e head had fallen back, and was
partly hidden in a gopher burrow, but the white, upturned face and
closed eyes had less of helpless death in them than those wretched
enwrappings. Indeed, one limp hand that lay across the swollen abdomen
lent itself to the grotesquely hideous suggestion of a gentleman
sleeping off the excesses of a hearty dinner.

"Ain't he horrid?" continued the girl; "but what killed him?"

Struggling between a certain fascination at the girl's cold-blooded
curiosity and horror of the murdered man, Cass hesitatingly lifted the
helpless head. A bluish hole above the right temple, and a few brown
paint-like spots on the forehead, shirt collar, and matted hair, proved
the only record.

"Turn him over again," said the girl, impatiently, as Cass was about to
relinquish his burden. "Maybe you'll find another wound."

But Cass was dimly remembering certain formalities that in older
civilizations attend the discovery of dead bodies, and postponed a
present inquest.

"Perhaps you'd better ride on, Miss, afore you get summoned as a
witness. I'll give warning at Red Chief's Crossing, and send the
coroner down here."

"Let me go with you," she said, earnestly; "it would be such fun. I
don't mind being a witness. Or," she added, without heeding Cass's look
of astonishment, "I'll wait here till you come back."

"But you see, Miss, it wouldn't seem right"--began Cass.

"But I found him first," interrupted the girl, with a pout.

Staggered by this preemptive right, sacred to all miners, Cass stopped.

"Who is the coroner?" she asked.

"Joe Hornsby."

"The tall, lame man, who was half eaten by a grizzly?"

"Yes."

"Well, look now! I'll ride on and bring him back in half an hour.
There!"

"But, Miss--!"

"Oh, don't mind _me_. I never saw anything of this kind before, and I
want to see it _all_."

"Do you know Hornsby?" asked Cass, unconsciously a trifle irritated.

"No, but I'll bring him." She wheeled her horse into the road.

In the presence of this living energy Cass quite forgot the helpless
dead. "Have you been long in these parts, Miss?" he asked.

"About two weeks," she answered, shortly. "Good-by, just now. Look
around for the pistol or anything else you can find, although _I_ have
been over the whole ground twice already."

A little puff of dust as the horse sprang into the road, a muffled
shuffle, struggle, then the regular beat of hoofs, and she was gone.

After five minutes had p