"Well," he went on, "you've all had a pretty exciting day, and I expect you women had better go to bed. I'll sit up here and smoke a pipe or two, and talk with Jack, and then we'll go to bed too. I'm going back to the camp in the morning, and I expect you'll want to go along too, won't you, Jack? I judge that you're headed for the round-up camp."
"That's where I want to go," agreed Jack. "I came here because I had an idea the camp would be somewhere in this neighborhood, and I thought I could get directions to find it."
After the two women had gone to bed, Powell filled his pipe and then drawing his chair close to Jack they talked together for a little while in a low tone. Jack told his host all that he had learned about the man who had been killed, and when he mentioned his name, Powell exclaimed:
"Why, that might have been the Bill Davis that was mixed up in that train robbing business nearly ten years ago, the one the miners hung Big-Nose George for in Rawlins. If that's the man, he surely was bad, and deserved all he got."
"Well," said Jack, "I went through his clothes but couldn't find any papers. The young fellow gave him the name of Davis. He was a man, I should think, between forty and fifty, just beginning to get gray, a hooked-nosed man, with black hair and mustache."
"I never saw Davis," said Henry Powell; "only heard of him."
"The young fellow," Jack went on, "didn't seem to be bad. He seemed to be worthless, and no account. He had no great amount of sand, and was always looking around to find some way to get out of the difficulty."
"I've an idea, then, that he was not mixed up in the thing any farther than being in bad company."
"That's just what I thought," said Jack, "and I believe I'm right. Why, when he talked to me when I turned him loose, he came pretty near crying. I don't think he's a fellow of any force at all, and I don't believe that he will ever get back into this part of the country again."
"Could he get off on the railroad?" asked Powell. "Did he have any money?"