The wounded man was Joe Yankie.  The experienced eyes of Prince told him that the rustler had not long to live.  He was already in that twilight region which is the border land between the known and the unknown.  Billie spoke his name, and for a moment the eyes of the man cleared.

“Yore boys got me when they jumped our camp,” he explained feebly.

“Sorry, Joe.  You were firin’ when they hit you.”

The wounded man nodded. “‘S all right.  Streak o’ bad luck.  Gimme water.  I’m on fire,” The officer unbuckled his canteen, lifted the head of the dying man, and let the water trickle down his throat.  Gently he lowered the head again to the pillow.

Then he asked a question.  “Where are Albeen and—­Roush?”

The last name was a shot in the dark, but it hit the bull’s eye.

“Left—­hours ago,”

Yankie closed his eyes wearily, but by sheer strength of will Prince recalled him from the doze into which he was slipping.

“Did you kill Homer Webb?”

“Yes.”

“Had Clanton anything to do with it?”

“No.”

A film gathered over the eyes of the dying man.  The lids closed.  Billie adjusted the pillow a little more comfortably and rose.  He could do no more for him at present and he must set about his work.  For though the net of the round-up had gathered hundreds of stolen cattle and most of those engaged in the business of brand-blotting, Prince knew his job would not be finished if Roush and Albeen escaped.

He quartered over the ground foot by foot.  The camp of the rustlers had been here and the footsteps showed there had been three.  Yankie was accounted for.  That left Roush and Albeen.  The sheriff discovered the place where they had been sleeping.

His eyes lit with the eagerness of the hunter who has come on the spoor.  He had found two sets of tracks leading from the bed-ground.  One of these showed no heel marks and the deep impress of toes in the soft sand.  The other presented a more sharply defined print with a greater distance between the steps.  They told Billie a story of a man tiptoeing away in breathless silence, and of another man, wakened by some sound or by some premonition, pursuing him in reckless haste.

The imagination of the trailer built up a web of cause and effect.  Two men, with only one horse, were caught in a trap from which both were in a desperate hurry to escape.  Each, no doubt, was filled with suspicion of the other while they waited for darkness to fall that they might try to slip through the cordon of watchers.  One of the at least, was unknown.  If he could make a get-away, and leave no witness behind, there would be no proof positive that he was one of the rustlers.  The situation was ripe for tragedy.

In the back of the sheriff’s mind rose thoughts of something sinister that had happened in the early hours of darkness.  A chill ran down his spine.  He expected presently to stumble across something cold and chill that only a little while ago had been warm with life.