r?" Sam asked.

"Yes. We passed the time of day."

"And then?" Luck cut back into the conversation with a voice like a file.

"She went on toward the gulch and I kept on to the ranch. The last I saw
of her she was going straight on."

"And you haven't seen her since?"

The manner of the questioner startled Fendrick. "God, man, you don't think
I'm in this, do you?"

"If you are you'd better blow your brains out before I learn it. And if
you're trying to lead me on a false scent----" Luck stopped. Words failed
him, but his iron jaw clamped like a vice.

Fendrick spoke quietly. "I'm willing. In the meantime we'd better travel
over toward Mesa Verde, so as to be ready to start at daybreak."

Cullison's gaze had never left him. It observed, weighed, appraised. "Good
enough. We'll start."

He left Sweeney to answer the telephone while he was away. All of his
other riders were already out combing the hills under supervision of
Curly. Luck had waited with Sam only to get some definite information
before starting. Now he had his lead. Fendrick was either telling the
truth or he was lying with some sinister purpose in view. The cattleman
meant to know which.

Morning breaks early in Arizona. By the time they had come to the spot
where the sheepman said he had met Kate gray streaks were already
lightening the sky. The party moved forward slowly toward the canyon,
spreading out so as to cover as much ground as possible. Before they
reached its mouth the darkness had lifted enough to show the track of a
horse in the sand.

They pushed up the gulch as rapidly as they could. The ashes of a camp
fire halted them a few minutes later. Scattered about lay the feathers and
dismembered bones of some birds.

Cass stooped and picked up some of the feathers. "Quails, I reckon. Miss
Cullison had three tied to her saddle horn when I met her."

"Why did she come up here to cook them?" Sam asked.

Luck was already off his horse, quartering over the ground to read what it
might tell him.

"She wasn't alone. There was a man with her. See these tracks."

It was Fendrick who made the next discovery. He had followed a draw for a
short distance and climbed to a little mesa above. Presently he called to
Cullison.

Father and son hurried toward him. The sheep-owner was standing at the
edge of a prospect hole pointing down with his finger.

"Someone has been in that pit recently, and he's been there several
days."

"Then how did he