriff has already taken Dowling out to stand trial. I thought you’d want to know all the latest. Bill Eldon certainly isn’t the slow-thinking hick he might seem. Howard Maben was released from the penitentiary two months ago, but he got in trouble again over some forged papers and is awaiting trial in Kansas right now. The sheriff got all that information over the phone.
“George Bay was free-lancing to see if he couldn’t clear up Mrs. Dowling’s death. He had an idea he could collect a reward from the insurance company if he showed it was murder.
“Bay didn’t have much to go on. But Bill Eldon has just about solved that case too. He found out that Howard and Mrs. Dowling had a picnic outfit in a suitcase. They carried powdered milk. She was the only one who took cream in her coffee.
“Dowling only had to put poison in the powdered milk and then leave on a business trip, where he’d have an alibi for every minute of the time. The picnic case, you see, was never used except when he was gone, and only his wife used the powdered milk.
“You should have heard Sheriff Eldon questioning Dowling. He soon had him floundering around in a mass of contradictory stories.
“He’d learned Bay was on his trail and decided to kill Bay so it would look as though Howard had done it. He knew Howard’s term had expired but didn’t know Howard had been rearrested and was in jail. Dowling had had his tent placed so the back was right up against that pine thicket. He’d pretend to be asleep, but he’d taken the pegs out of the back and he’d carry a change of shoes and prowl along the mountain trails. I guess he was pretty desperate, after getting all that wealth together, to be trapped by an old crime. He tried to frame it on you, of course, stealing your gun, then later even planting some of your cigarette stubs. He buried the things from his victim’s pockets at your place where officers would be sure to find them. But because he thought Sheriff Eldon was a doddering old man, he overdid everything.
“Well, that’s all the news, and I must skip. I’m supposed to be back in the main trail in ten minutes. The others are going to pick me up on the way out. I thought I’d just stop by and — leave you my address. I suddenly realized I hadn’t told you where you could reach me.”
She was standing in the door of the cabin, smiling, looking trim and neat in her leather riding skirt, cowboy boots and soft green silk blouse.
Frank Ames strode toward her, kicking a chair out of his way. “I know where to reach you,” he said.
Five minutes later she pushed herself gently back from his arms and said, “Heavens, I’ll be late! I won’t know how to catch up with them. I don’t know the trails.”
Ames’ circling arms held her to him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You have just left lipstick smears all over one of the best guides in the mountains.”
“You mean we can catch up with the others?” she asked.
“Eventually,” Frank Ames said. “You probably don’t know it, however, but you’re headed for the County Clerk’s office.”
“The County Clerk’s office? Surely you don’t mean—?”
“I’m leaving just as soon as I can get a few things together,” he said. “You see, I want to record a claim. Up here in the mountains when we find something good, we file on it.”
“You... you’d better have it assayed first, Frank.”
“I’ve assayed ‘it,’ ” he said. “Underneath that raspberry lipstick there’s pure gold, and I don’t want anyone to jump my claim.”
“They won’t,” she assured him softly.