A Ree scout scoured every foot of ground leading up to the shack. He trailed the mules, The Squaw, the troopers. He followed those moccasin prints that came across the draw and went again. He found the last behind the lean-to, along the side nearest the coulÉe, on the back-fire strip in front. And declared they had been made by a white man.

Two circumstances pointed strongly to the truth of this: The body had been carried away in the direction of Shanty Town; a white man would have taken so much trouble, not an Indian, who would have left his handiwork for all to see. And again, when Shanty Town was searched, one of the huts was found to contain evidence of late occupancy—scraps of food that were not yet stale, and, in a rusty stove, fresh coals. But though the coulÉe, the road, the prairie and the timber edging the river were all faithfully scanned, one thing concerning the murderer's doings remained a mystery. At Shanty Town, the traces of him began and ended. But how had he reached Shanty Town?

Old Michael furnished the clue of time. He related how he had heard the crack of a gun to the eastward the previous evening, "about th' ind av th' furst dog-watch."

Captain Oliver stayed until the last rod had been travelled and the last stone turned. Then, he was ferried to Brannon. On landing, he went at once to the wife of his colonel, who had vacated her home when the command left and was now living with Mrs. Martin at Major Appleton's.

"Mrs. Cummings," he said, "the old man on the Bend is missing. It looks like murder. His two girls are left, orphaned and heart-broken. They need a woman's comfort, ma'am. Will you not go to them, and will you find a woman to stay with them for a few nights?"

"Oh, how very sad!" exclaimed that lady; then, turned away as if suddenly perplexed. "I—I—really don't care to go myself," she went on, when she had given his request a moment's thought. "I know these country people—so touchy and taciturn, always ready to think one is patronising them."

"One usually is," retorted the captain, sharply. "Then, I must ask somebody else?"

"One of the troopers' wives would probably be glad to go."

"You are evidently quite mistaken regarding these young women," declared Oliver, with some heat. "Mrs. Oliver will think differently."

"Really, I haven't thought of them," she answered petulantly. "But why, may I ask, don't they come to the post?"

"They prefer to stay in their own little home. In their present trouble and grief, it is particularly dear to them—would be to anyone."

"I think it odd, Captain, that they should choose to stay over there alone. Can—can they be—eh—quite nice?"

"Madame," replied Oliver, sternly, "they wish to do what would please their father; they wish to be independent.""Ah!" Mrs. Cummings threw up her head.

"And let me say that I heartily commend them," Oliver fairly roared. "They are made of the stuff of our forefathers, who pushed their way into the wilderness. Their spirit is the spirit of the frontier." With which, bowing and fuming, the captain stamped out.

Mrs. Oliver, a motherly chunk of a woman, thought very "differently." Work and babies she consigned to a thrifty trooper's wife and, in a jiffy, pinned on a bonnet that had stood various seasons. "I'll be back in the morning," she said, with a kiss for each of the seven. Then, stuffing a tidbit or two into the wide pockets of a duster, she hastened away.

Captain Oliver, meanwhile, had cleared the front room of his progeny and summoned the surgeon, Lieutenant Fraser and Matthews.

Matthews came last. As he entered, the three men were struck by a curious change in him. He was erect and somewhat soldierly in his bearing; he had let his hair grow until it rested upon the handkerchief knotted about his throat; while his dress now aped that of the more picturesque scouts, yet was still half military. Buckskin trousers, down which, at the outer seams, was a dripping of fringe, were tucked into high boots. Over his red flannel shirt he wore a tunic or blouse, also of buckskin, fringed the length of the arms, and belted at the waist like a hunting-shirt. A vest no longer concealed his revolvers; his weapons were at his side, like a trooper's. In one gauntleted hand, he held a wide, grey hat.

"You want to see me, Cap'n?" he asked, meeting that officer's look squarely."Yes," answered Oliver, shortly. "I demand an exact account of your time for the past thirty-six hours, beginning with the evening after the departure of the command. I need not tell you why I ask this, and I make no apology for asking. There are reasons for your wanting that old man over there out of the way. You attacked his house in the winter during his absence, when two defenceless women were at home to repel your attack. That lays you open to mistrust. I may add that Lancaster's eldest girl regards you as her father's murderer."

As Oliver talked, his woe-begone face had grown fierce and dark. Now, he arose, lifting clenched fists. "Murder," he cried; "under my very nose, and against a household that I had sworn to guard. Speak, Matthews, speak!"

Matthews screwed up his mouth thoughtfully and looked into space. "Beginning the ev'ning after the command left?" he said. "Let me see. Why, I ain't crossed since the Colonel left."

"Account for your time," repeated Oliver.

"I messed at Blakely's that night. Afterward, me and Kippis had a little game."

"What game?"

"Cards."

"Ah!" At once, Oliver sent for the sutler and the sergeant, and, waiting for them, tramped up and down. When the men came, he halted and with pointed finger asked Matthews to repeat his story. The interpreter did so.

"And how long did that game last?" demanded Oliver.

Without looking in Kippis' direction, the interpreter answered. "Till revelly," he said.Fraser grunted, the surgeon smiled broadly. But the captain frowned.

"Of that, later," he said significantly. "Kippis?"

The sergeant stepped forward. "Hit's hall true, sir," he faltered. It was Kippis' misfortune always to look more guilty than he was. With Oliver's angry gaze upon him, he flushed redder than fire.

The captain was only half satisfied. He turned to the sutler. "And you, Blakeley?"

The sutler had a round, jolly figure—a figure that was a living advertisement of the fat-producing quality of his edible wares. At Oliver's question that figure gave a startled bounce, like a kernel of corn on a hot grid. "True, sir, true," he vowed huskily, and coughed in apprehension behind a plump hand.

The captain looked keenly from man to man. "Very well," he said. Those twelve hours accounted for, Matthews was shown innocent of planting the pole. "Tell me what you did yesterday from revelly on."

"Slept till stables."

"I know that's so," said Fraser.

"After that?" Oliver asked.

"I goes into the stockade. Little Thief was carving his bride."

The captain glanced at Fraser. The latter nodded back.

"I remember," said Oliver, slowly. "Then——?"

"Cards till revelly."

The listening officers laughed.

But there was no softening of the captain's face. "Who played with you?"Matthews indicated the sutler and the sergeant by a sideways move of the head. "Them two," he answered.

"Blakely?"

"True—true." And Blakely gave another bounce.

"Sergeant?"

"True's far's Hi know, sir."

The thirty-six hours were now covered. Oliver sat down. "That'll do. I want The Squaw and the men who have been on duty at the stockade since the command left. Matthews, you may go."

Matthews bowed, Blakely and the sergeant saluted, and the three withdrew. Outside, beyond hearing, they exchanged congratulatory shakes of the hand.

"My! but the dander!" breathed the relieved sutler, rolling his apple-round head. "I was that scairt!"

"Make you happreciate the K. Ho. w'en you got 'im," returned Kippis, sagely.

Matthews shrugged his shoulders pityingly. But he had nothing to say.

The three gone, Oliver had turned to those with him. "A complete alibi," he said.

"I knew it," said Fraser. "But I wanted you to get it first hand."

"You knew?"

"Yes, sir. And I hope you'll be easy on Kippis. He and Blakely have been helping me keep tab on Matthews to prevent the very thing that's happened."

An hour later, a second group of men gathered in the captain's front room. These were the troopers for whom the commanding officer had asked. With them came Squaw Charley, quaking in his tatters, flinching at every look. As Oliver appeared, the wretched Indian was half-dragged, half-pushed before him.

The examination was short. The sentries who had tramped the high board walk vouched for The Squaw's constant presence in the stockade throughout the whole of the required time. The guards at the sliding-panel lent corroboration. From sun-up till taps of the previous day, Charley had fleshed at the hide of an elk, the scarred fury, Afraid-of-a-Fawn, hanging over him the while. Both nights, from taps on, he had watched outside the lodge occupied by the hag and an Indian girl.

Captain Oliver crossed to the bend to tell Dallas his results. "Matthews has witnesses who know where he was every minute of the time," he said. "Undoubtedly he had no active part in this affair."

"He knows about it, though," she answered.

"That would be hard to prove."

Before he went, the captain proposed certain defensive improvements for the shack. She accepted them gratefully. Later, a carpenter nailed thick cleats across the warped door, and the post blacksmith put heavy lashes of iron over the eyes of the shack.

At nightfall, a detachment landed on the east bank, divided, and went on a scout in opposite directions. It was only part of Oliver's plan of guarding, for he did one thing more—spoke plainly to Matthews in regard to the bend.

"I advise you to relinquish all claim to the Lancaster place," he said. "I shall allow no warring on girls."

Matthews gave his promise.

During the first few days that followed, Marylyn's heart beat pendulum-like between grief and dread. It was grief when, in a moment of forgetfulness, she found that she had set the table for three; or when, missing her father sorely—for in the past year he had been much with her—she spoke of him to Dallas. At such times, with sweet impartiality, she mourned him as sincerely as she had mourned her mother. But at night, when the detachment came back from its scouting, she felt a terrible dread—dread least the hunt had been successful, and the troopers should ride across the prairie to the shack door, bearing something solemnly home.

Those first days past, however, the sharp edge of her sorrow, together with her fears, wore gradually away. She had the elastic spirit of eighteen. And she was impatient of this new heartache, which possessed none of the romantic qualities of the old. A doubt of her father's death, fostered by Dallas, grew until it became a conviction. He had been taken away, or he had fled; he would return. Meanwhile, though nothing could have induced her to leave the shack after dark, it fretted her sorely, that, in the daytime, she was not permitted to go as far as the grove.

That restriction was the only hardship that the elder girl allowed the younger to bear. Dallas believed that their father had come to mortal harm. But she never shared that belief with Marylyn.

"We got to keep a stiff upper lip, baby sister," she would say, with an encouraging pat. And her smile was always hopeful and cheering.

Mrs. Oliver came daily, and spent her time with Marylyn. She did not feel that Dallas needed buoying—Dallas, quiet, self-poised, and staunch. Yet, all the while, the elder girl was growing wan under the strain. For, having given generously of her strength, there was no one from whom, in turn, she might take. And so her thoughts came often to be of the one who had faithfully watched over them, how faithfully, shown by the fact that catastrophe had followed swift upon his leaving. And in her heart she cried out for him.

The tragedy on the bend furnished a nine days' wonder for Brannon. But the garrison felt little grief over it. Lancaster had earned their dislike by insults open and veiled, and by his determination to cut his family off from every friendly influence. The enlisted men were even inclined to treat his disappearance facetiously. When they heard about the pole, they declared that in his fright over it, he had fired a shot, cut a finger, broken a crutch—and "lit out." One wag announced that the section-boss was mired in some alkali mud-hole; another, that he had been bitten by a polecat; a third composed some doggerel lines in which Lancaster was described as having gone "over the range." Notwithstanding this, the troopers had deep sympathy for the bereaved girls.

Oliver, never too popular, they scored roundly for his treatment of Matthews, and vowed to the latter that he had ample grounds for walking off and leaving the whole "shooting-match." But Matthews gently chided them, reminding them that any moment an interpreter might be badly needed. Furthermore, he said, he would disregard the unfairness shown him, for he knew his duty.

Brannon was still asking Who? and Why? and How? in the Lancaster affair when Squaw Charley discovered and showed to Captain Oliver the testimony that had in some way escaped the scout. Under a willow clump on the beach before Shanty Town, was a well-defined mark in the sand, V-shaped, long, and quite deep. It was the mark left by the prow of a boat that had been pulled out of the water and hidden at the river's edge. It was almost certain proof of the route taken, going and coming, by Lancaster's assailant.

But no absolute facts were unearthed. As the days slipped by, this cruel one became apparent: the section-boss, with his wild outbursts of anger, his implacable hatreds, his suspicions, and his tantrums of jealousy—was gone.