The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
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money was kept. He was knocking again when Tex strolled up, a fat brown cigar in the corner of his humorous mouth and his hat on the back of his head. It had been a good show. The crowd was twice what he had expected and its enthusiasm was a heartening music in the ears of the manager.
"Say, Harlan," he drawled, "what's the matter? Boys actin' up on yuh? What yuh locked out for?"
"Something wrong in there," snapped Harlan, his face no longer smiling and boyish. "Smith must be checking up, but that's no reason why the door should be locked."
"Where's Barney? Ain't he supposed to hang around, keeping cases till the money's out?"
"I saw Barney going over toward the chutes a few minutes ago," said Blair.
Harlan was knocking again, a peremptory tattoo. A curious group was forming behind him. Tex suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.
"Say, I'll bust the damn door in, if yo'all will stand aside a minute," he offered, and as Harlan stepped back Tex leaned his shoulder against the door. "I could shoot the lock," he said, "but that might draw a crowd in here."
His strength was prodigious. The third heave did the work and he staggered in, Harlan and Blair following close at his heels. The two stopped in amazement at the scene before them, but Tex took a long step into the room and yanked the gag from over Smith's mouth.
"Give us the dope while I unwind yuh," he said tersely. "Who did it, and how?"
Smith, trussed to his chair, worked his jaws silently until speech returned. Blood was still oozing slowly from a broken bruise on the side of his head, and he seemed dazed.
"Ask Jennie," he mumbled. "She saw more'n I did." He nodded towards the bound figure of the stenographer.
"Keep that bunch outa here," Tex commanded, tilting his head towards the doorway where the cowboys were crowding in. Blair turned to do his bidding. "Tell 'em to keep their mouths shut, and send an officer in here. Get McNarty. Boys," he raised his voice so that they could hear, "the first feller that yeeps quits the contest, I don't give a damn who he is. McNarty's out by the gate—send him in. Tell him I want him, but don't say why." The group by the door melted, and he turned to where Harlan was freeing the secretary from the bandanna gag.
"A cowboy put his head in the door and told Barney he was to go over to the north gate," the girl explained nervously. "Mr. Smith was working then on the accounts. The fellow had a badge and looked all right. Barney went, and in a minute or two I saw this same man come out of that closet behind the door. He had a gun. He pushed the door shut with his foot and locked it. Then he came over here—he pulled another gun after he locked the door—and he struck Mr. Smith on the head with it. He kept the other gun pointed at me.
"Mr. Smith crumpled down and the man gagged me before I realized—he tied my hands behind the chair, and then he gagged and tied Mr. Smith. He was very quick, but he wasn't nervous. Then he gathered up all the paper money—I had just finished making it up in packages—there was an awful lot—a whole armful stacked up. He carried it into the closet and came back and got a bag of silver dollars. He took that into the closet."
"Into the closet?" cried Harlan and Tex together, and turned to investigate the place just as McNarty came hurrying in.
Tex, first inside the narrow place, stooped and stared through a square hole cut through the wall, down near the floor.
"Well, I'll be damned," he murmured to himself, and wriggled through, Harlan crawling after him, regardless of the damage to his neat blue serge. In two minutes they were back. The secretary had just finished her very lucid repetition of the robbery.
"He went through the wall, into the dressing room," Harlan explained. "Must have had a suitcase or something hidden in there so he could carry the money away. How much did he get, Miss Gray?"
"Close to thirty thousand, Mr. Harlan. Of course there's that much more in silver, and here are several piles of paper money he didn't get. I laid this in the drawer out of the way, after Mr. Smith had checked it and found it O.K."
"Good girl. Now, tell us how he looks. Size, how he was dressed, and so on."
"Well, I think I've seen him around outside, Mr. Harlan. He's tall and very slender and he wore a blue satin shirt; a brilliant parrot blue, almost green. You can't mistake it. I have seen several of the boys wearing that color."
"I know the shirts you mean," Harlan said crisply. "Four of the contestants have them. Three are Wyoming boys and the fourth came from Montana—rode through on horseback and camped here in the stadium for a week or more. Nice, well-mannered chap—Montana Kid. Badge Number One. He's no stick-up man."
"Three of them blue-shirt boys are contesting right now," drawled Tex. "That lets them out, looks like. Montana Kid left the arena right after the fancy riding. I saw him heading for the stables on that sorrel of his." Without in the least realizing it, Tex was demonstrating his eagle-eyed knowledge of what went on in the arena. "There's your four blue shirts, and one of 'em could be in on this deal—far as time goes. I don't hardly believe he's that stripe, though."
McNarty, already at work on the case, cocked an eyebrow upward, his head bent to the telephone.
"Aw'ri'—send 'em to the office fast as yuh pick 'em up," he said, and hung up the receiver.
"Murphy's posting men at all the exits," he said. "No cowboy can leave the stadium till this thing's cleared up. Every man wearin' a blue shirt will be brought here for identification. If he didn't slip out already, we're pretty sure to get him. Hole in the wall, you say?" He went with Tex to look at the place.
Quiet as they tried to keep the affair, whispers went round that the office had been robbed, and by a cowboy at that. Beck, Billy and Walt were trailed from the arena after the wild-horse race and asked, as a matter of form only, to come and let Miss Gray look them over. Other blue shirts—but none of the right shade or anywhere near it—were brought before the secretary, who looked at them and shook her head.
"No, he was tall," she insisted. "His shirt was just like those three young men wore that you brought in first. But I'm sure it wasn't one of them."
"So am I," said Tex. "They must have been riding the steers just about when this was pulled." He chewed his cigar thoughtfully. "You got a good look at his face, didn't you?"
"Why, no. When he looked in at the door his hat was tilted so his face was hidden, and anyway, I didn't pay much attention. When he came out of the closet he had his neckerchief—a black one—pulled up over his nose, just under his eyes. But I'd know him, I think, by his height and build."
That brought a peculiarly grim look to Harlan's face, because it had just been demonstrated to him that it would take some little time to dig through the wall and make as clean a job as had been done.
"You remember the young fellow I gave Number One badge to—the one we hunted through the box for?"
"Yes, Mr. Harlan," she said, her gaze lowered to the desk. Perhaps she remembered Harlan's boyish eagerness to find that badge for the First Cowboy.
"He's the fourth contestant who wears that shade of blue," he said flatly. "It seems they have formed some sort of team—one of the boys explained it to us. It isn't a nice thing to think—but did you notice the number on the fellow's badge?"
"I—no, Mr. Harlan, I knew he had a badge on, and that's all."
"But his general build—"
"He was over six feet, I think, and slender." She bit her lip and her swift glance upward was troubled.
"Do you think—" Harlan cleared his throat "—could you say it was Montana Kid?"
"I—no, I'd have to see him again with just his eyes showing. I couldn't be sure—"
"Did it look like Montana Kid?" One knew now that Harlan was an attorney, pushing his witness slowly, inexorably toward a definite avowal. One knew it, too, by the way in which the group stood back and let him question her. "Was there a resemblance?"
"I—I'm afraid