Hashknife felt sure that neither Nan nor Rex had been armed when they left the ranch; and this gun, with six empty shells in the cylinder, proved that some one had been doing some shooting in the cañon. He climbed the west bank and came out almost under the overhang of the cave. After a careful survey of the surrounding country, he climbed up over the shelves of sandstone to the entrance of the cave. Here was an odor of wood-smoke, although the fire had long since died out. Cautiously he advanced into the shallow cave, gun in hand. It was light enough for him to see the outstretched form of Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs near the pile of ashes. He had been tied securely with a length of lariat rope, with the loop drawn tightly around his neck. Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs was as dead as a man might be, and Hashknife could see that he had died from strangulation, although he had been badly battered. Hashknife loosened the ropes. In spite of the battered face, Hashknife was able to recognize the old 6X6 cook. On the left side of his head was a furrow which seemed to have been made by a bullet, but with so many cuts and bruises it was difficult to say which was the worst. The old man’s coat had been almost torn from his body, but in the inside pocket Hashknife found several folded papers, which he took to the cave entrance to examine. For perhaps five minutes he sat on a sandstone ledge, pondering deeply over them, while the shadows of the buzzards drifted back and forth across the slope below him. Finally he pocketed the papers and went back into the cave, where he dragged the old man’s body farther away from the entrance. ‘Mebby you’ll be a mummy by the time yuh get out of here, old-timer,’ he said. ‘I’d take yuh out, if I could; but I can’t. So-long.’ Hashknife went back down the slope, where he found the track of a horse, going down the cañon. It went down past the old waterfall, where the tracks were plainly outlined in the sand. ‘Must be a way out the lower end,’ he decided. ‘If I can get Ghost down into this danged place, I’ll try my luck. It can’t be any worse than the way I came in--and it must be shorter.’ He managed to pick out a possible place to get down, and went back for the gray horse. CHAPTER XIX: HASHKNIFE WRITES A NOTE The shadows from the mesquite clumps were growing long on the mesa below the mouth of Coyote Cañon. Farther to the south was the blue haze over the flat land toward Cañonville. Blue quail were calling to one another from the brushy slopes, their plaintive, _ca cuckoo_, _ca cuckoo_, being the only sound to break the silence.