There, in the ashes of the dead fire, as though embalmed, as though alive, as though lingering to accuse and to convict, lay the body of Greathouse, the missing man. Not merely a charred, incinerated mass, the figure lay in the full appearance of life, a cast of the actual man, moulded with fineness from the white ashes of the fire! Not a feature, not a limb, not a fragment of clothing was left undestroyed; yet none the less here, stretched across the bed of the burned-out fire, with face upturned, with one arm doubled beneath the head and the other with clinched hand outflung, lay the image, the counterpart, nay, the identity of the man they sought! It was a death mask, wrought by the pity of the destroying flames. These winds, this sky, the air, the rain, all had spared and left it here in accusation most terrible, in evidence unparalleled, incredibly yet irresistibly true! Franklin felt his heart stop as he looked upon this sight, and Curly's face grew pale beneath its tan. They gazed for a moment quietly, then Curly sighed and stepped back. "Keep him covered, Cap," he said, and, going to his horse, he loosened the long lariat. "_Arriba_, Juan," he said quietly. "Get up." He kicked at the Mexican with his foot as he lay, and stirred him into action. "Get up, Juan," he repeated, and the giant obeyed meekly as a child. Curly tied his hands behind his back, took away his knife, and bound him fast to a tree. Juan offered no resistance whatever, but looked at Curly with wondering dumb protest in his eyes, as of an animal unjustly punished. Curly turned again to the fire. "It's him, all right," said he; "that's Cal." Franklin nodded. Curly picked up a bit of stick and began to stir among the ashes, but as he did so both he and Franklin uttered an exclamation of surprise. By accident he had touched one of the limbs. The stick passed through it, leaving behind but a crumbled, formless heap of ashes. Curly essayed investigation upon the other side of the fire. A touch, and the whole ghastly figure was gone! There remained no trace of what had lain there. The shallow, incrusting shell of the fickle ash broke in and fell, all the thin exterior covering dropping into the cavern which it had inclosed! Before them lay not charred and dismembered remains, but simply a flat table of ashes, midway along it a slightly higher ridge, at which the wind, hitherto not conspiring, now toyed, flicking away items here and there, carrying them, spreading them, returning them unto the dust. Cal Greathouse had made his charge, and left it with the Frontier to cast the reckoning. CHAPTER XXVIII THE TRIAL "Your Honour," said Franklin to the Court, "I appear to defend this man." The opening sentence of the young advocate might have been uttered in burlesque. To call this a court of justice might have seemed sheer libel. There was not the first suggestion of the dignity and solemnity of the law.