The Ledge on Bald Face Part 7

Blackstock first examined the road minutely, all about the body, but the examination, even to such a practised eye as his, yielded little result. The ground was too hard and dusty to receive any legible trail, and, moreover, it had been carelessly over-trodden by the game-warden and his son. But whether he found anything of interest or not, Blackstock's grim, impa.s.sive face gave no sign.

At length he went over to the body, and lifted it gently. The coat and s.h.i.+rt were soaked with blood, and showed marks of a fierce struggle.

Blackstock opened the s.h.i.+rt, and found the fatal wound, a knife-thrust which had been driven upwards between the ribs. He laid the body down again, and at the same time picked up a piece of paper, crumpled and blood-stained, which had lain beneath it. He spread it open, and for a moment his brows contracted as if in surprise and doubt. It was one of the order forms for "Mother, Home and Heaven."

He folded it up and put it carefully between the leaves of the note-book which he always carried in his pocket.

Stephens, who was close beside him, had caught a glimpse of the paper, and recognized it.

"Say!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "I never thought o' _him_!"

But Blackstock only shook his head slowly, and called the big black dog, which had been waiting all this time in an att.i.tude of keen expectancy, with mouth open and tail gently wagging.

"Take a good look at him, Jim," said Blackstock.

The dog sniffed the body all over, and then looked up at his master as if for further directions.

"An' now take a sniff at this." And he pointed to the rifled bag.

"What do you make of it?" he inquired when the dog had smelt it all over minutely.

Jim stood motionless, with ears and tail drooping, the picture of irresolution and bewilderment.

Blackstock took out again the paper which he had just put away, and offered it to the clog, who nosed it carefully, then looked at the dead body beside the pool, and growled softly.

"Seek him, Jim," said Blackstock.

At once the dog ran up again to the body, and back to the open book.

Then he fell to circling about the bag, nose to earth, seeking to pick up the elusive trail.

At this point the crowd from the village, unable longer to restrain their eagerness, surged forward, led by Hawker, and closed in, effectually obliterating all trails. Jim growled angrily, showing his long white teeth, and drew back beside the body as if to guard it.

Blackstock stood watching his action with a brooding scrutiny.

"What's that bit o' paper ye found under him, Tug?" demanded Hawker vehemently.

"None o' yer business, Sam," replied the deputy, putting the blood-stained paper back into his pocket.

"I seen what it was," shouted Hawker to the rest of the crowd. "It was one o' them there dokyments that the book agent had, up to the store.

I always _said_ as how 'twas him."

"We'll ketch him!" "We'll string him up!" yelled the crowd, starting back along the road at a run.

"Don't be sech fools!" shouted Blackstock. "Hold on! Come back I tell ye!"

But he might as well have shouted to a flock of wild geese on their clamorous voyage through the sky. Fired by Sam Hawker's exhortations, they were ready to lynch the black-whiskered stranger on sight.

Blackstock cursed them in a cold fury.

"I'll hev to go after them, Andy," said he, "or there'll be trouble when they find that there book agent."

"Better give 'em their head, Tug," protested the warden. "Guess he done it all right. He'll git no more'n's good for him."

"_Maybe_ he did it, an' then agin, maybe he didn't," retorted the Deputy, "an' anyways, they're jest plumb looney now. You stay here, an' I'll follow them up. Send Bob back to the Ridge to fetch the coroner."

He turned and started on the run in pursuit of the shouting crowd, whistling at the same time for the dog to follow him. But to his surprise Jim did not obey instantly. He was very busy digging under a big whitish stone at the other side of the pool. Blackstock halted.

"Jim," he commanded angrily, "git out o' that! What d'ye mean by foolin' about after woodchucks a time like this? Come here!"

Jim lifted his head, his muzzle and paws loaded with fresh earth, and gazed at his master for a moment. Then, with evident reluctance, he obeyed. But he kept looking back over his shoulder at the big white stone, as if he hated to leave it.

"There's a lot o' ordinary pup left in that there dawg yet," explained Blackstock apologetically to the game-warden.

"There ain't a dawg ever lived that wouldn't want to dig out a woodchuck," answered Stephens.

III

The black-whiskered stranger had been overtaken by his pursuers about ten miles beyond Brine's Rip, sleeping away the heat of the day under a spreading birch tree a few paces off the road. He was sleeping soundly--too soundly indeed, as thought the experienced constable, for a man with murder on his soul.

But when he was roughly aroused and seized, he seemed so terrified that his captors were all the more convinced of his guilt. He made no resistance as he was being hurried along the road, only clinging firmly to his black leather case, and glancing with wild eyes from side to side as if nerving himself to a desperate dash for liberty.

When he had gathered, however, a notion of what he was wanted for, to the astonishment of his captors, his terror seemed to subside--a fact which the constable noted narrowly. He steadied his voice enough to ask several questions about the murder--questions to which reply was curtly refused. Then he walked on in a stolid silence, the ruddy colour gradually returning to his face.

A couple of miles before reaching Brine's Rip, the second search party came in sight, the Deputy Sheriff at the head of it and the s.h.a.ggy black form of Jim close at his heels. With a savage curse Hawker sprang forward, and about half the party with him, as if to s.n.a.t.c.h the prisoner from his captors and take instant vengeance upon him.

But Blackstock was too quick for them. The swiftest sprinter in the county, he got to the other party ahead of the mob and whipped around to face them, with one hand on the big revolver at his hip and Jim showing his teeth beside him. The constable and his party, hugely astonished, but confident that Blackstock's side was the right one to be on, closed protectingly around the prisoner, whose eyes now almost bulged from his head.

"You keep right back, boys," commanded the Deputy in a voice of steel.

"The law will look after this here prisoner, if he's the guilty one."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You keep right back, boys,' commanded the Deputy in a voice of steel."]

"Fur as we kin see, there ain't no 'if' about it," shouted Hawker, almost frothing at the mouth. "That's the man as done it, an' we're agoin' to string 'im up fer it right now, for fear he might git off some way atween the jedges an' the lawyers. You keep out of it now, Tug."

About half the crowd surged forward with Hawker in front. Up came Blackstock's gun.

"Ye know me, boys," said he. "Keep back."

They kept back. They all fell back, indeed, some paces, except Hawker, who held his ground, half crouching, his lips distorted in a snarl of rage.

"Aw now, quit it, Sam," urged one of his followers. "'Tain't worth it.

An' Tug's right, anyways. The law's good enough, with Tug to the back of it." And putting forth a long arm he dragged Hawker back into the crowd.

"Put away yer gun, Tug," expostulated another. "Seein's ye feel that way about it, we won't interfere."

Blackstock stuck the revolver back into his belt with a grin.

"Glad ye've come back to yer senses, boys," said he, perceiving that the crisis was over. "But keep an eye on Hawker for a bit yet. Seems to 'ave gone clean off his head."

"Don't fret, Tug. We'll look after him," agreed several of his comrades from the mill, laying firmly persuasive hands upon the excited man, who cursed them for cowards till they began to chaff him roughly.