id of us," said the Virginian. "He did not know how many of
us had come up here. Three hawsses might mean a dozen more around."

We followed the backward trail in among the pines, and came after a time
upon their camp. And then I understood the mistake that Shorty had made.
He had returned after his failure, and had told that other man of the
presence of new horses. He should have kept this a secret; for haste had
to be made at once, and two cannot get away quickly upon one horse. But
it was poor Shorty's last blunder. He lay there by their extinct fire,
with his wistful, lost-dog face upward, and his thick yellow hair
unparted as it had always been. The murder had been done from behind. We
closed the eyes.

"There was no natural harm in him," said the Virginian. "But you must do
a thing well in this country."

There was not a trace, not a clew, of the other man; and we found a
place where we could soon cover Shorty with earth. As we lifted him we
saw the newspaper that he had been reading. He had brought it from the
clump of cottonwoods where he and the other man had made a later visit
than ours to be sure of the fate of their friends--or possibly in hopes
of another horse. Evidently, when the party were surprised, they had
been able to escape with only one. All of the newspaper was there save
the leaf I had picked up--all and more, for this had pencil writing on
it that was not mine, nor did I at first take it in. I thought it might
be a clew, and I read it aloud. "Good-by, Jeff," it said. "I could not
have spoke to you without playing the baby."

"Who's Jeff?" I asked. But it came over me when I looked at the
Virginian. He was standing beside me quite motionless; and then he put
out his hand and took the paper, and stood still, looking at the words.
"Steve used to call me Jeff," he said, "because I was Southern. I reckon
nobody else ever did."

He slowly folded the message from the dead, brought by the dead, and
rolled it in the coat behind his saddle. For a half-minute he stood
leaning his forehead down against the saddle. After this he came back
and contemplated Shorty's face awhile. "I wish I could thank him," he
said. "I wish I could."

We carried Shorty over and covered him with earth, and on that laid a
few pine branches; then we took up our journey, and by the end of the
forenoon we had gone some distance upon our trail through the Teton
Mountains. But in front of us the hoofprints ever held their stride