“Miss Wilcox and I met Dilson in Hopewell Junction,” said Munson stiffly. “Why do you think it was Denver?”

  “You came through Denver on your way down, didn’t you?”

  “Of course we did. But we just stopped over between trains. What’s the meaning of this intrusion, Sheriff?”

  Pat disregarded his angry question. He asked Dilson, “How long since you left Texas?”

  “Three months, if it’s any of yore bizniss.”

  Pat nodded and sighed. “Ever hear of a man named William Wilcox in Texas?”

  The big man shook his head, his thick lips curling into a sneer. “Texas is a big state.”

  Pat said, “So it is. I’m wonderin’ what you did Monday afternoon when you rode out from Hopewell Junction.”

  Dilson blinked in surprise at the unexpectedness of the question. The two Easterners were sitting erect side by side, looking from one to the other of the two men with dismayed and worried expressions.

  “I was sorta sashayin’ around for a job on one of thuh ranches,” Dilson said easily.

  “Ride up the road toward Dutch Springs?”

  Dilson shook his head. “Ranches are all back off the road. I stopped by the Square D spread for supper if you wanta check up.”

  Pat said, “I will.” He shifted his attention to Munson and Joan, “What’ve you two got to talk to Dilson about?”

  “They bin offering me the job of foreman on a spread here in thuh Valley,” Dilson spoke up for them. “They want somebody they kin trust tuh go out an’ take charge before some guy named Clay Porter has a chance tuh wrangle all the beef stuff off their range.”

  “Still figure to lay claim to the Four-V’s?” Pat asked interestedly, not looking at Dilson.

  “Why not?” asked Munson hotly. “Didn’t you as much as admit yourself that Freeman must have been Joan’s father?”

  “I don’t recollect that I did,” Pat denied lazily.

  “You and your deputy both recognized that picture of Mr. Wilcox.”

  “We said it looked like it might be Bill Freeman,” Pat protested. “That wouldn’t stand up in no court of law. With Mr. Winters dead, I sure don’t know how you’ll make a legal claim.”

  “I’ll see about that,” Munson said. “I don’t know your Colorado laws, but I was an attorney back home and I intend to see to my fiancée’s legal rights. That’s why I accompanied her West … to see to it that you people out here treated her fairly.”

  “I don’t blame you none for feelin’ that way,” Pat agreed reasonably. “But I don’t know what you’re going to use for proof now that Mr. Winters can’t testify.”

  “I’ll worry about that,” Munson blustered. “I intend to file a claim on the estate tomorrow and ask that a trustee be appointed by the court to see that the assets are not dissipated while the merits of Joan’s claim are investigated.”

  “Are you thinkin’ of havin’ this here Charley Dilson appointed trustee?” Pat asked with interest.

  Munson shrugged. “It might be a good choice. He’s a completely disinterested party, and a competent cowman I imagine.”

  “Meanin’ you figure nobody in the Valley would be fair about somethin’ like that?”

  “None of you in the Valley could call yourselves completely disinterested,” Munson charged. “You have to admit there’s a conspiracy here to prevent Joan from proving her claim. First, her father was murdered before she was allowed to see him, and this afternoon a very ingenious accident resulted in the death of her only other witness. Are you going to tell me you don’t suspect Mr. Winters’ death was part of a plot to keep the ranch from her?”

  “Are you sayin’ it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I’m not saying anything except that it’s mighty queer the way both deaths came at just the right time to prevent Joan from establishing her claim to the ranch.”

  Pat nodded. “I don’t blame you for thinkin’ it’s funny.” He turned to Dilson. “I want to know where you were on the road when the stage passed you this afternoon?”

  “I told you I was about three or four miles from where it went over the side of thuh cliff.”

  “That would have been about four o’clock,” Pat surmised mildly.

  “About that, I reckon.”

  “How fast were you ridin’?”

  Dilson shrugged. “I was takin’ it along at a jog-trot.”

  “Take you about an hour to get there after leavin’ Hopewell Junction?”

  “Something like that, I reckon.”

  “But you left the Junction right after dinner.” Pat’s voice suddenly became harsh. “What were you doin’ all that time along the road?”

  Dilson looked confused, and then he became enraged. His eyes narrowed to slits and unconsciously he dropped his hand down to his waist beside the empty holster on his belt.

  Pat shook his head and lifted the .45 in his left hand. “No need to reach for a gun,” he reminded the Texan.

  Dilson glowered at him and then slowly relaxed. “My hawse picked up a stone, now that you mention it. I’d plumb forgot. I dug it out an’ rested him an hour in the shade of a tree before ridin’ on.”

  “Did you get off your hawse down by the stagecoach?” Pat demanded.

  “No. I just rode down for a quick look-see. It was easy enough tuh tell they was both dead without getting off.”

  “How come you rode off leavin’ the two lead hawses with busted legs an’ tangled up in the harness?”

  Dilson looked honestly bewildered. “Why not?” he protested. “I figured I oughtta get help. You wouldn’t think I’d take time tuh untangle ’em from the harness, would you?”

  Pat stood up. He said with flat finality, “Any man that’d ride off an’ leave two hawses screaming in pain like that is either a two-legged skunk or had a hell of a good reason for doin’ it. Take your own pick.” He dropped Dilson’s gun on the floor, turned his back on the trio and strode out of the hotel room.

  Back in his own room with the door shut, he went to the window and pulled it open, built himself a cigarette and sighed, looking out into the night.

  He didn’t think he had handled the situation in Miss Wilcox’s room very well. There was something about the situation that he didn’t understand. He had felt undercurrents in the room that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It seemed like the two Easterners were mighty thick with Dilson to’ve just met him for a short time by accident in Hopewell Junction, yet it was difficult to see how they could possibly be mixed up in either death.

  Joan Wilcox and Paul Munson were the last persons in the world to have desired the death of either Bill Freeman or Mr. Winters. Yet he had a hunch that Dilson wasn’t just the innocent wandering jasper that he pretended to be. If he had had a hand in either death (as Pat more than half suspected) why were the Eastern couple so friendly with him?

  Pat couldn’t figure it out. He wasn’t used to mysteries like this. Powder Valley had had its fair share of killings in the past, but they had always been straightforward affairs that a man could dig into without much trouble. There wasn’t anything for a man to get his teeth into this time. A lot of guesses and a lot of unanswered questions, and no discernible motive for anyone except Dick Freeman, and he’d been safely locked in jail this afternoon when someone was toppling a boulder down on the stagecoach.

  Pat finished his cigarette and ground it out in a saucer on top of the dresser beside the lamp, took off his gunbelt and boots and crawled into bed. Right now it was a whole lot too much for him.

  12.

  Pat Stevens got up early the next morning. He ate a leisurely breakfast downstairs in the hotel dining room and then set out for the courthouse. He was headed for the office of District Judge Archibald Bemis who had been appointed to the position after the vulturous Judge J. Worthington Prink had been ridden out of town on a rail almost two years previously.

  Although Judge Bemis did not have the legal background and experience of his predecessor in office, he had proven himself a happy choice for the position. He was a scholarly man who had once been editor of a Chicago paper before coming West for reasons of bad health, and he was honest and kindly and patient. With the aid of a couple of lawbooks which he consulted on rare occasions, he had shown himself to be an impartial and just arbiter of disputes among the residents of the Valley.

  With a strong personal conviction that justice was a matter of common sense and logic rather than of long-winded and unintelligible decisions handed down by other judges throughout the years and throughout the world, Judge Archibald Bemis had a way of summoning two disputants into the quiet of his office and listening to their conflicting stories with patience and forbearance. It was his settled conviction that most legal disputes arise out of misunderstandings, and that ninety-nine per cent of such cases could be settled amicably out of court if the litigants could be persuaded to sit down across a table from each other and agree to a calm presentation of the facts. Generally, a satisfactory compromise could be found, and Judge Bemis always found it.

  He was a tall, silvery-haired gentleman, with ascetic features and a gentle smile, and soft brown eyes that expressed his benevolent belief in the essential goodness of his fellow men. He was already in his office this morning when Pat Stevens entered, and he stood up to greet the sheriff with a courteous smile.

  “Come in, Pat. Come in. You look worried this morning.”

  “I am worried, Judge,” Pat admitted. He flung his hat aside and sank into a chair across from the judge. “I need some of your brand of advice.”

  “I’ll be only too glad to help any way I can, Pat.”

  “Here’s the way it is, Judge.” Pat leaned forward and carefully told him the entire story, starting with the entrance of Miss Joan Wilcox and Mr. Paul Munson into his office on Monday afternoon, and ending with an account of his interview with the trio in Miss Wilcox’s hotel room the preceding night.

  “… an’ that’s all of it,” he ended after a full explanation to which the judge had listened without a single interruption. “I want to know where I stand. This Munson claims he’s a lawyer and that he’s going to get a court order appointing that Texas gun-hand to take charge of the Four-V’s ranch while he’s tryin’ to prove Miss Wilcox’s claim to it. What I want to know is: how much claim has she got, and can he get a court order like that. I’m afraid there’ll be trouble if he does,” Pat went on swiftly. “You know Clay Porter. He ain’t the kind to turn over Bill Freeman’s ranch to a stranger without a fight.”

  Judge Bemis nodded gravely. “Porter wouldn’t like that,” he agreed. “This picture the girl has in her possession … You say you and Sam Sloan recognized Bill Freeman from it?”

  “I didn’t say that. It could be a picture of Bill. And there’s them other things that fit her story.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “We know Bill come from Texas originally. He landed here ten years ago. He calls his brand the Four-V’s, but it could just as easy be a pair of W’s … for the initials of William Wilcox. An’ there’s his name: Bill Freeman. Bill for William, and Freeman for free man … which could be he felt like a free man again after gettin’ away from a wife and a life he didn’t like.”

  “Those are points to be considered, but hardly legal proof,” the judge commented. He leaned back and pressed the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. “It appears to me that the crux of this situation is proof that Bill Freeman’s real name was Wilcox. It appears that the girl came here in good faith looking for her father who wrote her mother a letter ten years ago advising her that he was settling in the Valley under an assumed name. In other words, Pat, I judge we can accept that fact as true: that there is a rancher in the Valley who was once named William Wilcox, this girl’s father. With Bill Freeman and Mr. Winters both dead and unable to testify, it becomes a matter of proving that Freeman, among all the ranchers in the Valley, is that man.”

  Pat nodded unhappily. “If there was any proof of that among Bill’s papers in his desk, it’s gone now.”

  “Another point to consider,” Judge Bemis agreed. “Why did Freeman’s murderer ransack his desk unless he was looking for some such proof to destroy it?”

  “It’s the same thing as asking why was he murdered,” Pat agreed. “Only reason I can see is because someone knew he was William Wilcox and wanted to keep it quiet. Same way with Winters’ murder. Why else was he killed except to keep him from sayin’ Bill was the man the girl is looking for?”

  “Exactly. Two more facts pointing to Bill Freeman as the man. A little too much to be mere coincidence, it seems to me.”

  “Then you think all of it put together is enough to prove the girl’s claim?” Pat asked eagerly.

  “I didn’t say that. There’s the question of the adopted son, also. And the possibility that Freeman left a will behind him. If he did have a daughter, it’s reasonable to presume he would have wished to leave at least a portion of his estate to her. Did you not find any will in his desk, Pat?”

  Pat shook his head dispiritedly. “Nary a sign of one.” He hesitated, wrinkling his brow in deep thought. “Suppose there wasn’t any will, and suppose the girl can prove he was her father? Would she get all the ranch? Or would Dick get part of it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Judge Bemis honestly. “I believe different states have different laws governing such points. I can look up the Colorado Statute on it if it becomes necessary. Offhand, I’d say they would inherit equally in the absence of a will. If there is no will and the girl fails to prove her claim, I’m quite positive Dick would inherit just the same as though he were a natural son.”

  “If he don’t hang on a charge of murder,” Pat muttered.

  “Precisely. One of the basic tenets of common law is that no person shall be allowed to profit by the commission of a crime. If Dick is adjudged guilty of his foster-father’s death he can claim no portion of the estate. Is Dick guilty?” the judge added.

  “I don’t know,” Pat told him honestly. “Near as I can see, he’s the only one that had any reason to want Bill Freeman dead. On the other hand, if Winters was killed for the same reason, there must be someone else because Dick was locked up and couldn’t of done that one too.”

  Judge Bemis nodded reflectively. “You can’t possibly convict Dick with no more proof than you now have.”

  “I know that. I don’t want to convict him without more proof.” Pat sagged back in his chair and began to roll a cigarette. “This is one of them times I sure wish somebody else was wearin’ this sheriff’s star,” he muttered disconsolately.

  There was a perfunctory knock at the door, and Paul Munson pushed it open. Joan Wilcox was by his side, and Charley Dilson was right behind them.

  “Judge Bemis?” Munson asked, glancing around the small austere office with a frown.

  The judge nodded and stood up, said cordially, “Come right in and find some chairs.”

  Pat got up also, and introduced the Eastern couple to the judge. “An’ this here is Charley Dilson that I was telling you about,” he added.

  The judge shook hands with each one of them in turn. “This must have been a great shock to you, my dear,” he told Miss Wilcox benignly. “To have the man you believe to be your father murdered on the very eve of your arrival.”

  The girl’s eyes filled with tears and she sobbed, “It’s been terrible. If I could just have seen him once before he died. To let him know that I cared. That I loved him and it was Mother’s fault that I’d stayed away so long.”

  The judge sighed and patted her shoulder. “I have a feeling that he does know, my dear. I cannot believe that those who pass on lose all contact with those who stay behind.” He drew a chair up for the weeping girl and seated her, then looked inquiringly at Munson.

  “I’ve come here this morning to demand Miss Wilcox’s rights as the sole heir to her father’s estate,” Munson said.

  The judge reseated himself and lifted his white eyebrows. “On what proof do you base that statement?”

  “Hasn’t the sheriff told you? About the picture she has of her father taken with her mother and herself more than ten years ago?”

  The judge said mildly, “He told me about the picture. I’d like to see it.”

  Munson hesitated momentarily, and then got it out of his pocket. The judge studied it for a time and nodded. “The resemblance to Bill Freeman is quite marked, though certainly not conclusive.” He tapped it on the table in front of him and asked hopefully, “Have you no further proof? The letter written to Mrs. Wilcox for instance?”

  “Mother destroyed that letter after she read it,” Joan told him bitterly. “She hated father and was determined I should never see him again. Wouldn’t it be proof,” she went on eagerly, “if you could find an identical copy of that same picture among Mr. Freeman’s things? He had one just like it when he went away. I remember mother telling me about having two copies printed at the same time. I don’t think he would have thrown it away,” she added timidly.

  The judge looked over at Pat Stevens. Pat shook his head and said, “There wasn’t any picture like that in his desk when I looked the next mornin’ after his murder.”

  “Of course not,” said Munson angrily. It’s common gossip around town that the murderer broke into the desk and went through all his papers. Naturally, he removed the picture that would prove Freeman was really William Wilcox.”

  “Wouldn’t it be enough,” Joan asked the judge hopefully, “if we could find someone who had seen the picture in his possession sometime before he died?”

  “That would be fairly conclusive evidence,” Judge Bemis agreed. “If that person could swear this picture of yours is identical with one Bill Freeman had. Do you know anyone who can do that?” he added in a kindly tone.

  “N-no. But of course we don’t know any of father’s friends here in the Valley. I thought perhaps someone would remember seeing it if inquiries were made.”

  “A very logical hope,” Judge Bemis approved. “I will institute such an inquiry at once.”

  “In the meantime,” said Munson, “I presume you are forced to admit there is at least enough evidence to raise a legal question as to the disposition of Freeman’s estate.”