Below, at the Knoll, Fisty Harrigan and Barney Axel, one of his foremen, had entered Cameron’s camp.

Mrs. Cameron, a tall, broad-faced, angular woman, greeted them from a busy kitchen with loud masculine familiarity. “Jim’s out to the stable. He’ll be in in a minute.”

They drew off their caps and mackinaws, rubbing their hands above the wide box-stove as they stamped the snow from their moccasins.

“Where’s Jessie?” asked Harrigan.

“She’s to Jim’s folks at Tramworth,” replied Mrs. Cameron, wrapping the end of her apron round her hand and reaching into the oven. “Jim said it was about time she learned somethin’,—them biscuits ain’t commenced to raise yet,—and I reckon he’s right. He says that Avery young-one can read her letters and write ’em, too. That man Ross is a-teachin’ her. So Jessie’s goin’ to school this winter.” She lifted a dripping lid from a pot on the stove and gave a muscular impetus to its contents. “But I can’t fancy that Avery young-one learnin’ anything ’ceptin’ to make faces at other folkses’ children and talkin’ sassy to her betters!”

Harrigan acquiesced with a nod.

Barney Axel stood, back to the stove, gazing out of the window.

“Indian Pete’s takin’ his time about that deer, Denny. Reckon he’s waitin’ for us to come and help him tote it out?”

Harrigan glanced at the speaker’s back. “Might ’a’ missed. I didn’t hear no shot, did you?”

“Nope.”

Just then Cameron came in with a bridle in his hand.

“Hello, Denny! H’lo, Barney. Set down—don’t cost nothin’. Missus ’ll have grub ready in a minute. When did you get here? Didn’t hear you come in.”

“Oh, we been here quite a spell—waitin’ fur Pete.”

“Where’s Pete—Injun Pete, you mean?”

“Uhuh. He sneaked in, a ways back, lookin’ fur a deer. Said he seen one—”

“Thought you seed it fust—when you looked back that time.” Axel turned and looked at Harrigan.

“No,” said Harrigan decisively. “He seen it first.” Mrs. Cameron felt that her visitors were slighting her, even if the Company was paying for their meals. She had introduced the topic of Swickey Avery. Was she going to cook dinner for three hungry men and get nothing in immediate return for it except dishes to wash? Not she.

“That little snip, Swickey Avery,” she began; but Cameron shuffled his feet and glanced appealingly at his Amazonian spouse to no avail;—“that little snip,” she continued, opening the oven door and closing it with a bang that made Harrigan start, “came traipsin’ down here in a new dress—a new dress, mind you! and told my Jim she had ’nother ‘loungeree’ to home. Said Davy Ross had jest ketched it. And my Jim was fool enough to pertend he wanted to see Hoss Avery, and he sets to and walks—walks over to Lost Farm,—and what do you think she showed him?”

Harrigan realized that the question was launched particularly at him. “Showed who?” he queried. He had been thinking of something far different.

“Why, Jim!” she replied irately, red arms folded and thin lips compressed in bucolic scorn.

“Search me,” said Harrigan absently.

“A calicah dress! Now, if you, Barney Axel,” she said, “kin see any sense in callin’ a calicah dress a ‘loungeree’—”

Something rattled the door-latch faintly. Harrigan started, recovered himself, and nervously bit a chew from his plug.

“Guess it’s Pete,” said Cameron, dropping the bridle he was mending, and opening the door. He looked, and stepped back with an exclamation of horror.

His face as white as the snow at his feet, hat gone, hair clotted with blood, and hands smeared with a sickening red, David Ross stood tottering in the doorway. His eyes were heavy with pain. He raised an arm and motioned weakly up the trail. Then he caught sight of Harrigan’s face over Cameron’s shoulder. The soul of a hundred Highland ancestors flamed in his eyes.

“Your man,” he said, pointing to Harrigan, “is a damned poor shot.” He raised his hand to his coat-collar and fumbled at the button,—“And he’s dead—up there—”

Cameron caught him as he wilted across the threshold, and, with Barney Axel, helped carry him to the bedroom.

Harrigan had gone pale and was walking about the room.

Barney stood in the bedroom doorway, watching him silently. “So that’s the deer Fisty sent the Indian back fur. Always knowed Fisty’d jest as leave kill with his dukes, but settin’ a boozy Indian to drop a man from behind—Hell! that’s worse than murder.”

Cameron came from the bedside where his wife was bathing David’s head with cold water and administering small doses of whiskey.

“What did he mean, sayin’ your man was a dam’ poor shot?” Curious Jim fixed Harrigan with a suspicious glare.

Fisty tugged into his coat. “You got me. Injun Pete slipped into the bresh lookin’ for a deer he seen,”—Harrigan glanced apprehensively at Barney,—“and it looks like as if he made a mistake and took—”

“From what Ross said afore he keflummixed, I guess he did make a mistake,” said Jim dryly, “but I’ll hitch up and go and have a look anyway. Then I’ll go fur the Doc. Comin’ along?”

Cameron drove and the two lumbermen walked silently behind. Just beyond the first turn in the trail they found the body and beside it many animal tracks in the snow. A new Winchester lay at the side of the trail.

“My God!” cried Harrigan, as he jumped back from the dead man, “his throat’s cut!”

Curious Jim was in his element. Here was something to solve. He threw the reins to Barney Axel and examined the tracks leading into the bushes. He followed them for a short distance while his companions waited. “Nothin’ up there,” he said, as he returned. Then he walked along the trail toward Lost Farm. Finally he turned and came back briskly.

He was unusually quiet as they drove toward his camp. At the Knoll he brought out a blanket from the stable and covered the thing in the wagon.

“I’m goin’ to Tramworth with this,” he said, jerking his head toward the body, “and git Doc Wilson. Missus says Ross is some easier—only tetched by the bullet—lifted a piece of scalp; but I guess you better keep the missus comp’ny, Barney, for sometimes they get crazy-like and bust things. I’ve knowed ’em to.”

“You was goin’ to Tramworth anyhow, warn’t you?” asked Cameron, as he faced Harrigan.

“Sure thing, Jim,” replied Harrigan, a trifle over-eagerly. “There’s some stuff at the station fur the camp, that we’re needin’ bad.”

“Denny,” said Cameron solemnly, as the wide-tired wagon shrilled over the frosted road, “’t warn’t no knife that cut Injun Pete’s throat. That big dog of Ross’s done the job, and then skinned back to Lost Farm to tell Hoss Avery that they was somethin’ wrong.” He paused, looking quickly sideways at his companion. Then, fixing his gaze on the horses’ ears, he continued, “And they was, for Injun Pete warn’t three feet from young Ross when the dog got him.”

“Hell, but you’re gettin’ mighty smart—fur a teamster.”

Harrigan’s self-control was tottering. The three words, “for a teamster,” were three fates that he unleashed to destroy himself, and the moment he uttered them he knew it. Better to have cursed Cameron from the Knoll to Tramworth than to have stung his very soul with that last speech. But, strangely enough, Curious Jim smiled serenely. Harrigan saw, and understood.

They drove slowly down the trail in the cold, dreary afternoon, jolting the muffled shape beneath the blanket as they lumbered over the corduroy crossing the swamp. Pete the Indian meant little enough to Cameron, but—

He pulled up his horses and stared at Harrigan’s feet. The Irishman glanced at him, then down. A lean, scarred brown hand lay across his foot. “Christ!” he shrieked, as he jumped to the ground. The horses bounded forward, but Cameron pulled them up, talking to them gently.

“I was goin’ to ask you to get down and pull it back a piece,” he called to Harrigan, who came up, cursing at his loss of nerve. “The dum’ thing’s been pokin’ at my legs for a half an hour, but I guess you didn’t notice it. The old wagon shakes things up when she ain’t loaded down good.”

Again Harrigan felt that Jim Cameron was playing with him. He, Fisty Harrigan, the bulldog of the Great Western, chafed at his inability to use his hands. He set his heavy jaw, determined to hold himself together. What had he done? Why, nothing. Let them prove to the contrary if they could.

They found the sheriff at the hotel. In the privacy of his upstairs room he questioned them with easy familiarity. As yet no one knew nor suspected what brought them there, save the thick-set, ruddy, gray-eyed man, who listened quietly and smiled.

“Got his rifle?” he said suddenly, still smiling.

“It’s in the wagon. I brung it along,” replied Cameron.

“Denny, will you step down and get it?” The sheriff’s tone was bland, persuasive.

Harrigan mistrusted Cameron, yet he dared not refuse. As the door closed behind him the sheriff swung toward Cameron.

“Now, out with it!” The tone was like the snapping of pine in the flames.

“How in—” began Cameron, but the sheriff’s quick gesture silenced him.

“Here they be,” said Jim. “Three shells I picked up ’bout two rods from the trail. Injun Pete might ’a’ took young Ross for a deer onct, but three times—”

Harrigan’s hand was on the door-knob. The sheriff swept the shells into his pocket.

“Thanks, Denny,” he said, as he emptied the magazine and laid the rifle on the table. “A 30-30 is a good deer gun, but it’s liable to over-shoot an inch or two at short range.”