In dejection he rode up the valley, following the same hilly trail he had taken two days before with Miss Rutherford. It took him past the aspen grove at the mouth of the gulch which led to the Meldrum place. Beyond this a few hundred yards he left the main road and went through the chaparral toward a small ranch that nestled close to the timber. Beulah had told him that it belonged to an old German named Rothgerber who had lived there with his wife ever since she could remember.
Rothgerber was a little wrinkled old man with a strong South-German accent. After Beaudry had explained that he wanted board, the rancher called his wife out and the two jabbered away excitedly in their native tongue. The upshot of it was that they agreed to take the windmill agent if he would room in an old bunkhouse about two hundred yards from the main ranch building. This happened to suit Roy exactly and he closed the matter by paying for a week in advance.
The Rothgerbers were simple, unsuspecting people of a garrulous nature. It was easy for Beaudry to pump information from them while he ate supper. They had seen nothing of any stranger in the valley except himself, but they dropped casually the news that the Rutherfords had been going in and out of Chicito Cañon a good deal during the past few days.
"Chicito Cañon. That's a Mexican name, isn't it? Let's see. Just where is this gulch?" asked Beaudry.
The old German pointed out of the window. "There it iss, mein friend. You pass by on the road and there iss no way in--no arroyo, no gulch, no noddings but aspens. But there iss, shust the same, a trail. Through my pasture it leads."
"Anybody live up Chicito? I want everybody in the park to get a chance to buy a Dynamo Aermotor before I leave."
"A man named Meldrum. My advice iss--let him alone."
Rothgerber shook a pudgy forefinger in the air. "Mein friend--listen. You are a stranger in Huerfano Park. Gut. But do not ask questions about those who lif here. Me, I am an honest man. I keep the law. Also I mind my own pusiness. So it iss with many. But there are others--mind, I gif them no names, but--" He shrugged his shoulders and threw out his hands, palm up. "Well, the less said the petter. If I keep my tongue still, I do not talk myself into trouble. Not so, Berta?"