eard. So was--Allan Mowbray."

Kars picked up a hot coal from the fire, rolled it in the palm of his
hand, and dropped it on the bowl of his pipe. Once the pipe was lit he
shook it off again.

"Allan got around here--many times," he said reflectively. "He wasn't
murdered on his first visit--nor his second. Allan's case isn't ours.
Not if I figger right."

"How d'you figger?"

"They'll try and hustle us. If I figger right they don't want folk
around--any folk. I don't think that's why they murdered Allan. There
was more to that. Seems to me we'll get a visit from a bunch of 'em.
Maybe they'll get around with some of the rifles they stole from Allan.
They'll squat right here on their haunches and tell us the things they
fancy, and---- Hello!"

Kars broke off, but made no movement. He did not even turn his head
from his contemplative regard of the white ashes of the fire. There
was a sound. The sound of some one approaching through the trees. It
was the sound of a shod footstep. It was not the tread of moccasins.

Bill eased himself. In doing so his revolver holster was swung round
to a handy position. But Kars never stirred a muscle.

A moment later he spoke in a tone keyed a shade lower.

"A feller wearing boots. It's only one--I wonder."

Bill had risen to his feet.

"My nerves aren't as steady as yours. I'm going to look," he announced.

He moved off, and presently his voice came back to the man by the fire.

"Ho, John! A visitor," he cried.

The man at the fire replied cordially.

"Bring him right along. Pleased to see him."

But Kars had not moved from his seat. As he flung his reply back, he
glanced swiftly at the place where his own and Bill's rifles stood
leaning against the pale green foliage of a bush within reach of his
hand. Then, with elaborate nonchalance, he spread his hands out over
the smoldering ashes of the fire.

A moment or two later he was gazing up smilingly into the face of a man
who was obviously a half-breed.

The man was dressed in a beaded buckskin shirt under a pea-jacket of
doubtful age. It was worn and stained, as were the man's moleskin
trousers, which were tucked into long knee-boots which had once been
black. But the face held the white man's interest. It was of an olive
hue, and the eyes which looked out from beneath almost hairless brows
were coal black, and fierce, and narrow. A great scar split the skin
of his forehead almost completely a