‘It’s throat was just sure enough tore all to hell, Al,’ he said ponderously.  ’Like something the size of an elephant had gone after it.  And I says to myself it must have been a wolf, and I go looking for tracks.  And, by the Lord, I found ’em!  Tracks like a wolf and the size of a dinner plate!  And alongside them tracks, some other tracks.  And they was made by a man and he was barefooted!’

Bandy O’Neil’s roar of mirth was a sound to hearken to joyously from afar.

‘And,’ he cried, dabbing at his tears, ’Sandy would sure take a man by the mit and lead him to the spot, only just then a big bird, size of half a dozen ostriches, flops down and sinks its claws into that there bull calf and flies right straight over the moon with it!  Ain’t that what you said, Sandy?’

‘You’re a fool, Bandy O’Neil, and always will be a fool,’ muttered Sandy Weaver stiffly.  ’That same calf is laying right there now, and if you don’t believe it or Al don’t believe it, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks and show you the place as fast as a horse can lay down to it.’

He ran on with his tale, having the end yet to recount.  He had headed his cattle down to meet Dave Terril; he and Dave had swung in together and moved still further south to herd in with the boys coming up from that direction; and being within striking distance of the ranch-house, Sandy had ridden there alone.

‘I wasn’t sure but you might be there, Al,’ he explained.  ’And I wanted to tell you what I saw.  I rampsed right in and found somebody waiting for you.  Know who?’

‘Carr?’ suggested Howard.

’No, it wasn’t.  It was Jim Courtot.  There wasn’t anybody at the house but old Angela and the Mex kid, and they let him in.  He was setting there waiting, and when I went in the door he come up standing and he had his gun in his hand and it was cocked.  And, Al, he looked mean.’

There was a pause and a silence.  Sandy Weaver might be lying, and then again he might not.

’I got nothing against Jim, and it didn’t drop on me right then that he was out to start a row.  And, being full of what I saw up there, I spilled him the yarn.  And I wish you could have had a look into that man’s face!  He’s no albino to speak on, and yet when I got half-way through he looked it.  His face was as white as a rag and his eyes bulged out like he was scared, and the sweat come out on his head and all over, I guess, and he kept looking over his shoulder all the time like the devil was after him.  And when I showed him what I found on the rock by the dead calf, he just asks me one question.  He says, “Sandy, what way was them tracks pointed?” And when I tells him it looked like they was pointed this way—­well, Jim was gone!’

‘You lying devil!’ shouted Bandy hilariously.

But Howard, wondering, demanded: 

‘What was it you found on the rock, Sandy?’

Sandy yanked it from his pocket.  They crowded closer and some one struck a match.  It was a bit of buckskin, and in the buckskin was a little heap of raw gold.