“It sounds like some excitement,” yawned Oldham, bringing his chair down with a thump.  “They haven’t even rung the first bell yet; let’s wander out and stretch our legs.”

He sauntered off the wide back porch toward the front of the house.  Bob followed.  When near the gate Bob’s mind grasped the significance of one of the trivial details that his eyes had reported to it some moments before.  He uttered an exclamation, and returned hurriedly to the back porch to verify his impressions.  They had been correct.  Oldham had stated definitely that he had arrived before daylight, that he had been sitting in his chair for over an hour; that during that time he had smoked two cigars through.

Neither on the broad porch, nor on the ground near it, nor in any possible receptacle were there any cigar ashes.

XXI

The hue and cry rose and died; the sheriff from the plains did his duty; but no trace of the murderer was found.  Indeed, at the first it was not known positively who had done the deed; a dozen might have had motive for the act.  Only by the process of elimination was the truth come at.  No one could say which way the fugitive had gone.  Jim Pollock, under pressure, admitted that his brother had stormed against the door, had told the awakened inmates that his wife was dead and that he was going away.  Immediately on making this statement, he had clattered off.  Jim steadfastly maintained that his brother had given no inkling of whither he fled.  Simeon Wright’s cattle, on their way to the high country, filed past.  The cowboys listened to the news with interest, and a delight which they did not attempt to conceal.  They denied having seen the fugitive.  The sheriff questioned them perfunctorily.  He knew the breed.  George Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that the denials assured him.

There appeared shortly on the scene of action a United States marshal.  The murder of a government official was serious.  Against the criminal the power of the nation was deployed.  Nevertheless, in the long run, George Pollock got clean away.  Nobody saw him from that day—­or nobody would acknowledge to have seen him.

For awhile Bob expected at any moment to be summoned for his testimony.  He was morally certain that Oldham had been an eye-witness to the tragedy.  But as time went on, and no faintest indication manifested itself that he could have been connected with the matter, he concluded himself mistaken.  Oldham could have had no motive in concealment, save that of the same sympathy Bob had felt for Pollock.  But in that case, what more natural than that he should mention the matter privately to Bob?  If, on the other hand, he had any desire to further the ends of the law, what should prevent him from speaking out publicly?  In neither case was silence compatible with knowledge.