“Come on, you red-handed murderer, you,” one of them, a black-bearded man, commanded.  “An’ jest pitch that gun of yourn in the snow.”

Smoke hesitated, then dropped his rifle and came up to them.

“Go through him, Louis, an’ take his weapons,” the black-bearded man ordered.

Louis was a French-Canadian voyageur, Smoke decided, as were four of the others.  His search revealed only Smoke’s hunting knife, which was appropriated.

“Now, what have you got to say for yourself, stranger, before I shoot you dead?” the black-bearded man demanded.

“That you’re making a mistake if you think I killed that man,” Smoke answered.

A cry came from one of the voyageurs.  He had quested along the trail and found Smoke’s tracks where he had left it to take refuge on the bank.  The man explained the nature of his find.

“What’d you kill Joe Kinade for?” he of the black beard asked.

“I tell you I didn’t—­” Smoke began.

“Aw, what’s the good of talkin’?  We got you red-handed.  Right up there’s where you left the trail when you heard him comin’.  You laid among the trees an’ bushwhacked him.  A short shot.  You couldn’t ‘a’ missed.  Pierre, go an’ get that gun he dropped.”

“You might let me tell what happened,” Smoke objected.

“You shut up,” the man snarled at him.  “I reckon your gun’ll tell the story.”

All the men examined Smoke’s rifle, ejecting and counting the cartridges, and examining the barrel at muzzle and breech.

“One shot,” Blackbeard concluded.

Pierre, with nostrils that quivered and distended like a deer’s, sniffed at the breech.

“Him one fresh shot,” he said.

“The bullet entered his back,” Smoke said.  “He was facing me when he was shot.  You see, it came from the other bank.”

Blackbeard considered this proposition for a scant second, and shook his head.  “Nope.  It won’t do.  Turn him around to face the other bank—­that’s how you whopped him in the back.  Some of you boys run up an’ down the trail, and see if you can see any tracks making for the other bank.”

Their report was that on that side the snow was unbroken.  Not even a snow-shoe rabbit had crossed it.  Blackbeard, bending over the dead man, straightened up, with a woolly, furry wad in his hand.  Shredding this, he found imbedded in the center the bullet which had perforated the body.  Its nose was spread to the size of a half dollar, its butt-end, steel-jacketed, was undamaged.  He compared it with a cartridge from Smoke’s belt.

“That’s plain enough evidence, stranger, to satisfy a blind man.  It’s soft-nosed an’ steel-jacketed; yourn is soft-nosed and steel-jacketed.  It’s thirty-thirty; yourn is thirty-thirty.  It’s manufactured by the J. and T. Arms Company; yourn is manufactured by the J. and T. Arms Company.  Now you come along, an’ we’ll go over to the bank an’ see jest how you done it.”