on and the baking heat
between its narrow walls would have dazed the brains and shaken the
knees of men less hardy and less accustomed to the fierce, pounding
sunshine of the southwest. Tuttle stole several inquiring glances at
Nick's face. Then he stopped and cast a searching look all about them,
carefully scanning the canyon before and behind them and its walls
above their heads. He looked at Nick again and then threw another
careful glance all about. He coughed a little, came close to Nick's
side, wiped the sweat from his face, and finally spoke, hesitatingly,
in a half whisper:

"Say, Nick, what do you-all think about Will Whittaker? Do you reckon
Emerson killed him?"

Ellhorn shut one eye at the jagged peak which seemed to bore into the
blue above them, considered a moment, and replied: "Well, I reckon if
he did Will needed killin' almighty bad."

"You bet he did," was Tom's emphatic response.

They trudged on to the head of the canyon and explored most of the
smaller ones opening into it. But no trace of human presence, either
recent or remote, did they find anywhere. When night came on they
returned to their camp somewhat disappointed that they had seen no
sign of the two men. Early the next morning they started out again,
and searched carefully through the remaining canyons that were
tributary to the large one, climbed again to its head, and clambered
over the ridge at its source. There they looked down the other side of
the mountain, over a barren wilderness of jagged cliffs and yawning
chasms, with here and there a little clump of scrub pines or cedars
clinging and crawling along the mountain side. They examined the
summit of the peak and walked a little way down the eastern slope,
looking into the gorges and searching the scrub-dotted slopes until
the sinking sun drove them back to their camp. But they found neither
water, save some strongly alkaline springs, nor any trace of human
beings. As they discussed the day's adventures over their supper, Tom
said:

"There must have been some reason why they killed that horse just
where they did."

"Yes," said Nick, "if they had moved their camp to some other canyon
higher up, or on the other side of the mountain, they might just as
well have driven the beast farther up before they killed it."

"If they had wanted the meat down here," added Tom, "they wouldn't
have driven it so far away. They must have wanted it right there."

They looked at each other with