h was clear. But presently Sandersen had risen and gone down the
hill again, leaving from the other side of the rock. Had he covered
Cold Feet when the latter returned to his camp, having been absent when
Sandersen first arrived? No, the tracks down the hill were leisurely,
not the long strides which a man would make to get close to one whom he
had covered with a revolver from a distance.

Reaching the shoulder of the mountain, Kern puzzled anew. He began a
fresh study of the tracks. Those of Cold Feet were instantly known by
the tiny size of the marks of the soles. The sheriff remembered that he
had often wondered at the smallness of the schoolteacher's feet. Cold
Feet was there, and Sandersen was dead. Again it seemed certain that
Cold Feet had been guilty of the crime, but the sheriff kept on
systematically hunting for new evidence. He found no third set of
tracks for some time, but when he did find them, they were very
clear--a short, broad foot, the imprint of a heavy man. A fat man,
then, no doubt. From the length of the footprint it was very doubtful
if the man were tall, and certainly by the clearness of the
indentation, the man was heavy. The sheriff could tell by making a
track beside that of the quarry.

A second possibility, therefore, had entered, and the sheriff felt a
reasonable conviction that this must be the guilty man.

Now he combed the whole area for some means of identifying the third
man who had been on the mountainside. But nothing had been dropped
except a brilliant bandanna, wadded compactly together, which the
sheriff recognized as belonging to Sandersen. There was only one
definite means of recognizing the third man. Very faint in the center
of the impression made by his sole, were two crossed arrows, the sign
of the bootmaker.

The sheriff shook his head. Could he examine the soles of the boots of
every man in the vicinity of Sour Creek, even if he limited his inquiry
to those who were short and stocky? And might there not be many a man
who wore the same type of boots?

He flung himself gloomily into his saddle again, and this time he
headed straight down the trail for Sour Creek.

At the hotel he was surrounded by an excited knot of people who wished
to know how he had extracted the amazing confession from Riley
Sinclair. The sheriff tore himself away from a dozen hands who wished
to buttonhole him in close conversation.

"I'll tell you gents this," he said. "Quade was killed becaus