“Perhaps you’d better ride on, Miss, afore you get summoned as a witness.  I’ll give warning at Red Chief’s Crossing, and send the coroner down here.”

“Let me go with you,” she said, earnestly; “it would be such fun.  I don’t mind being a witness.  Or,” she added, without heeding Cass’s look of astonishment, “I’ll wait here till you come back.”

“But you see, Miss, it wouldn’t seem right”—­began Cass.

“But I found him first,” interrupted the girl, with a pout.

Staggered by this preemptive right, sacred to all miners, Cass stopped.

“Who is the coroner?” she asked.

“Joe Hornsby.”

“The tall, lame man, who was half eaten by a grizzly?”

“Yes.”

“Well, look now!  I’ll ride on and bring him back in half an hour.  There!”

“But, Miss—!”

“Oh, don’t mind me.  I never saw anything of this kind before, and I want to see it all.”

“Do you know Hornsby?” asked Cass, unconsciously a trifle irritated.

“No, but I’ll bring him.”  She wheeled her horse into the road.

In the presence of this living energy Cass quite forgot the helpless dead.  “Have you been long in these parts, Miss?” he asked.

“About two weeks,” she answered, shortly.  “Good-by, just now.  Look around for the pistol or anything else you can find, although I have been over the whole ground twice already.”

A little puff of dust as the horse sprang into the road, a muffled shuffle, struggle, then the regular beat of hoofs, and she was gone.

After five minutes had passed, Cass regretted that he had not accompanied her:  waiting in such a spot was an irksome task.  Not that there was anything in the scene itself to awaken gloomy imaginings; the bright, truthful Californian sunshine scoffed at any illusion of creeping shadows or waving branches.  Once, in the rising wind, the empty hat rolled over—­but only in a ludicrous, drunken way.  A search for any further sign or token had proved futile, and Cass grew impatient.  He began to hate himself for having stayed; he would have fled but for shame.  Nor was his good-humor restored when at the close of a weary half hour two galloping figures emerged from the dusty horizon—­Hornsby and the young girl.

His vague annoyance increased as he fancied that both seemed to ignore him, the coroner barely acknowledging his presence with a nod.  Assisted by the young girl, whose energy and enthusiasm evidently delighted him, Hornsby raised the body for a more careful examination.  The dead man’s pockets were carefully searched.  A few coins, a silver pencil, knife, and tobacco-box were all they found.  It gave no clew to his identity.  Suddenly the young girl, who had, with unabashed curiosity, knelt beside the exploring official hands of the Red Chief, uttered a cry of gratification.

“Here’s something!  It dropped from the bosom of his shirt on the ground.  Look!”