The sheriff stepped off the distance.
"Less than a hundred yards. She must have seen them plainly."
"Certainly; that's when they swung into the gulch."
"Well, sir, it gets me." With the admission the sheriff thrust his hands deep in his trousers pockets and looked frankly nonplussed.
"She denied as plain as she could say it in English that she had seen or met anybody and she'll probably do the same under oath."
"No doubt about it," replied the Dago Duke.
"But why should she?" demanded the sheriff in frowning perplexity. "I can think of no reason, yet she must have one. Do you suppose she knew the men—that she's protecting them at the girl's expense?"
The Dago Duke shrugged his shoulders.
"It's possible, but not probable if they were Indians."
"If them wasn't moccasin tracks around the camp, I'll eat 'em," Dan Treu declared with conviction. "I've run with Injuns and fit 'em, too, enough to know their tracks in the dark, but, man, there ain't an Injun within two hundred miles of here, and besides they never got away with anything, there was nothin' gone, and Reservation Injuns ain't killin' for fun these days. That's right, too, about her not knowin' them if they were Injuns. I'll tell you, Dago, I never run up agin' a proposition just like this."