"Well, where were you for the half-hour before the moon rose?" asked the man who seemed examiner. "That is really the time most interesting to this case." "Why, good heavens, man!" cried Lyster, but 'Tana interrupted: "I was walking up on the hill about that time." "Alone?" "Alone." Mrs. Huzzard groaned dismally, and Lyster caught 'Tana by the hand. "'Tana! think what you are saying. You don't realize how serious this is." "One more question," and the man looked at her very steadily. "Were you not expecting this man to-night?" "I sha'n't answer any more of your questions," she answered, coldly. Lyster turned on the man with clenched hands and a face white with anger. "How dare you insult her with such a question?" he asked, hoarsely. "How could it be possible for Miss Rivers to know this renegade horse-thief?" "Well, I'll tell you," said the man, drawing a long breath and looking at the girl. "It ain't a pleasant thing to do; but as we have no courts up here, we have to straighten out crimes in a camp the best way we can. My name is Saunders. That man over there is right--this is Lee Holly; and I am sure now that I saw him leave this cabin last night. I passed the cabin and heard voices--hers and a man's. I heard her say: 'While I can't quite decide to kill you myself, I hope some one else will.' The rest of their words were not so clear. I told Overton when he came back, but the man was gone then. You ask me how I dare think she could tell something of this if she chose. Well, I can't help it. She is wearing a ring I'll swear I saw Lee Holly wear three years ago, at a card table in Seattle. I'll swear it! And he is lying here dead in her room, with a knife sticking in him that she had possession of to-day. Now, gentlemen, what do you think of it yourselves?" CHAPTER XXIII. GOOD-BY. "Oh, 'Tana, it is awful--awful!" and poor Mrs. Huzzard rocked herself in a spasm of woe. "And to think that you won't say a word--not a single word! It just breaks my heart." "Now, now! I'll say lots of things if you will talk of something besides murders. And I'll mend your broken heart when this trouble is all over, you will see!" "Over! I'm mightily afraid it is only commencing. And you that cool and indifferent you are enough to put one crazy! Oh, if Dan Overton was only here." The girl smiled. All the hours of the night had gone by. He had at least twelve hours' start, and the men of the camp had not yet suspected him for even a moment. They had questioned Harris, and he told them, by signs, that no man had gone through his cabin, no one had been in since dark; but he had heard a movement in the other room. The knife he had seen 'Tana take into the other room long before dark.