For fear that the wind might spring up and destroy the evidence, Hanscom measured the prints carefully, putting down the precise size and shape in his note-book. He studied the position of the dead man, who lay as he had fallen from his chair, and made note of the fact that a half-emptied bottle of liquor stood on the table. The condition of the room, though disgusting, was not very different from its customary disorder.
Oppressed by the horror of the scene, the ranger withdrew a little way, lit his pipe, and sat down to meditate on the crime.
"I can't believe a woman did it," he said. And yet he realized that under certain conditions women can be more savage than men. "If Watson had been shot on a woman's premises it wouldn't seem so much like slaughter. But to kill a man at night in his own cabin is tolerably fierce."
That the sad, lonely woman in the ranch above had anything to do with this he would not for a moment entertain.
He turned away from the problem at last and dozed in the sunshine, calculating with detailed knowledge of the trail and its difficulties just how long it would take Kitsong to reach the coroner and start back up the hill.
It was nearly four o'clock when he heard the feet of horses on the bridge below the ranch, and a few minutes later Kitsong came into view, heading a motley procession of horsemen and vehicles. It was evident that he had notified all his neighbors along the road, for they came riding in as if to a feast, their eyes alight with joyous interest.
The coroner, a young doctor named Carmody, took charge of the case with brisk, important pomp, seconded by Sheriff Throop, a heavy man with wrinkled, care-worn brow, who seemed burdened with a sense of personal responsibility for Watson's death. He was all for riding up and instantly apprehending the Kauffmans, but the coroner insisted on looking the ground over first.
"You study the case from the outside," said he, "and I'll size it up from the inside."
As the dead man had neither wife nor children to weep for him, Mrs. Kitsong, his sister, a tall, gaunt woman, assumed the rôle of chief mourner, while Abe went round uttering threats about "stringing the Kauffmans up," till the sheriff, a good man and faithful officer, jealous of his authority, interfered.
"None of that lynching talk! There'll be no rope work in this county while I am sheriff," he said, with noticeable decision.