f venison to the
pool to be washed, he descended the dirt steps and set the door to one
side. Without at first understanding why, he became instantly aware
that some one had been there during his absence.

Of course, as soon as his eyes could penetrate the semi-gloom
sufficiently to distinguish small objects, he saw the proof; but even
before that, the air seemed tingling with some strange personality. He
stood like a statue, gazing fixedly. His alert eyes, always on guard,
had assured him that the cove was deserted--there was no use to look
behind him. Whoever had been there must have scaled the mountain, and
had either crossed to the plain on the north, or was hiding behind the
rocks. What held his eyes to the stove was a heap of tobacco, and a
clay pipe beside it. Among the stores removed from the wagon, tobacco
had been found in generous quantity, but during the month now elapsed,
bad been sadly reduced. Willock, however, was not pleased to find the
new supply; on the contrary his emotions were confused and alarmed.
Had the tobacco been ten times as much, it could not have solaced him
for the knowledge that the dugout had been visited.

After a few minutes of immobility, he entered, placed the meat on a
box, and departed softly, closing the door behind him. Casting
apprehensive glances along the mountainside, he stole toward it, and
made his way up the gully, completely hidden by the straggling line of
trees and underbrush, till he stood on the summit. He approached each
ridge with extreme caution, as if about to storm the barricade of an
enemy; thus he traveled over the range without coming on the traces of
his mysterious visitor. Not pausing at the crevice, he went on to the
outer northern ridge of the range, and lying flat among some high
rocks, looked down.

He counted seventeen men near the spot from which he had removed the
wagon. Fifteen were on horseback and two riderless horses explained
the presence of the two on foot. All of them had drawn up in a circle
about the heap of stones that covered the woman's burial-place. Of the
seventeen, sixteen were Indians, painted and adorned for the war-path.
The remaining man, he who stood at the heap of stones beside the chief,
was a white man, and at the first glance, Willock recognized him; he
was the dead woman's husband, Henry Gledware.

Brick's mind was perplexed with vain questionings: Was it Gledware who
had visited his dugout, or the Indians?