Читать книгу Wigwag Weigand - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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Delmar’s sensitive ears caught the sound of the movement and he thrust the newspaper under the straw mattress quickly. Then he jumped to his feet and walked toward the door.

He looked out into the darkness and the form of the huge man loomed up before him. “Oh, hello, Andrews,” he said casually. “You’re calling on me rather late, aren’t you?”

“There’s no special hours for calling in my job,” Andrews answered in deep bass tones. “We don’t stand on ceremony, believe me.”

“I see,” smiled Delmar pleasantly. “Won’t you come in?”

“Nah,” Andrews answered. “This ain’t no social call. I’m tracing some shooting I heard this afternoon. It came from up this way.”

“I was teaching a young scout some target tricks,” Delmar said complacently. “Perhaps that’s what you heard.”

Andrews sneered. “Target tricks, nothin’. There was some real, honest-to-goodness shooting and it wasn’t at no target either! I found this rifle below, too.”

“Well, I know nothing about that,” Delmar averred. “I can show you mine and the target, for that matter.” He turned on his heel to get his rifle.

Andrews stood in the shadows and grinned. When Delmar returned with the firearm he watched him intently. “That ain’t no alibi, young feller,” he said, gruffly. “Your rifle’s evidence enough, ain’t yuh got sense enough to know that?”

“Since when was there a law against target practice in a wilderness like this?” Delmar inquired, his voice rising a trifle.

“You ain’t got no business target practicing if you don’t want to get in dutch,” the game-warden answered evasively. “It’s risky having a rifle so handy this time o’ year especially when we’re finding all kinds of evidence that deer is bein’ dropped around here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Delmar indignantly.

“I mean that I found a young deer this afternoon about a half mile below here. And she wasn’t dropped more than fifteen minutes before I come to her. About a hundred yards away I found the rifle.”

Delmar held his rifle before him, the muzzle pointing heavenward. He glanced at the one that the game-warden held and shook his head. “No rifle of mine ever did such a thing,” he shouted angrily. “I’ll bear accusations of any kind but never of killing such beautiful creatures.”

Andrews bent down to Delmar’s height and sneered tauntingly into his face. “Say, there,” he returned in bellowing tones, “you don’t look so gosh-awful chicken hearted that you wouldn’t take a chance at killing a nice young doe.”

Delmar clasped his rifle with cold, trembling fingers. He ached to stifle that unjust accusation in the man’s throat and he stepped forward menacingly while Andrews waited and sneered.

It was the sneer that maddened him for a moment.

Wig had forgotten time, space, everything, until he had spoken those words to Delmar. Then he remembered fully. He realized that he had witnessed a murder and that his new friend had met his eyes unflinchingly, denying any part in it. And he, a scout of the first class, had given his word that he believed in him.

Who did it?

Instinctively, both young men looked around them, trying to penetrate the black veil of night that enveloped the mountains. An ominous hush seemed to surround it all. Nothing stirred save a stray lock of the dead man’s hair caught by a passing breeze.

Wig shuddered and looked away. Delmar grasped his arm with trembling fingers, and whispered, “They got away, Wigwag! Whoever it was, they got away!”

“I guess so,” Wig whispered mechanically. “I can’t understand how it happened, yet.”

Delmar stood as if dazed, his eyes transfixed on the ghastly, staring orbs of Andrews. Finally he released his hold on Wig’s arm. “We’ve got to do something!” he said fearfully. “We can’t find who did it and he can’t lie there all night!” He pointed a shaking forefinger at the dead man.

Wig nodded. “I know. Let’s look first, though. Some footprints or something—any kind of a clue would help. Which way did the shot come from?”

“Over my shoulder,” Delmar answered half-heartedly. “But what’s the use? We can’t go hunting in this darkness. In any case, Wigwag, I’ll be accused.”

“Not if I can help it!” said Wig. “I’ll go get my flashlight and look. I might find something.”

He rushed off to his shelter and got the light. When he came back, Delmar was sitting on the broken down doorstep of the shack, his face buried in his hands.

Wig stopped a moment, a trifle disconcerted. Then he walked over and rather timidly touched his friend on the shoulder. “I’d do anything for you, Del,” his voice quivered. “Don’t feel bad, because I can prove you didn’t do it. I bet I could!”

“How?” asked Delmar hopelessly, without looking up. “Some of your bullets went wild today. We can’t account for them and Andrews has probably told someone he had it in for me. That’s why he came back tonight. He accused me on the first evidence he came across.”

“Even so, I could testify,” said Wig doggedly. “I’m going to look now, anyhow. What am I a scout for?” He flashed his light and stepped over into the thicket from whence Delmar said the bullet had come.

Delmar looked after him and then at the rigid form of Andrews. He sighed deeply, fearfully, and stood up.