There was blood upon the ground. An awkward attempt had been made to cut the brute’s throat, and, this failing, the rifle had been called into use. Doaks walked up to the animal, and turned her head to look for the brass tag about her horns which would bear her owner’s mark. She wore no tag, and her hide had never known the branding-iron. His eye fell on a peculiar perforation in her ear. “Mink,” he exclaimed, with a note of anguish, “this hyar critter’s _my cow_!” Mink came up, his countenance adjusted to sympathy. He had little of the instinct of acquisition. He was almost incapable of any sentiment of that marvelous range of emotions which vibrate with such fineness of susceptibility to the alternations of gain and loss. He looked like an intelligent animal as he helped make sure of the herder’s mark. “Ye hed sech a few head o’ stock o’ yer own, ennyways,” he observed, with a dolorous lack of tact. “Oh, Lord A’mighty, none sca’cely,” exclaimed Doaks, feeling very poor. “I dunno how in this worl’ this hyar cow happened ter be singled out.” “Mebbe he hed a gredge agin ye, too, ’bout them bones, bein’ ez ye herded on Thunderhead wunst,” suggested Mink. “What bones?” demanded Doaks, amazed. “Why, his’n,” said Mink, in a lowered voice. “In the name o’ reason, Mink, what air ye a-drivin’ at?” cried Doaks, flustered and aghast. “Why, the Herder, o’ course. Him ez skeered the cattle on Thunderhead. I ’lowed mebbe he hed a gredge agin you-uns, too.” “How’d he kem over hyar?” demanded Doaks, with scorn, as if the harnt of a Herder were limited to the locality of Thunderhead. “It’s a deal mo’ likely ter be some livin’ man ez hev got a gredge agin ye fur yer minkish ways, an’ seein’ the critter hed no tag on, an’ warn’t branded nuther, killed her fur ye.” Mink drew a long breath. “Waal, I hope so, the Lord knows. I’d settle him.” An essentially mundane courage was his, but a sturdy endowment as far as it went. His imagination was of the pursuant order; it struck out no new trail, but, given a lead, it could follow with many an active expression of power. He accepted at once this suggestion, with a confidence as complete as if he had never credited the grudge of a ghostly herder. “An’ I’ll be bound I kin tell ye jes’ who ’twar,” he said, stoutly, producing a corollary to the proposition he had adopted as his own. “’Twar that thar pop-eyed fool Peter Rood. I reckon ye hev noticed, ef one o’ them black-eyed, thick-set, big-headed men git made game of ’bout ennything, he’ll pay ye back some mean way. Stiddier skeerin’ me fur skeerin’ him, he kems hyar an’ shoots that cow.” He thrust one hand in his leather belt, and turned his bold bright glance on his partner. As he stood at his full height, vigorous, erect, a touch of freakishness in his eyes, decision expressed in his clear-cut features, a certain activity suggested even in his motionless pose, it might have seemed that the revenge of shooting the cow was the more hopeful project.