“Good God!” he thought, “had it left no trace on him, that haunting vision of two corpses flung twisted and out of shape on the wreckage of timber, those two things that had been men sent out of life by his guilty hand? Had it not lived with him by night and refused to be put aside by day? Had they not risen up in the dark hours and called him by a name from which he shrank like a blow, and now this woman told him he could not know what it meant to kill a man!” He put his hands in his pockets, bowed his head, and walked slowly back into the other room. The light breaking fast in the eastern sky, showed a disheveled scene. Mattresses were scattered on the floor, the bedding was thrown about the room, all of the windows were smashed. By each casement was a pile of empty brass cartridge shells. By one window was a mess of something red. The air was stale, and filled with acid-tasting powder smoke. Loring went downstairs, and slipping back the bolts on the heavy door, stepped out into the cool of the early morning. Outside everything seemed in strange order, compared with the scene that he had left. He started on a tour of investigation about the ranch. The ditches amidst the alfalfa showed no trace of the death-dealing occupants of an hour before. As he walked around the corner of an outbuilding, he stumbled over a body which the Yaquis had overlooked in their flight. The Indian’s stiff, square shoes lay with their toes unbending in the dust. The blue denim of the overalls and the buckle of the suspenders showed the trademark of a Chicago firm! A bullet hole was clean through the middle of the swarthy, bronze-colored forehead. Even through the rough clothing, the flat, rangey build of the man was evident. The hair, falling forward in the dust, was coarse and black. “Poor devil!” thought Stephen. “He has ridden on his last raid.” He walked quietly away from the body, and went back to the house. “Everything is all right,” he reported. Soon the stove was lighted, and coffee boiling. The men were laughing and telling stories. The Señor strode up and down, twisting his little spikes of mustachios, and exclaiming upon the valor of the defense. When they sat down to breakfast, there was a seat too many at the table. Loring thought of the silent form in the room above, and for a moment felt weak. Then, shaking off his depression, he entered into the general hilarity. Time after time, the servant passed the great platter of dry _tortillas_. The big cakes tasted delicious to the tired men. As they finished breakfast, the sound of a bugle call sent every one to the window. Outside was a troop of Mexican cavalry, hot on the trail of the Yaquis. Señor Hernandez invited the officers to enter, and while he pressed whisky upon them, gave a voluble account of the fight. He spoke in such rapid Spanish that Stephen could understand little; but from the frequent sweeping gestures, he judged that the story lost nothing in the telling.