His voice died away in a murmur, a cruel glint flickered in his shadowy eyes, and for a space he remained with folded arms and his head sunk in a sort of brooding reverie. Suddenly, with an effort, he seemed to arouse himself. "Oh, about that inquest, Sergeant," he queried casually, "what was the jury's finding? I was forgetting all about that."
"Eyah; on'y fwhat yuh might expect," replied the latter. "Death by shootin', at th' hand av some person unknown. I wired headquarthers right-away." He made a slightly impatient movement. "Well, we must get busy, Mr. Gully; this shtiff connot be far away. Not bein' on th' thrail, betune us an' yu', means he's either beat ut shtraight south from yu're place an' over th' ice tu th' railway-thrack, or west a piece, an' thin onto th' thrack. Yu'll niver find a hobo far away from th' line. He'd niver go thrapsein' thru' th' snow tu th' high ground beyant. Yuh cud shpot him plain for miles—doin' that—comin' along."
"He's wearing old, worn-out boots," said Yorke, "got awful big feet, too, I remember. Of course this trail's too beaten up from end to end to be able to get a line on foot-prints. We might work slowly back to your place, though, Mr. Gully, and keep a lookout for any place where he may have struck south off the trail, as the Sergeant says."
It seemed the only thing to do. The party moved leisurely forward, Gully riding ahead of the cutter, Yorke and Redmond in its wake, as before, well-spread out on either side of the well-worn trail. Here, the snow was practically undisturbed, affording them every opportunity of discovering fresh foot-prints debouching from the main trail. It was rather exacting, monotonous work, necessitating cautious and leisurely progress; but they stuck to it doggedly until sometime later they rounded a bend in the river and came within sight of Gully's ranch, about a mile distant.
Presently that gentleman pulled up and swung out of saddle. "Half a minute," he said, "my saddle's slipping! I want to tighten my cinch."
The small cavalcade halted. Slavin's restless eyes roving over the expanse of unbroken snow on his left hand, suddenly dilated, and he uttered an eager exclamation, pointing downwards with outflung arm.
"Ah," said he grimly, "here we are, I'm thinkin'!" And he clambered hastily out of the cutter.
Yorke and Redmond, dismounting swiftly, stepped forward with him and examined minutely the unmistakably fresh imprints of large-sized feet angling off from the trail towards the bank of the frozen river.
"Hob-nailed boots!" ejaculated Yorke. "Guess that must be him, all right, Mr. Gully?"
The latter bent and scrutinized the imprints. "Sure must be," he rejoined, with conviction. "A man walking out on the range is a curiosity. I can't think how I could have missed them—coming along. But I guess I was so mad, and in such a devil of a hurry I didn't notice much. I made sure of catching up to him somewhere on the trail."