He could not agree with Ruth Duperow that the road agent, or agents, had mistaken the express vehicle for one of the passenger coaches in use on this difficult line. That did not stand the test of reason, any more than did a supposition that the robbery had been for the sake of obtaining the uniform of a mounted police officer. No one possibly could have known that such a rig was in transit. At best, the authority which any spurious wearer might command, must be of brief duration for the owner could be counted on to follow his clothes. The risk was not worth the fleeting advantage.
The sergeant did not have to argue himself into a conviction that he must seek elsewhere for the purpose of the holdup. Some other shipment--just what, he meant to find out--that was coveted and worth taking chances to secure must have been expected. He believed that, in examining his loot, the robber-murderer had come upon the uniform and had decided to use it in some other bold stroke without the law.
The sergeant could not withhold admiration for the daring which the man who called himself Caswell had shown in his last hours of life. To put on the trusted and feared uniform, to declare himself the representative of Dominion authority and to undertake the solution of his own crime was a coup as clever and novel as it was impudent. Had the culprit stopped there, he might have made a clean get-away with whatever else of loot the stage carried. Seymour concluded that the prize which had made him resort to murder must be of great value. He did not overlook the possibility that Bart might have been slain by a pal dissatisfied with the division of the spoils. But, in view of hints dropped by Ruth, he was inclined to believe that this morning's slaying had no connection with the B.C.X. crime. The girl, after all, was his best source of information.
Just as he was about to turn back and question her further, the horse tracks he was following broke from the bush into the switchback trail and were lost. At once he swung Kaw around for the return canter. Shortly he overtook his own pack cayuse faithfully plodding in pursuit, and took the animal under halter, that it might not become confused at the crossroads.