“It looks like it’s been burned, don’tcha know. I turns it over with my foot, and that old Nine-Bar-Nine brand looks up at me. The ground is kinda hard, and I can’t find no tracks, but I sure finds where an animal has been butchered.”
“Somebody needed meat, eh?” mused Brick.
“That’s all right,” nodded Silent. “There ain’t nobody goin’ to begrudge a hungry person a hunk of beef; but whoever killed that animal didn’t set down there and eat it. They burned the hide, and took the rest of the animal away with them.”
“Well,” grinned Brick, “it was probably somebody that needed meat pretty bad. The loss of a cow won’t break Lafe Freeman.”
Silent shook his head slowly and blew rings at the ceiling.
“Nope,” he said slowly. “Losin’ one cow won’t hurt him none, Brick. I don’t reckon there’s a man in Sun Dog that would yelp less over the loss of one cow. After I found that piece of hide I rode on up the cañon.
“There’s half-a-dozen of them side gulches that come in from the west, and in most every one of them there’s places where hides have been burnt. I tell yuh, Brick, somebody is grabbin’ off a lot of slow-elk meat. I dunno whether it’s all Nine-Bar-Nine stock or not—but one of ’em was, that’s a cinch.”
Brick frowned at his boot toes and shifted restlessly.
“Meat burglars, eh?” he said slowly. “My gosh, what a place to butcher! If yuh herd a cow into Big Elk Cañon she’s yore meat.”
“Cinch,” agreed Harp. “A cow ain’t goin’ to climb out. She’d head into one of them side gulches and they ain’t much more than blind cañons. I’ve been in there, but quite a while ago.”