She went out through the kitchen door, and Rex heard her going toward the stable. She had not invited him to go with her, but he decided to go anyway. His head was a bit light, he found, and his knees were weak, but otherwise he felt all right.
Nan went down to the stable, searching for the nest, but was unable to find it. The chickens were in the willows beyond the corral; so she crawled through the corral fence. The corrals of the Lane ranch surrounded one side and the rear of the stable, being almost an L in shape, with a cross-fence separating it into two units.
Nan entered the smaller corral and walked back to the cross-fence near the corner of the stable, intending to go through the gate, but as she glanced through the fence she stopped short.
On the ground, at the corner of the stable, she could see part of a shoulder and the left arm of a man. The fingers were splayed out in the dirt; the sleeve drawn back sharply showed a hairy wrist.
Nan flung the gate open and stepped to the corner of the stable, her eyes filled with horror. The man was lying close against the rear of the stable, as though he had been leaning against the wall, and had hardly moved after falling. His right arm was twisted back, almost under his right leg, and Nan could see the butt of a six-shooter.
Forgetting her fear for a moment, she stepped forward, took hold of his shoulder and gave a slight pull. The body turned over easily and she looked down into the contorted features of Peter Morgan.
With a stifled scream she stepped back, staring down at the corpse, looking dazedly at the earthly remains of the man who had been her father’s enemy.
‘What do you suppose happened to him?’ asked a voice, and she jerked around quickly to face Rex Morgan, who had stepped through the gate and was looking at the body.
‘My God!’ she whispered. ‘That is Peter Morgan!’
‘Was Peter Morgan,’ corrected Rex unemotionally. ‘Dead, isn’t he? I never saw a dead man before. He must have been struck over the head, too. Queer, isn’t it?’