ago.
There's a blind canyon runs out of it, short an' dark, on the right. We
found a grave there. I don't remember the first name on the slab. Mebby it
was washed out. But, so 'elp me God, _the last name was FitzHugh_!"

With a sudden cry, Aldous jumped to his feet and caught Keller's arm.

"You're sure of it, Peter?"

"Positive!"

It was impossible for Aldous to repress his excitement. The engineer stared
at him even harder than before.

"What can that grave have to do with Quade?" he asked. "The man died before
Quade was known in these regions."

"I can't tell you now, Peter," replied Aldous, pulling the engineer to the
table. "But I think you'll know quite soon. For the present, I want you to
sketch out a map that will take me to the grave. Will you?"

On the table were pencil and paper. Keller seated himself and drew them
toward him.

"I'm damned if I can see what that grave can have to do with Quade," he
said; "but I'll tell you how to find it!"

For several minutes they bent low over the table, Peter Keller describing
the trail to the Saw Tooth Mountain as he sketched it, step by step, on a
sheet of office paper. When it was done, Aldous folded it carefully and
placed it in his wallet.

"I can't go wrong, and--thank you, Keller!"

After Aldous had gone, Peter Keller sat for some time in deep thought.

"Now I wonder what the devil there can be about a grave to make him so
happy," he grumbled, listening to the whistle that was growing fainter down
the trail.

And Aldous, alone, with the moon straight above him as he went back to the
Miette Plain, felt, in truth, this night had become brighter for him than
any day he had ever known. For he knew that Peter Keller was not a man to
make a statement of which he was not sure. Mortimer FitzHugh was dead. His
bones lay under the slab up in that little blind canyon in the shadow of
the Saw Tooth Mountain. To-morrow he would tell Joanne. And, blindly, he
told himself that she would be glad.

Still whistling, he passed the Chinese laundry shack on the creek, crossed
the railroad tracks, and buried himself in the bush beyond. A quarter of an
hour later he stole quietly into Stevens' camp and went to bed.

CHAPTER IX

Stevens, dreaming of twenty horses plunging to death among the rocks in the
river, slept uneasily. He awoke before it was dawn, but when he dragged
himself from his tepee, moving quietly not to awaken his boy, he found John
Aldous on his