The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1937-08-26

bore no brand; but broad on the
withers and extending downward on
the off side almost to the knee were
the dust-crusted stains of yester-
days blood.
Dunn leaned low to study the feet
of the led horse. cts the horse
from Short Crick, all right" he said
at last. mo, / never seen him be-
fore"
The sheriff looked hopefully at
Wheeler, but Billy Wheeler shook
his head.
Nobody knows the damn ami
mall" the sheriff burst out fretfully.
"Id have thought you fellers would
know every horse in the country by
this time"
"You get around as much as any,
body" Dunn grunted. where's the
saddle?"
Link didn't find any saddle"
Dunn glanced at the dark, lean
visaged Link Bender. Dead man
must have taken his saddle with
him across the big divide" he COM
mented sarcastically.
Sheriff Amos looked irritated.
''Well, come on; we'n look over the
ground"
They turned and rode northward
at jog. A curious tension had
come over them for no plain reason.
They were nearing Short Creek;
and the believing of cattle had be-
come near and strong-a fantastic
deep booming broken by whistling
soprano squalls. "What the devil
them steers raising hell about?"
Amos demanded ENORMOUSLY.
Nobody answered him. They rode
in peculiarly oppressive silence, a
silence somehow unnatural and omi-
nous, even among these naturally
quiet men. Now as they rounded
the shoulder of Two Bull Butte they
sighted the disturbed cattle at the
quarter mile, dark milling knot,
restless with tossing horns.
Link Bender raised his clenched
hands to the sky and swore abrupt
ly, savagely. "There goes your
sign! There goes your evidence, and
your trails!"
Billy Wheeler's scalp crawled;
men might misread the sign, but
the cattle knew One of the strang-
est things of the range, and the
source of many weird legend, was
the way the big white-faced range
steers would come for miles to
mark the place of killing, bawling
and paving, and throwing the dirt
over their backs.
The sheriff said in a strange
voice, 'Is that the placer"
"Sure it's the place! The fool crit
tiers have swarmed in on the smell Of
blood"
Wheeler heard Horse Dunn curse
between his teeth. The Old Man
jumped his pony forward, whipping
up side and side, and charged down
upon the milling cattle. The others
joined him, whooping and whipping
up their ponies.
The steer bunch broke reluctant
ly, half inclined to face out the
charging riders.
Wheeler had been less interested
in the running off of the cattle than
in the reactions of the riders. All
sign would have been obliterated;
he was anxious now to see who
would be exasperated and who in
different. Watching, he noted the
conspicuous fury of Link Bender,
the red-eyed anger of Horse Dunn
and the watchful detachment of
Cayuse, the Indian.
The riders were gathering again,
disgruntled as they focused upon
the stretch of creek the cattle had
trampled.
Horse Dunn circled little and
brought them to Short Creek again
zoo yards upstream.
Here you see my trail as I come
up to the crick," he said; "it's the
trail of the same horse I'm riding
today Here you see the trail
of the two horses of the killer and
the teller that was killed, riding
side by side along the rim of the
cut. Right here my trail comes on
to theirs. You, Amos-notice that
my trail is 20 hours younger'n the
other two"
'I'm not so sure" Link Bender
said.
The sheriff hesitated, studying the
tracks glumly from the saddle. He
turned to the Indian. "What do you
say, Cayuse?"
Cayuse Cayetano spoke briefly
and promptly in Spanish. ''This
horse of Dunn's came yesterday"
he said. ''The other two horses,
maybe one day before. Not the
same time"
THAT Indians a deer hunter"
Sheriff Amos said. "When Cayuse
says he knows, he knows. Wen let
it stand at that
You'll have to take my word for
it from here on" Dunn told them.
"The cattle sure smeared it up.
But anyway-here the two-horse
trail dropped down into the crick
bed. So did l."
He led them down into the cut
and along the margin of the water.
Dunn moved hundred yards
down stream, checked his land
marks, and stopped. Here's where
the teller was shot," he said; she
keeled out of the saddle. His horse
stampeded across the crick, running
some sideways. The Teller was be-
ing dragged, like from the stirrup."
Dunn turned and led across the
shallow water. "As / rode up this
bank he told the sheriff, ST seen
that the trail of the killer was fol-
lowing the trail of the stampeded
horse-the same as l." He led on
another so yards across a maze
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