Fire Bear and McFann took the verdict with customary calm. The Indian was released from custody and took his place in Lowell's automobile. The half-breed was remanded to jail for trial for the Talpers slaying. Lowell, after saying good-bye to the half-breed, lost no time in starting for the agency. On the way he caught up with Helen, who was riding leisurely homeward. As he stopped the machine she reined up her horse beside him and extended her hand in congratulation. "You're not the only one who is glad of the acquittal," she exclaimed. "I am glad--oh, I cannot tell you how much!" Lowell noticed that her expression of girlishness had returned. The shadow which had fallen upon her seemed to have been lifted miraculously. "Wasn't it strange the way things turned out?" she went on. "A little while ago every one seemed to believe these men were guilty, and now there's not a one who doesn't seem to think that Talpers did it." "There's one who doesn't subscribe to the general belief," answered Lowell. "What do you mean?" Lowell was conscious that she was watching him narrowly. "I mean that I don't believe Bill Talpers had anything to do with murdering that man on the Dollar Sign road!" CHAPTER XV "There's one thing sure in all cases of crime: If people would only depend more on Nature and less on themselves, they'd get results sooner." Lowell and his chief clerk were finishing one of their regular evening discussions of the crime which most people were forgetting, but which still occupied the Indian agent's mind to the complete exclusion of all reservation business. "What do you mean?" asked Rogers, from behind smoke clouds. "Just the fact that, if we can only find it, Nature has tagged every crime in a way that makes it possible to get an answer." "But there are lots of crimes in which no manifestation of Nature is possible." "Not a one. What are finger-prints but manifestations of Nature? And yet for ages we couldn't see the sign that Nature hung out for us. No doubt we're just as obtuse about a lot of things that will be just as simple and just as plain when their meaning is finally driven home." "But Nature hasn't given a hint about that Dollar Sign road crime. Yet it took place outdoors, right in Nature's haunts." "You simply mean that we haven't been able to comprehend Nature's signals." "But you've been over the ground a dozen times, haven't you?" "Fifty times--but all that merely proves what I contend. If I go over that ground one hundred times, and don't find anything, what does it prove? Merely that I am ninety-nine times stupider than I should be. I should get the answer the first time over." Rogers laughed. "I prefer the most comfortable theory. I've settled down in the popular belief that Bill Talpers did the killing. Think how easy that makes it for me--and the chances are that I'm right at that."