Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details.  At one point in his narration he had occasion to turn to George:  “That’s how it was, Reddy?” And the latter replied, “That’s about the lay of it, Yorkey.”

The sergeant listened, but absently.  To them it did not seem exactly to be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.

“Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an’ dhragged tu—­th’ pair av yez,” he remarked casually.

Remembrance smote the two culprits.  They exchanged guilty glances and swallowed the home-thrust in silence.

Slavin clucked to his team.  “Walk-march, thin!” said he.

Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter following in their wake.  If their consciences would have permitted them to glance back they would have remarked their superior’s face registering unholy delight.

Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, “Dye think he—­”

“Oh!” broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce.  “You can’t fool him! . . . Isch ga bibble, anyway!”

“Yorkey!” an’ “Reddy!” that worthy was mumbling tu himself—­over and over again, “Yorkey!” an’ “Reddy!” “’Tis so they name each other—­now!  Blarney me sowl!  ‘Tis come about!  Fifty-fifty, tu—­from th’ mugs av thim.  Peace, perfect peace, in th’ fam’ly at last!  Eyah!  I wud have given me month’s pay-cheque for a ring-side seat.”  He sighed deeply.

They reached the fatal spot.  Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.

“These tu must have lain here th’ night,” he remarked, indicating the frost-rimed forms, “have yez sized things up?  Got th’ lay av fwhere ut happened?”

Redmond made affirmative response.

“Can you place him, Sergeant?” queried Yorke.

“Eyah!  Onless I am vastly mishtuk.  Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!  Fwhat yez a-scared av?  Here, Yorkey! hold T an’ B a minnut!”

He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of leather-cased brand-inspector’s clippers, he cropped bare a circular patch on the defunct horse’s nigh shoulder.  Shorn of the thick, seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible.  Enlightenment came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior’s shoulder.

“D Two!” he gasped, “I knew I’d seen that horse somewhere!  It’s ‘Duster,’ Larry Blake’s horse.  Tchkk! this must be him.  My God!”

“Shure!” snapped Slavin testily.  “Wake up!  Is yeh’re mem’ry goin’, man?  One av yeh’re own cases last month, tu!” He tenderly pocketed the clippers.  “Yes! ye shud know him!”—­dryly—­“lukked troo th’ bottom av a glass wid him often enough.”