“Along toward morning, Ranger Fyffe heard a noise outside his cabin, I judge, from the way things turned out. He figured it was a lion, or a cat or something. Maybe he’d planted bait outside, and had waited all night—but that doesn’t matter.
“You all know Joe was a nut on taking wild-animal pictures. He got his camera and his flash-powder, and sneaked outside to grab off a picture of this animal that was making the noise. He made his way through the dark of the scrub pines toward the sound. He didn’t take a gun, ’cause he knew there isn’t an animal left in these parts, outside the grizzlies on the edge of Yellowstone, that’ll attack a man unless they’re cornered.
“He crept up toward the spot where he’d heard the noise—where he probably heard it then. He couldn’t see the man’s fire, because it was beyond a group of rocks. In a minute I’ll tell you what the fire was for. He took the plate-slide out of his camera, and got his flash-gun ready. Then, like as not, he whistled so the animal would turn toward him, and shot off the flash.
“But it wasn’t an animal making the sound. It was a man. Maybe this man was pretty badly scared—you or I would be if that flash went off near us in the night. Anyway, he’d faced around when he heard Joe whistle. He dropped what he had in his hand, and jerked out his gun, and shot.
“Joe was wounded. He hadn’t known it was a man. He hadn’t expected to be shot. He turned and started to run for his gun in the cabin. The man fired again. The bullet hit Joe in the back.
“He ran into the cabin, dropped his camera, and grabbed for the phone. He gasped a few words into the receiver, and then dropped to the floor. He knew he was dying. He got his pencil and wrote on the floor—you’ve all heard what he wrote.
“Maybe the man followed him into the cabin. I rather think he did, because it would have been hard for Joe to have seen him when the flashlight went off. But that doesn’t matter. He saw him.
“That’s the way the Sheriff and Seth and I found things yesterday morning. Isn’t it, Lafe?”
“That’s about right,” the Sheriff replied uneasily, “though I didn’t know about any flashlight.”
“Now, the whole solution of this thing rests in that last picture the ranger took,” Otis went on. “It shows who did the shooting. Miss Mariel got the plate this morning and developed it. Here’s the print.”