“There's the beginning of your trouble,” Smoke said, halting on his snow-shoes and staring at an object that lay on one side of the old trail.
Shorty left the gee-pole and joined him, and together they gazed down on the body of a man beside the trail.
“Well fed,” said Smoke.
“Look at them lips,” said Shorty.
“Stiff as a poker,” said Smoke, lifting an arm, that, without moving, moved the whole body.
“Pick 'm up an' drop 'm and he'd break to pieces,” was Shorty's comment.
The man lay on his side, solidly frozen. From the fact that no snow powdered him, it was patent that he had lain there but a short time.
“There was a general fall of snow three days back,” said Shorty.
Smoke nodded, bending over the corpse, twisting it half up to face them, and pointing to a bullet wound in the temple. He glanced to the side and tilted his head at a revolver that lay on top of the snow.
A hundred yards farther on they came upon a second body that lay face downward in the trail. “Two things are pretty clear,” Smoke said. “They're fat. That means no famine. They've not struck it rich, else they wouldn't have committed suicide.”