sed to sell any liquor until the
sheriff and coroner arrived. He also, after his first bewilderment had
passed, conceived the idea that Saunders had committed suicide, and
explained to everyone who would listen just why he believed it. Saunders
was sickly, for one thing. For another, Saunders never seemed to get
any good out of living. He had read everything he could get his hands
on--and though Pete did not say that Saunders chose to die when the
stock of paper novels was exhausted, he left that impression upon his
auditors.

The sheriff and the coroner came at nine. All the Hart boys, including
Donny, were there before noon, and the group of Indians remained all day
wherever the store cast its shadow. Squaws and bucks passed and repassed
upon the footpath between Hartley and their camp, chattering together
of the big event until they came under the eye of strange white men,
whereupon they were stricken deaf and dumb, as is the way of our
nation's wards.

When the sheriff inspected the stable and its vicinity, looking for
clews, not a blanket was in sight, though a dozen eyes watched every
movement suspiciously. When at the inquest that afternoon, he laid upon
the table a battered old revolver of cheap workmanship and long past its
prime, and testified that he had found it ten feet from the stable-door,
in a due line southeast from the hay-corral, and that one shot had been
fired from it, there were Indians in plenty to glance furtively at the
weapon and give no sign.

The coroner showed the bullet which he had extracted from the body of
Saunders, and fitted it into the empty cartridge which had been under
the hammer in the revolver, and thereby proved to the satisfaction of
everyone that the gun was intimately connected with the death of the
man. So the jury arrived speedily, and without further fussing over
evidence, at the verdict of suicide.

Good Indian drew a long breath, put on his hat, and went over to tell
Miss Georgie. The Hart boys lingered for a few minutes at the store, and
then rode on to the ranch without him, and the Indians stole away over
the hill to their camp. The coroner and the sheriff accepted Pete's
invitation into the back part of the store, refreshed themselves after
the ordeal, and caught the next train for Shoshone. So closed the
incident of Saunders' passing, so far as the law was concerned.

"Well," Miss Georgie summed up the situation, "Baumberger hasn't made
any sign of taking up t