‘No coyote,’ he said with positiveness.  ’That track shows a foot four times as big as any coyote’s that ever scratched fleas.  Wolf?  Maybe.  It would be a whopper of a wolf at that.  Look at the size of it, man!  Why, the ugly brute would be big enough to scare my prize shorthorn bull into taking out life insurance.  And that isn’t all.  That’s just the front foot.  Now look at the hind foot.  Smaller, longer, and leaving a lighter imprint.  All belonging to the same animal.’  He scratched his head in frank bewilderment.  ‘It’s a new one on me,’ he confessed frankly.  Then he chuckled.  ’I’d bet a man that the gent who left on the hasty foot just got one squint at this little beastie and at that had all sorts of good reasons for streaking out.’

A big lizard went rustling through a pile of dead leaves and all three of them started.  Howard laughed.

‘We’re right near Superstition Pool!’ he informed them with suddenly assumed gravity.  ’Down in Poco Poco they tell some great tales about the old Indian gods going man-hunting by moonlight. Quien sabe, huh?’

Professor Longstreet snorted.  Helen cast a quick, interested look at the stranger and one of near triumph upon her father.

‘I smell somebody’s coffee boiling,’ said the cattleman abruptly.  ’Am I invited in for a cup?  Or shall I mosey on?  Don’t be bashful in saying I’m not wanted if I’m not.’

‘Of course you are welcome,’ said Longstreet heartily.  But Howard turned to Helen and waited for her to speak.

‘Of course.’ said Helen carelessly.

Chapter III

Payment in Raw Gold

‘You were merely speaking by way of jest, I take it, Mr. Howard,’ remarked Longstreet, after he had interestedly watched the rancher put a third and fourth heaping spoonful of sugar in his tin cup of coffee.  ’I refer, you understand, to your hinting a moment ago at there being any truth in the old Indian superstitions.  I am not to suppose, am I, that you actually give any credence to tales of supernatural influences manifested hereabouts?’

Alan Howard stirred his coffee meditatively, and after so leisurely a fashion that Longstreet began to fidget.  The reply, when finally it came, was sufficiently non-committal.

‘I said “Quien sabe?” to the question just now,’ he said, a twinkle in the regard bestowed upon the scientist.  ’They are two pretty good little old words and fit in first-rate lots of times.’

‘Spanish for “Who knows?” aren’t they?’

Howard nodded.  ‘They used to be Spanish; I guess they’re Mex by now.’

Longstreet frowned and returned to the issue.

‘If you were merely jesting, as I supposed——­’

‘But was I?’ demanded Howard.  ’What do I know about it?  I know horses and cows; that’s my business.  I know a thing or two about men, since that’s my business at times, too; also something like half of that about half-breeds and mules; I meet up with them sometimes in the run of the day’s work.  You know something of what I think you call auriferous geology.  But what does either of us know of the nightly custom of dead Indians and Indian gods?’