"If you had used your mouth less and your eyes more, you might have something to tell us," sneered Hales. "Little man on a _grullo_ horse--that's enough for us--we're goin'!" snapped Caney. "Say, you fellers make me plumb sick! The murderer's getting away, and all you do is blat. We're goin', and we're goin' now!" "Something tells me you won't," said Pete Harkey. He had mysteriously acquired a shotgun from his buckboard, and he cocked both hammers with the word. "Not till we talk a little. According to your tell, the killing was done in Sierra County. That's my county, and we figure we are plenty competent to skin our own skunks. Also, we want one good long look before we leap. You three are the only men who can tell us anything, and we want to know what you know, so we'll not lose time or make mistakes. We can't afford to shoot so as to hit if it's a deer and miss if it's a mule. You fellers are excited. What you need is a head. I'll be head. "You just calm down a little. I'll be getting a posse together to go back and look into this. You can be fixing to give us some idea what's happened. After that, these two boys can go with you. They've seen this stranger and they'll know him on a fresh horse. All you three know about his looks is a blue horse. I'm going up where Adam was killed. Where was it? Don't be nervous about this gun. I never shot a man accidentally in my life. Where was Adam killed?" "In Redgate. Near the upper end. We was looking--" "That's enough. You wait till I send for some friends of mine." Pete raised his voice. "Girls! Ride over here! Now you folks keep still till the girls get away. Toad Hales, is it? I've seen you before, Mr. Hales.... Edith, you go to the mill and tell Jerome I want him. Lyn, you go to Chuck Barefoot's and tell him to get Jim-Ike-Jones and come here and be quick about it. Then you girls go home." "What is it, Uncle Pete? Adam?" said Lyn, with a quivering lip. "Yes, dear. Go on, now." "Dead?" "Murdered!" "Adam!" Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent to her horse's mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull. "Oh, Hobby! Be careful--come back to me!" She raised her lips to his. He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with sobbing. "Oh, poor Adam!" She cried. "Poor Adam!" Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips to silence. If his face was bleak--why not, for Adam, his friend? And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone of them all, had seen that stricken face. "Lyn, you go on," said Pete. "Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever God'll let him come." He turned back to the men.