Bill had been itching to get back to his cave and make coffee there, but now he looked at Abington and hesitated. Neither Abington nor any other man could laugh at Bill and call him a coward. There had been a small pile of firewood; it was scattered around somewhere among the débris. The coffeepot, he knew, had been flattened as if an elephant had stepped on it; but he could find a can that would serve. * * * * * He groped for the wood, found it and got a fire started. A cheerful light pushed back the shadows, making them eerier than when all was gloom. He set about supper of a sort, keeping his back to the ledge with a persistence that might have amused Abington if he had not been wholly occupied with the mystery that had impinged upon an otherwise uneventful trip. “I can’t fathom it,” he said at last, speaking half to himself. “It is not a mountain sheep, I’m certain of that. Those slits in the tent and the salt sack ignored--those two details alone place the depredations apart from the work of any such animal.” “Yeah, there ain’t no such animal!” Bill looked up to remark. “Now you know why I wanted a gun, professor. You thought it was for killing sheriffs, maybe, but you was wrong there. I told you there was something up here we’d have to look out for. I asked you to get me a gun, because I ain’t got much hopes of killin’ this thing by throwin’ rocks at it. That’s why.” “I’m sorry, Bill, but I really couldn’t buy you a gun,” Abington told him gravely. “And I don’t think you will need one. The beast keeps himself out of sight, it seems. It isn’t likely to attack either of us.” “Well, I’d about as soon be attacked as scared to death,” Bill demurred. “That’s just it, professor. I wouldn’t give a cuss if I could look the thing over, once. What I hate is coming in and finding camp demolished and the grub all throwed out and nothing you can fight back at. Well, here’s your coffee. It’s about all I could find to cook, in the dark.” They drank the coffee in silence, even the self-contained Abington pausing every minute or so to stare into the darkness, listening. It was a nerve-trying pastime which netted them nothing in the way of enlightenment. What it cost Bill to shoulder a load of more-or-less damaged supplies and go off alone up the cañon, his way lighted only by the stars, Abington could only guess. In justice to the peace officers of the county he could not give the man a gun, and he sensed that Bill was really afraid of the unknown marauder, and with good reason, Abington was forced to admit.