Piney did not wait to see whether the sheriff replied to his call.  Instead he beckoned violently to the handful of men grouped on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

“C’mon over!” he bawled.  “Look what I found here this morning.”

Jack Harpe and the owner of the Starlight being among those present and responding to the invitation, Racey Dawson took a chance and went with the rest.

“Look at that,” said Piney Jackson, indicating a humped-up individual sitting behind the woodpile.

Racey and the other spectators went round the woodpile and viewed the humped-up individual.  The latter was Bull, the Starlight bartender.  And he was dead, very dead.  His throat had been cut from ear to ear.  He was a ghastly object.

“Who done it?” inquired one of the fools that infest every group of men.

“He didn’t leave any card,” the blacksmith replied with sarcasm.

The fool asked no more questions.  Came then Jake Rule and Kansas Casey.  Jake, a rather heavy, well-meaning officer, old at the business, began to sniff about for clues.  Kansas Casey laid the body down on its back and thoroughly searched the pockets of the clothing.

“One thing,” said Kansas Casey, looking up from what he had found—­a handful of silver dollars, a pocket knife, and a silver watch, “robbery wasn’t the motive.”

Racey looked sidewise from under his eyebrows at Jack Harpe.  The latter was staring down unmoved at the dead body.

“Somebody must ‘a’ had a grudge against Bull,” offered the fool.

“You think so?” said Piney.  “Yo’re a real bright feller.”

The fool subsided a second time.

“Lookit here, Jake,” Piney continued to the sheriff’s address, “you don’t have to kick my wood all over the county, do you?”

“I’m lookin’ for the knife,” explained the sheriff, ceasing not to stub his toes against the solid chunks.  “Feller after doing a thing like this gets flustrated sometimes and drops the knife.  And finding the knife might be a help in locating the feller.”

All of which seemed sufficiently logical to the bystanders.

Racey decided he had seen enough.  Besides, he wanted to camp closer to his warbags.  He should have been in his room before this, and he would have been had he cared to make himself conspicuous by not going along with the crowd to see what Piney Jackson had found.

Declining Swing’s earnest invitation to drink he returned to the hotel.  Swing went grouchily to the Happy Heart, wondering what was the matter with his friend.  It was not like the Racey he knew to play the hermit.

Once in his room Racey again explored his own and Swing’s saddlebags and cantenas, looked under the cots and through the bedclothes.  But he found nothing that did not belong to either himself or Swing.

“They didn’t make a second trip,” he said to himself.  “I’m betting it’s Jack Harpe.  Shore it is, the polecat.”