“What brings you here?” repeated Ransom.

“Murder.”

“Murder?  Whose murder?”

“This afternoon,” replied the ‘Piker,’ “Jake Farge was shot dead on your land, not a quarter of a mile from this yere house.  His widder found him and come to me.”

“Wal?”

“She says the shot that killed him must ha’ bin fired ’bout six.  She heard it, an’ happened to look at the clock.”

“Wal?”

“She swears that you fired it.”

Smoky burst in impetuously—­

“At six I kin swear that Pap was a-talkin’ to me in his own corral.”

The squatters glanced at each other.  The ‘Piker’ laughed derisively.

“In love with his darter, ain’t ye?”

“I am—­and proud of it!”

“Them your guns?” The spokesman addressed Ransom, indicating the two rifles.

“One of ’em is mine; t’other belongs to Smoky.”

The ‘Piker’ crossed the room, examined the rifles, opened each, and peered down the barrels.  He glanced at the other squatters, and said laconically—­

“Quite clean—­as might be expected.”

Ransom betrayed his surprise very slightly.  He had just remembered that he had left an empty cartridge in his rifle, and that it was not clean.

The ‘Piker’ turned to him again.

“You claim that you know nothing o’ this job?”

“Not a thing.”

“And you?”

The big ‘Piker’ stared superciliously at Smoky.

“Same here,” said Smoky.

The visitors glanced at each other, slightly nonplussed.  The big ‘Piker’ swore in his beard.  “We’ll arrest the hull outfit,” he said decidedly, “and carry ’em in to San Lorenzy.”

“You ain’t, the sheriff nor his deputy,” said Ransom.  “What d’ye mean,” he continued savagely, “by coming here with this ridic’lous song and dance?  There’s the door.  Git!”

“You threatened to shoot Farge,” said the ‘Piker.’  “An’ it’s my solid belief you done it in cold blood, too.  We’re five here, all heeled, and there’s more outside.  If you’re innocent the sheriff’ll let you off to-morrer; but, innocent or guilty, by Gosh, you’re comin’ with us to-night.  Hold up yer hands!  Quick!”

Ransom and Smoky held up their hands.

“Search ’em,” commanded the ‘Piker.’

This was done effectively.  A Derringer doesn’t take up much room in a man’s pocket, but it has been known to turn the tables upon larger weapons.  Ransom and Smoky, however, were unarmed; but the squatter who ran his hand over Smoky’s pockets encountered a small cylinder, which he held up to the public gaze.

It was an empty cartridge.

To understand fully what this meant one must possess a certain knowledge of Western ways and sentiment.  Pistols and rifles belonging to the pioneers, for example, often exhibit notches, each of which bears silent witness to the shedding of blood.  The writer knew intimately a very mild, kindly old man who had a strop fashioned out of several thicknesses of Apache skins.  The Apaches had inflicted unmentionable torments upon him and his, and the strop was his dearest possession.  The men and women of the wilderness are primal in their loves and hates.