Black Mask (Vol. 23, No. 4 — August 1940)

“Director of Physical Education” — that was what the C.C.C. authorities had hired Bryant to be for the summer session of that cow-country camp. But “One-Man Crime Prevention Bureau” would have been a more accurate title. That was what he had to turn himself into when someone began potting at him with a high-powered rifle and slaughtering wholesale the boys under his charge.

Chapter One Trouble is Spelled with Three C’s

Just as I swam out even with the tip of the point something spatted the water by my head, then I heard a noise like the cracking of a whip. The actual sound of the rifle hadn’t reached me for a second — but by the time it did I was heading for shore as fast as I could swim.

I landed on the little beach where I’d left my clothes and Fred Ardella stepped out of the underbrush and said: “Hey! Mr. Bryant! I was watching you swim.”

I said: “It’s good exercise, Fred, and a lot fun. We’ll get up a class as soon as the water warms up more — it’s still like ice.”

He watched me while I got into my clothes and said: “Hey! The looie says you used to play football.”

“Three years for State,” I said. “And then three years pro. We’ll have a football team, too.”

“Why’d you quit? There’s dough in it, ain’t there?”

I said, “Sure. I got a bad leg two years ago, though, and it goes back on when I twist suddenly.”

“Huh! That why you took this job?”

I said it was. He asked me if it paid much money and I said nobody ever got rich out of being a director of physical education at a C.C.C. camp, but that it should turn out to be a lot of fun. Freddy sniffed and said his idea of fun wasn’t being stuck up in the middle of the woods and fifty miles from a picture show.

I figured he meant poolroom instead of picture show but let it pass. I was lacing my boots when he said: “Wasn’t that guy shooting at you?”

“What guy?” I asked.

He grinned at me and said: “Now look! I come from Chicago. I never seen nobody get shot but I heard guns before. And I seen that slug hit right by your puss. Who’s gunning for you, Mr. Bryant?”

I said that I hadn’t the least idea and that we should be getting back to camp, that I had a lot of things to do before they sounded the supper call. I didn’t tell Fred Ardella, but one of the things I wanted to do was find why somebody should start shooting a high-powered rifle at me my second day in camp.

It just didn’t seem the way to start out a happy summer that I’d figured would be a sort of vacation.

Captain Rawlins was in his office. He tipped his head so he could look at me over the top of the rimless glasses he wore, and I said: “Somebody shot at me, Captain Rawlins. I went swimming — and somebody potted at me while I was in the water.”

He took off the glasses and started polishing them. “You sure of that, Mr. Bryant?”

I said I was certain — that there could be no mistake. He said: “Possibly one of the boys has smuggled a twenty-two rifle into camp. We’ll have to investigate.”

With that, he looked at me to see how I was taking it.

“It was no twenty-two,” I said. “It was a big gun. I’ve shot enough of them to know that.”

“Almost hit you?”

“Pretty close.”

He had almost white hair but his close-cropped mustache was gray. He started to gnaw at it and said, “This is awkward!” as though he was thinking aloud.

I stood there, waiting, and he went on with, “The camp has been threatened, Mr. Bryant. Frankly, that’s why I approved your application, rather than asking for someone with more experience. I understand you originally came from this country.”

I said: “My dad’s old place is about twenty miles west of here. Dad sold it, years ago, but I grew up there.”

“Then you’d know just about everybody in the country?”

“All the old-timers.”

He put the glasses back on and said: “I was hoping there was nothing to the threat. Yet, I felt I shouldn’t take an unnecessary risk if it could be avoided. I was told this was not a very healthy place for a camp. In a very nice way, you understand. Of course we both know I have nothing to do or say about where the camp is located. I am sent here on orders only. But the people around here apparently do not realize that.”

“It’s an isolated spot, Captain Rawlins. If it’s like it used to be, a lot of these old-timers don’t even leave their ranches except for supplies. Not over twice a year sometimes. They’re behind the times.”

“Ah yes,” he said, chewing at his mustache. “I understand that, but I don’t understand the people. I can’t take a risk with these boys, you know, Mr. Bryant.”

Now we had two hundred and forty boys in camp, mostly from Chicago, or from Gary, right near there. A good part of them were lads with foreign-born parents — more than half, probably. Some of them were homesick and a lot more of them were half sore about being taken clear across the continent and put under the kind of supervision they were getting. There was enough opportunity for trouble right in the camp without more being added to it from outside sources.

I said all this, and Rawlins sighed and said: “I’m a regular army man, Mr. Bryant. I think these camps are a good thing — in fact, I think they are a fine thing — but I find dealing with the boys isn’t like dealing with an enlisted group. Discipline and order are harder to maintain. I want no other trouble.”

When I asked him who’d made the threats he said: “The man who made the threat is named Withers. He and some friends of his rode up for what they were pleased to term a friendly visit. Naturally I took them around and tried to explain the work we are doing. I explained the boys were building roads, clearing fire-trails, making drainage ditches, similar things. I explained to them our plan of making this a more or less permanent station and how we planned to make this a model camp. Why we were attempting a modified landscaping in the territory surrounding the actual camp. They listened to me very intently and then told me this was no place for the camp to be.

“I demanded to know what they meant by that statement and they said, vaguely, that the people around here didn’t approve of such foolishness. That the ranchers who specialized in raising cattle and sheep looked upon this section of country as summer range and would resent our boys being here. I imagine they are afraid of the boys scaring the stock, or some such foolishness as that. They mentioned the ever present danger of forest fire, claiming our boys would add to this. I told them that invariably someone was in charge of the boys when they were working outside of the camp proper, and that the boys would act as fire-fighters in case of need — that this was part of their duty. That, as a matter of fact, the danger of fire causing serious damage was lessened by their presence.”

“I don’t know, or remember, anyone named Withers,” I said. “Did he say where he lived?”

“Well, no. I didn’t ask — I took it for granted he lived fairly near. I didn’t take the man seriously then. But three days later, when a shot was fired at me, I decided the man was actually liable to be a menace.”

“They shot at you, too?”

“Yes. And at Lieutenant Ward. Neither bullet came close to either of us — we took them as a warning. That’s why I approved of your application.”

“Did you tell the state police?”

He took off the glasses again and looked at me severely. He said: “Mr. Bryant! I look on this as an army post. Technically, I suppose we are under the jurisdiction of the state police, but I hope I will not live to see the day when I am forced to call in police to protect men I am commanding. I rather think, that with your knowledge of the country and the people, we can work this out between us.”

I said: “Well, I’ll take time off and do a little scouting around. I’ll meet some old friends, surely, and I’ll ask a few questions. And it might have been one of the boys with a smuggled rifle, as you suggested, Captain Rawlins. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Please do, Mr. Bryant, immediately,” he said.

I looked back at him, just as I was going out the door, and he wasn’t expecting it. He didn’t look cold and brisk then. Just worried. He hadn’t sounded as though he’d expected me to find any smuggled guns, either — and that meant quite a lot. This Rawlins had been taken from the regular army and put in charge of a bunch of city kids — and he didn’t like one bit of it. He didn’t know anything about his new job — but he was no fool.

There was trouble in the air and he’d caught the feeling.

Fred Ardella was waiting for me outside the office building. He said: “Hey, Mr. Bryant! I just seen somebody sneaking around the cookhouse.”

“Probably somebody trying to snag a little something extra from the cook,” I said. “This air and exercise will pick up you fellows’ city appetites in a hurry.”

“It wasn’t any of the guys, Mr. Bryant. It was somebody in hick clothes. I seen him plain.”

I said, “It’s saw, Fred, not seen,” headed for the cookhouse, and walked fairly into the mess — with Fred behind me, which wasn’t so good.

The cook was on the floor, half under a table. He was on his side and there was blood on his forehead and on the floor by it. The second cook and the four boys who were on cookhouse duty were standing by the big range, with their hands raised. The cook and three of the boys looked scared, but the other boy was grinning as if he enjoyed the show. There was a husky, stockily built man standing in front of them and holding a gun on them, and when I went in the door he swung the gun my way and said: “Get over in line.”

I got over in line. I didn’t even own a gun, much less have one with me. Fred tried to duck back out of sight, but the man saw him and Fred joined us.

The boy that wasn’t scared looked at me and kept his grin and said: “Big-city stuff, hey, mister?”

I didn’t know his name but I grinned back at him and said it was. The cook started to stir around, where he was under the table, and the man with the gun turned that way a little — and I went for his knees with all the speed I could put in it.

My game knee went back on me, which was a usual thing, and I fell five feet short and flat on my face. Then the lights went out for me.

I came back with Captain Rawlins squatting on the floor by me and giving me part of a haircut. He was just taking off a bit on one side, so he could tape a bandage down over the cut on my head, but I didn’t know that and rolled away from him and his scissors.

He said, in his clipped way: “Please lie quiet, Mr. Bryant! That thug struck you on the head with a gun barrel. Fortunately, he didn’t fracture your skull.”

The moment I moved I wished I hadn’t. It felt as though the top of my head was going to lift off.

I said: “Where’d he go? My leg went bad or I’d have got him.”

Rawlins said reprovingly: “Mr. Bryant! Don’t ever do such a foolish thing again. The man would undoubtedly have shot you had you succeeded in reaching him. Such heroics are suicidal. Nothing less.”

He sounded as though he didn’t like my going for the hold-up man, but his eyes didn’t look the way his voice sounded. They were friendly.

I looked around and saw the cook sitting on the floor but leaning back against the cookhouse wall, and he said: “I got the same thing you got, Mr. Bryant. I thought it was a joke, at first.”

All the boys were standing around, and the one that hadn’t been scared was still wearing his grin. He said: “Aw, it was nothing! The guy just lowered the boom, is all. He wasn’t doing any shooting — I could see he didn’t want no part of any shooting, right when he come in.”

“What’s that?” said Rawlins, looking over that way.

“Hagh! He come in and I seen right off he wasn’t wanting to shoot nobody. He kept close, so he could club with the gun in case one of us made a break. If he’d wanted to shoot, he’d have stayed back a ways. ’At’s easy to figure out, mister.”

“Call me Captain Rawlins,” said Rawlins, automatically. And then to me, “Would you know the man again, Mr. Bryant?”

“Yes, sir. A man about thirty. He was dressed in rough clothes, but he’s not from this country. He’s not a native, I’m sure.”

“Why?”

I’d been trying to think just what had struck me wrong about the hold-up man and I finally got what had puzzled me. I said: “His clothes were all right, sir, but his face wasn’t tanned the way it should have been. He was sun-burned instead of tanned. And he was carrying an automatic — pretty near all the people around here favor a revolver. Though most of them don’t own one. A rifle and a shotgun can be used in this country — a revolver is almost useless.”

The boy who’d spoken before said: “A hell of a lot of guys have been bumped off with ’em, mister.”

Rawlins said: “I’ll have no profanity in my presence, young man. What’s your name?”

The boy said: “Richard Deiss.”

“Add the word ‘sir’ to that, if you please.”

“Well... sir.”

Rawlins said to me: “Suppose you go to your quarters, sir, and rest until you feel more fit I’d like to speak with you then, if I may. Are you feeling better, cook?”

The cook said he was feeling much better, and Rawlins walked out.

The boy named Deiss said: “The dirty—! Telling me to call him ‘sir’.”

Then Fred Ardella said, “You’re in the army now.” and all the others laughed.

Fred walked back with me to my cabin because I was still shaky. He said, just as we got there: “This guy Deiss is all right. His brother’s in the can for manslaughter and his old lady’s dead. His old man won’t work and Blacky — we call him Blacky — sort of run around by himself, if you know what I mean.”

I said, “Oh, he’ll get used to it here and like it,” and hoped I was speaking the truth.

Chapter Two Mass Murder

This time Lieutenant Ward was with the captain when I went in. Ward, who was young and almost fat, grinned at me and said: “Ah-ha! The hero himself. All I’ve been hearing from the kids is how you tackled the hold-up man with your bare hands. They think you’re hot stuff, Bryant.”

I said: “It’s probably a good thing for me I didn’t make my tackle. The guy would probably have done me in right there.”

Rawlins frowned and said: “There’s something odd about this. The man asked for nothing, I understand. He just stood the boys up against the wall and kept them there. It’s a mystery. After he knocked you out, Mr. Bryant, he ran out of the cookhouse and that was the last seen of him. He wasn’t alone. I understand some of the boys scouted around and found where three horses had been tied to trees, on the far side of the camp but out of sight. Do you understand it?”

I said: “Indeed I don’t. I’m afraid one of the boys might meet the man and do something foolish. There’s a possibility of the man leaving the country now, of course.”

Ward said: “Let some of these tough Chicago babies of mine get their hands on him and he’ll wish he’d left. I’ve got a dozen little hoodlums in that crowd that will end up on the gallows.”

“Now, Lieutenant,” said Rawlins. “You shouldn’t speak of the boys like that, even in sport. A lot of these boys have never been out like this before.”

“None of them have.”

I said: “I’ve got one of them following me around like he was a pet poodle. The Ardella boy. I can’t turn around without bumping into him.”

Ward said: “A good kid.”

Captain Rawlins said: “If you feel up to it, Mr. Bryant, I’d like to have you drop your regular work and look into this for us. This has me worried. I fear the boys aren’t safe with things as they are.”

“It might be better if I worked at it slow and easy,” I said. “Apparently we’re watched here. If I go about things as though nothing out of the way has happened, I think I may have better luck.”

He thought that over and admitted I might be right and told me to work it out any way I wanted. Ward and I left together — our cabins were side by side, with Lieutenant Comiskey’s cabin just on the other side of his — and when we got to his door he stopped and said: “Got a gun, Bryant?”

I said I hadn’t.

He told me to wait a second and went in the cabin, then came back with a Colt .45 automatic, that looked as big as a house. He handed me this and a box of shells and said: “I’d carry it for a while. That bird that smacked you might come back. You know enough not to start anything if he’s got the drop on you, don’t you?”

“You forget I was brought up in this country,” I said. “They still settle things with guns around here — that is, the old-timers do. I won’t take any chances.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said, scratching one of his heavy jowls. “I’ve had a funny hunch about this place ever since we brought the boys in here. There’s something wrong here.”

I asked: “Where’s Comiskey tonight?”

“He went into town after the mail and some supplies with one of the trucks and half a dozen of the boys. He’ll be back any time, now.”

It was just then that we heard the boys shouting from down the road and both Ward and I turned and ran for the sound. From their voices they sounded as though they needed help.

Ward’s flash picked them out when we were still a hundred yards away. There were three of them. Two of them were running and the other was just picking himself up after a fall. Just as we saw this a shot banged out in the wood, right above them, and the boy who’d just got to his feet spun and went down again.

I said to Ward: “Get that light off them, Lieutenant! Fast! That kid took a slug.”

We got to the two boys who were still on their feet and I said: “Keep going, guys. Don’t stop until you get to camp.”

The one in front stopped and panted: “The truck! The truck! It’s off the road a couple of miles down. They’re hurt — all of them.”

“What about Lieutenant Comiskey?” snapped Ward.

“He... he’s dead,” the boy managed to say.

I said: “When you get to camp find Captain Rawlins. Tell him about this. Tell him to get a truck and get it down there and get them back to camp. Ward, take care of the kid down here, will you?”

I started up through the brush and heard him say: “Hey wait, Bryant! Not in the dark!”

I didn’t like the idea myself because I didn’t know just what I might run into, but I figured I’d have as good a chance that way as the other fellow would.

It was easy enough to see just what was happening — the truck had been run off the road — and somebody on a horse had followed the three kids up the road, keeping above them, and had cut loose with his gun at the boy our light had spotted for him. Ward and the two boys and I had been making a lot of noise talking and the gunman might have ridden away. I didn’t know, but I thought I could go through that underbrush as quietly as a horse could — and I might get lucky.

I did just that. I wasn’t over a hundred feet away from the road when I heard a snorting sound just ahead and to the right. I latched the safety off the automatic and went that way, trying to keep from making a sound — and then the horse snorted again. After that I heard somebody mutter angrily: “Hold still!”

It didn’t sound as though it came from more than twenty feet ahead, but I was wrong on that. All of a sudden the brush started to crack and I heard a horse going away from there in a hurry.

I ran just as fast as I could in the direction of the sound. The trees thinned out a little and I got a hazy glimpse of a man on a horse and I emptied my gun that way. It was too dark to see anything but the line of the barrel and I didn’t think there was any chance of hitting anything but it seemed to be worth a try.

I heard Ward shout, from the road, and I called back: “I’ll be right there. He ran away.”

Ward had the boy’s belt off and was using it for a tourniquet. The boy had taken the slug through the fleshy part of his leg and it hadn’t touched the bone but had cut the big artery there. The kid was perfectly conscious and was leaning up on his elbows and watching Ward work.

I said: “He got away. I just got a look at a man on a horse.”

“You hit him?” asked the boy.

I said I didn’t think so but that I certainly hoped I had. And then the boy told us just how much he hoped so too — and he used more language than I ever heard in all my life, even after three years on a professional football team.

He said, when he got that out of his system: “They worked it dirty on us. Jonesy was driving and the looie and a guy named Morri were on the front seat with him. Me and Harper and Cort were in the back. We was looking over Jonesy’s shoulder — you know — just standing up and hanging onto the seat back and looking at the road. We was hungry, see, and wanted to get back before the chef closed up the cookhouse. The looie said he’d see we all fed. So we see where a piece of the road has come down, on the upper side, and Jonesy pulls as far over to the lower side as he can and starts to go by in low. There was room. Then the bank just caves and down we go. I’ll bet that truck tipped over sideways twenty times or more before we hit bottom.”

I looked at Ward and he looked at me. The boy knew what we were thinking, because he added: “Yeah! That’s where it was. Right at that place where the road runs up and is shelved into the side of the hill. Where it’s steep going down to the creek.”

That made it deliberate murder and nothing else. And mass murder. The road was a hundred feet or more above the creek at the place the boy was speaking of, and it was almost straight down. If the road had been undermined there the truck was sure to go down — and with it the men who were riding it. And with a heavy truck, going over and over like that, it was more than likely that everybody in the truck would be killed.

The boy got the idea all right, because he said: “Me and Harper and Cort got jarred loose on the first roll and sort of thrown to the back. Then we got pitched out. We went down and looked and Lieutenant Comiskey was dead. We got Jonesy out and put him by the truck but the steering wheel had shoved his chest in bad. He couldn’t talk.”

Ward asked: “What about the other boy? Morri?”

The boy looked sick and it wasn’t alone from the bullet through his leg. He said: “He — the truck’s on him yet. We tried to pry it off, but it just sort of kept settling more. So we went to get help.”

Then we heard another truck come pounding down the road and it pulled up with the lights on us. Captain Rawlins came piling out and ran to us and said: “How bad is he hit?”

“Through the leg,” Ward said.

Rawlins was right in action. He snapped: “All right! Two of you men get that stretcher out of the back of the truck. Carry him to the cook shack — the cook knows some first aid.”

“Maybe he should be taken to town, sir,” Ward suggested.

The captain said: “Nonsense! The doctor will come here. Move now, you men!”

Two of the lads from the truck brought a stretcher and we loaded the boy on it. About that time the rest of the boys started streaming down the road to us, so I knew the two that had gone on ahead and told the captain, had also told their friends.

The captain took the first five he saw and got them in the back of the truck and said: “This will be enough. Lieutenant Ward, you and Mr. Bryant will come with me.”

He went down that rough mountain road at forty miles an hour.

Chapter Three With a .45

We hadn’t needed to hurry but we didn’t know that until we’d climbed down to the wreck. It wasn’t hard to find — a section of the road was entirely missing, and the truck was at least a hundred feet below. Comiskey had been killed instantly, his head crushed in like an eggshell. The cab seat on the truck had buckled and had caught him like a vise, when some roll of the truck had pitched him up against the roof. The boy that had been driving the car was still alive but unconscious. We got there just in time to watch him die. The one that had been pinned under the car was also dead — and I pitied him the most. He’d known what was coming and he’d just had to stay there and wait for death.

Rawlins spread blankets he’d brought over the bodies and said: “We’ll leave them here tonight, I’ll stay and watch, gentlemen. It will be better to move them in the morning.”

I said: “This is murder, Captain Rawlins. I’m almost certain we should leave them as they are until the county authorities are notified and examine the scene.”

Rawlins said, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own: “They’d better get here early then. I’ll not leave these boys out here like this. It isn’t decent.” Then he added: “Call the coroner, Lieutenant Ward, immediately upon your return to camp. Tell him I’d appreciate it if he’d start for here at once. You had also better notify the sheriff as well as the state police. This is out of our hands.”

The boys that had ridden down with us, in case we needed help in lifting the truck, were standing by. Two of them were crying and trying to act as though they weren’t.

One of the others said: “If we catch the guy that did this we’ll hang him.”

I looked a little closer when I heard him speak and saw it was the same boy that had been at the hold-up in the cookhouse — Richard Deiss — the one who hadn’t been frightened.

Rawlins also recognized him because he said: “That will do, Deiss. The law will handle this matter.”

Deiss muttered something and I said: “I’ll stay with you, Captain.”

“You are in no condition to stay, Mr. Bryant,” he said. “Please go back with Lieutenant Ward.”

He was only about five feet away from me and I thought the boys couldn’t hear me from where I stood. I said, very softly: “Captain! Give me a break! I’ve got a notion the man that did this will come back to see how it worked out. I missed him once tonight — maybe I won’t again.”

“Are you armed?”

“Yes, sir.”

He raised his voice and said: “Lieutenant, Mr. Bryant wishes to stay with me here by the wreck. Please return to camp and notify the authorities, as I have requested.”

Ward gave me a hard look and started the boys up the bank toward the truck. I knew he’d had the same thought I’d had and was wishing I hadn’t spoken about it first.

We could hear the truck back and fill as they turned it toward the camp, and then the captain said: “Mr. Bryant, I am at a loss about this. It seems so senseless. There’s no reason why a thing like this should happen. Deliberate murder, for no reason. I can’t believe these lives were taken just because some of the natives objected to our presence here. That isn’t reasonable.”

I agreed with him.

He said, as though thinking aloud: “There was no trouble last year, or I’d have been told about it. You know this camp was established last year, Mr. Bryant.”

I’d taken that for granted because of the obviously weathered condition of some of the buildings. I said: “Well, of course I’ve only been here a couple of days. I haven’t had much of a chance to find out about things like that.”

“The camp was built early last year and about one hundred and fifty men were stationed here. It was decided to abandon this site, however, and the camp was vacated last fall, with the exception of the usual caretaker left under those conditions. A change of plans occurred during the winter and the camp was again to be put in use, though what caused the change I don’t know, naturally. All I know is that I was given this assignment and brought the men here.”

“How long ago?”

“Possibly a month — time goes rapidly on a job of this kind. The camp had to be put in shape for more men — more cabins had to be constructed and the older ones repaired. And I admit it’s the first time I was ever detailed on such duty, and so I was working under a handicap. I feel responsible for what’s happened. I thought it just some malcontent, objecting to our presence here because of some silly personal reason. I can’t understand this, Mr. Bryant. Murder — for no reason.”

“There’s a reason,” I said. “There has to be a reason for murder.”

I got a flashlight from the wrecked truck and dug out the box of shells Ward had given me at the same time he’d handed me the pistol. I filled the clip and jacked a shell into the chamber, and said: “I’m going up and take a look at what was done to the road. And find a hide-out that I can sneak back to in the dark between here and the road. It would be a good plan if you built a little fire, over at the side, and maybe put some blankets in the shadow so it would look as though you were asleep. Have you got a gun, sir?”

He said: “I didn’t take time to pick it up. I thought it just an accident at the time, though the boy that brought the message from you assured me his friend had been shot. It was unbelievable — or so I thought then. I know better now.”

Making quite a lot of noise and flashing the light back and forth, I started up toward the road. I’ll admit I was hoping the killer hadn’t had time to get back to the scene of the wreck. With nothing but a flashlight and an unfamiliar gun between me and a man, or men, who’d already killed three people that same evening, I had a funny creepy feeling running up and down my back that I couldn’t manage to control.

I made it up to where the road was cut out, dreading every step. The road had been built just by cutting into the side of the hill, and all the wrecker had done was cut under the lower side of it. I don’t think he’d taken out more than three dozen shovelfuls of dirt in all. But he’d taken ’em out in such a way that the right front wheel of the truck just sank and down the gully it went.

Above the road he’d just started a little landslide — enough to block the inner edge of the road. Altogether, it hadn’t taken much work to wreck that truck and kill three men for no reason that either the captain or I could figure out. I spotted a little clump of firs, just above the wrecked truck and maybe fifty feet from it, and I made plenty noise going back to the fire Captain Rawlins had built.

He came out of the darkness back of it and said, very softly: “I made what looked like two people sleeping and put them in the shadows. If a man got close he’d know they’re dummies — but from a few feet away he couldn’t tell.”

I said, “Swell” and we pretended to go over that way, just in case anyone was watching.

And then I ducked back and went up to my fir thicket, doing it as quietly as I could — and expecting to see a gun flash out fire at me every step I took. I really had the jitters. Woods at night like that have a funny kind of quiet — the trees creak and groan and there’s a steady rustling, whishing sound from the wind through the pine needles — and though I’d been brought up in that country and knew what to expect, even familiar noises can sound ominously different when you’re keeping watch over three dead men. Men killed for no apparent reason.

I found my thicket and burrowed into it until I was almost out of sight. It wasn’t cold at all — the breeze didn’t get that close to the ground. I laid there, trying to listen to everything and pick out a man’s footsteps through the natural sounds and I’ll be darned if I didn’t fall asleep.

Two men woke me and they weren’t over fifteen feet from me. I could see one of them outlined against a slightly lighter patch of brush, but the other one was in shadow. They were talking in whispers but I could hear one say: “My foot’s damn near killing me.”

The other one said: “A blister! And you’re crying about it like it was a broken leg. Shut up and listen!”

They kept quiet a moment and I shoved the safety down on the automatic.

In a minute the one that had been complaining about his foot said: “I still think we should have stopped at the camp. We could have asked questions. I don’t like this.”

“It was your idea in coming back here to see what happened,” the other one said. “It’s like I said. Somebody’s keeping watch down there. There’s still a few coals where he built a fire and I can see where he’s rolled up in a blanket on the other side of it. Look there.”

He pointed and again they kept silent. Then the first one said: “Might as well go first-class. I’ll knock him out and we’ll look the truck over. I know I hit that kid, up in the road, but I want to see what happened down here.”

I kept flat on my stomach, just like I was. But I stuck the automatic out and said, “Don’t move!” from that position.

They moved fast and in two different directions. I shot once at the man who’d said he’d done the shooting up in the road — and I knew I’d missed as soon as I pulled the trigger. One of the men shouted — I couldn’t tell which because my ears were ringing from the noise of the gun — and then one of them shot back at me. I held the gun on the flash of his, as near as I could, and tried again. I couldn’t see him at all, but I knew it was the one who hadn’t done the shooting — the one who wasn’t complaining about his foot.

From farther down the hill, three more shots came my way — just as fast as they could be fired — and I heard Rawlins shout: “Hold ’em, Bryant!”

With that, the man who’d done the last shooting started running. I could hear him going through the brush, crashing through it with as much noise as a horse would make. I didn’t hear anything of the other man, so I called to Rawlins: “One of them’s still here. Keep back.”

He said, “Keep back hell!” and came panting up to where I was. He was holding a big club, and his hair was all tousled from where he’d been lying down. He didn’t have his glasses on and his uniform coat was unbuttoned with the collar loosened and he didn’t look at all like the strict careful officer he usually did. He said: “You hit anybody?”

I whispered, “Here, take the gun!” and passed it over. “You stay here — you’re a better shot than I am. I’ll get a bit away and turn the flash on. He’ll shoot at it and then you can nail him.”

“He may hit you. There’s been enough murder here tonight.”

“I’ll get behind a tree,” I said.

I did — twenty feet away — and stuck the flash out and turned it on and waited for the shooting to begin but nothing happened. I kept moving the flash back and forth, but not seeing where it was pointing, and all of a sudden Rawlins said, in a funny voice: “It’s all right. Come on, Bryant.”

I stepped out from behind the tree and he said: “Right ahead of you. You caught him with the light once. Our side’s getting in, now.”

And then I saw the man, lying face down and all spread out. He wasn’t moving and I held the light on him while Rawlins went up, covering him with the gun. He bent down and took a gun from the ground by the man’s hand and then I went up.

We turned him over and Rawlins said: “That’s marvelous, Mr. Bryant, marvelous! Between the eyes, shooting in darkness. I congratulate you, sir.”

I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t. When I’d shot at the flash of the dead man’s gun I’d gotten lucky for once. I’d hit him right between the eyes and what that heavy .45 bullet did to him was something not to see.

I said finally: “It wasn’t the right one. It wasn’t the one that shot the boy up in the road. He ran the other way, when I told them to not move.”

Rawlins said grimly: “This is a start. We can find who this man is, and from that we can locate his friend.”

Chapter Four Rawlins Gets His Gun

We were still looking at the dead man when the boys from the camp got there. There were about a dozen of them — Ward had sent that many, both for safety and because he knew that none of the boys would have gone along that road at night alone after what had happened. They stopped above us, flashing lights all around, and called: “Captain Rawlins! Mr. Bryant!”

We went up to the road. The spokesman was a tow-headed kid, not over eighteen if that, and he was so excited he could hardly talk.

He said: “L-l-l-lieutenant W-ward sent us. There’s more trouble at the camp, sir, and Lieutenant Ward t-thinks you should go back there. H-he sent us after you.”

“What’s happened,” asked Rawlins.

“Somebody was sneaking around again, sir,” he said more calmly. “The cook was working late, getting ready for breakfast, and he heard ’em. He ran out and held one of them and then Lieutenant Ward came. There was some shooting and one of our guys got shot. He shot three times at the lieutenant though, sir, and the lieutenant didn’t know it was one of our guys when he shot back.”

“One of our boys! Is he hurt?”

“He’s dead. And the lieutenant said to tell you the telephone line is down. He said he’d have sent a truck out tonight but that it couldn’t get past this bad place in the road.”

I said: “What about the man the cook was holding? The one he grabbed when he ran outside, after hearing the noise? What about him?”

“That’s the guy that got shot, Mr. Bryant. He had a gun and he shot at the lieutenant, after he’d pulled away from the cook. His name was Joe Biggers, Mr. Bryant. He was in that bunch that runs around with Blacky Deiss.”

“That would be Richard Deiss?” the captain asked.

“Yes, sir. He’s from Gary, he and the guys that hang around with him.”

Young Deiss had been puzzling me for some time, but I didn’t think this was any time to go into further conversation about him. I hadn’t liked the boy, but put that feeling down to just not caring for his flip manner and talk.

The captain said heavily, to me: “This caps it. This puts the lid on it. I’ll be up before the board on this. I’ll face charges. Poor Ward — I’ll bet he’s in agony.”

“There’s an answer to it, sir. I’ve got a hunch Ward will come out all right.”

“Oh, they’ll call it an accident, no doubt. Will that make Ward feel any better? Will I feel any better — knowing one of the boys in my charge was shot by one of my officers? Knowing another officer lies dead here for God knows what reason?”

I said: “I’m willing to bet the telephone line was cut — and that the road will be wrecked, down at the pass where we go through that rock fill. I’ll bet that’s another place we’ll find the road tampered with.”

Rawlins said, “Nothing would surprise me now,” and started down the road toward camp.

I stayed where I was. I thought that, after all, somebody responsible should stay with our three dead and the other dead man who’d been in the plot to kill them.

Though I’d have kept no death watch for him alone. If he’d been buried at that time I’d have danced on his grave.

The rest of the night passed quietly. It got cold along toward morning but I was wrapped in some extra blankets and didn’t mind. And Rawlins and Lieutenant Ward came with a truck and a dozen of the boys, just after breakfast time. They both looked as though they hadn’t slept a wink.

Rawlins said: “Mr. Bryant, please take the truck and a driver and go back to the camp. Send the truck back for us at once. Lieutenant Ward and I’ll straighten up things here. We can’t leave these bodies here until the coroner arrives, regardless of what the law is in the matter. I will take full responsibility for their removal.”

I said: “I could stay and help you.”

He said: “You will be in charge of the camp in my absence. Lieutenant Ward is now under technical arrest, though the three of us understand this is a formality. I’ve sent a crew of boys out to try and find where the telephone line is broken. They will report to you if they return before I get back. Use your own judgement if anything comes up.”

I said, “Yes, sir!” and went up the road to the truck.

The driver was a boy I’d not noticed before, and he said: “You’re Bryant, eh — the guy that tackled the hold-up man in the cook shanty?”

I said he’d guessed right, but that the less I heard about the hold-up in the cookhouse, the better I’d like it.

He grinned and said: “Sure! You only been here a couple of days but the guys think you’re O.K. Because of you going for that guy like that, I guess. They think the captain’s a big heel. It’s do this and do that and say ‘sir’ to him and all that. Like in the army. They like Ward though, and Comiskey was a good guy.”

I said: “Captain Rawlins is an old army man who’s never worked with raw recruits like you fellows. That’s all. You’ll find he’ll fight for you, if you’re in the right, just as fast as he’ll raise hell with you if you’re in the wrong.”

“Maybe so,” said the driver. He didn’t sound as though he believed me. “The guys say you killed a man down there last night. That right?”

I thought about how I’d shot the man who hadn’t done the shooting in the road — how the one I’d really wanted to kill had gotten away the night before. Twice.

I said: “Yeah! That’s right! The wrong man!”

“That’s what the looie did,” he said. “This guy Joe Biggers. Biggers had a pistol in his hand though, and he’d shot it three times at the looie. Or at least the looie thought Biggers was shooting at him, or he wouldn’t have shot back. It’s a hell of a note. What’ll they do to him?”

I said I didn’t know and we wheeled into the camp.

I got cleaned up and bummed a late breakfast from the cook, and then went over to the office just in case something came up where the boys would have to see whoever was in charge. None of the working parties had been sent out and the whole camp was standing around in little groups, talking. The flag was at half-mast, and that made the whole affair a little unreal to me. It didn’t seem possible that a thing like murder could happen like it had.

It was all crazy — none of it made sense. People aren’t killed for no reason at all — and I couldn’t think of any sensible reason.

And then Richard Deiss came in the office and said: “Can I talk to you a minute, mister?”

I said he could and he stood in front of the desk, as though he was on parade.

I said: “Sit down and be comfortable. I’m not an officer, Deiss. I don’t think you understand — they’re bound by rules and regulations. They can’t act as they’d often like to — they have to behave according to what’s in the book. It finally gets to be a habit with them.”

He growled, “They put on a show, is all,” but he sat down. He was a big kid, about twenty I thought, and he had a suspicious way of tilting his head and looking at you from the side.

I said: “What’s the matter? I’m supposed to be looking after things until the captain gets back, so you can talk to me, if you want. Or if you’d rather wait for the captain it’s all right with me.”

He said: “That heel! It’s you I wanted to see. Maybe you can make the guy see sense. I told the guys there was no use in talking to him.”

“Talking to him about what?”

“They going to move the camp now?”

“I wouldn’t know. I doubt it. I doubt if any man in the world could move Captain Rawlins away from here until the government told him to go.”

Deiss nodded, as though he’d expected to hear that. He said: “Well, I’m telling you. You won’t have no camp. It’ll just be you and the cook and the looie that’s still alive. And the captain. Maybe even the cook will go, too.”

“I don’t understand that, Deiss.”

He gave me a mean look and said: “There’s a hell of a lot going on here you don’t understand, mister. And us guys don’t either. All we know is there’s been three guys killed in a truck, and the truck was made to go over that bank on purpose. The road was fixed so the truck couldn’t miss. A pal of mine gets killed because the looie don’t know which way to shoot. Another guy gets shot in the ham, coming back from the truck. There’s a stick-up in the kitchen and you and the cook get bopped on the head. The telephone line is cut and it can’t get fixed because whoever cut it took a big chunk of wire along with him. Somebody’s trying to hole us up in here and kill us off. The next thing, they’ll dynamite the bunkhouses when we’re asleep. We’re going to get out, whether Rawlins likes it or not.”

I said: “It doesn’t do any good to tell me about it, Deiss. I just work here. I understand Joe Biggers, the boy Lieutenant Ward shot last night, was a pal of yours. That right?”

“Yeah! We run around together back East. He come along because I joined up. And then he gets killed because Ward don’t know nothing about a gun. Ward ought to get life for that play.”

I’d found out what I wanted to know — and what I’d been afraid of. I said: “How was it that you happened to tell me about this?”

“The guys picked me out.”

“It wouldn’t be because you’re back of all this talk about getting out, would it?”

“Hell, no!”

“Any idea of why anybody should be around that cookhouse last night? What was Biggers doing there?”

“Maybe he was planning on cracking a window and getting a little something extra to eat.”

“Listen, Deiss,” I said. “I know you think you’re a smart guy that knows all the answers. Now I’m going to do a little talking. In the first place, Biggers wasn’t trying to break into the cookhouse. The cook heard him fooling around there and caught him at it. He had a gun and he shot three times at Lieutenant Ward, before Lieutenant Ward shot and killed him.” And then I took a chance and added: “And you were seen there with Biggers, just before the trouble started. One of the other boys saw you and Biggers together.”

“Who seen us? Tell me that.”

I laughed and said: “That will all come out later, Deiss. You’re skating on thin ice, fellow. I’d stop this talk about leaving the camp if I were you. In other words, Deiss, I’d watch my step. Right now is no time for trouble-making.”

He said, “You go to hell!” and got up and sauntered out.

I wanted to lay Deiss across my lap and paddle him — which might have been a job because he was almost as big as I was — but I’d have welcomed the work right at that time. Then I remembered what he’d said about the telephone line and went out and over to the bunkhouse. The boy with the corporal’s stripes on his sleeve, who’d been in charge of the detail, was there, and he was talking to Deiss who hadn’t wasted a second in getting hold of him.

I said: “What about that line? Can’t it be fixed?”

He said: “I was just going over to tell you, Mr. Bryant. Part of it was cut away and we haven’t anything around here we can use for a splice. I dropped down by the creek and told Captain Rawlins, and he’s got the road almost fixed by now. He’s going to send a truck into town right away.”

I said that was fine and turned around and almost ran into Fred Ardella. He started to walk back to the office with me and said, as we went along: “I saw Deiss talking to you, Mr. Bryant. Hey! Did he tell you his brother was here last year? Did he tell you about his brother being a caretaker here, over the winter?”

I said that was the first I’d heard of it.

He said: “Yeah! I guess he had a pretty good time, from what Deiss says, too. Some of his friends came up and stayed damn near all winter with him. They brought a lot of liquor and they had their wives, or girls, with ’em, and they must’ve just raised hell. I know Deiss got canned over it, and then went back and got in jail. For manslaughter. It was a stick-up or something, I guess.”

All of a sudden things started to make sense. I said: “Fred, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hang around with Deiss and never leave him alone for a minute. Will you do that?”

Fred said: “If he don’t want me around he’ll tell me to get the hell away. He’s bigger than I am.”

“Just watch him then.”

“You afraid he’s going to run away? He’s been talking about it — he’s got about half the camp in the notion.”

I said: “It’s just that. I’ll depend on you, Fred.”

He said my trust was well placed and swaggered away. I think it was one of the few times anybody had ever told him they had any faith in him and I think he liked the idea a lot.

And then Captain Rawlins came up the road in the truck — with the bodies.

I said: “I think I’ve got it figured, Captain, but I’ll have to have help. As soon as the state police get here, I’ll start out. But I’d like Lieutenant Ward to get me a copy of the brand-register for this county. It will be at the courthouse.”

“He can get it,” said Rawlins. “And we won’t wait for the state police, either. You and I will go. We’ll try and get this settled before the police get here. Now what’s this about this young fellow? What’s his name? Deiss?”

I said: “I don’t want him left alone for a second. He’s too smart. He’s known what this was all about right along, I think.”

Rawlins said: “If he knows anything, I’ll find it out if I have to skin the young devil alive. There’s been murder done over this, Mr. Bryant. I mean to know what it’s all about.”

I said: “O.K. Put on your gun and I’ll show you. It might even be a good plan to take along a rifle.”

“Like that, eh?” he said. He looked a lot happier than he had a moment before. “If I can just get my hands on the devil that cut out that road and shot that boy last night I won’t need a rifle. I’ll do what’s proper with my bare hands.”

But he belted on his gun and took one of the regulation army Springfields from the gun rack.

And then we started.

I should have thought of it before. I had the answer in my hands during the night, when I’d heard the man who’d come down by the truck, talking with his partner. I should have known what had happened when he complained about his feet being sore — but the remark hadn’t tied in with anything at that time. The news about the caretaker and his friends was the answer — the thing that made everything else fall into line. We went down the road to where I’d gone up above it and shot at the man on the horse and then played Indian later. We followed broken brush and horse tracks for about a mile and then I pointed at a rock setting fairly in the little path we were following and said: “I’m right! Isn’t that blood?”

Rawlins said: “By the Lord Harry! It is. You’re right.”

I warned: “We might have a long way to go. I don’t know just how far the man had to walk.”

“I’ll walk my feet down to the ankles,” Rawlins said grimly. “Just for one crack, and I’m going to make it a good one.”

A couple of miles farther on we found the horse. Shot through the left hind leg, high up in the muscle — and again through the body.

I looked it over and saw it was branded 7Y, and said: “O.K! I’m right. But I think we’d better go back and wait for the state police. This is all the evidence they’re going to need in order to make an arrest.”

Rawlins said: “I’m an officer, and I have the same right to arrest, Mr. Bryant. We’ll follow along as we’ve been doing.”

That seemed to be that.

Chapter Five There Was a Reason

The ranch was a dirty little place and we’d taken two hours to get there, from the spot we’d found the dead horse. The house itself was out in a stumpy field, with no shelter near except the barn — and that was so flimsy it offered no protection.

We looked it over, and Rawlins said: “Well, here it is. And we know what we’re after. Let’s get going at it, Mr. Bryant.”

I’d been thinking, all the time since we’d found the horse. I said: “Now wait a minute. These people, if they’re the right ones, are facing murder charges already. If the two of us start walking across the clearing, and they start shooting, they’ll nail us both. We’d be in the open and they’d be shooting from the cover of the house.”

He said that was true — and what of it?

I said: “Look! You’re a crack shot with a rifle and I’m just fair. You stay here in the edge of the clearing and keep ready. I’ll go up to the house and see what it looks like. That way, if anything should happen, you can hold them and I can get away.”

He said: “I’ll go up to the house. They might possibly start shooting before they even talk with you.”

“You’re in uniform — I’m not. They’ll be curious about me — and they’d know what you were after. My way’s best.”

He argued, but he knew I was right. And he so wanted to get the man, or men, back of the murders that he gave in.

He grumbled: “All right, go ahead. Keep that gun handy though. Keep it in the waistband of your trousers but keep your coat over it. Maybe they’ll think you’re unarmed.”

I said I’d do that and started toward the house. I tried to walk as though I was just stopping in for a casual how-d’ya-do, but my knees were shaking so hard I could hardly get over the ground. I felt a little bit sick at my stomach and dizzy as well, because, if I was right, I was going to meet a cold-blooded deliberate murderer — and there was nothing but Rawlins and that army rifle to back me up if it came to trouble.

I had a feeling it would, too.

The man who opened the door was chewing tobacco. He looked me over, not saying anything, and then spat tobacco juice so it landed right by my shoe. He had about a month’s beard on his face and looked as though he hadn’t had a bath in six.

He finally said: “Well, mister! What might you be after? Hey? What you doing here?”

I said: “I was just out walking around and looking over the country. I’m a stranger here.”

“You’re a... liar,” he said. “You’re John Bryant’s boy and you come up to work at that damn camp the government’s got up on the mountain. What you snooping around here for, hey?”

I didn’t have to answer. A short, heavy man came to the door and stood there alongside the man who’d opened it. He looked me over without saying a word to me, then said to the first man: “We’d better gather him in. It’ll just be one less. My way’s best — we’ll just take over the camp tonight. Hold the head guys and to hell with the kids.”

The minute I’d heard him talk I’d known he was the man I was looking for. The same one who’d gotten away the night before. The same one who’d fixed the trap for the truck and killed Comiskey and the two boys. The same one who’d shot the other boy in the road. His voice was a give-away. He had a city twang in it you couldn’t mistake.

He said to me: “O.K., wise guy! You asked for it and you’re going to get it. You should keep your nose out of what don’t concern it. You’re learning too late.”

I heard somebody inside the house say, “Who is it Mickey?” and knew there were at least three of them. And I knew that if they ever got me inside the house Rawlins wouldn’t be able to use that rifle.

I said: “I’ll stay out here.”

He said: “Why you big clown, I’ll take you apart and see what makes you tick.” And then he took a step away from the door toward me. And I took a step back away from him and yanked at the gun in my waistband.

He turned then and jumped for the house door, and he ran into the other man, who was standing there and staring. T got the gun cleared from my coat and started to turn it toward them, but I was far too slow. They were both out of sight by the time I got ready to shoot. A gun banged in the house and a bunch of splinters showed on the warped boards not a foot from my head, and I dropped to the ground, where I could watch the front door.

After a while I could hear talking — and then by and by a hat came poking out alongside of the door-casing. I didn’t shoot.

I could hear somebody inside say, “I’m going out!” and hear somebody else say, “That ain’t the way to do it, I’m telling you. He can’t get away.”

Then there wasn’t any more talking for a little while. And then the rifle at the edge of the clearing went off, sounding as loud as any cannon, and I heard somebody shout, around the corner of the house in back of me. The shout sounded odd, muffled.

Rawlins called out: “One down, Bryant! Keep low.”

I shouted back: “I’m going to set fire to the shack. That’ll bring ’em out — we’ve got ’em for sure!”

The same man who’d opened the door called: “Hey, young Bryant! Don’t burn the place. I ain’t got nothing to do with this. I’ll have a warrant out for you if you touch a match to it.”

That was funny but I didn’t have time to laugh. Somebody inside the house started shooting through the wall at me, and I had to get as close to the house as I could to keep from getting hit. One of the slugs didn’t miss me by more than an inch.

Rawlins let go a couple of shots from the rifle, apparently just trying to scare them, and then he shouted: “You there in the house! You can’t get away! We’ve got you trapped! Come out with your hands in the air!”

They didn’t answer him but I could hear them talking among themselves. And then one of them shouted: “All right! Here we come!”

Two of them, the same two I’d seen, came out the door in front of me, telling me they were going to do it and for me not to shoot. They had their hands up above their shoulders.

I called to Rawlins: “There’s still another one.”

The man I knew was a murderer snarled: “Get smart, wise guy! He ran for it and that guy shot him down like a rabbit. He’s out in back, deader than a herring.”

They stood there about ten feet from the house and with their hands like that — and Rawlins came walking across the clearing toward us. He was holding the rifle down now, with the muzzle slanting across his body and tipped a little in the air, but I had my gun pointed at the prisoners. Rawlins was walking along without looking toward his feet, and he was stepping as though he were walking on eggs — just balanced, taking little dainty steps.

And then he just dropped as though he’d been shot, shoving the rifle out ahead of him — and just when a gun roared inside the house he shot back. And a man pitched out of the door, not over five feet in front of my face.

Rawlins called: “That’ll be all of them, Mr. Bryant, but you’d better make sure. Go in and look. I’ll cover these men.”

I went in and looked. We had a dead man in the back yard as well as the one I’d just seen shot, but that was all except our two prisoners.

When I got through with my looking around, Rawlins was standing in front of them and saying: “And if either of you open your mouth except to answer questions, I’ll turn you over to my boys. They’ll hang you higher than Haman. I’ll get the straight of this if I have to stand back and see you lynched to get it.”

I said: “The house is empty, Captain. Both the other two men are dead.”

He said: “I’m a fair shot if I do say it myself. These men came out too readily — I knew there was a trap. So I thought I’d spring it. Mr. Withers, here, admits owning the 7Y brand, Mr. Bryant. There’s nothing else to do. We’ll march them back and turn them over to the police. The county coroner can pick up the bodies. I won’t bother with such trash.”

I said: “The dead man in back is the one that held us up in the cookhouse.”

“I’d figured that,” he said.

That was all there was to the thing. We walked them back to camp and we got the story on the way. Young Deiss’ brother had robbed a bank, along with four other men. He’d joined the C.C.C.’s to keep out of sight for a while — and he’d taken the caretaker job, over the winter, for the same reason. He’d figured it would be a good place for both himself and his pals. They joined him and spent part of the winter with him, all of them expecting the camp not to open again. And then, when the government unexpectedly decided to open, they had to get out in a hurry. They’d had their bank loot buried under the cookhouse floor — they got to it by taking a board from the base of the building — and they didn’t have time to get it out.

All of a sudden, trucks loaded with C.C.C. boys had started pulling into camp, and they’d left right then because they couldn’t explain being there. If there’d been any question about it and if the law had grabbed them for trespass, their bank robbery would have came to light.

Young Deiss’ brother had gone back to Gary, to wait until things had quieted down, and got arrested for another crime. The others just moved in with Jed Withers, who was a no-good loafer they’d met during the winter. They’d tried to get at the money several times — but each time something had happened and they’d failed. They’d finally decided to scare the camp away — and they hadn’t missed it by much at that.

Rawlins admitted to the state trooper we were talking with: “I’d made up my mind that if anything else happened I’d apply for a camp transfer. I was willing to admit the place was too much for me.”

The trooper said: “This is all well and good. It explains the shooting of the boy, in the road, as well as the accident to the truck. The man you captured admits both the shooting and wrecking the truck, though I’d like to know how you made that tough egg sign a confession.”

Rawlins said: “The boys were talking about a lynching. That was all. I let him hear the talk.”

“That’s well and good, like I said,” said the trooper, looking now at Lieutenant Ward. “But there’s this other boy getting shot. The one called Biggers. I realize the lieutenant can claim self-defense — there’s no doubt about it being that — but I’ll have to take him in I’m afraid.”

I said: “I can give you the guilty one on that, too, Sergeant. One of the bank robbers was named Deiss — he’s now in jail in the East for manslaughter. His brother is with us, and he and this Joe Biggers, who was shot, were pals. I think it was like this, but you can readily find out. Young Deiss knew his brother had robbed a bank and then ducked out here to keep out of sight. He undoubtedly recognized the man who held us up in the cookhouse as one of his brother’s confederates in the bank robbery, though the man wouldn’t recognize young Deiss.”

“He’d hardly expect to see him here,” said Rawlins.

“That’s it. Well, the boy put two and two together and he got five for the answer. He thought out the reason for the hold-up — for the attempt at scaring Captain Rawlins into vacating the camp. As everything that happened seemed centered around the cookhouse, and as he knew that’s where that gang spent most of their time during the winter, from what his brother had told him, he naturally assumed that was where the loot was buried.”

Rawlins said: “And that’s where we found it.”

“I get it,” the trooper said. “He and his pal tried to hi-jack the stuff and the cook caught this young Biggers. Biggers then shot it out with Lieutenant Ward and got the worst of it. Of course I’ll have to check with this young Deiss. I can break him down on it.”

“I’ll send for him,” Rawlins offered. He went out, did so, and after while when we were just sitting there talking about what had happened, I heard a voice say: “Yes, sir. You sent for me?”

We all looked up, and for a moment I didn’t recognize Deiss. Both his eyes were black. His mouth was so swollen that either it, or the two front teeth he’d lost, kept him from speaking plainly. His face was all marred and bruised.

Rawlins stared at him and said: “The officer wants you to answer some questions, Deiss, and I want you to answer them truthfully. My Lord! What happened to you?”

Deiss said: “Fred Ardello and I got in a scrap, sir.”

“Who started it?”

“Well, he kept following me around and I told him to go away. It just sort of started then. I guess maybe I started it, sir.”

“He hurt any?” I asked.

Young Deiss looked even more pained than his bruises allowed for. He said: “Mister, not one bit. I didn’t know it, but the kid used to fight in them Golden Glove things. He whipped me on a dime and had nine cents change coming. I never laid a hand on him from start to finish.”

We all laughed and I left, to tell Fred Ardello he’d done just fine.

And when I did, young Deiss was starting to tell the state trooper his story — and it sounded just the way I’d figured it would. I went away thinking I might have a good summer after all.