Before starting off on the trail of the big sleigh, Anderson sent this
message by wire to the lawyers in Chicago:
"_I have found the girl you want, but the body is lost. Would you
just as soon have her dead as alive_?
"ANDERSON CROW."
In a big bob-sled the marshal and a picked sextette of men set off at
one o'clock on the road over which the sleigh had travelled many hours
before. Anderson had failed to report the suspected crime to the sheriff
at Boggs City and was working alone on the mystery. He said he did not
want anybody from town interfering with his affairs.
"Say, Andy--Anderson," said Harry Squires, now editor of the _Banner_,
"maybe we're hunting the wrong body and the wrong people."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, ain't 'Rast Little missing? Maybe he's been killed, eh? And say,
ain't there some chance that he did the killing? Didn't he say he was
going to murder that city chap? Well, supposing he did. We're on the
wrong track, ain't we?"
"Doggone you, Harry, that don't fit in with my deductions," wailed
Anderson. "I wish you'd let me alone. 'Rast may have done the killin',
but it's our place to find the body, ain't it? Whoever has been slew was
taken away last night in the sleigh. S'posin it was Mr. Reddon! Well,
consarn it, ain't he got a body same as anybody else? We've just got to
find somebody's body, that's all.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118