“Dun’no what you mean,” grunted Gansett Jim.
“And you mustn’t shoot at him any more,” continued the scientist. The tone was soft as a woman’s; but Sedgwick felt in it the tensity of a man ready for any extreme. Perhaps the half-breed, too, felt the peril of that determination; for he hung his head. “I’ve brought you here to show you why. Pay good heed, now. A man traveling in a wagon was met here, as he says, by a woman—you understand—who questioned him and then went on. He followed the trail through the brush and found the signs of a fight. The fight took place before the death. Here’s the lantern. Take his trail from here.”
Without a word the half-breed snatched the light and plunged into a by-path. After a few minutes of swift going he pulled up short, in an open copse of ash, and set the lantern on the ground. Hound-like, he nosed about the trodden earth. Suddenly he darted across and, seizing Sedgwick’s ankle, lifted his foot, almost throwing him from his balance. Sedgwick wrenched himself free and, with a swinging blow, into which he put all the energy of his repressed wrath, knocked the half-breed flat.
“Hands off, damn you!” he growled.
Gansett Jim got to his feet a little unsteadily. Expectant of a rush, his assailant stood, with weight thrown forward; but the other made no slightest attempt at reprisal. Catching up the lantern, which had rolled from his hand, he threw its light upon Sedgwick’s forward foot. Then he turned away. Kent whistled softly. The whistle had a purring quality of content.
“Not the same as the footprint, eh?” he remarked.
“Footprint too small,” grunted Gansett Jim.
“How many people; two?”
“Three.”
