ld pipes and sacks of tobacco and books of cigarette
papers; Lite knew well enough the contents of that drawer. He
appraised the supply of tobacco, remembered how much had been there on
the morning of the murder, and decided that none had been taken. He
helped himself to a fresh ten-cent sack of tobacco and inspected the
other drawer.

Here were merchants' bills, a few letters of no consequence, a couple
of writing tablets, two lead pencils, and a steel pen and a squat
bottle of ink. This was called the writing-drawer, and had been since
Lite first came to the ranch. Here Lite believed the confusion was
recent. Jean had been very domestic since her return from school, and
all disorder had been frowned upon. Lately the letters had been
stacked in a corner, whereas now they were scattered. But they were of
no consequence, once they had been read, and there was nothing else to
merit attention from any one.

Lite looked down at the tracks and saw that they led into another room,
which was Aleck's bedroom. He went in there, but he could not find any
reason for a night-prowler's visit. Aleck's desk was always open.
There was never anything there which he wanted to hide away. His
account books and his business correspondence, such as it was, lay
accessible to the curious. There was nothing intricate or secret about
the running of the Lazy A ranch; nothing that should interest any one
save the owner.

It occurred to Lite that incriminating evidence is sometimes placed
surreptitiously in a suspected man's desk. He had heard of such things
being done. He could not imagine what evidence might be placed here by
any one, but he made a thorough search. He did not find anything that
remotely concerned the murder.

He looked through the living-room, and even opened the door which led
from the kitchen into Jean's room, which had been built on to the rest
of the house a few years before. He could not find any excuse for
those footprints.

He cooked and ate his breakfast absent-mindedly, glancing often down at
the footprints on the floor, and occasionally at the brown stain in the
center. He decided that he would not say anything about those tracks.
He would keep his eyes open and his mouth shut, and see what came of it.

CHAPTER III

WHAT A MAN'S GOOD NAME IS WORTH

You would think that the bare word of a man who has lived uprightly in
a community for fifteen years or so would be believed under oath, even
if