een you before, Mr.
Hales.... Edith, you go to the mill and tell Jerome I want him. Lyn,
you go to Chuck Barefoot's and tell him to get Jim-Ike-Jones and come
here and be quick about it. Then you girls go home."

"What is it, Uncle Pete? Adam?" said Lyn, with a quivering lip.

"Yes, dear. Go on, now."

"Dead?"

"Murdered!"

"Adam!"

Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent
to her horse's mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull.

"Oh, Hobby! Be careful--come back to me!" She raised her lips to his.
He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with
sobbing. "Oh, poor Adam!" She cried. "Poor Adam!"

Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted
soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips
to silence. If his face was bleak--why not, for Adam, his friend?

And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone
of them all, had seen that stricken face.

"Lyn, you go on," said Pete. "Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out
where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever
God'll let him come."

He turned back to the men.

"Now, then, you fellows! Begin at the beginning. Hales, you didn't
know Adam, so you won't be so bad broke up as the others. Suppose you
tell us what you know. Wait a minute. Sam, you be saddling up a horse
for me. Now, Mr. Hales?"

"We were looking out for that gang of saddle thieves. Went up 'Pache
Canyon. Along in the park we saw tracks where two shod horses turned
down into Redgate, and we followed them up. One of 'em had been
chasing a bunch of cattle--or so we thought, though we didn't notice
that part very close, having no particular reason for it then. We'd
looked through two-three bunches of cattle ourselves earlier, for
Jody's stuff."

"Yes, and you had breakfast, likely--but what do I care? You get on
with your story."

"Say, old man," said Hales in some exasperation, "if you don't want
this man caught, I'm satisfied. It's nothing to me. I didn't know
Forbes. If you want this friend of yours to get away, I'm willing to
get down and stay all night. You're pretty overbearing with your
little old shotgun."

He made as if to dismount.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Pete mildly. "Look at your friends,
first. They're just as overborne as you are, likely--but you notice
they are not making any complaints. They know me, you see. They know
how Adam Forbes