"I've found out that the body's been uncovered--and men are already searchin' for clues. And moreover--I think they've found them." He paused, weighing the effect of his words. His eyes glittered with cunning. Rat that he was, he was wondering whether the time had arrived to leave the ship. He had no intention of continuing to give his services to a man with a rope-noose closing about him. And Cranston, knowing this fact, hated him as he hated the buzzard that would claim him in the end and tried to hide his apprehension. "Go on. Blat it out," Cranston ordered. "Or else go away and let me sleep." It was a bluff; but it worked. If Gibbs had gone without speaking, Cranston would have known no sleep that night. But the man became more fawning. "I'm tellin' you, fast as I can," he went on, almost whining. "I went to the cabin, just as you said. But I didn't get a chance to search it--" "Why not?" Cranston thundered. His voice reëchoed among the snow-wet pines. "I'll tell you why! Because some one else--evidently a cop--was already searchin' it. Both of us know there's nothin' there anyway. We've gone over it too many times. After a while he went away--but I didn't turn back yet. That wouldn't be Jim Gibbs. I shadowed him, just as you'd want me to. And he went straight back to the body." "Yes?" Cranston had hard work curbing his impatience. Again Gibbs' eyes were full of ominous speculations. "He stopped at the body, and it was plain he'd been there before. He went crawling through the thickets, lookin' for clues. He done what you and me never thought to do--lookin' all the way between the trail and the body. He'd already found the brass shell you told me to get. At least, it wasn't there when I looked, after he'd gone. You should've thought of it before. But he found somethin' else a whole lot more important--a roll of papers that Hildreth had chucked into an old pine stump when he was dyin'. It was your fault, Cranston, for not gettin' them that night. You needn't 've been afraid of any one hearin' the shot and catching you red-handed. This detective stood and read 'em on the trail. And you know--just as well as I do--what they were." "Damn you, I went back the next morning, as soon as I could see. And the mountain lion had already been there. I went back lots of times since. And that shell ain't nothing--but all the time I supposed I put it in my pocket. You know how it is--a fellow throws his empty shell out by habit." Gibbs' eyes grew more intent. What was this thing? Cranston's tone, instead of commanding, was almost pleading. But the leader caught himself at once. "I don't see why I need to explain any of that to you. What I want to know is this: why you didn't shoot and get those papers away from him?"