"Yes," said somebody, with a suspicion of hoarseness, "that's Quilter. It's not going to be much use; but you had better go through his pockets, Larry!" Grant knelt down, and his face also showed colourless in the lantern light as, with the help of another man, he gently moved the rigid form. Then, opening the big fur-coat he laid his hand on a brown smear on the deerskin jacket under it. "One shot," he said. "Couldn't have been more than two or three yards off." "Get through," said the bushman grimly. "The man who did it can't have more than an hour's start of us, any way, and from the trail he left his horse is played out." In a minute or two Grant stood up with a little shiver. "You have got to bring out a sledge for him somehow, Muller," he said. "Boys, the man who shot him has left nothing, and the instructions from our other executives would be worth more to the cattle-men than a good many dollars." [Illustration: A WHITE FACE AND SHADOWY HEAD, FROM WHICH THE FUR CAP HAD FALLEN.--Page 114.] "Well," said the big bushman, "we're going to get that man if we have to pull down Cedar Range or Clavering's place before we do it. Here's his trail. That one was made by Quilter's horse." It scarcely seemed appropriate, and the whole scene was singularly undramatic, and in a curious fashion almost unimpressive; but Breckenridge, who came of a reticent stock, understood. Unlike the Americans of the cities, these men were not addicted to improving the occasion, and only a slight hardening of their grim faces suggested what they felt. They were almost as immobile in the faint moonlight as that frozen one with the lantern flickering beside it in the snow. Yet Breckenridge long afterwards remembered them. Two men went back with Muller and the rest swung themselves into the saddle, and reckless of the risk to beast and man brushed through the bluff. Dry twigs crackled beneath them, rotten bough and withered bush went down, and a murmur went up when they rode out into the snow again. It sounded more ominous to Breckenridge than any clamorous shout. Then, bridles were shaken and heels went home as somebody found the trail, and the line tailed out farther and farther as blood and weight began to tell. The men were riding so fiercely now, that a squadron of United States cavalry would scarcely have turned them from the trail. Breckenridge laughed harshly as he and Grant floundered down into a hollow, stirrup by stirrup and neck to neck. "I should be very sorry for any of the cattle-boys we came upon to-night," he said. Grant only nodded, and just then a shout went up from the head of the straggling line, and a man waved his hand. "Heading for the river!" he said. "We'll find him in the timber. He can't cross the ice."