Otis nodded. Then he led her outside, showing her where they had traced the trail of blood and had found the ashes, and telling her how the Sheriff had deduced that the fire had not burnt itself out, but had been quenched with water.
“And you found no tracks—no other signs of any nature?”
“Tracks a-plenty, but they were meaningless. You see, this is part of the forest grazing land. Cattle have milled over this land outside the fence both before and after the shooting, I suppose.”
“Why couldn’t some of you have thought to preserve some of the footprints you found about the fire? You could have placed a box or something over them to protect them from the weather. That might have solved the whole mystery. Here’s where the shooting took place, and here’s where you should have looked for your clues.”
“But Mariel, you couldn’t keep a footprint—granting we had found any—under a box and then present it in court months later.”
“No, but you could have photographed it. You could have used the ranger’s own camera, if necessary. And photographs sometimes reveal things the human eye can’t see. You know, Otis, I think it might be worth while even now to photograph the ground here, so we can study it at leisure, through a magnifying glass, perhaps. And the interior of the cabin, too. It’s only a bare chance, but it might aid us. Run back to the cabin and get the camera, will you, please?”
As Otis turned his back and made for the cabin, Mariel knelt and made a hasty but careful examination of the earth about the remains of the fire.
Otis appeared presently, fumbling the camera. He walked toward her slowly, lowering the extension frame and extending the bellows.
“Right over here,” Mariel directed. “I think we’ll take this ground surrounding the fire, first.”