Chapter VII

41

STRANGE FISH

Ham was scowling. “Listen, Doc, I've been thinking,” he said. “That Sheriff got here no more than thirty or forty minutes after we landed. Nobody could go to a telephone and call him and get him out here that quick.

He was called either before we landed or just about the time we landed.”

“Just about the time we landed, probably,” Doc said. “They had a man planted near a house where there was a telephone. He saw our plane land, and he immediately put in the telephone call to the sheriff. They already had their plan.”

“You know, or are you guessing?”

“Guessing,” Doc said. “But I'll bet it turns out that is the way they did it. They may have even had more than one plan, and used one when the other failed. They probably intended to start a shooting affray with us, and have the sheriff show up during it, and get us all mixed up in trouble with the law. The idea was to get us in jail and delay us. When we discovered that the man who met us was a fake, they simply shot him, planted the gun in the place where they buried it, and hid the cartridges in our plane. Then that fellow waited for the posse to show up so he could load the whole thing on to us.”

Monk said, “Damn him! He won't get away with it. He should know that.”

They fell silent. They could hear the Sheriff. He was sending one of his men to the truck. He was shouting instructions.

“Get hold of Blackie Johnson and have him bring his bloodhounds,” the officer yelled. “It's too danged dry to see their tracks. But maybe the dogs can do some good.”

The man who was going to the truck turned around and hollered, “Why don't you get some of the Indians around here to try to track them?”

“Hell, the Indians ain't trackers these days,” the Sheriff yelled. “That went out of style fifty years ago. Go get Blackie Johnson's potlappers. Tell him to bring Old Blow. Old Blow is a damned good dog.”

Ham Brooks shivered. “They're putting this right around our necks,” he muttered.

Monk looked at Doc uneasily. “Think it would do any good if we walked out and tried to straighten the thing out?”

“That would be playing into their hands,” Doc said. “That is what they want us to do, apparently. Anything to keep us from getting to Paris Stevens and Johnny Toms.”

“Then see them is what we'd better do.”

“That's what we'd better do,” Doc agreed.

THE S−slash−S ranch was not on the Oklahoma City regional aëronautical chart. The chart was in the plane, anyway. But the verbal description they had gotten at the Tulsa Municipal airport gave them the location of the ranch. It was not far.

They began walking.