"What's Plenty Buffalo found?"
"He discovered a track made by a broken shoe in that conglomeration of hoof marks at the scene of the murder."
"Why didn't he say so at the time?"
"Because he wasn't sure that it pointed to Jim McFann. But he'd been trailing McFann for bootlegging and was pretty sure Jim was riding a horse with a broken shoe. He got hold of an Indian we can trust—an Indian who stands pretty well with McFann—and had him hunt till he found Jim."
"Where was he?"
"McFann was hiding away up in the big hills. What made him light out there no one knows. That looked bad on the face of it. Then this Indian scout of ours, when he happened in on Jim's camp, found that McFann was riding a horse with a broken shoe."
"Looks as if we ought to bring in the half-breed, don't it?"
"Wait a minute. The broken shoe isn't all. Those pieces of rope that were used to tie that man to the stakes—they were cut from a rawhide lariat."
"And Jim McFann uses that kind?"
"Yes."