boys to shoot him down like this. What’s this junk?”

“Dark-room equipment,” Otis answered, fingering a developing tray. “Joe was a nut on wild-animal photography, you know. Got some of the best animal pictures I’ve ever seen. Did his own finishing here at night. See that blanket rolled up over the window? He’d let that down, and have a first-class dark-room.”

“That’s right,” the Sheriff affirmed. “I remember now. He was the feller that bragged he was the only man that ever got a close-up picture of a wild mountain sheep, wasn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t say he bragged about it. But it was something worth boasting about, anyway.”

Sheriff Ogden, his barren search of the office and bedroom completed, led the way back to the room where the body lay.

“Lucky we run into you, Otis,” he remarked as he began a hurried search of its interior. “When I seen you ridin’ down the Buffalo Forks road, I says to Seth, here: ‘There’s Otis Carr, who knows Joe Fyffe right well—maybe better’n anyone else in these parts. We’ll ask him to go along.’

“We didn’t know what had happened, then. Just knew somethin’ funny was pulled off here at the ranger station. Forest supervisor in Jackson called me before daylight, an’ said he’d just got a flash on his phone, an’ that some one was callin’ for help. Operator told him the call was from Red Rock ranger station.

“He’d ’a’ come along, only for a wrenched leg. Between you and me, he’s a pretty decent feller, that supervisor, even if he is tryin’ to collect grazin’-fees for the Gov’ment. I says to Seth here: ‘Lucky thing these here ranger stations is connected with telephones for fire-calls. Man could have an accident an’ lay there for a week if it wasn’t for that wire.’ I had a hunch it might be somethin’ more than an accident, ’count of hearin’ more or less how the boys been shootin’ off their mouths. You been over the hill to Dubois, I s’pose?”

Otis, who had stepped to the pine table to retrieve the telephone, which was hanging close to the floor, turned quickly after restoring the instrument to its accustomed place and shot an odd, questioning glance at the Sheriff, who was stooping over the stove. Then he peered uncertainly at the deputy, who was kneeling by the outer door.

“N-o-o,” he drawled, turning back to the table, nervous fingers clumsily fingering the telephone. “Guess the old man told you them rustlers been 

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