“You jump at things!” said the corporal. “How’d the man lose it? Guess it wouldn’t drop off without his knowing it, and with the sun we’ve been having he’d want it pretty bad. He wouldn’t throw it away, when he knew he couldn’t get another. We’ll go along and see.”
They dismounted a minute or two later and made a startling discovery. The hat was a good one, but in one place the soft gray felt had been crushed and partly cut as though by a heavy blow. On turning it over, they saw that the inside was stained a dull red.
“Blood!” said Curtis significantly, and swept a searching glance about. “More of it,” he added. “See here—on the brush.”
Moving forward, they found a succession of crimson spots and splashes on the leaves of the willow scrub and withering grass.
“Picket the horses. Stanton; we’ve got to look into this,” the corporal said.
“I’d better lead them back a piece,” responded his companion. “We don’t want to muss up things by making fresh tracks.”
When he had done so, they set about the examination systematically. They were men who lived, for the most part, in the open, and made long journeys through the wilds, sleeping where they could find shelter in ravine or bluff. Such things as a broken twig, a bruised tuft of grass, or a mark in loose soil had a meaning to them, and here they had plentiful material to work upon. Counting footprints and hoofmarks, measuring distances, they constructed bit by bit the drama that had taken place, but half an hour had passed before they sat down to talk it over and took out their pipes. The afterglow shone about them; their hands and thoughtful faces showed the same warm color as the brown grass in the ruddy light. In the hat lay a five-dollar bill and a coat button.
“There were two men here,” Curtis remarked. “Both were mounted and came up the trail from the settlement, but it looks as if the first one had picketed his horse and started to make camp when the other joined him.”
“That’s so,” Private Stanton agreed.
“Then there was trouble, but the men didn’t clinch. One fellow hit the other with something heavy enough to drop him in his tracks, then got into the saddle and rode off, leading the other horse.”