"Why do you ask that?" His faint smile irritated her. "Don't you suppose I would have said so long before this?"
"Let's look for that gun," the deputy interrupted. "He had a gun—I'm sure of that; every sheepman packs a gun."
With the aid of a lantern and the glare of a huge sagebrush fire they searched in the immediate vicinity for the gun and in the hope of finding some accidental clue.
"We can't expect to do much till morning," the deputy opined as with his light close to the ground he looked for some strange footprint in the dust of the dooryard.
It was behind the cabin that Dan Treu stooped quickly and brought the lantern close to a blurred outline in a bit of soft earth close to a growth of cactus. He looked at it long and intently and when he straightened himself his heavy, rather expressionless face wore a puzzled look.
"Come here," he called finally to the coroner. He pointed to the indistinct outline. "What does that look like to you?"
The coroner was not long from Ohio.
"It looks to me like somebody had made a track in his stockin' feet."
The deputy was born near the Rosebud Agency.
"Does it?" he added. "I guess we won't walk around any more until morning."