“Didn’t have an enemy that I ever heard about,” offered Slim Hunter. “By gosh, this country is gettin’ too salty to suit me. Mostly every day there’s a robbery, a killin’ or a dynamitin’. Makes a feller scared to do anythin’, I tell yuh.” “Anything missing around here?” questioned the doctor. “It might have been done by a horse-thief.” “There ain’t no horses gone,” declared the boy. He was about to mention the missing saddle, but Brick’s eyes signaled him a warning and he turned away. “Better take the body down to my place,” suggested the doctor. They rolled the body onto a blanket and four men carried it away. Brick and Silent left the stable ahead of the crowd, and were half-way to the Short Horn when the doctor joined them. “Murder, wasn’t it?” he asked. “The dirtiest kind,” said Brick slowly. “They probably put him in there until they got a chance to dispose of him.” The doctor shook his head wearily. “I can’t understand men doing a thing like that, sheriff. Murder is so unnecessary.” “From yore angle,” said Brick softly. They left the doctor and went to the hitch-rack, where they mounted and rode out of town. Just at the outskirts, Brick swung off the road and led the way into the hills with Silent’s horse pounding along behind him. “Can’t take a chance on the road,” declared Brick, as the lights of Silverton faded from view. “There’s too much —— to pay in Sun Dog. We’ll stay at the Nine-Bar-Nine tonight.” * * * * * It was about four o’clock the following afternoon. Brick and Silent crouched in the brush and watched the ranch-house of Mostano. They had been there since the middle of the forenoon but had seen nothing of interest. Their few hours of sleep at the Nine-Bar-Nine had only been an aggravation to Silent, who complained wearily against accompanying a half-witted sheriff on a foolish quest. They had left the Nine-Bar-Nine before daylight, having cooked their own breakfast, and had ridden the entire distance away from the road. Brick was taking no chances now, and he was forced to admit that his spying on the Mostano ranch was inspired by a “hunch.” Something seemed to tell him that the answer to the riddle was at that ranch. He knew that Mostano was not the only man at the ranch when he and Harp were chased out of the house. The dynamiting of his office proved that the criminals feared him and felt that he knew too much. Just why they would dynamite the Red Hill mine safe, after stealing the payroll, was more than he could figure out. In some way it was connected with the attempted killing of Soapy Caswell, he decided.