CHAPTER XXIV
MACDONALD FOLLOWS A CLUE
Macdonald was no sluggard. It was his habit not to let the pleasure ofthe night before interfere with the business of the morning after. Butin the darkness he overslept and let the town waken before him. He wasroused by the sound of knocking on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"It's me--Jones--Gopher Jones. Say, Mac, the bank ain't open and wecan't rouse Milton. Thought I'd come to you, seeing as you're presidentof the shebang."
The mine-owner got up and began to dress. "Probably overslept, same asI did."
"That's the point. We looked through the window of his bedroom and hisbed ain't been slept in."
In three minutes Macdonald joined the marshal and walked down with himto the bank. He unlocked the front door and turned to the little crowdthat had gathered.
"Better wait here, boys. Gopher and I will go in. I expect everything isall right, but we'll let you know about that as soon as we find out."
The bank president opened the door, let the officer enter, and followedhimself.
The sun had not yet risen and the blinds were down. Macdonald struck amatch and held it up. The wood burned and the flame flickered out.
"Bank's been robbed," he announced quietly.
"Looks like," agreed Jones. His voice was uneven with excitement.
The Scotch-Canadian lit another match. In the flare of it they saw thatthe steel grill cutting off the alcove was open and that the door hadbeen blown from the safe. It lay on the floor among a litter of papers,silver, fragments of steel, and bits of candle.
The marshal clutched at the arm of the banker. "Did you see--that?" hewhispered.
His finger pointed through the darkness to the other end of the room. Inthe faint gray light of coming day Macdonald could see a huddled mass onthe floor.
"There has been murder done. I'll get a light. Don't move from here,Jones. I want to look at things before we disturb them. There's nodanger. The robbers have been gone for hours."
Gopher had as much nerve as the next man--when the sun was shining andhe could see what danger he was facing. But there was something sinisterand nerve-racking here. He wanted to throw open the door and shout thenews to those outside.
By the light of another match the mine-owner crossed the room intothe sitting-room of the cashier. Presently he returned with a lampand let its light fall upon the figure lying slumped against the wall.A revolver lay close to the inert fingers. The head hung forwardgrotesquely upon the breast.
The dead man was Milton. His employer saw nothing ridiculous in thetwisted neck and sprawling limbs. The cashier had died to save the moneyentrusted to his care.
Macdonald handed the lamp to the marshal and picked up the revolver.Every chamber was loaded.
"They beat him to it. They were probably here when he reached home.My guess is he heard them right away, got his gun, and came in. He'sstill wearing his dress suit. That gives us the time, for he left theclub about midnight. Soon as they saw him they dropped him. Likely theyheard him and were ready. I wouldn't have had this happen for all themoney in the safe."
"How much was there in it?"
"I don't know exactly. The books will show. I'll send Wally down to lookthem over."
"Shot right spang through the heart, looks like," commented Jones,following with his eye the course of the wound.
"Wish I'd been here instead of him," Macdonald said grimly. His eyessoftened as he continued to look down at the employee who had paidwith his life for his faithfulness. "It wasn't an even break. Poor oldfellow! You weren't built for a job like this, Robert Milton, but youplayed your hand out to a finish. That's all any man can do."
He turned abruptly away and began examining the safe. The silver stillstood sacked in one large compartment. The bank-notes had escaped thehurried search of the robbers, but the gold was practically all gone.One sack had been torn by the explosion and single pieces of gold couldbe found all over the safe.
Macdonald glanced over the papers rapidly. The officer picked up oneof dozens scattered over the floor. It was a mortgage note made out tothe bank by a miner. He collected the others. Evidently the bandits hadtorn off the rubber, glanced over one or two to see if they had any cashvalue, and tossed the package into the air as a disgusted gambler doesa pack of cards.
The bank president stepped to the door and threw it open. He explainedthe situation in three sentences.
"I can't let you in now, boys, until the coroner has been here," he wenton to tell the crowd. "But there is one way you can all help. Keep youreyes open. If you have seen any suspicious characters around, let meknow. Or if any one has left town in a hurry--or been seen doinganything during the night that you did not understand at the time. Mencan't do a thing like this without leaving some clue behind them eventhough the snow has wiped away their trail."
A man named Fred Tague pushed to the front. He kept a feed corral nearthe edge of town. "I can tell you one man who mushed out before fiveo'clock this morning--and that's Gid Holt."
The eyes of Macdonald, cold and hard as jade, fastened to the man. "Howdo you know?"
"That dog team he bought from Tim Ryan--Well, he's been keeping it in mycorral. When I got there this morning it was gone. The snow hadn't wipedout the tracks of the runners yet, so he couldn't have left more thanfifteen minutes before."
"What time was it when you reached the corral?"
"Might have been six--maybe a little later."
"You don't know that Holt took the team himself?"
"Come to that, I don't. But he had a key to the barn where the sled was.Holt has been putting up at the hotel. I reckon it is easy to find outif he's still there."
Macdonald's keen brain followed the facts as the nose of a bloodhounddoes a trail. Holt, an open enemy of his, had reached town only two daysbefore. He had bought one of the best and swiftest dog teams in theNorth and had let slip before witnesses the remark that Macdonald wouldsoon find out what he wanted with the outfit. The bank had been robbedafter midnight. To file open the grill and to blow up the safe musthave taken several hours. Before morning the dogs of Holt had taken thetrail. If their owner were with them, it was a safe bet that the sledcarried forty thousand dollars in Alaska gold dust.
So far the mind of the Scotchman followed the probabilities logically,but at this point it made a jump. There were at least two robbers. Hewas morally sure of that, for this was not a one-man job. Now, if Holthad with him a companion, who of all those in Kusiak was the most likelyman? He was a friendless, crabbed old fellow. Since coming to Kusiak oldGideon had been seen constantly with one man. Together they had drivenout the day before and tried his new team. They had been with each otherat dinner and had later left the hotel together. The name of the man whohad been so friendly with old Holt was Gordon Elliot--and Elliot notonly was another enemy of Macdonald, but had very good reasons forgetting out of the country just now.
The strong jaw of the mine-owner stood out saliently as he gave short,sharp orders to men in the crowd. One was to get the coroner, a secondWally Selfridge, another the United States District Attorney. He dividedthe rest into squads to guard the roads leading out of town and to seethat nobody passed for the present.
As soon as the men he had sent for arrived, Macdonald went over thescene of the crime with them. It was plain that the dynamiting had beendone by an old-time miner who knew his business, but there had beenbrains in the planning of the robbery.
"There is no ivory above the ears of the man who bossed this job,"Macdonald told the others. "He picks a night when we're all at the club,more than half a mile from here, a stormy night when folks are notwandering the streets. He knows that the wind will deaden the sound ofthe dynamite and that the snow will wipe out any tracks that might helpto identify him and his pal or show which way they have gone."
The coroner took charge of the body and Wally of the bank. Themine-owner and the district attorney walked up to the hotel together. Assoon as they had expla
ined what they wanted, the landlord got a passkeyand took them to the room Holt had used.
Apparently the bed had been slept in. In the waste-paper basket thedistrict attorney found something which he held up in a significantsilence. Macdonald stepped forward and took from him a small cloth sack.
"One of those we keep our gold in at the bank," said the Scotchman aftera close examination. "This definitely ties up Holt with the robbery. Nowfor Elliot."
"He left the hotel with Holt about five this morning the porter says."This was the contribution of the landlord.
The room of Gordon Elliot was in great disorder. Garments had beentossed on the bed and on every chair and had been left to lie whereverthey had chanced to fall. Plainly their owner had been in great haste.
Macdonald looked through the closet where clothes hung. "His new furcoat is not here--nor his trail boots. Looks to me as though Mr. Gordonhad hit the trail with his friend Holt."
This opinion was strengthened when it was learned from a store-owner intown that Holt and Elliot had routed him out of bed in the early morningto sell them two weeks' supplies. These they had packed upon the sledoutside the store.
"It's a cinch bet that Elliot took the trail with him," the lawyerconceded.
All doubt of this was removed when a prospector reached town with thenews that he had met Holt and Elliot traveling toward the divide as fastas they could drive the dogs.
The big Scotchman ordered his team of Siberian wolf-hounds made readyfor the trail. As he donned his heavy furs, Colby Macdonald smiled withdeep satisfaction. He had Elliot on the run at last.
Just as he closed the door of his room, Macdonald heard the telephonebell ring. He hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders and strode out intothe storm. If he had answered the call he would have learned from Diane,who was at the other end of the line, that the stage upon which Shebahad started for Katma had not reached the roadhouse at Smith's Crossing.
Five minutes later the winners of the great Alaska Sweepstakes wereflying down the street in the teeth of the storm. Armed with a rifleand a revolver, their owner was mushing into the hills to bring backthe men who had robbed his bank and killed the cashier. He traveledalone because he could go faster without a companion. It never occurredto him that he was not a match for any two men he might face.
The Yukon Trail: A Tale of the North Page 25