hough lingering to accuse and to convict, lay the body of
Greathouse, the missing man. Not merely a charred, incinerated mass,
the figure lay in the full appearance of life, a cast of the actual
man, moulded with fineness from the white ashes of the fire! Not a
feature, not a limb, not a fragment of clothing was left undestroyed;
yet none the less here, stretched across the bed of the burned-out
fire, with face upturned, with one arm doubled beneath the head and the
other with clinched hand outflung, lay the image, the counterpart, nay,
the identity of the man they sought! It was a death mask, wrought by
the pity of the destroying flames. These winds, this sky, the air, the
rain, all had spared and left it here in accusation most terrible, in
evidence unparalleled, incredibly yet irresistibly true!

Franklin felt his heart stop as he looked upon this sight, and Curly's
face grew pale beneath its tan. They gazed for a moment quietly, then
Curly sighed and stepped back. "Keep him covered, Cap," he said, and,
going to his horse, he loosened the long lariat.

"_Arriba_, Juan," he said quietly. "Get up." He kicked at the Mexican
with his foot as he lay, and stirred him into action. "Get up, Juan,"
he repeated, and the giant obeyed meekly as a child. Curly tied his
hands behind his back, took away his knife, and bound him fast to a
tree. Juan offered no resistance whatever, but looked at Curly with
wondering dumb protest in his eyes, as of an animal unjustly punished.
Curly turned again to the fire.

"It's him, all right," said he; "that's Cal." Franklin nodded.

Curly picked up a bit of stick and began to stir among the ashes, but
as he did so both he and Franklin uttered an exclamation of surprise.
By accident he had touched one of the limbs. The stick passed through
it, leaving behind but a crumbled, formless heap of ashes. Curly
essayed investigation upon the other side of the fire. A touch, and
the whole ghastly figure was gone! There remained no trace of what had
lain there. The shallow, incrusting shell of the fickle ash broke in
and fell, all the thin exterior covering dropping into the cavern which
it had inclosed! Before them lay not charred and dismembered remains,
but simply a flat table of ashes, midway along it a slightly higher
ridge, at which the wind, hitherto not conspiring, now toyed, flicking
away items here and there, carrying them, spreading them, returning
them unto the dust. Cal G