“No-o. Usually a photographer, when he takes out the slide preparatory to making a picture, places it on top of the camera, if he’s using a tripod. If he isn’t, and it’s a small camera, he’d be apt to thrust it into his pocket. We didn’t search his pockets. The coroner could tell us if it was there.”
“Well, the next thing to do, Otis, is to develop the plate. Shall I take it to Jackson and have it done? Or do you happen to have facilities at the ranch for developing it?”
Otis laughed, and reached for the camera. “Do you think Fyffe trusted his developing and printing to anyone else? I forgot to tell you that the other room of the ranger cabin was used by Fyffe as a darkroom, for developing his animal pictures. I tell you we can develop this plate and make a print within thirty minutes!”
Mariel gasped out a little exclamation of elation, and started for the cabin.
“But don’t be disappointed, Otis, if it’s nothing but one of his wild-animal pictures,” she told him after he had lowered the blanket over the dark-room window, and had lighted the ruby lamp.
With trembling fingers Otis removed the plate from the holder and placed it in the tray of developing solution. But he was unprepared for the shock of the discovery they made when, at length, the process completed, Otis lifted the blanket from the window and held the negative up to the light.
Mariel looked at it, and gasped. She looked again, and one hand clutched her throat.
“Why, Otis!” she exclaimed in a voice suddenly low and husky. “Why, Otis! It’s you!”
Otis was stunned. He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, as if to dispel a hallucination. He held the plate up and looked again.