The canyon wound a tortuous course. The sun laid a sparkling beam on the western bank. A log cabin stood on the flat. A small corral looped from the end of a low stable. A pole fence, from wall to wall of the gorge above and below the buildings, inclosed a few acres of pasture. Mather rode straight for the house. Considering the circumstances and his errand, Charlie reckoned that foolhardy, but he said nothing. Between house and stable Bill drew rein for a moment, looking down. Fresh tracks in the snow. Some one had walked to the stable. The footprints were paralleled by the track of a horse leading away, past the house toward the canyon wall, where a cleft notch lifted to the upper levels. Then young Bill rode on to the door and swung down. Charlie crowded at his heels when he shoved open the door. Light streamed through frosted windows. A shaft of sunshine played on the figure of a man lying on the floor. Unlike Jed Mather, this dead man lay on his back. The rawhide-bound handle of a knife stood up above his breast, like a pin thrust in a cushion. “Ah,” young Bill whispered, “she beat me to it.” They stared at the corpse. “This Munson?” Charlie asked. Young Bill nodded. “I gave her that knife once,” said he. “Made it myself out of an old flat file. Look! Didn't I say they must ’a’ fought?” Munson’s face was bruised, marked by knuckles. Charlie laid a hand on him. He was cold, rigid. “Let’s get outa here,” young Mather said. “Gives me the creeps. But I was right. He got what he deserved.” He walked the fresh tracks to the stable, looked in, came back on the trail of the horse, mounted, and followed the hoof marks into that notch. A barrier of poles lay in the mouth. The bars were down. They breasted that steep slope. Their horses were blown when they reached the plateau above. The trail in the snow turned sharply southward, skirting the canyon’s rim. It led straight to the Mather ranch and dipped into the canyon again and doubled back to the stable. Only--at a point two hundred yards above the ranch the trail stopped under a cottonwood tree. There was trampled snow there, and foot marks, as if some one had tarried there. Smoke lifted from the stovepipe. They dismounted. A face pressed briefly at the window. Then the door opened and a girl faced them. “Somethin’ about her gets men crazy.” Charlie remembered that. He looked at this girl and he wondered. No Helen to lure a Paris. A mop of tawny, yellow hair. White skin with freckled spots across the bridge of a straight nose. But her cheek bones were too high, her mouth too wide. Her eyes were twin heralds of temper. Steel-bright blue eyes that looked on young Bill with surprise, anger, resentment. She was like a willow for slenderness. How could that slight arm drive home a knife? He got light on that a moment later. Bill Mather’s dark face went pale. He caught the girl by the wrists. “What happened?” he demanded.