They left the stable and crossed the street, going past McGill’s saloon, but there was no sign of McKeever. McGill was behind the bar, reading a newspaper, alone in the place. They went on up to the Short Horn, but found no trace of McKeever. They asked the bartender, who said that he had not seen McKeever since about noon. At the Boston hotel, where McKeever lived, they were informed that he had not been around there since morning. They went back to the Short Horn and had barely entered the place when the youth from the livery-stable followed them in. He was hatless, pasty-faced, and in one hand he carried an old tin bucket. “For ——’s sake, come on!” he panted to Brick. “Come on with me! My ——!” He turned and ran out, with Brick and Silent close behind him. Several of those in the saloon, who had heard, followed them down the street. Straight to the stable they went, and the boy stopped in the middle of the floor, under the light of a lantern. “Tut-take the lantern,” he faltered. “You go ahead, will yuh? Look in the grain box. My ——!” Brick grabbed the lantern and ran into the grain-room, a built-in room, adjoining the little office. A big grain-bin extended the full length of the room, with three different covers. “That’n on the end,” panted the boy. Brick lifted the cover and held up the lantern. Lying doubled up on some loose oats was Jimmy McKeever, his head a welter of blood. Silent and the men from the saloon crowded in and took a look. “I—I ju-just found him that-a-way,” explained the boy. “I dunno how I did it. We didn’t use that bin any more. Sus-somethin’ made me look in there, I reckon.” Brick fastened back the cover and climbed into the bin. “One of yuh go after the doctor,” he ordered, and a man hurried away. Brick lifted McKeever up to where they could all get hold of him, and they placed him on the floor of the stable. Brick examined him, while Silent knelt down and held the lantern. “I don’t reckon he needs a doctor,” observed Silent. Brick shook his head slowly. “Don’t look like it, that’s a cinch. Somebody beat his head all up.” “Somebody—yeah.” It was an old cattleman from the southern end of the range. “I’d admire to know jist who that somebody was.” The man who went after the doctor had shouted the news in at the Short Horn, and the stable soon filled with curious and interested people. Doctor Bridger came bustling in and the crowd gave him room. His examination was short and to the point. “Been dead quite a while. Skull crushed. Who found him?” Doctor Bridger was the coroner. The youth shouldered his way inside the circle. “I found him, Doc. I—I thought he was out some’rs, playin’ poker, and I finds him in that danged old oat-bin. I told the sheriff jist as quick as I could.” “I reckon he did,” agreed Brick. “He was still packin’ his oat-can with him.” “But why would any one kill Jimmy McKeever?” Thus Banty Harrison indignantly. “Jimmy was a good guy.”