"Yes, sir."
"Did Sewell remove anything from the body?"
"He did," and Ingleby took a little packet from his pocket and opened it. "These leaves. They had evidently been placed upon the wound. He said Probyn could not have placed them there himself, and they were what the Indians often used to stanch a flow of blood."
Slavin glanced at the desiccated fragments, and turned to the miners. "Have any of you heard of the Indians using a plant for that purpose?"
"I guess I have," said one. "One of them tried to fix up a partner of mine, who'd cut himself chopping, with the thing. It didn't seem to work on a white man."
Slavin nodded. "I believe there is such a plant," he said. "Now, so far as we have gone, circumstances seem to point to Probyn having been shot by a man who afterwards tried to save him. He used a plant that only the Indians seem to believe in. Come right in, Corporal. Do you recognize this carbine?"
A trace of astonishment crept into the corporal's face as he took up the weapon.
"Yes, sir," he said. "It's Probyn's. Am I quite sure? I know the number, and that dint under the barrel. He fell and struck it on a rock one day when I was with him."
"Well," said Slavin, who took out a little book, "that's all I want from you. Now, boys, this inquiry is in my hands; but I don't know of any reason I shouldn't read you a little statement that was made on oath to me by a prospector who brought this carbine into Westerhouse Gully.
"'I was working on a bench-claim back under the range when an Indian came along,' he said. 'He had a carbine with him. Offered to sell it me for tea and flour, as he was lighting out of the country. This is just what he told me. He was hired to take two troopers from Green River across the range, and was waiting for them just after sundown. He'd heard a black bear moving round—a black bear doesn't worry much about the noise he makes—and when something came smashing through a thicket he loosed off at it. It was getting kind of dark, and when he clawed into the thicket he found he'd got the trooper, who, as the trail was steep there, had left his horse. Did what he could to save him, but the man died, and the Indian got scared that the folks he pitched the tale to wouldn't believe him. That was why he dragged the trooper under a big rock by the river and put some stones and branches on him. Somehow the horse got away from him, though he fired at it. He didn't want that horse walking round making trouble. I gave him the flour and tea, and kept the trooper's carbine.'"