But Constance did not reply. She was thinking of what Keith had told her about his copy of Browning. He had lost it somewhere on the trail, but he had told her nothing about the cabin. What did it all mean?
"But that wasn't all, miss. Thinkin' somethin' was wrong, Pritchen hunted around fer a time, an' found whar a man had been buried, but the wolves hadn't left much, only torn clothes. The chap had been put into the snow, while a cross an' two letters had been cut in the rock above. The suspicious thing is, that them letters an' the ones on the poke found in the chist are jist the same."
"Very strange," remarked Mr. Radhurst. "Do you remember the letters?"
"Yes, there were jist two, 'K. R.'"
At these words, Constance started and rose to her feet. Trembling violently, she approached the miner. Once she put out her hand as if for support.
"Tell me," she said in a hoarse whisper, "if you know anything more?"
Sol looked at her in amazement.
"I didn't know ye'd feel so bad, or I'd not told ye," he replied, mistaking the cause of her agitation. "But thar isn't much more to be said. The parson told in plain words how he'd found a sick man in the Ibex cabin, an' cared fer 'im as well as he could. When he died he buried 'im in the snow, an' put them marks on the rock, but about the poke, he had never seed it afore."
"Did he tell the man's name?" asked Constance.
"No."