Thus admonishing himself, and striving desperately for contentment, he strode forth from the only exit of the cove, and skirted the southern wall of the range, looking for game. It was late in the afternoon when he returned with the best portions of a deer swung over his shoulder. By this time he was desperately hungry, and the prospect of the first venison since his exile stirred his pulses, and gave to the bright scene a cheerful beauty it had not before worn to his homesick heart. He trudged up to the narrow door of the dugout which was closed, just as he had left it, and having carried a noble haunch of venison to the pool to be washed, he descended the dirt steps and set the door to one side. Without at first understanding why, he became instantly aware that some one had been there during his absence. Of course, as soon as his eyes could penetrate the semi-gloom sufficiently to distinguish small objects, he saw the proof; but even before that, the air seemed tingling with some strange personality. He stood like a statue, gazing fixedly. His alert eyes, always on guard, had assured him that the cove was deserted--there was no use to look behind him. Whoever had been there must have scaled the mountain, and had either crossed to the plain on the north, or was hiding behind the rocks. What held his eyes to the stove was a heap of tobacco, and a clay pipe beside it. Among the stores removed from the wagon, tobacco had been found in generous quantity, but during the month now elapsed, bad been sadly reduced. Willock, however, was not pleased to find the new supply; on the contrary his emotions were confused and alarmed. Had the tobacco been ten times as much, it could not have solaced him for the knowledge that the dugout had been visited. After a few minutes of immobility, he entered, placed the meat on a box, and departed softly, closing the door behind him. Casting apprehensive glances along the mountainside, he stole toward it, and made his way up the gully, completely hidden by the straggling line of trees and underbrush, till he stood on the summit. He approached each ridge with extreme caution, as if about to storm the barricade of an enemy; thus he traveled over the range without coming on the traces of his mysterious visitor. Not pausing at the crevice, he went on to the outer northern ridge of the range, and lying flat among some high rocks, looked down. He counted seventeen men near the spot from which he had removed the wagon. Fifteen were on horseback and two riderless horses explained the presence of the two on foot. All of them had drawn up in a circle about the heap of stones that covered the woman's burial-place. Of the seventeen, sixteen were Indians, painted and adorned for the war-path. The remaining man, he who stood at the heap of stones beside the chief, was a white man, and at the first glance, Willock recognized him; he was the dead woman's husband, Henry Gledware.