And so the Vigilantes went in and up along the lower ways. There were those among them who had been here before, who from time to time had accompanied the snow-packer on his nightly trips just for the curiosity of the thing. These several men, among whom were Albright from the Pomo settlement--a squawman--took the lead, and Albright, keen as a hound on trail, picked up Old Pete's marks and signs at a running walk. And so it was, that, while the sun was still shining on the high peaks above and the canyons were filled with a strange pink light reflected from the red and yellow faces of the rock, the Vigilantes came suddenly to a halt, for Albright had stopped. "Here's where it happened," he said, "there's a blood-sign." And he pointed to the Wall at a spot about breast high. A thin dark line, no wider than a blade of grass and about as long, spraying out to nothing at the upper end, leaned along the rock like a native marking. No other eye had seen it. Not one in a thousand would have seen it. "Good," said Kenset, "you're the man for more of this." They crowded around and examined the telltale spray. Not one among them but knew it for the stain of blood. From that they spread out and back to search the sliding heaps of dust-like powdery rock-slide that lay everywhere along the walls. It took Albright five minutes by Kenset's watch to find the disturbed and clumsily smoothed dump which held all that was mortal of the snow-packer. "Miss Last," said Kenset as the men began to dig with the spades brought along for the purpose, "you had best step back a bit." But Tharon pushed nearer. "This is my work," she said with dignity. "I started this, I think." It was a pitiful job that Service and those with him had done for Old Pete. Rolled head-first into a shallow hole--no doubt with jest and laughter--it was his booted foot which first came to view, sticking grotesquely up through the loose slide-stuff. It was brief work and grim work that followed, and soon the weazened form, bent and stiffened into something hardly human, lay in the soft pink light on the canyon's floor. Jim Banner knelt and examined it carefully and minutely, then every man in the group did likewise. They found evidence of one simple, staring fact--Old Pete had been shot squarely from behind, a little to the left. The bullet had undoubtedly pierced the heart--a great gaping hole in the left centre of the breast in front attesting its course. "Here," said Albright, coming back from a short distance down, beneath the spray on the wall, "here's where something was taken up from th' floor--th' blood he lost, I make no doubt." "Gentlemen,--Miss Last," said Kenset, "I move we all move back and leave the ground to Albright. There is fine work here." With one accord the mass moved back, clearing a goodly space.