The Avenger 10 - The Smiling Dogs Read Online Free PDF

seem silly to them. And if the test turned against anyone, the whole family would be furious at the implications of the thing. Isn’t such a bill political dynamite to handle?”
    On the forehead of Senator Burnside were tiny drops of moisture. The Senator dabbed at them with a handkerchief, but his automatic smile stayed firmly in place.
    “There are times,” he said pompously, “when a man has to forget political expediency and do as his conscience dictates, even if the voters don’t like it. I am about convinced that this is such a time.”
    “That is the only thing you have seen Fram about?” The Avenger asked evenly.
    Burnside was literally in a cold sweat, for some reason.
    He took refuge in bluster. “See here,” he said suddenly. “By what right to do you come into my office and question me? You’re not one of my constituents; your card says your home is in New York. Are you some sort of investigator? And if you are, why are you here?”
    “I have no official right to ask you any questions,” Benson replied. “I am here merely from personal curiosity.” Which was true enough. “It occurred to me that a proposed sanity test of this kind would be a tricky thing for a man in public life to touch, and I wondered why you did it.”
    “You can keep right on wondering,” snapped Burnside. “My reasons are my own. Good day to you, sir.”
    He opened the door for Benson to leave, the perfect picture of an authoritative man in a towering rage. But something about the picture didn’t ring quite true.
    Benson had noted many times that usually a man talks that loud only when he is desperately afraid of something.

CHAPTER V

Lost Geyser
    The town of Bison consisted of two big hotels, four or five livery stables where horses could be rented, half a dozen houses and a store.
    Sheriff Aldershot had had his office over the store. The first thing Mac and Smitty did when they got into the little town was hunt up that office.
    Deputy Phelps, the man who had talked to Benson over the long-distance phone, greeted them by squirting tobacco juice five feet into the top of a milk bottle which he used for a spittoon. He didn’t wet the sides of the milk bottle.
    “Yeah, I’m Phelps. Glad to know yuh. Damn shame about what happened to the sheriff in Washington. That must be a right tough town.”
    “It was tough for Aldershot, at least,” agreed Smitty.
    “Got any dope on his killers yet?”
    “None,” admitted Smitty. “We’re out here, now, trying to pick up a few loose ends. Specifically, we want to know what Aldershot did just before going to Washington. Why he went there, in other words.”
    “The police chief in Washington asked me that,” sighed Phelps. “A guy named Benson also asked me. A couple of detectives phoned and asked me. Now you come and ask me. I don’t know. Nobody knows.”
    “Surely ye have some idea where the mon went and what he did in the forty-eight hours before he left Bison,” remonstrated Mac.
    Phelps shrugged lank shoulders. “Aldershot went away from here two days before going East,” he said. “He headed toward the park. That’s all I know.”
    “That’s something,” said Smitty hopefully.
    Phelps fixed him with a sour stare. “Got any idea how big that park is, mister?” he said. “A guy could wander in it for weeks and never see the same thing twice.”
    “The sheriff was riding?”
    “Sure! We don’t walk around here, much.”
    Mac’s bleak blue eyes followed a squirt of tobacco juice on its accurate way from Phelps’ lips to the milk bottle.
    “Lots of mineral springs in the park, aren’t there?” he said.
    “Uh-huh,” said Phelps. “Lots of other things, too. Among ’em, a nice-size helium deposit. But I suppose you know that.”
    Mac and Smitty hadn’t known. They made a careful note of it.
    “Any mineral springs in the park where you find both salt and sulphur?”
    Phelps shrugged again. “I ain’t no chemist,” he said, “but I can say there